Path of Ranger: Volume 1

by RJ

  The men came to the ship’s back hatch, where a massive silhouette of the ranger appeared. It was dark outside. And the light coming from the interior of the vessel was blinding. JB did that on purpose to make the station servants uncomfortable. Also that way he could see them better when walking towards them.

  “Ranger JB! Welcome to the station ‘SWA-34.15’!” the man shouted through the blizzard. “My name is Hyam. I’ll be your guide for the time of your visit. If you have any requests or questions, you may address them directly to me!”

  While listening to the man, JB was scanning him carefully. He looked too ‘clean’ for being a servant of such an establishment. One thing that rahtiongs hated more than skinny humans were free of work hands. It wasn’t customary for them to have exclusively diplomatic professions, everyone in their establishments were somewhat workers. Besides, the overall clothing style didn’t fit humans’ traditions. Pale black-red shades were definitely far from the customary blue-white. Each new detail was drawing that place further from its legend.

  “Hello, Hyam. Are you one of the guards?” skipping the ceremonial formalities JB asked the man, looking at his thin figure in comparison to the huge rahtiongs.

  “Of course not, Mr. JB… I’m the Head of PR department here!” the man said proudly with a broad smile. “We are honored to receive at our humble station such a heroic ranger like yourself!” Hyam continued his sale. “Perhaps you would satisfy my wonder, what kind of business has brought you here?”

  JB looked up to scan all three of them once again. He was especially interested in those severe guards. Then he turned back to the PR guy.

  “I’ve heard that you have here some new breed of the ‘muhtionian reed.’ I’d like to check that out,” not making it too complicated JB rendered out the first thing that popped into his mind. “I was sent here by the science station of Guimg planet, to see if the trade is possible. They want that plant for some kind of pharmaceutical research or something. I think it’s tied to the epidemic in Zaurak’s colonies.”

  “Would you tell us the official person you represent, please?”

  “Dr. Mark Gibson.”

  The man’s fingers rushed typing on the projection of his communicator, verifying the information he was given. In just a half a minute, his face lost its suspicion and the professional smile came up again.

  “So you’re conducting research on new biostimulator?” Hyam wondered.

  As a reply JB shrugged carelessly, letting them know that he wasn’t much interested in that. In the same time, he was evaluating in his head how many minutes the three of them had spent in that cold, where even he started to feel uncomfortable. Yet, the guards had never flinched.

  “Well, Mr. JB. I think that was all that we needed. Formalities aside, we have no more questions for you. Please, follow me.”

  Hyam stepped back and swung his hand as a gesture of invitation. Just as JB made his first steps, the guide rushed to stop him. He shouted from behind with that creaky voice of his.

  “Oh, Mr. JB, hold on, please! Leave the weapons on the ship, if you may. We have very strict rules here,” Hyam said looking at the blaster behind the ranger’s back.

  “But the convention of interstellar traveling states…” JB tried to read out the word of the law to his companion but was interrupted.

  “Yes-yes, we are aware of the rules… But it’s not the presence of the weapon itself that bothers us, but its type,” the guide nodded at the guards who were equipped with firearm automatic rifles. “It’s connected to the kind of local research. Nobody can use any type of energy weapons at the center. It may destabilize some of equipment.”

  “What are you really doing here…?” JB whispered staring at that tall structure in front of him. “Fine, Hyam. Your house – your rules. It may take a few minutes for me to change it.”

  “Oh, please, take all the time you need. We’re going to wait for you right here.”

  When coming back onboard JB, first of all, shook off the snow from his clothes. The frozen microcrystals of water hadn’t tuned into water at all, because of the mutant’s body temperature adjustment. It was a regular thing for him, but as for the rest of them, his suspicions were growing. The big guy looked in the illuminator to check how they were doing. Snow had covered their figures and it didn’t melt either. Seeing that ‘cold-bloodedness’ JB recognized the effect of a well-balanced mix of stimulators.

  “A plant garden you say… We’ll see…”

  Bridgers changed his regular hand blaster to his old good Desert Eagle, which he shoved behind the belt. Then he put on that new bulletproof vest made by Gibson. And, of course, he threw a forty-six inch combat sword over the shoulder. Soon the back hatch opened up again and JB came out. One of the rahtiongs scanned him with the device to see if there were any kinds of energy weapons on him. He agreeably nodded to his boss.

  “Well, shall we?” for the second time Hyam invited the guest in.

  There was a narrow hallway behind the front door. It had white walls, white floor, and white ceiling. The whole room was made of pure whiteness. JB recognized that as a disinfection chamber, a common thing for such setups. A red LED blinked and the people held their breath. The room filled with steam, streaming out of the whole contour. Soon the air cleared and they moved on to the main lobby.

  The reception had a much more comfortable interior. It was a vast hall with dim, soft illumination. A variety of floating lamps were hovering under the ceiling, and the pathways were divided into the arrays of the long glass planters. Plants unusual for Earth were growing there too, the flowers and vines of rare beauty. Now it was really like a plant garden.

  Another man sat there, behind the reception desk. His appearance looked very similar to Hyam’s. They shared those pleasant facial features, height, and same tasteless uniform. Just as the man noticed the guest with an escort he got up and walked towards them. It was the last drop in JB’s pool of suspicion. The second human in a responsible position where the rahtiongs were just security was unacceptable to the red kind.

  “Ranger JB! It’s a pleasure to meet you!” the new station servant sparked in greetings. “You don’t feel uncomfortable in such darkness, I hope? The local fitox species, which we are cooperating with, require limited illumination standards.”

  The mutant took his time studying the chamber while the receptionist was talking. Meanwhile, his eyes gained that blue glow in darkness. When the servant was done with the ceremony, JB looked at him directly.

  “It’s just how like it.”

  “You must be frozen after going through that weather,” the man continued. “Let us offer you a thermal suit for the time of your visit. We are used to this cold, as you can see.”

  JB checked his communicator for a feedback while walking to the closet. It was two degrees of warmth by Celsius in that room. Thinking about that, JB grew an unintentional crookish smirk. No biostimulator could make a regular human get adjusted to such a temperature. More and more mysteries were emerging from that place.

  The closet was lit by the bright cyan light. There was lots of various equipment inside, not just scientifics, but weaponry too.

  “What is your size?” the receptionist evaluated the big guy. “The largest one, is it?”

  While the guy was going through the suits to find the one he needed, JB noticed five empty spots, where more suits were supposed to be.

  “You don’t have many visitors here, do you?” the ranger asked.

  “Well, you know…” the man faked modesty. “Who would want to spend time on this ice land? Especially if it’s about such an unexciting place like ours.”

  “You know what? I’m here just for a few hours. I’ll be okay just in my own pilot suit. We rangers, are used to any kind of conditions, you know.”

  The servant looked over JB’s outfit once again. The ranger didn’t look to be suffering from the cold indeed.

  “As you wish. In this case, I believe that Mr. Hyam will be a perfect guide f
or the time of your staying.”

  They both looked at the friendly smile of that official man and JB nodded agreeably. The receptionist went back to his work and Hyam, along with the security, led the guest ahead.

  “Do you have any requests about the first stop of the tour, Mr. JB?” Hyam asked.

  “Actually, I’d like to meet the Chairman of this station first.”

  “Excuse me, Sir, but Mr. Grant is not here for the moment. But…”

  “Grant?” the ranger interrupted. “If I recall right, the current boss here is Thorv-Katob, a rahtiong.”

  “Really?” Hyam looked surprised. “Perhaps you may have a false information, Mr. JB.”

  The ranger, still being in eye contact with his companion, took off the communicator from the felt forearm to show the screen to the servant.

  “Here, look. It’s official Info-net data.”

  The guide fussed around with his eyes, pretending that he was fully confused by that absurd mistake.

  “But Thorv-Katob was a Chief Officer of one of the departments here for the last four years, he has never been a Chairman.”

  “Uhuh…” JB mumbled carelessly. “So, can I talk to him?”

  “I think… you won’t be much interested in that. You are here for the muhtionian reed, right, Mr. JB? And Thorv-Katob’s department works in an entirely unrelated field.” By that polite form of rejection, the ranger was let know that he wouldn’t be allowed to make a single step out of their control. “Besides, I’m quite confident that our planned tour is going to be a delight for you!” Hyam gained back his grimace of kindness. “So? Shall we?”

  “Okay…” JB shrugged.

  “Perfect! The first stop is going to be a midnight greenhouse!”

  “Midnight?” the guest wondered.

  “You will see it with your own eyes…” the guide replied smiling.

  It wasn’t essential for JB to do things exactly, just not to stay on one spot. While they were walking, his communicator scanned local networks. The pirate cyber-technologies he used were quite a rare thing for a ranger to have, and it was quite useful too. It could download data from nearby protected servers, scan for a lost agent’s equipment and much more…

  After going through a long narrow hallway with several doors on the way, the group came to the elevator. The up-down direction of movement of that machine seemed to ranger obsolete and inconvenient. Especially considering that the facility was relatively new. But there was another feature that called out for the agent’s attention. The input method inside the elevator wasn’t a regular button grid, but a manual panel. These ones usually were used on special objects, placed deep underground with hundreds of levels.

  Hyam changed the input layout to a simpler one, with limited access. Several names appeared there, with ‘midnight greenhouse’ among them. JB watched the servant carefully, studying all of his movements. For some reason, the guy was using his left hand to operate the control panel, despite that it was uncomfortable for him. Then a thin silvery marker-bracelet shined on his wrist, from under the sleeve.

  The master key…

  The midnight greenhouse that Hyam was bragging about appeared to be a very pleasant place indeed. It was a tall chamber with an artificial projection of the night sky that covered a mechanical ceiling construction. Most of the room’s volume was filled with plants and flowers, the walls and columns were curled over with vines. Broad leaves of various forms and colorful self-illuminated flowers of t alien species created an unforgettable view, which could make anyone hold his breath before that rare beauty.

  JB walked around for some time along those floor paths, which were hanging over the greenhouse itself. And when his interest with the chamber was fulfilled, he decided that it was time to stop maintaining that pretense game and to start executing the mission.

  “Well, just take a look there, Mr. JB. The reed of your interest is right there,” Hyan pointed at one of the plants sections below. “I’m going to make a call right now and you’ll get a few samples to try the quality of our product.”

  “How much do you know about the physiology of fitoxes, Hyam?” JB wondered.

  “Excuse me?” the guide looked surprised by the question.

  JB smirked ironically.

  “The simplest fitoxes, just the fourth grade of their evolutions, the ones that are below us right now… How much do you know about them? Would your knowledge suffice to climb down there and have a walk through all of the twelve kilometers of that garden and stay alive? Or all you can do is walking along these comfortable paths, looking down through that glass floor, following the cyber guide of yours and just pretending that you know this micro world around you?”

  Such rude unexpected behavior of the ranger took Hyam by surprise, he stumbled, lingering, not knowing what to say. And two rahtiong thugs behind the guest’s back went breathing heavily. The situation escalated.

  “The fourth grade of the evolution out of twenty known to men. There are nothing but survival instincts in them at that stage… If these ones were six to seven million years older, perhaps, they could even recognize our speech, but for now, they can only sense our presence…” JB squatted down. “Have you any idea why this place was called ‘Midnight Greenhouse?’” Hyam just stood there listening. “Because of those purple flowers,” JB pointed at them, "the species is called ‘Gipocrisum Kasirius,' also known as ‘night cradle.’ When they have enough starlight, they go hunting. Then a toxin is released that may put out of consciousness a man of your weight in thirteen to fourteen seconds. But it won’t kill you. Just keeps filling up your body, until the blood is full of it. Then the tissue is going to be softer than butter, and it will start dissolving eventually,” JB was telling the story slowly, with each upcoming word he was making another step closer to the servant. “And all of that happening while you’re still alive. And after you become a uniform substance, it’s going to spread over tens of meters around. The fitox plants will feed on that for weeks. They say it’s not painful.”

  The man looked at ranger with those terrified eyes. His throat was blocked and he could barely breathe. Hyam didn’t know for sure what was terrifying him more: that story or the narrator, who was drilling him with that inhumane look.

  “And all there is to start that process is to touch one of the leaves…” JB finished.

  When looking down over that one point five meter wide track, Hyam had the impression that he was already falling. There was no railing or any kind of safety barriers, just a plain path.

  “Stop it!” one of the guards said.

  A heavy hand laid on the ranger’s shoulder, which shined with its sandy red skin under the fake starlight. The mutant could sense the pumping blood inside the rahtiong’s veins. An inside spike was ready to burst out of that forearm any moment to go through JB’s head. Rahtiongs were the wrong kind to mess with. If there was a right time to act, it was it. The ranger got ready to take out the knife and slash both hands of that guard as a measure of counter attack prevention. Then he would push both aliens off of the path, and capture Hyam for interrogation.

  Suddenly, an incredibly loud evil noise came from aside. It released JB from the current trouble. All four of them changed their focus instantly. There was a creature about one hundred meters away, running out of a torn-apart entrance. It was about four meters tall, had a massive body, a huge horned head and six limbs. All four eyes of the monster stared directly at JB. He looked at those foamy jaws, sharp teeth, and the look full of madness, and realized that it was just the beginning of the real trouble. The monster charged forwards, moving its clumsy feet along that narrow path. Yet, his speed was pretty impressive.

  At first, the ranger thought that it could be a setup, to kill him in an accident. But then one of the rahtiongs pushed him behind and the firing started. Both guards were discharging hundreds of bullets in seconds, but the thunder from the monster’s steps didn’t lower a bit. JB dropped on his knees and rushed to load up an injector to inject the
substance into his neck. The shooting was partially replaced by the loud scream of the dying rahtiong. In a few seconds when JB turned back to that view, he saw as the creature lifted up the second guard using its horns. It shook him over and over until the victim was dead. Then it dropped him down from the cliff.

  Now it was Bridger’s turn to meet face to face with the local fowl. Not getting too deep into thinking, JB turned around and ran away as hard as he could. His doubts about such a decision vanished when he saw Hyam, who had already done the same. The guy had reached the closest elevator, which was moving along round vertical glass tunnel.

  After passing those few hundreds of meters for the record time, the mutant was still late for the ride. Yet, he managed to jump inside the closing shaft itself. The capsule went up, he was straight under it, falling down the shaft. JB turned a switch on the vest to reverse its polarity. The vest became a giant magnet, which pulled him up, snapping to the elevator’s bottom. He watched as the monster charged at the shaft’s door and kept on tearing it into pieces to get in. It was clear that the door wouldn’t hold for long.

  JB grabbed on to one of two handles that were under the capsule to switch off his vest. There was a hatch that led inside from the bottom. The mutant took out a knife to hit on the lock as hard as he could. The hatch opened up. As soon as the ranger got inside, he met his deadly scared companion once again.

  “Well, thanks for waiting for me!” JB said threateningly. “Are you treating all of your guests this way?!”

  The conversation was interrupted by a metallic clatter coming from downside. The men saw through the opened hatch as the creature went inside the shaft and went climbing up. Squeezing like a rat, it was moving up swiftly, they didn’t have much time.