by S. H. Jucha
With the weapon’s strap wound around the alien’s right arm, the creature was launched forward into the shallow waves. The weapon came loose, and it ended up in Teague’s hands. Expecting to be shot in the next instant, Teague glanced at the other five aliens, while holding the weapon out to his side. However, instead of the warriors looking at him, they stared in horror at their companion. The alien warrior was in a meter’s depth of water, but he was on his back, floundering and keening, as if he would drown or perhaps be eaten.
“Black space,” Teague mumbled and tossed the weapon at the nearest warrior, who fumbled it and dropped it to the sand. Then Teague waded over to the panicked alien, grabbed him under the arms, and hoisted him bodily up and out of the water. Hard nails drove deep into the skin of Teague’s shoulders, and he shouted in surprise and threw the warrior away from him. Unfortunately, that sent the alien into deeper water.
Howls of horror erupted from both the floundering youth and those watching from the safety of the shore. The din was ear-splitting and galvanized Teague to quickly wade over and snatch the struggling warrior by the back of what appeared to be some sort of makeshift armor. Then he walked ashore, dragging the creature behind him.
Stepping onto the shore, Teague, with one hand, stood the warrior up and pointed at his bleeding shoulder with the other. “Don’t do that,” he said forcefully, wagging a finger at the warrior before he let him go.
A burst of angry barks and growls issued from the alien’s leaders, and the warriors backed away from Teague.
Ginny attempted to hand Teague’s clothes back, but the leader issued more commands, pointing at the pile of clothes in her arms and wagging his finger at Ginny.
The alien leader spoke to Ginny, motioning her to drop the clothes, which she did. Then he waved his hand over the group, touched his body high and low, and pointed at Teague’s clothes, lying in the sand.
Xavier sent.
The team stripped off packs, canteens, stun guns, boots, and clothes. When Ginny and Keira stood naked before the aliens, they elicited a great many yips and hisses, but a command from the leader silenced them. None of the Harakens missed the fact that the weapons previously trained on the women slowly moved away to aim exclusively at the men.
* * *
Everyone at the traveler’s survey site was privy to Willem’s broadcast from the moment the aliens boiled over the plateau and descended on the small team on the shore. Most were transfixed by the action, but Bethany and Smitty cried out for them to abandon the masquerade and board the traveler with all haste. The scientists and techs were slow to respond, until they witnessed dried brush falling over, revealing open hatches, and aliens springing from the holes. Then the survey team scrambled for the traveler’s ramp, while Bethany and Smitty provided rear guard.
“Sarge, tell me we can shoot,” Smitty said, his voice strong and clear, as he backed toward the traveler.
“If they don’t fire, we don’t fire, Corporal. That’s until they get too close,” Bethany declared, as she swept the perimeter with her location app for any implants out of position. To her relief, every team member was either in the traveler or headed that way. “Inside the ship, Corporal. Hurry! Standby to signal Orly to trigger the plex-crystal doors first. They’ll close the fastest.”
Bethany could hear Smitty’s boots pound up the gangway ramp. She wasn’t going to make it in time. The aliens were covering ground at a tremendous speed, aided by the powerful musculature of their hind legs, and if she turned her back to run, they’d catch her.
Instead, Bethany backed up, extending her stun gun in front of her. She held her palm out, attempting to warn her attackers to stay away. But, either the enemy didn’t understand her message or they were having none of it. Her boot heel struck the ramp, as she shot the first warrior, fervently hoping that the energy from her weapon wouldn’t overload the alien’s nerves and kill it.
Bethany continued to fell the aliens as she backed up the ramp into the traveler. She dropped eight of them until hands grabbed her from behind and yanked her backwards. The plex-crystal doors swung shut in front of her nose, and the aliens were left to pound on the transparent doors with fists or the butts of their weapons. The Harakens didn’t need a translation to understand the harsh barking and growling thrown at them by the warriors, who were extremely irate at their quarry escaping capture.
Orly signaled the heavy rear shell of the shuttle to close at one-fourth its optimum rate. He wanted to give the creatures time to notice the ramp’s activity.
The survey team watched first one and then another of the warriors stop their pounding, glance backward, and edge toward the ramp. A scarred muzzle marked an older individual, who issued a string of commands, and the aliens abruptly halted their attack against the plex-crystal doors, raced up the ramp, which had begun to point upward, and leapt for the ground. Unfortunately, one bright-eyed youth failed to heed his superior’s command.
“Persistent individual, isn’t he?” Smitty remarked, placing his face close to the plex-crystal to get a closer look at the alien, which only served to frustrate the warrior even more.
The scarred warrior, who now stood outside the ship, barked a final command, which brought the frothing youngster to his senses. The young warrior turned to find the top of the ramp only a few meters from closing and sealing to the ship’s rear. In panic, he dropped his weapon and raced toward the opening. Leaping, he threw his body sideways through the gap, leaving a bit of fur on the sharp edge of the hatch and dropped over the other side.
Bethany signaled Orly to open the plex-crystal doors, and she snatched the alien’s weapon. She intended to understand its capabilities, as soon as possible. Turning around, she bumped into a scientist, who carried a sample bag and a pair of tweezers. The man apologized and hurried to collect the piece of fur.
The scientist’s efforts brought a smile to Bethany’s face. Good to see we have our heads screwed on tight, she thought. But soon the smile was wiped off her face, and silence descended over the survey group, as they listened to the sound of something scraping over the entire hull.
When Bethany threw herself into the copilot’s seat, she grabbed a helmet so that she could get a visual from the controller. “What’s that?” she asked, unable to decipher the odd visual from the traveler’s hull sensors.
“I believe you’re looking at a net, Sergeant.”
“A net? Do they think we’re some sort of giant sea creature?”
“Whatever their thoughts, Sergeant, I recommend we liftoff.”
“A net shouldn’
t stop us, Orly. We can tear it out of the ground when we lift,” Bethany said confidently. “I think we should check in with the lieutenant and get new orders. This is a security problem now.”
“Our choices might be limited, Sergeant.” Orly said.
Bethany’s helmet received a display of the traveler’s power cells levels. “We’re sealed up, Orly. We should be charging. Why are our levels dropping?”
“This is a new one on me, Sergeant, but my best guess is that the net they’ve thrown over us is made of some sort of conductive metal, and it’s interrupting the shell’s charging capability.”
“And they would have anchored it to the ground,” Edward said. He’d been standing in the cockpit doorway and listening to their conversation. When both individuals turned to stare at him, he added, “More than likely, the anchors are metal too. So the net isn’t only interrupting the charging of the power cells, it’s acting like an electrical ground, draining our cells through the shell.
“Orly, lift immediately,” Bethany ordered.
“Sorry, I think it’s too late, Sergeant. We’ve had the shell open all day. The scientists and techs have been running their equipment off the cells, and the crew’s been using our refresher and meal dispensers. Once nightfall came, I intended to seal the ship and charge the power cells. We might have had enough to lift before the net was thrown over us, but it’s been draining us incredibly quickly, and the controller now estimates that we’re slightly underpowered to make orbit. And that’s before we use up enough energy to break free of the net, if we even can.”
“Orly, you’re not making my day,” Bethany replied, smacking the pilot’s shoulder lightly to let him know her irritation wasn’t aimed at him.
“We have another issue to deal with, Sergeant,” Edward said.
“Oh, joy, I can’t wait,” Bethany remarked. It was her style that the worse a situation got, the more acerbic she would become. In a rare meeting with Tatia Tachenko, who witnessed a training exercise go south and Bethany’s frustrated repartee with her commander, the admiral remarked that Bethany should get to know Julien, adding that the SADE and she had a lot in common.
“Orly can reduce extraneous power drains to buy us more time,” Edward explained. “Then he can calculate how soon we’ll need to crack the rear shell … if it will be safe to crack the rear shell.”
“Why would we need to … black space … we’ll need air,” Bethany replied, catching on to Edward’s concern.
“Precisely, Sergeant. But the real question is this: Providing we can get the hatch wedged open, what will be the aliens’ response?”
“He’s got a point, Sergeant. They could fire their weapons through the opening,” Orly said.
“I would expect the plex-crystal doors could withstand their fire, although I can tell you more, once we examine the weapon we captured,” Bethany replied. “But my fear is that they could jam something heavy into both sides of the hatch, forcing us to surrender. But something about this attack seems off. Why didn’t the aliens fire their weapons at us? They saw me drop eight of the comrades. They had to think I killed them with my ray gun.” She laughed weakly at her reference to ancient science fiction stories.
“Perhaps, the weapons are for show, and they don’t have the means of producing the items necessary to fire from the barrels?” Orly volunteered.
“Or perhaps, they had orders not to fire,” Edward added. “Willem reported that no shots were fired at the beach.”
While the two men pondered the gravity of their situation, Bethany hurried to the back of the traveler. She needed more information on the alien’s weapon — whether it was armed and capable of firing, its armament type, and its potential destructive capability.
-6-
Captured
“Report, Commander,” Nyslara ordered.
“The engagement was a partial success, my queen.”
“Rather tepid tidings, Commander.”
“We captured a small group of the aliens at the great water’s edge, but one of their warriors, patrolling outside their shuttle, possessed keen eyes. We believe it spotted the reflection from our lookouts’ scopes and warned the others, who’ve taken refuge in their ship.”
“So the shuttle is gone,” Nyslara lamented.
“That’s the strange thing, my queen. We threw our greatest ceena net over the ship and staked it down. So far, the ship hasn’t launched.”
“Surely the aliens’ technology could overcome a simple net of woven metal.”
“You would think so, my queen. They could be waiting for the return of their companions.”
“Perhaps,” Nyslara agreed. She regarded the scene painted on the ceiling of her greeting room. It was a lifelike representation of the broad, arid plains, as the Dischnya first saw them. “How many soma were lost?
“None, my queen.”
“Better tidings, Commander. And what of the aliens?”
“The group we captured is being held in a storeroom on the nest’s rim near the waters where we captured them.
“How many of them were killed?”
“None, my queen”
“Explain, Commander,” Nyslara demanded. The encounters were not unfolding in any manner that she expected, and that was only adding to her frustration to find a safe path forward for her soma.
“In my experience, my queen, it’s better to raid a nest and take the goods rather than kill the soma. The killing of another queen’s people only breeds the desire for revenge. As I watched the aliens, it was evident to me that they carried no long weapons. At best, short weapons were strapped to their middles. I ordered my warriors to hold fire unless the aliens touched their pouches, where the weapons resided, if that’s what they were.”
“Were they weapons?”
“Not as we understand them, my queen. We’ve confiscated the ones possessed by the group at the water’s edge and tested them, but no projectiles came out the end. Some of my subordinates believe they are only tools. But those who attacked the shuttle swear that they are the same instrument used on eight of our warriors, who were felled.”
“You said none of our soma were killed, Commander,” Nyslara hissed, and her lips curled away from her sharp teeth.
“And so they weren’t, my queen,” Pussiro said quickly. “After the shuttle closed, the warriors sought to carry their fallen comrades back underground and were surprised to discover they breathed and their hearts beat. A sub-commander reported that it was if the eight were in a deep sleep from which they wouldn’t awaken. They were carried below, and, before I came here, I received a report that they were waking. It was said that they were groggy and disoriented, but otherwise quickly recovering.
“These strangers land on a foreign planet, and they don’t bring weapons that kill. What type of entities are these aliens?” Nyslara asked herself before commanding Pussiro to continue his report.
“When we rushed the aliens at the waters and encircled them, they didn’t fight. Instead, they displayed their arms as such.” Pussiro held out his arms up and to the side, palms toward Nyslara. “Pardon my offense, my queen.”
“None perceived, Pussiro.” The gesture among the Dischnya was one of aggression, hands held high, and a position from which weapons or nails could strike.
“Why did you think this gesture meant the aliens didn’t intend to defend themselves?”
“They’re without claws, my queen. They wore coverings over their feet, and their forehands have soft, pink nails that don’t extend beyond the digits. When they raised their limbs away from their technology, which resides around their middles and on their backs, I took this to mean that they didn’t wish a confrontation.”
“Oh, how clever of you, Commander. With no aliens or soma dead, you’ve left us room to maneuver. If we can communicate with the interlopers, they might be amenable to negotiations.”
“That might be a challenge, my queen. Two warriors have been stationed inside the storeroom with the aliens, and four warriors are
outside in the corridor. During the time that they have been under observation, they’ve not uttered a single word. They sit, all but one of them, who stands, and they say nothing.”
“Are they without tongues? Are they mute?”
“We’ve seen tongues, although they are small and truncated. We heard speech, of a sort, at the water’s edge when one of the male aliens tried to drown a warrior but then rescued him.” When Nyslara’s upper lip rose, demonstrating her agitation, Pussiro hurried on. “It might have been the warrior’s fault, my queen. The alien appeared to have taken offense at a warrior, who prodded him. Before I could halt the action, the alien, who emerged from the great waters, tossed the warrior out past him. When the alien plucked him out, my warrior was panicked, and he sunk his nails into the male’s shoulders. Then he was thrown into even deeper waters. The alien waded out and pulled him to shore.”
Nyslara stared at Pussiro for so long that the commander ducked his eyes to the floor. “It happened as I said, my queen,” Pussiro uttered softly.
“The alien came out of the great waters?” Nyslara asked with incredulity. “Did he have a ship, a skimmer, which was not capable of reaching the shore?”
“He had no ship, my queen,” Pussiro said. He hissed softly, a sign of discomfort or exclamation, and eyed the exquisite painting on the ceiling.
“I’m waiting, Commander,” Nyslara said firmly but quietly. She worked to control her temper, since it was obvious that the commander’s encounter with the aliens had disturbed him.
“The alien rode two ceena to shore. In fact, four of them surfaced with him. But, while they were definitely ceena, they weren’t exactly like ours.”
