The Epherium Chronicles: Crucible

by T. D. Wilson

Jillian stopped a few feet from Hood, snapped to attention and saluted. “Lieutenant Commander Jillian Howard reporting, Captain.”

  Hood stood dumbfounded for a moment until he realized Jillian had recognized his uniform rank insignia. He stiffened to attention and saluted her back. He tried to talk and almost choked, but he salvaged a hoarse greeting. “Good to see you again, Commander.”

  “Sir?” Jillian responded, her thick Alabama accent a little uncertain. It was something Hood had missed over the years. “Do I know you?”

  With a big grin on his face, Jonathan walked over to his XO, put his arm over her shoulder and whispered to her. Jillian’s eyes went wide. She turned to his face and whispered back. He nodded in response.

  “Well,” Jillian said, now much more relaxed, and put her hands on her hips. “All this time around Hoods and I can’t even recognize one. I must be losing it.” She smiled and walked over to Hood.

  As Jillian stared into his eyes, Hood could see the whole role reversal. Back on Earth, he’d been the one staring up at her. She was taller than Gina, but Hood now towered over her by seven centimeters.

  “Yep, you sure do look like your daddy, all right,” Jillian said, satisfied. “But it’s those eyes that are the giveaway. Hi, Jimmy,” she said. “Nice to see you again.” She settled into a hug around his chest and Hood hugged her back, almost too tight. Her hair pressed against his face and, even after spending all this time out at this remote camp, it still smelled like honey.

  Jillian released her grip and dragged Hood by the arm over to his uncle. “Come on and sit down. I want to catch up on what’s been going on since we left.” She pulled out a few chairs from the small mess tent and set them next to the unlit fire pit in the center of the camp.

  Hood’s concern for the mission faded and he pulled over one of the chairs and sat down. Many of the other members of his mission team, some tired from the long walk, followed suit and relaxed as some of the camp’s team passed out water and coffee.

  Hood and his uncle took turns explaining the Armstrong’s mission to Jillian, Gina and the rest of the camp. Regarding the past twenty-five years, Hood glossed over them, including the war, and focused on the EDF’s needs for getting to the colonies.

  Jillian turned to Jonathan. “I guess we missed all the excitement,” she said, then stood. “But we’ve had some of our own lately.”

  “So we’ve heard,” Jonathan said. He patted his wife’s hand. “I was astounded on just what Gina discovered, but she says there’s something else. I know the fossils the rover team reported are important, but your last message mentioned an archaeological discovery. If there was a civilization here before, we need to know all we can.”

  “The fossils were well preserved and this entire area has deep surface erosion. Well, that’s how my team has explained it to me,” Jillian began. “It made our job a lot easier to find and catalog them. The erosion created several humanlike patterns in the canyon walls just beyond our camp. They are beautiful, but most are all naturally formed, not man-or alien-made, I’m afraid.” One of Jillian’s team handed Jonathan a data pad filled with images the team had collected, as she continued speaking, “There’s one image in the stone that has us puzzled. One of our teams found it in a wide crevice while tracing a sediment line looking for new fossils. The formation is raised above the normal surface of the rock and not created by erosion or weathering.” She pointed out some of the lines on the stone image. “The patterns are strange and complex, but what was more unusual were the low levels of radiation we detected from it.” Jillian spun away from her chair and placed her hands on her hips. Her look of concern spoke volumes. “I don’t understand—we communicated that back to base camp three days ago.”

  “We’re still investigating,” Hood interjected as his uncle scrolled through the rest of the pictures on the data pad and returned to the stone image. Hood tried to keep calm and not let his concern alarm anyone. He needed time to assess the communications issue and determine if there was any kind of threat from this new find. Hood examined the image and tapped his finger on the screen. “In the meantime, I’d like to see this stone image firsthand.” He pointed to Wells, who was still fiddling with her data pad. “Lieutenant Wells here is a brilliant linguist, but one of her specialties is code breaking. If there’s some sort of code or puzzle in the image, I think she might be the person to crack it.” He stood and walked over to Jillian. “I’m curious though. You said you discovered the image three days ago and your people had already collected plenty of data but were clueless to the image’s meaning or origin. This team’s operation could have been moved back to the Magellan and a remote sensor left behind to monitor it for any changes. Why did you stay out here?”

  Jillian raised her hands and gestured toward the group of tents and tarps that made up their remote camp. “Well, we were about to pack up when Martha found the cave.”

  A young blonde woman stood from her chair behind Jillian and waved. “To be more accurate, I fell into it.”

  Jillian shook her head at Jonathan. “We scanned the entire length of the canyon.” She kicked a small piece of wood into the fire pit. “We never saw it. The cave mouth was covered in brush and we couldn’t get a scanner reading on it. Hell, we still can’t.”

  Hood borrowed the data pad from his uncle and handed it to Wells, who started to examine the image. “What can you tell me about it, Lieutenant?”

  The image contained several markings, each small and well-defined. Some of the markings repeated and were scattered across the face of the image. He watched her fingers trace the markings that flowed in one area from left to right, then in another from top to bottom, but he couldn’t see a distinct pattern.

  Wells shook her head. “If the markings are a language, I need some sort of reference, pictures or more examples of the writing to get started. The symbols could hold meaning, or they may be a form of alphabet. I need to see it up close.”

  “We can take you to it, Lieutenant,” Gina said. “It’s not far from here, but there aren’t any other markings around it.”

  Wells frowned, but Hood noticed a look of inspiration replace it. “Commander Howard! What exactly did you find in that cave?”

  Jillian started to walk toward the cave mouth and waved at the rest of the group. “It’s too much to explain, so I’m going to have to show you.” The Cygni sun had moved to the west as the afternoon progressed, shrouding the cave in deep shade. She leaned into the brush covering the entrance and yelled something inside.

  Wells moved closer to Jillian, but Jillian stepped back and joined her at the edge of the shade. The brush over the cave parted, and something large shifted out of the cave mouth.

  Jillian smiled as the figure moved closer and she ushered everyone else closer, as well. As it edged out of the shade, Hood could see it was tall, over a meter taller than him. A rock rolled out of the shade and brushed Wells’s foot. When Hood looked down at the rock, he caught a glimpse of one of the figure’s legs stepping into the sunlight, and then another—six in all. The form’s body was long, just short of four meters, and the legs supported much of the lower half, while four smaller arms were visible on its upper torso. Its head was triangular and the two rows of red-faceted eyes down the sides of its face were unmistakable. The figure stared right at Wells.

  Fear gripped him and he saw Wells’s face pale before she screamed. Standing before her was a Cilik’ti.

  Chapter Five

  Time slowed to a mere standstill and Hood’s vision faded to black and white as the seconds crept by like minutes. No one from the Armstrong moved—of all things, a Cilik’ti, a member of the alien scourge that had taken so many human lives during their conflict, was on the planet.

  The Cilik’ti stood motionless as well, except for its head, which slowly scanned the humans in front of it and then settled on Hood. Its three pairs of eyes locked on t
o his face in a perpetual stare.

  Hood felt the weight of its gaze and tried to get to Wells, who still was closest to the six-legged alien, but he couldn’t force his legs to move. Jillian stood behind Wells, still smiling, unaware of the danger she was in. This was the remarkable discovery Jillian had insisted they be shown. During the next few moments, Hood’s mind flashed with visions of a full invasion of this world and the mangled bodies of all the colonists littering the planet. Jillian’s discovery could only be an omen, an omen of doom.

  It was McGregor’s roar of a battle cry that set time fluid again, and many of the Marines motioned for the colonists to take cover while they scrambled for position around the alien.

  “Stand fast!” Hood yelled to McGregor and the Marines beside him.

  McGregor halted his charge forward and stared at Hood in shock. “Sir? Are ya blind, man? You know what that is?”

  Many of the Marines continued to move forward, their assault rifles readied, taking careful aim at the Cilik’ti, but no one fired. The Cilik’ti cringed backward from the Marines into the shade but stopped short of the cave.

  “I said stand fast!” Hood repeated. All the Marines froze but didn’t lower their weapons. He couldn’t risk a stray shot hitting Jillian or Wells.

  Jillian ran forward and placed herself between the Cilik’ti and the Marines. “Lower your weapons!” she shouted. “Kree isn’t dangerous. He’s a friend.”

  Great. She gave it a name. But this wasn’t just some animal you fed and made your friend. This was a Cilik’ti, and friend wasn’t a word he would choose to describe it.

  “Jillian,” Hood said in a calm voice as he motioned for her to come over toward him and away from the Cilik’ti. “We need to get everyone out of here. There might be more in the area. It’s not safe.”

  Defiant, Jillian shook her head and held up her hands to block anyone trying to get to the Cilik’ti, and more of her team of colonists moved to join her. The Marines tried to pull Jillian’s team away. “No, it’s all right,” she shouted in protest. “I know this is first contact, but we’ve already walked through our protocols. Kree’s assured me...”

  Hood was about to interrupt her but stopped as she continued to defend the Cilik’ti. Jillian hadn’t named the Cilik’ti; she’d learned its name. She’d spoken with it. No human had ever had direct communication with these aliens and here on this distant world, a woman who’d been out of touch with Earth for over twenty-five years had found a way.

  The daunting and inevitable questions pounded into Hood’s brain in a flash. What had she learned about the Cilik’ti? But perhaps more important, what had it learned about humans?

  “Everyone stop!” he commanded.

  The Marines let go of the colonists at his command and backed off. Hood’s eyes found the Cilik’ti even in the dark shade. It was no longer retreating and it made no attempt to reenter the cave.

  McGregor was at his side. “Sir, we’ve got to get ’em out of here. There’s bound to be more of ‘em. The Tikis would never send just one. We need to alert the other camps.”

  McGregor’s words fell on Hood like lead weights. His worst nightmare for this world had come true and he gritted his teeth in frustration. He nodded in acknowledgement of McGregor’s request and walked toward Jillian and her team. He could feel anger swell within him. It didn’t happen often, but seeing Jillian—his Jillian—stand there and defend a Cilik’ti...it was almost too much for him to bear.

  Jillian seemed relieved as the Marines moved back. “James, thank you. I know this is an awkward situation. Finding sentient life out here was always part of our mission, but you have to understand—”

  “No, Jillian,” Hood growled. “It’s you who doesn’t understand.” He pointed at the Cilik’ti, his hand shaking. “You have no idea what you’ve found. That...that is a Cilik’ti. The same aliens tried to wipe us all out. They slaughtered hundreds of thousands of our people, blasted our outposts to dust and all without warning or provocation. Most of us have lost friends and family to these monsters.” His eyes met hers and his voice grew sullen. “Your brother was among them.”

  Hood’s anger softened and guilt filled the void it left in his heart. He realized what he’d just done, but it was too late. This was one of the subjects Hood had planned to bring up to Jillian in private, when he could prepare her for the blow. Instead, in his attempt to snap her out of whatever hold that monster had over her, he’d smacked her over the head with it like a hammer.

  Jillian’s face was ashen. Hood remembered her younger brother Terry had enlisted in the EEF a few weeks before she’d left. Hood had met him early on during the war when he was the electronic warfare officer on the cruiser Kronos. The Kronos was lost with all hands at the battle of Hyperion just at the edge of Saturn’s rings. The EDF forces won the battle, but only after Hood’s fleet of fifteen cruisers managed to flank the Cilik’ti forces and pin them in Saturn’s gravity well.

  Hood’s revelation staggered her and she struggled to keep standing. He knew they’d been close and he didn’t doubt he’d feel the same right now if it was his sister who’d died. She shut her eyes, and he could see tears start to flow. What have I done?

  Finally, she took a deep breath and turned back toward the cave. “Kree,” she said, her voice cracking. “Is it all true?”

  The Cilik’ti walked out of the shade, and Hood was able to take full measure of it. Its pale blue carapace was smooth and was accented by long, bright red streaks down its back and legs. In one of its small arms, Hood noticed a short rod with a ball on the end of it. It didn’t look like any Cilik’ti weapon he was familiar with. As it moved closer to Jillian, the ball on the end of the rod began to glow.

  A high-pitched voice emanated from the rod. “Yes, Commander Howard. What Captain Hood has said is true.” The voice from the rod was even and easy to comprehend but, for the most part, very monotonic. The Cilik’ti worker walked up beside the trembling Jillian, who backed away from it. It stopped and faced Hood. “This one’s name is Kree Ota N’lan and as you have said, Captain Hood, this one is Cilik’ti.”

  Hood heard a thud behind him. Not wanting to take his eyes off the Cilik’ti, he tried to ignore it, but both Jillian and the Cilik’ti leaned to the left to peer around him. Finally, Hood turned around to see what had happened. What he found made him shake his head. Caris had fainted.

  * * *

  Raf Sanchez flipped through the latest readiness drill data as he sat at the Command Station aboard the Armstrong. Everything was in order, but the training of new gunnery crews for the ones lost on the Percival was a long process. The tracking systems were faster paced on the smaller ship, and even some of the better gunners on the Armstrong struggled with the simulations. The gunners on the Armistead class gunships were the best in the fleet in pulse weapon tracking, and for good reason. The task of keeping small craft like fighters and Cilik’ti drones off the big ships was critical in battle, and the turret-packed Armistead gunships were the best in the business. If the new crews struggled through the simulations, real combat would be a whole different story.

  Sanchez closed the reports and switched his screen to the current satellite view over the Magellan landing site. The view was impressive from his vantage point. It would be more impressive if I was down there. The last rotation was supposed to put him planet-side instead of the captain, but McCraken’s request to travel to the planet altered the plan.

  Sanchez didn’t worry. He knew his chance would come. However, his level of concern for Captain Hood was high. Hood’s brazenness to go down to that canyon before it had been secured was beyond risky, but Sanchez knew Hood would make time to discuss that decision later. For now, Sanchez was content to oversee the final repairs from the asteroid collisions and find ways to annoy Mr. Whitaker in Engineering. It was nothing personal, per se, but Sanchez, while trying to make some level of rapport w
ith the chief engineer, always seemed to be interrupting him. It turned out that Whitaker didn’t like unscheduled interruptions.

  Trying to defuse some of the new tension, Sanchez stopped by the Engineering section at different times during the day and evening, but the result was still the same. It was as if Whitaker never slept.

  However, each time Whitaker’s grumbling ended, Sanchez managed to get more insight on the brilliance the head of Engineering brought to the table. The Armstrong’s systems were state-of-the-art EDF technology, but ever since they’d left Earth, Whitaker had performed step-by-step improvements to each system. The increase in performance and efficiency was noticeable to anyone involved.

  Sanchez’s console buzzed with a new comm request. It was the Communications Station. “This is Sanchez.”

  “Sir,” the young ensign filling in for Wells began, “I’ve got the captain on the line. He wants to talk with you in private.”

  “All right, Ensign. Forward it to my quarters and I’ll take it there.” He jogged toward the exit and signaled for Aldridge to take the conn.

  Sanchez arrived at his quarters a few minutes later, swung into his chair behind his short desk and opened the comm channel. As Hood’s face came into view, he could tell Hood was aboard one of the shuttles. “Captain, this channel’s secure. What did you find down there?”

  Hood’s face grew pensive. “I don’t have time to do this easy, so here it is. The Cilik’ti are here, Raf.” The words hit Sanchez like a stiff slap in face. “The group of colonists in the canyon found a Cilik’ti worker a few days ago and, as remarkable as it sounds, they’ve managed to find a way to talk to it.”

  Talk to it? Sanchez couldn’t believe what he heard and stared at the terminal almost dumbfounded.

  “Evidently, it had been hiding out in the caves in the canyon. I’ve had McGregor’s boys check the rest of the caves and the surrounding area, but we haven’t found any more,” Hood said. “It says it’s alone, but the major and I both agree it can’t be trusted. The Cilik’ti never send lone scouts.”