Vanguard Galaxy

by Mars Dorian

  This was his second chance.

  “Any news from the hieroglyph front?”

  Ming looked up. “They were created from a technology similar to our holo-projection. It’s manipulating light particles to create a vast array of hue, colors, and brightness.”

  She swiped the 3D images of her datapad. “Unfortunately, we’re still unable to see their full spectrum thanks to our limited scope of vision. We are pitiful tertiaries.”

  She paused with a half-hearted smile. “It sucks to be human, eh?”

  Not in Rosco’s world.

  “We’re the best part of the galaxy, Doctor. Without our contributions, the solar system would still be a cold-ass collection of unlivable planets.”

  He never thought of it that way, but every word rang true for him. He knew about a school of thoughts that had believed humans were parasites devouring one planet after another. But parasites didn’t create technology which changed the fundamentals of health, travel, and society. Humans, despite their foibles, always tried to reach a higher ideal.

  And they had come such a long way…

  “We bring meaning to void.”

  Ming Brakemoto narrowed her eyes and sharpened her lips. “In the form of exoplanet invasion?”

  “No one forced you to join this mission, Doctor.”

  If it was up to him, Rosco would have never picked her in the first place. Brakemoto carried a rebellious streak that undermined his authority, which weakened team morale.

  Lo-Skova should fire her headhunters; they did a lousy job of assembling the team.

  “As long as you serve this operation, you’re under my command. And that means humans before aliens. This isn’t the plant party.”

  Yeltzin smiled from his driving seat, the doctor didn’t.

  “Showing empathy for foreign life forms doesn’t imply that I’m a tree-hugger, sir.”

  For Rosco, it did. Even the shills at ICED put human lives first before machinery; it was an important part of morale support. As long as human lives mattered, so did the government’s military. Rosco had no personal qualms with foreign life as long as it didn’t endanger the security of the folks he had sworn to protect. It’s not just what M had told him, it was like an unwritten law that remained a part of his DNA.

  The engineer’s shrill voice whistled through the interior of the rumbling LRV.

  “Target destination: reached.”

  49

  “Come again?”

  “The target destination. We’re here, apparently,” Ming said.

  Rosco looked through the front shield of the armored vehicle and found yet another bleached canyon polluting his view. This one looked as generic as any other alien land he’d seen through the course of this hour-long trip. “Ekström, I think your circuit’s pattern burned through.”

  “No, he’s correct, sir,” Yeltzin said.

  Via the HUD, Rosco activated the inner zoom function and took snapshots through the windshield. No matter which direction he magnified, he found endless canyon formations in bleached color tones. “This must be a mistake.”

  Sentient beings capable of flight technology wouldn’t live in canyon caves like ancient cave men on Earth. Savagery and science didn’t go together. “Ekström, can you tell Lily to overfly the landscape to check for alien habitat?”

  He pictured some kind of bunker-like structure that maybe melted with the ground for stealth purposes. Ekström’s eyeballs still made love to his monitors. At least he understood the captain’s order. “Sure can do.”

  “But be careful—we don’t want her to get shot down. Find the balance between safety distance and surveillance.”

  Somewhere up high in the atmosphere, the smart drone crossed the canyon while delivering hyper-resolution surveillance footage. The engineer updated the visual information on everyone’s feed. Gorgeous nature but zero evidence of alien life.

  This was wrong.

  “Do you guys see anything?”

  Both Yeltzin and Ming shook their heads in synchronicity. “Not a single vehicle or structure, sir.”

  “Ekström?”

  “Maybe they live underground to hide from the surface.”

  Rosco hoped not.

  The last thing he’d want to do was climb over more obstacles and look for cave entrances. That maze marathon in the derelict freighter quenched his mountaineer thirst for two life cycles. No wonder he had signed up for flight academy back in the day. Rosco Tellride belonged to skies and space.

  Yeltzin broke his daydream streak. “What do you propose, Captain?”

  Rosco played with the visuals of the footage and lost himself in the endless array of mountains. Questions arose: would a smart lifeform bury itself underground? But if that was the case, where did the ships launch from? These rocky surfaces made for terrible landing platforms. “Let’s double-check the location.”

  Rosco tuned into the Vanguard’s comm channel and hoped no planetary interference was going to mangle his connection. Before he could mouth a status update, eQuip’s cheering voice blessed his ear canal. “A pleasure to hear you, Captain.”

  “Everything okay with the ship?”

  “Purring like a kitten.”

  He’d never heard a real kitten purring, but judging from the Newtype’s intonation, it must be a pleasant sound. “Listen; about those coordinates… they’re either inaccurate or plain wrong. Ekström’s drone is supervising the area and sending us nothing but canyons.”

  “The coordinates are correct, sir. I’ve calculated all the information based on the encounter in space. I’ve also taken into account the coordinates that Daystellar’s Galileo space telescope provided us.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Ninety-five point eight percent sure.”

  Newtype were rarely wrong when it came to math; still, Rosco’s instinct rang like a base alert. Experience needed to be trusted.

  “Okay, that’s all. Stay put.”

  “Over and out, sir.”

  The captain’s attention shifted back to his crew in the LRV. “I don’t like this one bit.”

  He opened the side door and stepped out then snapped the Rail Revolver from his thigh-pad and marched toward the rocky landscape. The horizon swallowed up the alien Alps.

  “Sir?” Yeltzin put his boots on the ground and looked for clarification.

  Rosco did too. Maybe he had underestimated the operation; Lo-Skova’s passionate speeches fogged up his mind. The mission briefing sounded so simple—get the coordinates, let the doctor build rapport with the alien, and shoot footage for Daystellar. Corporate prestige would be restored, and hopefully even Rosco’s standing with ICED. But of course, missions never worked according to plans—especially not when treading on a new frontier.

  Doctor Brakemoto joined the men outside and gazed at the mountains. She was the only one smiling as she embraced the view with arms wide open. “Maybe we do need to take a closer look, sir. If eQuip’s calculations are correct—and I have no reason to doubt them—we’ll find the life form amidst this rocky maze.”

  She stepped toward the boulders leading deeper into the canyons.

  “We must not treat the alien life form like a human mind. Its way of thinking may be contrary to ours.”

  Rosco had heard that one before. For some reasons, science folks seemed infatuated with phenomena they couldn’t yet explain, no matter how dangerous they were. Back at MAME, there was an ongoing rumor that scientists really were sociopaths with a passion for technology. In Ming’s case, that sounded believable. She was starting to sound like Yeltzin with his esoteric ramblings about life and death and the limbo in-between.

  “What’s your plan, Doctor? Recon the entire mountain range on foot? There’s no way we’re getting the rover over those rocks,” Rosco said.

  Either Ming was already out of reach or she simply ignored his words as usual because she walked straight toward the first rock formation… and disappeared.

  50

  Rosco’s jaw d
ropped in shock; reality just ripped him a new one.

  “Doctor?”

  “Yes?”

  Her voice sounded clear and crisp over the comm, unlike her body that just vanished from the captain’s visual feed.

  “Where are you?”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  Rosco needed to get a second opinion. Thankfully, the gentle giant stood a few meters to his left. “Tell me I’m not going blind, Lieutenant.”

  “It seems like Doctor Brakemoto disappeared into the rocks.”

  Both men stared at the boulders where the doctor’s voice hailed from.

  “What’s the matter, sir?”

  This was surreal, Rosco thought. “Your new stealth suit rocks.”

  Ming beamed back into existence. The atmosphere around her fizzled into fragments until her figure became visible again.

  “What are you two talking about?”

  Rosco and Yeltzin exchanged a mutual frown as if to say we’re both having the weirdest experience and it’s creeping everyone out.

  “Doctor, you just disappeared.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Rosco passed her by and targeted the direction she came from. His heartbeat leveled up, and his mind turned sharp like a laser-cutter. He approached the nearest white rock on the ground and grabbed right through it. No resistance, not even a vibration; just plain nothingness, even though his eyes told him otherwise.

  “Sir? You vanished as well,” Yeltzin’s coarse voice called him.

  Rosco craned his neck and saw his two crew members standing next to each other looking like lost tourists in search of a tour guide. Something jammed up reality by a factor of five. Rosco walked back and noticed the threshold where his comrades detected him.

  “Fascinating,” Ming said.

  “Mind explaining, Doctor?”

  “Don’t you get it, sir?”

  “Nope, hence the question.”

  She flashed by him and neared the rocks. Yeltzin followed and shot the captain a look of utter bewilderment. “It’s a strange world.”

  Together they marched deeper into the canyon path that somehow didn’t exist on the physical level. Ming flapped her hand through the rock walls like a kid born blind, trying to make sense of her surroundings. She seemed mesmerized by the mirage. Rosco sighed.

  “Doctor?”

  “It makes total sense if you remember our first encounter with the life form.”

  Still going nowhere with her swooning. That was the problem with geeks—they often forgot that their obscure world didn’t overlap with everyone else’s.

  “Do enlighten us.”

  She exposed her smile; teeth shone whiter than alien rock.

  “We’re part of a group illusion.”

  51

  Rosco understood the doctor’s words on a theoretical level, but the true meaning still eluded him. “Group illusion?”

  “Remember the ship decoys in space? It seems to be a common tactic to scare off strangers.”

  She stretched her arms into a wide arch. “The canyon is a holographic Fata Morgana that hides their home from invaders. It’s rather genius.”

  Ten points for the home team, Rosco added in his mind. It did make sense on a twisted level. “The entire canyon?”

  “I don’t know,” the doctor said, and looked as if the lack of knowledge scratched her ego. “But I’ll find out.”

  Rosco watched his perimeter and waved his right arm through the holographic fog. Little fragments of visual information floated in the air like static rain. The illusion was so good it even fooled the engineer’s drone sensors. Which meant the life form accessed a technology that was, in part, superior to the human’s. But if the life form focused on optical tricks, did it mean it lacked serious fire power?

  Rosco crossed his fingers.

  “What now, sir?” Yeltzin said.

  Rosco had almost forgotten about the gentle giant to his left. The holographic fog tended to tune out the environment around him.

  “We’ll ride deeper into the maze. eQuip’s tracking our LRV and route, so we’ll always know how to return. Besides, the drone’s linked to our positioning system so we’ll have air coverage as well.”

  He motioned his crew to man the vehicle. Ming danced through the holo-illusion like a child seeing snow for the first time. A rare playfulness oozed from her that the captain hadn’t noticed before. She seemed oblivious to his order.

  “Doc?”

  “Have you ever seen anything as magnificent as this, Captain?”

  “I’ve seen a battle cruiser getting blown apart by orbital laser cannons.”

  She slumped her shoulders. “That’s not even in the same vein.”

  The captain pointed at the doors of the LRV. “Doctor, l appreciate your curiosity for the unknown, but let’s keep in mind that we are on hostile ground here. This hologram is a military tactic to confuse the enemy; and judging by your reaction, it’s working.”

  Of course she frowned, but Rosco was hired to be the leader of this ragtag team, not to swoon over the alien’s visual tricks. He knew—lose your focus, and you’d lose everything.

  They all returned to the LRV, and Yeltzin steered them deeper into the Fata Morgana. Rosco rode shotgun to get a better grasp of the front. He even closed his eyes when the vehicle drove toward the rock wall that was part of the optical trick.

  “Lieutenant, based on your ground-pounder experience, what do you think of this decoy?”

  “As Doctor Brakemoto said, this species specializes in visual tactics that distract and manipulate but don’t cause damage per se. Based on that intel, it’s fair to assume the life form refrains from using violence and keeps military engagement as a last option.”

  Rosco nodded. “I thought something similar.”

  Ming coughed in the back, which suspiciously sounded like a passive-aggressive ’Yeah, right’ declaration. The captain ignored it and went straight into tactical talk. He closed his eyes every time the LRV threatened to crash into a rock formation.

  Just a trick, he muttered to himself, a cheap trick. “Ekström, is your drone still in the air?”

  The odd red-haired man nodded without looking up.

  “Good, keep it that way. Hopefully it will register an anomaly before we will.”

  Doctor Brakemoto pushed her doll-like face between Yeltzin and the captain. “What exactly is your plan, sir?”

  “Make contact with the alien.”

  “Contact as in communication, or smoking guns?”

  He winked at her. “That’s up to the alien. I’m happy to buddy up and drink balooka coke. But if those creatures pull one of their attacks, we’ll have to defend ourselves. It takes two pals to peace out.”

  “Let’s hope it won’t get to that,” the doctor said before she dove back into her seat.

  Me too, Rosco thought and looked at the front shield. The holographic fog dropped the canyon illusion and shifted before his eyes. Weird colors meshed together in combinations Rosco had no names for. “What’s going on now?”

  Yeltzin kept his right glove on the yoke and shrugged. “I’ve never seen anything like it, not even during the dark night.”

  “Dark night?”

  “The dark night of the soul, sir. An inner happening when the illusion of your world view fades away rather violently and makes way for the truth.”

  “But what is the truth?”

  “The world which exists when our thoughts don’t cloud our vision.”

  Whatever the hex that meant. Rosco’s finger remained on the trigger of his Rail Revolver. Battle instinct surged, keeping his attention heated like the afterburner of a suborbital hyper-sonic jet.

  Nothing was going to fool him now.

  Ekström said, “Movement detected.”

  52

  “Multiple targets incoming.”

  Ekström wasn’t fooling around; the LRV’s scanners picked up various targets approaching from half a kilometer in front. The red triangles closed
up in formation.

  Yeltzin decelerated. “Captain?”

  Before Rosco could follow up with a command, the doctor’s mouth foamed. “You can’t fire. We’re on a scientific mission.”

  Rosco couldn’t believe it. The crew was facing death and she was still pulling the diplomatic farce. A beam the size of a steam pipe brushed by the LRV’s rear. The blue javelin lit up the air and vanished with a fizzle. Missed by three meters, Rosco thought, but this ray wasn’t supposed to hit them. It was another warning shot.

  “Stop the vehicle.”

  Yeltzin brought the machine to a screeching halt. Rosco yelled. “Take your weapons and fan out. We’re target bots inside the LRV.”

  “I’ll join you,” Ming said before the captain could protest. “I’ll be the mediator before this situation escalates, sir.”

  “I think we’re way beyond that point, Doctor.”

  “Sir, Lo-Skova personally chose me for this mission. I’m the missing link.”

  He rolled his eyes, but on the other hand, he couldn’t let her stay inside the vehicle because it was too dangerous. “Fine, but don’t get in my way and don’t stray. We’re still inside their world.”

  All four launched from the LRV and regrouped as a squad unit. Yeltzin and Rosco took the helm and increased the distance to each unit in the formation to avoid getting taken down by a single beam.

  Ming’s shadow touched the captain’s. “Don’t fire until it’s absolutely necessary. This could be the greatest day of humanity.”

  “Or its last.”

  The red triangles decreased in distance. There was no doubt—the confrontation was imminent. Sixty-five meters, according to Rosco’s motion sensor. He still lacked the visual intel of the attackers. The holographic fog thickened and shifted its colors. What little trick were they trying out now?

  Rosco had to expect the worst. “Stay close, but not too close. We don’t want more than one casualty in case they launch another beam.”