The Missions

by Donna McIntosh

  The huge reptilian beings entered the room, filling it with their foul stench and clicking/clacking noises. They circled the device with their instruments, connected them together and stood back. In a few seconds the room filled with a humming sound followed by a loud snap of electricity and the device disappeared.

  Moments later the Krill emptied the area, and Yana peeked out of the cabinet. Sean poked his head out and Yana caught Sean just as he stepped out.

  “Sean, be careful. Don’t step in any of that slime.

  It’ll burn right through anything you’re wearing. Don’t get any of it on you.”

  “What are they?” Sean asked in disbelief, gazing around the muck covered lab in shock.

  “Reptiles and they leave that stinking secretion wherever they go. C’mon. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “You think they’re gone? All of them?” Sean asked not very anxious to come face to face with any of them.

  “I have no idea but we need to go—now!”

  “What about Winston? Can’t he just… beam us up out of here?”

  “No. This lab has too much electronic equipment in it, too much interference. If our lives were in imminent danger he might try, but it would be too dangerous; also, the Krill would be able to trace a transporter beam. We need to get someplace where he can pick us up.”

  They made their way into the hallway only to find it covered with the acidic slime. Another explosion and the building shook again.

  “Up! We need to go up!” Yana said, deep in thought as he figured their best way to escape.

  “Yana, we’re on the sixth level,” Sean said.

  “Shouldn’t we look for a way down?”

  “There’s a ladder in the lab, probably for maintenance on the device.” Yana made his way back inside.

  Sean shook his head. If they went up, they’d be trapped.

  “Yana, we need to go down—not up!” Sean grabbed Yana by the arm, sure he had taken leave of his senses.

  “The way down is covered in Krill slime. We make it to the roof and maybe Winston can get close enough to pick us up there.” Yana started up the ladder that led to the next level.

  Sean remembered his promise to let Yana lead and hurried up after him.

  They climbed up five more levels before reaching the roof. When Sean stepped out on the roof, Yana had already called for Winston. Sean looked around when they crouched behind some equipment, watching the battle being waged beneath them.

  The Krill were dark green and resembled, more than anything, lizards. They stood upright, close to eight feet tall, on large, powerful hind legs. They also had a long tail they swung wildly back and forth. The appendage spewed the putrid smelling slime on its victims. The reptiles’ large heads had bulging eyes and a large slash of a mouth filled with savage looking teeth. They were lumbering and slow moving but found little resistance. The Omegans, roughly humanoid in appearance and size, far outnumbered them but they struggled in vain, falling in scores in front of their enemies. Sean thought the scene looked like something from a horror movie.

  “Sean, come on!” Yana pulled him away from the cover of the equipment.

  “Where? Is Winston here?” He looked around hopefully.

  “No. He can’t get in any closer and maintain his invisibility screen. The Krill ship is too close.” He led Sean to the back side of the building where things were relatively quiet.

  They found a ladder and started down. Another explosion and the building shook, nearly dislodging the set of iron rungs from the side of the building. They hung on for dear life.

  “They’re destroying the building!” Sean yelled and hurried down as fast as he could after Yana. Another blast and part of the building fell away.

  “Jump!” Yana called and let go of the ladder, leaping the last twenty feet and rolling as he landed.

  Sean bailed out right after Yana, stopping a short distance away, letting out a curse as he gained his footing.

  “That way! Towards the woods,” Yana yelled.

  They made it to the tree line as the rest of the building came down, raining debris directly where they had been standing. Other buildings in the complex were being targeted as they fled as fast as they could into the woods.

  Once under cover, Yana stopped to catch his breath and Sean did likewise, gasping for air.

  “Son of a fucking bitch!” Sean cursed, looking at his shoulder and arm where he had fallen.

  He must’ve landed in some slime. The arm of his shirt had been burned through and the flesh beneath seared.

  A part of his pant leg had gone missing as well and the skin beneath blistered.

  “Oh shit!” Yana glanced at Sean’s wounds. “We need to get to a clearing. Winston can take care of that but we’ve got to go now! Can you run?”

  “I can! I will!” Sean gasped.

  Sean followed Yana to a small clearing and found the ramp when Winston extended it. Sean stumbled inside and Yana gave orders to get away from the planet and to replicate some Anti-Krill spray.

  In agony by this point, Sean appreciated Yana’s help stripping off his clothes as he lay down on one of the seats.

  Yana tilted it back and Sean got a good look at the burns.

  They had deepened severely in the few minutes and the sight stunned him. He felt a moment of pity for the Omegans down below, still fighting and being exposed to the acidic poison, but it soon passed when he thought about the evil empire and their plans for galaxy-wide domination.

  Yana sprayed the burns heavily with the container Winston provided. The salve brought instant relief and covered Sean’s wounds with a thin, foam-like substance.

  “Oh, thank you! That feels so much better,” Sean groaned in relief.

  “This stuff is great,” Yana said. “I’ve had to use it before. You’ll be fine in a couple of days.”

  “So that’s it? We did it?” Sean managed a grin when Yana handed him a robe to put on and they sat down wearily.

  “Yeah, I guess we did. Now all we have to do is get the hell out of here and get ourselves home.”

  “You think that will be a problem?” Sean asked.

  “Nah,” Yana grinned. “Jesus!” He ran a hand through his scraggly hair. “You have no idea how lucky we were.”

  “You’ve dealt with them before; how long ago and what happened?”

  “Four years ago. It was a simple information retrieval mission on an asteroid over near Spaceport nine. I had to scale this building, make an entrance, and find and bring back some hidden disks. I had just gotten inside when the Krill hit the place. They killed everyone in the complex.

  I hid in the air duct until they were gone. Their slime was everywhere and my boots were burned through by the time I got out.”

  “You were burned.” Sean cringed with sympathy.

  “I was. Not just my feet because I kept falling. I had it all over me by the time I made it out of there. If I hadn’t had a Winston waiting for me with his neutralizing spray, I doubt I would have survived.”

  “I’ve never seen anything that ugly in my life and hope never to again!” Sean shivered at the memory.

  “Sean, there are a lot of ugly and unbelievable things out there, and I’m sure we’ll be coming into contact with some of them. I need you to trust my judgment on these things.”

  “I do trust you, Yana, but I’m not exactly a novice here. I’ve been around extreme situations before, and I can handle myself.” Sean scowled at being treated like a green recruit.

  “You can handle yourself in most occasions on Earth. That’s your training and your expertise. The work you’re being asked to do now is an entirely new ball game.”

  “You said I was ready. Now you’re acting like you think I’m not. Which is it?” Sean couldn’t help the anger that simmered just below the surface.

  “I said you were ready to work. And I believe that. I had hoped they would use you on assignments on Earth and maybe work up to the more dangerous off-planet jobs,”

>   Yana explained.

  “I can do this, Yana. I know I can,” Sean insisted, just a little bit resentful that Yana didn’t trust him.

  Yana reached over and took Sean in his arms for a long, sweet kiss. When they parted, Sean grinned when he realized they were lying in bed back in his cabin in the woods again.

  “Oh this is nice!” Sean sighed and sank back into Yana’s comforting embrace.

  “We’ll work it out, Sean,” Yana assured him. “We’ll work it out.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  A few days later, Sean needed to make a trip below to close on the sale of his condo. They decided to combine a little pleasure with business, so Yana accompanied him with the idea of joining up later and having dinner with some longtime friends of Yana’s from HOME, Aaron and Caroline.

  Sean finished with his meeting earlier than expected and hurried back to the hotel with some pleasant activities in mind. Things had been a little strained between him and Yana since the Krill incident; it had left Sean with the impression Yana didn’t have much faith in Sean or his abilities. Sean planned to remedy the misconception with as much love-making and assurances as he could pack into the few days they were spending on Earth.

  He needed to convince Yana, once and for all, of his capabilities to handle any assignment the Elders gave him.

  As much as Sean loved Yana, he had no intention of remaining on HOME as just his companion. He parked his rental car in the hotel parking lot, hurried inside, and ran smack into Jimmy—Yana’s old boyfriend. Or, as Yana would have described him, ‘one drunken weekend’.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Sean growled, disgusted to see the little troublemaker.

  A hateful grin spread across Jimmy’s face. “What do you think I’m doing here? Visiting Yana, of course. I may be out of sight, but I’m sure not out of his mind.”

  Sean’s mind did a quick once over of Jimmy’s appearance, noting the familiar attire of tank top, low-slung, tight fitting jeans, and slightly rumpled hair, and anger steamed through him. His eyes narrowed as he took a step forward.

  “Easy now, big boy. You got here a little too late. If you’d been thirty minutes earlier, we could have had a threesome.”

  Rigid with anger, Sean stood speechless, for once.

  Jimmy edged around him and used a low voice when passing by. “I’d go easy on him if I were you. He’s probably pretty… sore.” Jimmy slipped out the door and was gone.

  In a haze of fury, Sean punched the elevator button and waited for the doors to open. What’s Jimmy doing down below, and how did he know we were going to be here?

  Yana must have called him! Vicious thoughts taunted him on the ride up to their floor.

  He headed to their room, keyed the lock open and walked in. Yana was in bed, snoring lightly.

  Sean walked over and yanked the covers back to find Yana naked.

  Yana turned over onto his back. “Um… hi. You’re back early,” Yana mumbled, rubbing his chest absent-mindedly as he glanced at the clock.

  Sean stood staring at him. It’s true! He has been with Jimmy! The thought burned him to the core. He said nothing and began throwing things into his bag.

  Yana swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

  “What is it? What’s wrong? Are we leaving?” He got up and crossed over to Sean.

  Sean said simply through clenched teeth. “I’m leaving.” He opened the door and walked out.

  Yana scrambled quickly into some clothes but by the time he got out into the hall, Sean had already headed down. Being on the twenty-second floor, taking the steps to catch Sean wouldn’t have worked. Instead, Yana waited an eternity by the elevator before it returned to take him downstairs. By the time he got to the parking lot, their rental car had disappeared.

  Yana returned to their room, deciding to give Sean time to cool off and began pacing. He tried to figure out what had just happened. Everything had been fine before Sean left for his meeting. At least, Yana thought everything had been okay. Maybe he had second thoughts about selling his condo and moving permanently to HOME?

  Surely he’ll come back or at least call with some explanation. But why did he seem so angry? These thoughts tortured Yana while he paced. Had he lost Sean? Is he right now packing his things and moving back into his condo?

  Yana had felt the coolness in their relationship the last few days, but he chalked that up to the shock of Sean’s first encounter with hostile aliens and his injuries. Surely Yana had convinced Sean he didn’t doubt his capabilities; just worried for his safety. He certainly hadn’t thought their little squabble serious enough to make Sean change his mind about their future together.

  He was pacing the room two hours later when Aaron and Caroline knocked on the door. He raced to answer it, hoping to find Sean, not even taking the time to realize if it had been Sean, he would just have used his key to come in.

  “What happened? Where’s Sean?” Aaron asked after taking one look at Yana.

  They came inside quickly and closed the door.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” Yana continued pacing. “He came in here, madder than hell, said he was leaving, and took off.”

  “Did the two of you have a fight?” Caroline asked.

  “No! Hell, I was asleep when he got here. He just came in here, packed his stuff and he left!”

  “No questions? No explanations? Nothing?” Aaron asked.

  “No! Nothing!”

  “Would he have been upset you were sleeping?

  Were you supposed to be doing something else?” Caroline asked.

  “No. I told him I was going to hit the bookstore on the corner after he left and spend the afternoon reading while he ran his errands. He knows reading always makes me sleepy. He wouldn’t be angry at that. I often doze off after reading a couple hours.”

  “There must be something,” Aaron reasoned. “What about before he left? Did you disagree about something?

  Anything?”

  “No. We were talking about seeing the two of you for dinner tonight and trying out that new Mexican place you mentioned the last time you were down.”

  “I’ll call around and see if I can find him..” Caroline got on her cell and started punching in numbers.

  Yana walked over to the window and stood staring out.

  Aaron came over and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “He said nothing else? Just walked in here and said he was leaving?”

  “That’s it. He just walked in, yanked the covers off me and started throwing things in his bag. I asked if we were leaving and he said that he’s leaving. Then he walked out.”

  “He yanked the covers off you?” Aaron asked.

  “Huh?” Lost in his misery, Yana didn’t understand the question.

  “You said he yanked the covers off you. He got angry after he saw you in bed or as soon as he walked in?”

  “I don’t know.” Yana ran a hand through his rumpled hair. “I woke up when he pulled the covers off me.

  He stared at me like he’d never seen me before. Then he got his things together and left.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.” Aaron shook his head.

  “None of this makes any sense.”

  Caroline joined them after finishing her phone calls.

  “I couldn’t find out anything. He’s not answering his phone and no one at HOME has seen him either.”

  “Well, something must have happened. We’ve got to find him,” Aaron said and the three of them headed for the door.

  “What are you thinking?” Yana asked, in too much pain and shock to do much thinking himself.

  “Desk clerk downstairs.” Aaron pressed the elevator button. “Maybe she saw something. When did all this happen?” He asked as they entered the elevator and the door closed behind them.

  “I don’t know, a couple hours ago, I guess,” Yana answered misery and confusion causing his head to ache.

  “Excuse me,” Aaron said to the receptionist. “Have you been here
the past couple of hours?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve been on duty since noon,” she replied with a smile.

  “About an hour or so ago, Sean Riker, six-two, room twenty-two-seventeen came in. Did something happen; some sort of incident or anything unusual that you can remember?”

  “Mr. Riker, twenty-second floor? Sure, I remember seeing him. I registered them. No, nothing unusual happened when he came in. He spoke a few words to his friend then went on up. I did notice he came back down a short time later… alone.” She glanced over at Yana then back to Aaron.

  “You say he spoke to someone? Who? Another guest here in the hotel?” Aaron asked.

  “No. This young man was not a guest here.”

  “Can you describe him?” Yana asked, finally getting his mind in gear.

  “He was three or four inches shorter than Mr Riker, sandy brown hair, tank top and jeans. Kinda cute in a beach boy kind of way, nice tan,” she answered with another smile.

  Yana froze. “Jimmy?”

  Aaron caught Yana’s reaction and pulled him back towards the elevators. “What’s he doing here and what on earth do you think he could have said to upset Sean that much?”

  “Son of a bitch!” Yana swore as they entered the elevator.

  “Could it have been him? ” Aaron asked.

  “It was Jimmy. I ran into him at the book store.”

  “You saw him today? Did he seem… you know…

  cured?” Caroline asked.

  “No. He seemed the same to me. He tried to get me to go back to his place. I didn’t speak more than a dozen words to him. I said ‘nice to see you’ and told him Sean had joined our group. I said goodbye and left. That was it. The bastard must have followed me!”

  “How did he know you and Sean were going to be in L.A.?” Aaron asked.

  “It wasn’t exactly a secret that we were coming to L.A. One of his friends must have told him.” Yana massaged his aching forehead.

  “So you think he’s been keeping tabs on you through his friends still on HOME?” Caroline asked.

  “I don’t know! I can’t think of any other way he could find out that we were going to be down here today.”

  “Did you tell Sean that you saw him?” Caroline asked.