“But what of our quarantine, Admiral? Aren’t you concerned about a dangerous alien pathogen infecting your crew? That is the purpose of a quarantine, is it not?”
Kittson frowned. “Captain, I need you to think about this with extreme clarity. You and your crew are on very thin ice here. You rely on fleet supplies for your food, fuel, and communications. Moreover, as you revealed to the alien, Kodo, ships such as yours have had a history of sudden and mysterious disappearances of late. Space is a very dangerous place, if you catch my drift, Captain.”
“Yes, sir, I believe I do,” Kumeiga said, his huge shoulders slumping in defeat.
“Just so we understand each other, Captain. Kittson out.”
The image screen returned to its normal view of space, and everyone on the bridge finally took a shaky breath.
“Well, we’re screwed,” Max muttered, and I saw some of the bridge crew nod slowly in agreement.
“Captain,” the communications officer, a thin, blonde-haired lieutenant, looked up fearfully from her screens. “We are getting inquiries from all decks about the Admiral’s transmission. Apparently, there was some type of glitch and it was broadcast ship-wide, so everyone heard it. I swear it didn’t come from this console, sir.”
“Never mind, Lieutenant. At least, that will prevent the scuttlebutt from blowing it out of proportion and making it even worse than it already is.”
“What are we going to do, Captain?” the helmsman asked.
Kumeiga sat there silently for a minute, seemingly contemplating his limited options. I realized that the Captain and Kodo are alike in some regards. Mainly, that they both conceal their emotions; but right now, he was failing to hide completely how steaming mad he was. “We do nothing. Apparently, the lives of everyone on this ship depend on us doing exactly that.” With a growl, he turned to the three of us. “I know this will be hard to accept, for one of you, at least; but that’s the way it has to be.”
“But, Captain…” I started to protest.
“That’s an order, Crewman Kinser!” he shouted, but almost immediately, his broad face softened. “I obviously don’t like it either, but this ship operates with the support of the military and we have no way of returning home without their help. They have us on a tight leash and they know it. There’s nothing to be done. Regardless of what happens to us, the military will seize the planet. If we are extremely lucky, we may be allowed to go home and forget this ever happened. You three are dismissed, report to Medical on your way back to your cabins. Oh, and you have the week off; congratulations on a successful mission.” He gave us a half-hearted salute and swiveled his chair back toward the view of space. “Helm, put us in a low orbit over the Aurora and send an order to Engineering to pull the cores on two of our reactors.”
What’s going to happen to us now?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hours of medical screenings had passed before I was finally able to get back to my cabin. Thankfully, my roommate, Elleen, wasn’t home at the moment. Good, I didn’t really want to deal with even more questions, having just finished playing ten thousand questions with the medical staff.
Despite myself, I allowed a little bit of excitement to seep into my thoughts as I remembered the bag that Kodo and Kalaya had packed for me. In all the turmoil of boarding, no one had given the slightest bit of thought to checking our bags, and they had been delivered intact to my room. My first thought was where I was going to place my new prized possession, the pixie figurine. She was about six inches tall, had a long braid of red hair, and was sitting demurely on a toadstool looking back at me with big mischievous eyes.
I cast my own eyes around the room. My small desk was already cluttered and there were no shelves on our bunk beds. The tiny sanitation closet was out and we weren’t allowed to attach things to the walls of our compartment for safety reasons. In the end, I just cleared everything off my desk, sweeping an arm across it and dumping everything into a trash bin. Her place of honor secured, the figurine seemed as happy as I could make her.
Now onto the main event. The first thing revealed at the top of the package was a coffeemaker. The unit had a mug that locked into place under it. Instructions printed on the side showed me the exact steps to make the aromatic brew. I filled the small reservoir with water from the cleansing room sink, dumped in the prescribed amount of ground coffee, and pushed the button. It must have had its own power supply because lights on the front immediately lit up merrily and began giving me a digital countdown to sublime goodness. The smell alone was heavenly.
Digging further into the pack, I pulled out what the coffeemaker had been resting on, a large shiny onyx cube. It was about as long on each side as my forearm and not very heavy either. I held it up to my ear and detected no sounds, nor did it have any obvious openings, buttons, or anything…just smooth sides. Shrugging, the thought occurred to me that perhaps it was just a lovely piece of art from their home world. Carefully, I slid it under my desk and reminded myself not to use it as a footrest in a moment of carelessness.
Returning to the pack, I pulled out a couple of two-piece jumpsuit tops made from the same wonderful material that the crew of the Aurora wore. I held up the first one and it looked to be just my size, of course. Turning it over, I noticed words emblazoned on the front, “Spent a week on Fleece and all I got was this crummy t-shirt!” Cackling with glee, I reached in and jerked out the second, searching for another message. This one had the outline of the Aurora in the background and the words, “QCS Aurora Mid-deck Crew’s Lounge Wet T-shirt Contest 1st Place Winner!’ Laughing, I was a little disappointed when it seemed that was the end of my fun. I ran my hands around the bottom of the pack until I ran across one last item. It was a handheld computer tablet that looked exactly like the ones we used on the ship, right down to the corporate insignia. Huh? Why would they have given me one of these?
I punched the power button and immediately noticed the Pendacis logo didn’t appear as it should. Instead, there was just a hexagonal symbol similar to the security devices on some of our lab units. Curious, I brought it up close to my face. It appeared there was some tiny lettering inside the symbol that I tried to make out. As soon as my eyes got within a couple inches of the tablet, a beam shot out and painted my eyeball for a millisecond. Jerking back in surprise, I blinked and looked back down at the tablet. A smiling image of Kalaya grinned back at me and then spoke, “Surprise!”
I nearly dropped the pad; this thing is a communicator? “Kalaya, I’m glad to see you, of course, but you really shouldn’t have sent me this. If the military finds out we’re talking to you, the Jeff is screwed. Crap, they probably already know! My room is probably bugged!” I squealed in a near panic.
“No faith,” Kalaya intoned sadly with a frown. “Relax, Laree, this is being transmitted on frequencies that your people haven’t even discovered yet. Of course, your room is bugged, but all they are going to hear is pre-recorded girlish drivel about boys, makeup, and serious speculation about why Max is such a dork, nothing of consequence.”
‘Well, that’s a relief! Wait, how did you accomplish all this?”
“Oh, you know, just keeping my ears open and all that.”
“Kalaya, you hacked the ship again, didn’t you!”
“Honestly, did you need to ask?”
Suddenly, I heard my outer door handle jiggle and the door started to swing inward. With a half-audible yelp, I stuffed the pad under my pillow and slid up with my back to the wall trying for nonchalant. A muffled “How rude!” squeaked out from under the squished pillow that I was desperately trying to hold in place with my elbow.
My roommate, Elleen, bolted into the room, and putting her back to the door, slammed it closed with an air of relieved finality. I looked at her in astonishment because, frankly, I’ve never seen her move that fast before. A tall, thin brunette; I’d often heard other crew members refer to her as “that beanpole.” The two of us got along so well because we had the sad distinction of being considere
d the two nerdiest women on the ship, and on a research vessel that is saying something. No one would describe her as beautiful, but I had come to realize that most of her beauty was locked within. As within-a-bank-vault locked in. Her social skills were somewhere west of non-existent.
“Laree, thank the stars you are here!” she gasped. “It’s crazy out there! Everyone’s saying we’re all gonna die and I can’t have that! Not here anyway!”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down, Elleen, who is saying that?”
She looked at me with wild, half-deranged eyes. “Well, just everyone! Half the people on this ship knew people on those eighteen ships that mysteriously vanished! Statistically speaking, it’s almost impossible for reactor core meltdowns or asteroid strikes to account for that number. And you heard the Admiral; he didn’t even bother to deny it!” She started pacing back and forth like a caged cat. “I can’t die in space, Laree; I’m an earth sciences girl. My affinity is for clays and sands and warm loamy earth. I can’t stand the thought of drifting forever in the cold of black space! I didn’t even want to be out here in the first place, but Pendacis owns my contract and made me go. It’s unacceptable, I tell you!” Her burst of energy finally expended, she collapsed on the end of my bunk in a heap, her eyes tightly shut as if to block out the universe. Finally, she looked up at me blearily. “Why don’t you seem upset?”
“Oh, I am upset! I am upset that I was just uprooted and taken away from the best friends I’ve ever had! Upset that my branch of the human race is turning out to be as stupid as everyone else in the galaxy thinks we are! And really, really upset that my coffee cup is empty!” I snapped, rising up from the bed and heading toward my desk. Rooting around in one of the desk drawers, I found another mug and set it under the dispenser, pushing the button.
“Huh? Did you say co…coffee?” Elleen blubbered in confusion.
I held up one finger, then another and finally a third, and then a dark stream of liquid began to gush forth. The air in the small room filled with a delectable scent and Elleen, despite herself, sat up and rubbed the tears from her eyes. “What is that?”
When the cup had filled, I removed it and gently placed it into her hands. Almost instinctively, she brought it up to her face and inhaled deeply of the infused steam. Her eyes closed and I swear she would have purred and grown cat whiskers if it were possible. “Where did you get this? This isn’t the ersatz stuff from the ship! I can smell the richness of the soil the beans were grown in! It smells like I can almost touch the warm earth.” She took a sip and closed her eyes again, savoring the flavors as they rolled across her tongue. “This is real! Where did you...?” Then her eyes got very wide. “You brought this up from Fleece, didn’t you?”
I nodded and pushed the button to fill my own mug again. “Yes, that and the coffee maker were a gift from my friend Kalaya…oops! Speaking of which…” Launching myself across the bed, I slid my hand under the pillow and retrieved the pad. Without even bothering to look at it, I held it up to Elleen to see. “Elleen, meet my best friend in the universe, Kalaya!”
Elleen stared at the pad for a few seconds before breaking into some snorts and guffaws that sounded vaguely donkey-like. “Umm, Laree…”
Turning the pad around, I was stunned to see a grinning orangutan, something I had only seen in historical vids, comically attempting to force a squishy banana into its ear. For a moment, I couldn’t say anything, but I felt my face start to burn with embarrassment. “Nice one, Kalaya, thank you so much!”
“Well, you did stuff me under a pillow,” the orangutan replied shortly. “All fun aside, I’m ready to meet your friend now.” And the picture began morphing into the blonde goddess I knew. Once again, I turned the pad around and set it on the bed against the pillow so that we could both see her as we sipped our coffee. “Hello, Elleen, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Th…This is an alien?”
“Yup, in the digital flesh, so to speak; scary, aren’t I?” Kalaya chuckled and took a deep bow.
Elleen gulped down a big swig of brew and smiled tentatively. “Well, if you can make a cup of coffee this good, you can’t be all evil, I guess. So tell me, did you grow the beans in native soil or some kind of growth medium? What about shading them with nitrogen-fixing canopy plants? And how did you speed up the six-to-nine month ripening period?”
I patted my roommate on the back. “It’s probably best for you not to ask; you might regret the answer. But, hopefully, you’ll get to meet her in person someday.”
Elleen looked a little deflated and I could see her eyes run across the sterile walls of our little room, coming back to reality. “I’d like that,” she affirmed, “and the sooner, the better.”
We spent the better part of two hours just sitting on my bed talking. I noticed Kalaya seemed to be making a special effort to put Elleen at ease and she knew all the right buttons to push. Effortlessly, she found out more about Elleen’s likes, dislikes, hopes, and aspirations in that time than I knew from living with her for the past three years. Part of me wondered if I had really tried hard enough to be her friend. And it turns out she really does have a deep-seated phobia about dying in space.
Retrieving a recyclable paper bath towel, I left Elleen and Kalaya chatting away and I slipped out into the passageway to the dry foam hygiene stations. I already missed the wonderful showers from the Aurora’s guest quarters, and I was sure the evening mess wouldn’t be up to Quetanae standards either. Sulking slightly, I made my way back down the empty halls to my room as I let my mind drift. I should have done something more to stay planet-side. Hell, if it weren't for those damn wolves, I could have hidden in the woods until the shuttle returned to the Jeff. I grinned at my fantasies about sleeping in a tree and building a fire by rubbing sticks together. Yeah, silly. Maybe if I stayed lost long enough, Kodo would have come looking for me. I imagined him shirtless, striding powerfully through the brush to savagely claim his blushing prize.
I giggled softly as I slid past the door and turned to close it, hoping my face wasn’t too crimson. I swiveled around and my jaw dropped. “Elleen! What the hell?” There she was, still curled up where I left her on my bed, talking to Kalaya’s image on the pad, and sitting next to her was Hannah, seemingly involved in the discussion as well.
Hannah jumped off the bed. “Oh, hi, Laree, I stopped by because I had a couple of follow-up questions. Are you feeling well? You look a little flushed.”
“I…really wasn’t expecting company, Hannah,” my mouth stammered as I turned away to compose myself, banishing all thoughts of Kodo. Could this evening get any more awkward?
“Oh, don’t worry; Elleen, Kalaya and I have been having a great time waiting for you to get back.” She smiled, and for the first time, she seemed to be actually looking at me, not through me. “Kalaya has been telling us the story of your adventures in the underground labyrinth. I could never match that kind of bravery!” Huh? I seem to recall abject panic, not derring-do. Kalaya must be embellishing my part outrageously.
“Well, it certainly isn’t something I would recommend for the faint of heart.” I acknowledged shyly.
“Oh, how I envy you. First contact with a sentient living alien species! There isn’t a doctor anywhere in space who wouldn’t beg for that opportunity!” She sat back down on the bed and I joined them, the three of us arranged in a half circle facing Kalaya. “Kalaya, do you think Kodo would let me examine and document him? That could be a real career-maker for me.”
“Well, that would be up to him, Hannah.” The synthetic smirked evilly. “And, of course, if Laree doesn’t object. Those two shared some pretty steamy moments down there at times.”
“Huh?” Hannah spun in surprise to face me. “But I thought you said…”
“It’s complicated!” I blurted out, trying to squirm out of the situation. I was so going to strangle Kalaya’s hologram for this!
“Umm, not to be a wet blanket on all this frivolity,” Elleen said quietly, “but have you forgotten that
once the fleet gets here, we’re probably all going to be atomized space dust?”
The fleet! I knew I forgot something! “Kalaya, I need to warn you and Kodo about the fleet…” My voice trailed off as I glanced down at the pad propped up against my pillow. Instead of my friend’s smiling face or even the goofy orangutan, the pad was a solid blue screen with one line centered in the center “Transmission lost!” Oh, crap!
Chapter 18
Kodo
“Mind telling me why my call was interrupted? I was having fun,” a familiar, muffled voice echoed from the outside.
I was on my back inside one the Aurora’s main power distribution raceways. A cramped place to spend an evening, to be sure. Normally, much smaller power drones plied this section of conduit. The drones were responsible for maintenance on the cabling and processors that transported raw power from the reactors throughout the ship. As the usual luck would have it, somewhere in this six-hundred-meter stretch of no man’s land, there had to be a short or a line fracture of some importance, and I needed to find it. And now Kalaya wanted to talk? Ok, I suppose I could spare a couple minutes, I needed to rehydrate anyway; it was damn hot in here.
I shimmied like a lizard on my back the hundred feet or so to the nearest access hatch. Pushing it open, I let the cool air flow over me like a blessed waterfall. This hatch opened up into a side passageway leading to the portside thruster stations. Not that I could see much of it. Most of my vision from floor level was blocked by the edge of a black sheath skirt and an exceedingly shapely bare leg that flowed into a raised heel shoe. The toe of the shoe in question was currently tapping irritably. “What was that about a call? In case, you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of busy. Whoa!” Sliding out the rest of the way into the service corridor, I was momentarily speechless as my eyes followed the impatient footwear on up, and it was magnificent.
Errant Contact Page 23
