by Isaac Hooke
“All right, Carter, you like it so much, take point. We have some real friendly little green men to find.”
Despite her queasiness, Farris turned her attention back to the arrangement of helmet displays. The station’s interior was bare, almost utilitarian, no decorations or aesthetics at all. The corridors and doors were taller than anything she was used to, and she guessed that whatever race had built this place had been at least eight or nine feet tall. The fact that they hadn’t found any of its inhabitants unnerved Harbinger’s Captain.
They passed a side corridor and Carter stopped in his tracks. The barrel of his rifle swung up, its light attachment bathing the corridor in brilliant white. “Whoa, shit, I think I got something here.”
Farris leaned forward, anticipation flaring. The image flickered and bounced. Beams of light cut through the darkness, throwing eerie shadows into the darkness. Two of the beams stopped, focusing on a single point, and finally, Farris saw it.
“Oh my god,” Farris said, absently clutching her chest.
“What the hell happened to it?” Commander Able asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.
The alien sat against the bulkhead, hunched over, lifeless. It wore a loose ivory sleeveless shirt, long dark pants and ivory shoes. Its exposed grey skin stretched tight over its lanky frame. Dark lines, just under the skin, snaked through its body, running the length of the arm, all the way up through the neck, to the long ovoid head. The lines criss-crossed its face, intersecting its open eyes, which were four black orbs just above its mouth.
“What in God’s name?” Farris asked, standing.
Ricks appeared in the frame. He knelt down, opening his kit.
“What the hell is it, Doc?” Carter asked, image shifting as he moved aside, giving Ricks space to work.
Ricks activated a small scanner, running it over the alien corpse. He shook his head. “It’s dead, whatever it is.”
“How long?” Able asked.
The medic glanced up, as if looking for the commander in the air above him. “Unknown, sir. No way to tell without knowing more of its biology.” He moved his scanner over the alien’s legs. “Hmmmmm.”
Without saying anything, the medic pulled a pair of medical shears from a pouch and went to work cutting a line along the dark material. Pulling the two flaps apart, he revealed a long, muscular leg, devoid of any dark lines that covered the rest of the body.
“That’s interesting,” Ricks said.
Farris moved around her terminal, stepping closer to the image. “What is it, Lieutenant?”
Ricks hesitated a moment, studying the data in front of him for another thirty seconds before responding. “Again, it’s hard to say, without knowing more, but it appears as though this corpse has been infected by something.”
The image jumped suddenly as Carter stumbled back, away from the corpse. Several metallic clangs echoed through the corridor as the private bounced off the bulkhead behind him. “Infection?” he cried.
Ricks, who hadn’t moved, hadn’t even seem fazed by the revelation, said, “They’re inert.”
“Yeah, all the more reason to stay the hell away from them,” Carter stammered.
“It’s not contagious.”
“Says you. I’ll take my chances back here.”
The medic ignored him, continuing his diagnosis. “There doesn’t appear to have been any struggle. Aside from a contusion on the back of his head, I don’t see any signs of trauma. He just slumped over and died right here.”
“Yeah, but where’s everyone else at?” Able asked, echoing Farris’s own thoughts.
“Unknown, sir,” the medic said, shrugging. He reached into his kit, pulling out a syringe. “I need to take a sample—”
“Negative, Lieutenant,” Farris said, stopping herself from reaching out and physically touching the hologram. “Leave it. Let’s finish this sweep, if there are any survivors we need to find them.”
“You heard the Captain,” Sergeant Linton barked. “Assholes and elbows, Marines, let’s move.”
Farris watched in silence as the team moved through the station. After almost an hour searching, they’d found nothing but dead bodies and inoperable machinery. Whatever had killed these people—aliens, she corrected herself—had done so with deliberate efficiency. None of the corpses bore any obvious wounds. No struggle, no battle, no nothing. It was as though they’d all simply slumped over and died.
“It must spread quickly,” Commander Able said as the scout team finished their inspection of the central chamber.
Bodies lay strewn across the deck, some simply slumped over their stations or still sitting in their chairs. A few looked as though they’d been in the middle of fleeing the carnage around them, but they hadn’t gotten very far. One was sprawled across the deck in front of a closed hatch, as if it had been running for the door. A few had been making attempts to climb into what appeared to be alien fighter craft in a cramped hanger bay; one had caught its leg in the rungs of a ladder and was hanging awkwardly inches from the deck.
“Captain, I’m fairly certain time of death is consistent,” Ricks reported. “They all died within minutes of each other. I’d say between five and ten minutes max.”
“They couldn’t all have contracted the infection simultaneously,” Farris said, thinking aloud.
“Some kind of prolonged incubation time?” Commander Able said.
Lieutenant Presley shook her head. “What, like a time bomb virus? Something set to go off at a specific time?”
“Can you do that with a virus?” Grayson asked, his gravchair gliding across the bridge, stopping beside the Captain’s station.
“The Navy doesn’t have anything like that,” Ricks said.
“Course they don’t,” Able said. “Intelligent bio-weapons have been outlawed for years.” He turned to the captain. “You think it’s the Star race?”
Farris pursed her lips, sighing. “Lieutenant Ricks, can your scans identify the chemical origin of the virus?”
“Hard to say, Captain,” the medic said. “Permission to bring a couple of the corpses back for autopsy?”
“Negative. Pull your team out of there, Lieutenant. Decon will meet you in Bay 2.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Farris shook her head, watching the scout team’s purple and white icons work their way out of the alien outpost. The jumpy images were beginning to make her stomach turn again. They were definitely in a hurry to exfiltrate.
Farris nodded at Presley, who cut the connection.
Commander Able leaned in. “I don’t like this, Captain.”
“What’s to like? We’re five years away from any kind of help, in a system which shows no sign of life, no signals of any kind, and the aliens we have found are all dead. The entire point of our mission here is—”
Across the bridge Lieutenant Presley cursed, cutting Farris off. “Captain, I’m getting a signal.”
“Signal? Can you identify?”
The tactical officer shook her head. “Multiple signals, all originating from in-system. Tracking indicates ship drives burning hard.”
“Course?”
“Straight for us.”
FOUR
“Designate targets Sierra 1-4,” Lieutenant Presley said as the holoplot in the center of the bridge expanded to fill the space.
Four red triangles flashed, moving away from the orb labeled Graphine-4. Blue lines stretched away from them, their individual trajectories under constant calculation by Harbinger’s computers. As Farris watched the projections, she couldn’t help but notice the contact at the head of the formation continually changing course. Not by much, but enough, and the three remaining contacts seemed to be adjusting course accordingly.
Ten drone icons immediately changed course, angling straight for the new contacts.
“Report,” Farris said, sitting forward.
Lieutenant Presley’s fingers danced over her console. “The computer doesn’t have enough information to extrapolate
class or capability. Sierra-1 appears to be no bigger than a shuttle or small cargo tub, the other three outmass it by almost thirty thousand tons.”
“Where are they going?” Farris asked.
“If their current course stays constant, I’d say they’re heading for the elliptic.”
“A ship that size wouldn’t be able to go interstellar,” Commander Able said.
“Might be they don’t need a displacement drive to go interstellar,” Grayson said.
Farris considered that; thirty thousand tons wasn’t nearly enough tonnage to house a displacement drive, or the crew to support it. Even most of humanity’s intersystem traffic massed over one hundred thousand tons. She wouldn’t expect anything that size to be anything more than a simple short range shuttle. Earth and Luna had entire fleets of shuttles simply for transport between the two of them.
“Bearing change,” Presley advised. “Contact Sierra-One changing course, heading 180. It’s heading straight for us, Captain. The other three just adjusted course to follow and—oh, shit! Energy bursts, Captain. I’m pretty sure Sierra-Two and Three just fired on One.”
Eight new icons, flashing red diamonds, appeared on the plot, projectiles streaking across the void toward the lone contact.
“Launch standby fighters. Man battle stations, Alert Condition One.”
Commander Able’s orders went out over the ship-wide. “All stations, Alert One, Alert One. This is the XO, this is not an exercise. All stations, Alert One.”
“Retask drones 6 through 14 to target acquisition and identification,” Farris said, bringing up the tactical display on her station.
“Retasking, aye, ma’am.”
“Where’s the scout team?”
“Boarding the shuttle now, Captain,” Lieutenant Presley said.
“Have them expedite, Lieutenant.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“XO, tell the scout team to expedite,” Farris said. “Mr. Shea, I want an intercept course ready to go as soon as the team is aboard.”
Able slid into his seat neat to Farris, bringing up his own tactical display. Then, “Looks like they missed, Captain.”
“They’re probably on the outside edge of their engagement range, Captain,” Presley said. “But I’m not sure how long they’ll stay there.”
“Reclassify the contacts,” Farris said, digesting the information flowing into her station. “All fighters move to engage.”
Status lights blinked to life as Harbinger’s crew took up their assigned positions. Her eighteen railguns came on line, ready to pulverize any threats. Six Delta fighters had cleared their launch tubes and were hurtling toward the unknown contacts at max speed. Another four were prepping to launch and two were standing by in the tubes.
Commander Able leaned close, so only Farris could hear. “What do you think?”
Harbinger’s Captain considered the plot for a moment, considering her options—not that she had many. She’d been specifically picked for this mission, along with fifteen other captains. They’d been chosen from a group of thousands, given the best training, the best equipment and the best people. Harbinger’s crew knew what they’d signed up for, knew the mission better than they knew themselves, but jumping into the middle of a war?
Farris sighed, shaking her head. “I feel like a parent trying to figure out which child to blame for a fight, but if we don’t take any action at all…”
“But without knowing anything about the situation how can—”
“I know, XO, I know. Jumping into a gunfight without identifying the bad guy isn’t a very smart move. Lieutenant Presley, tactical analysis?”
“Still not enough information for an accurate breakdown. They are considerably smaller than Harbinger, which suggests less effective weapon capability, but again, without knowing more…”
“Comms, give me tight beams to all four contacts. Broadcast standard multi-band greeting package on all channels, all languages.” Farris turned to Presley. “Where’s my team?”
The tac officer hesitated a second, checked her display. “Just touched down.”
“Mister Shea, your intercept course, emergency speed.”
There was no sound to hear as Harbinger’s ion engines fired, but she felt a slight pressure against her chest, as if an invisible hand was pushing her back into her chair. She watched as a blue trajectory line shot out from their blue icon in the center of the plot. It stretched out to the lines projecting the course of the alien contacts, intercepting them.
“Tight beams locking on now, Captain,” Grayson reported. “Unfortunately, I can’t be sure if their systems are even picking it up.”
“Understood.”
Lieutenant Shea looked up from his station. “Engines at ninety percent and holding, Captain.
“Very well. Displacement drive status?”
“Displacement drive at ninety-seven percent charged and rising. Primary and secondary propulsion drives operating within capacity.”
“Okay,” Grayson said. “I’m getting something. Audio only. The signal’s weak, and the syntax is…” The communications expert trailed off, shaking his head. “Running it through Babel now.”
Farris leaned forward. “Put it on speaker.”
Even without knowing what the alien was saying, Farris had the distinct impression that whoever it was, they were terrified out of their mind. The shrill voice that came through the Harbinger’s speakers sounded panicked, but the transmission was nothing but gibberish.
Farris shot Grayson a look.
He held up a hand. “It’s working, Captain. Babel is chewing on it, but the syntax is extremely complex.”
“Show me.”
The information on the Captain’s display changed to show her what the Harbinger’s linguistic expert was seeing. The data from Babel wasn’t the most legible, and most of the information was a mix of jumble of letters and numbers, but as the computer worked, the message began to emerge.
When the complete message appeared on her display, Carol Farris’s blood ran cold.
“Please, I am last. Help me.”
“What the hell?” Commander Able asked.
Farris read the message again. “Grayson?”
“Running it through again, Captain.”
“What do you think it means?” Able asked.
Farris gritted her teeth. “I’m not sure.”
“Message confirmed, ma’am, Babel accuracy within ninety-eight percent.”
“Our fighters will be in range in nine and a half minutes, Captain,” Presley reported.
Commander Able spoke so only Farris could hear. “I don’t like this, Captain.”
“There isn’t much to like, Commander.”
“What are you thinking?”
Farris signed, eyes never leaving Harbinger’s main holoplot, watching the Deltas’ intercept time count slowly down. “You know the regs, XO, we have an obligation to provide assistance. Not to mention, our primary mission is to make allies. It’s damn near impossible to make allies if they’re all dead.”
“Yeah, but how do you know which of those is friendly or not? Hell, we don’t even know what the message means, Captain. “I am last could mean anything. I recommend holding off any assault, until we know more about the situation.”
“Unfortunately, Commander, we don’t have time to negotiate.”
“Who said anything about negotiating? Captain, we have no idea what’s going on here. From the looks of that station back there, whoever calls this system home has been in some kind of war. Who’s to say that those pursuing ships aren’t the ones we need to be talking to?”
He had a point, not that she cared to cloud the situation even more than it already was. They simply didn’t have enough information to be able to make an educated and critical decision. She knew they had to do something; the question was, what exactly that something was.
“Mr. Grayson, have we received a response back from any of the Uniform units?”
“No, ma’am.
”
She cursed under her breath. “I guess getting both sides of the story would be too much to ask for.”
Farris nodded at the holo-projection. “Does that look friendly to you?”
Able nodded silently, offering no further argument. They both sat, silently, digesting the data from the holoplot.
“The Deltas are coming up on maximum engagement range, Captain,” Lieutenant Presley said.
“Tight beam them again, Mr. Grayson. Order them to stand down.”
The specialist nodded. “Working.”
“Additional launches,” Presley said. “Uniform Two and Three both firing on the Sierra.”
“The fighter wing is inside MER, Captain. They’re locking on.”
Able leaned close. “Shall we give them some encouragement?”
Farris read his eyes for a moment, then nodded.
The XO tapped his console. “Delta Lead, Harbinger Two, explain to Uniform-1 what your intentions are.”
“Harbinger Two, Delta Lead, roger that, Commander.” The lead Delta icon flashed red. “Torpedo away.”
The shot past the alien unit, intentionally missing by several kilometers.
“We getting signal, Captain,” Grayson announced. “It’s from the lead Uniform unit. Babel is scrubbing now.”
Farris and Able exchanged looks.
“Yeah, sure, now they want to talk,” Farris said. “What do they have to say, Mr. Grayson?”
The communications specialist shook his head. “Still chewing. I need another minute, their message isn’t the same syntax as the first.”
“Meaning?”
“It’s not the same language, ma’am.”
Able shot her a worried look. “Two races?”
“Could just be different national dialects. Lord knows humanity has enough of them.”
“Okay, got it,” Grayson said.
The message appeared on every screen simultaneously.
“Unidentified vessels, we are Kalahari. The Lothar scourge must not be allowed to escape. They must be destroyed. They are the last.”
Farris read the message over and over, her stomach twisting just a little more each time she read it. Without knowing the context behind the messages, and she doubted either side would give her the opportunity to familiarize herself with them, she still didn’t know enough to make an informed decision. She needed more time.
