by Frank Carey
The tablet screen showed something non-human holding an alien device. It stopped talking when it saw James.
“You’re not Customer Service, are you?”
“Nope, I think you have the wrong number.”
The tablet went blank and the device went dead.
“I think it hung-up on us,” the tech said. ”How rude!”
With that, James picked the device up and smashed it on the ground.
“Why don’t we get back to work?”
Side Trip
“Wake up! We need to keep moving,” Jaeger, yelled to the stranger. The wind was howling as the temperature plummeted. If his new charge didn’t get up then both of them could die from hypothermia.
Jaeger, Empire-renowned explorer and adventurer, was on his 100th trek, this time across a snow-covered expanse as he searched for the fabled Singing Caves of the Planet Callusa. He had been dropped off at a landing site approximately 100 clicks from the caves and was hiking through sub-zero temperatures and gale-force winds. He had been making good time until he found the stranger crumpled on the ground directly in his path. Jaeger had only one choice: abandon the trek and rescue the stranger.
Jaeger checked his map and saw that there was a protected canyon with caves about one-half click northeast of their current position, so he placed the semi-comatose stranger on his pull-along sled, covered him with a blanket, and headed to the caves.
When they got there, Jaeger immediately set about making a fire to raise the ambient temperature. Luckily, there were many dead cave trees around to use as fuel. Once he had a good fire going, Jaeger tended to his charge. He got the stranger off the sled and onto the makeshift bed near the fire. The stranger’s clothing was soaked with sweat, so Jaeger removed it to let the fire better warm. When Jaeger removed the outer layers he was surprised to find his new friend was a female of the Altan race. She was wearing a uniform with the rank insignia of Captain in the Consortium Exploration Corps. Her name badge had Felar embroidered on it.
As the storm raged outside and Captain Felar slept near the fire, Jaeger spent his time laying out the captain’s clothes and equipment near the fire to dry. The clothing was high tech as was her equipment. Unfortunately, the severe conditions on Callusa were more than a match for the technology. Long ago, Jaeger discovered that technology was no substitute for skill and experience. The captain’s dependence on Consortium technology almost killed her, ‘almost’ being the operative word.
The captain waking up interrupted Jaeger’s reverie.
“Where am I?” she said as she woke and sat up. She grabbed at her blanket when she realized that she was naked.
“Good, you live,” Jaeger said. “I’m Jaeger. I found you out in the snow, about to freeze to death, so I brought you here and built a fire for us. Would you like some cave moss tea? Very refreshing.” He offered her a cup of something green-tinted and steaming, which she took and carefully drank. “Captain, if I may be so bold, why are you out here alone and so ill prepared?”
“My crew and I are on a rescue mission. A courier ship carrying my husband and his entourage crashed somewhere near here. We got a faint signal from the survivors, but we couldn’t get to them with the ship due to terrain, so we got close and tried to hike in. The weather turned when we got halfway there, so we turned around. I got separated from the rest of the rescue team.”
“Ah, the ‘short hike’ syndrome, I cannot count the number of people killed on short hikes. Here, show me where you think they are on this map,” he said as he laid-out the map in front of the captain.
The captain, frowning at Jaeger’s comments, found the signal’s origin point on the map and pointed it out.
“Ah, we may be in luck,” he said as he pulled a tattered notebook from his jacket pocket. “Yes, as I thought, this cave is part of an interlinked network of caves including the one your husband’s group is hold-up in. The system was extensively mapped by the expedition that found the Singing Caves. They probably hoped to find another singing cave. Assuming that they did their job correctly and Apollo is smiling on us, we can be there in a couple of hours. Are you up to a hike?”
“Yes, of course, but wait, who’s Apollo?” she asked as she gathered her clothes and got dressed.
“Human god of knowledge. Hopefully, he smiles on they who made this map.” With that, Jaeger gathered up his equipment, including his collapsible sled, which he carefully packed in his backpack.
Soon the two were on their way. The cave passages were huge and the going easy until they came upon a cave-dwelling creature the likes of which neither had ever seen before. It could only be described as an eight-foot tall, eight-legged rat with huge eyes and a prehensile tail. The creature blocked their path.
As Felar kept watch on the creature, Jaeger pulled out his notebook and thumbed through several pages before finding the one he wanted. Clucking to himself he reached into one of his pack pockets and pulled out a shiny necklace made of polished steel. “Luckily, I was able to find the notes of the original explorers of this planet,” he said as he walked up to the cave dweller. As Felar stared in disbelief, Jaeger offered the dweller the necklace. It quickly grabbed the shiny object and ran off into the darkness with it.
“According to the previous expedition, that particular creature has an affinity for shiny things which verges on obsessive. It will probably spend the next several hours admiring its new treasure. Let’s continue on our way.”
As they passed though the network of caves, Felar struck up a conversation with the explorer.
“Jaeger?” she asked. “Why do this? Why risk your life? Wouldn’t it be easier just to send down some robotic probes to do the dangerous stuff?”
“There is something about being there in person, first hand, feeling the heat, or the cold, or the sting of dry sand. Do you realize that you and I are the first members of our species to ever be in these caves? The first to smell the air, to hear the wind. To me that is easily worth the danger and the discomfort. That is the true meaning of exploration: to find something first hand.”
Felar grew silent as she formulated an idea. She found Jaeger to be thought provoking.
An hour later, the pair entered the cave containing the crash survivors. As Jaeger set about tending to the others, Felar ran up to her husband and hugged him in a very un-Captain-like manner. Soon, all were attended to.
“Jaeger, how do we get everyone out of here? I can’t contact my ship, and it couldn’t get in here anyway. These people aren’t in any shape to walk out,” Felar said, worried.
“I checked outside and there is a flat area that, though too small for your ship, is more than large enough for a transport shuttle to land. My expedition is funded by a film crew that was going to shoot my arrival at the Singing Caves. They gave me a secure radio with which to call them when I was near the caves. I just did that, and they are on their way. The shuttle should be here in an hour. They contacted your ship, and it is going to rendezvous with the shuttle at the Singing Caves.
The cargo shuttle arrived and the survivors were loaded aboard. The last person left was Jaeger, who, instead of getting on board, unpacked his sled and reloaded his pack on it.
“Jaeger, where are you going?” Felar asked from the shuttles doorway.
“I’m going to finish my trek,” he said as he donned his gloves. “It is a wonderful day for a hike, don’t you think?”
With that, the shuttle door closed, and Jaeger headed down a trail back to the frozen wasteland where he could return to his journey. In the shuttle, Felar sat next to her husband, realizing that, if not for Jaeger, she and the crash survivors would be dead. Jaeger was right; civilization had become too dependent on technology. Perhaps, with his help, she could change that.
Observer
I walked up to the bench, put my bag containing Snake down and examined the device while ignoring Steve. Unlike the rest of the people in the room, I was fluent in Craytor. My blood ran cold when I realized that the device was in
the last throes of containment failure, and that in about an hour, this lab, and the planet it sat on, would become part of a black hole. But the day started off so well.
The alarm woke me after my normal three hours of sleep. It was three in the morning, so everything was quiet. I met up with Snake on the way to the shower and he told me that all was well with the world, so I washed and prepped for a normal, boring day on planet Earth.
Watching a dozen news feeds while eating breakfast, I found myself looking forward to next week when my tour of Earth ended, and I could return to Klatuk, my home planet. Even though I am half-human, I find the people of Earth to be irritating and interaction with them tedious. Mother keeps saying that I need to be more tolerant. One more week, though, and my tolerance level will become a moot point.
"Rachel, we have a class one anomaly being reported on the Internet," Snake said as he climbed to the top of the kitchen table.
"Bring it up on monitor six, please," I said as my training kicked in. A class one anomaly is about as bad as it gets.
"Good morning, Jennifer," the reporter said. Behind him was a mountain chain above which was an unearthly purple glow. I recognized the glow, and it wasn’t good. "We are reporting from Rachel, Nevada. To the south of us, in the direction of Groom Lake, is an unearthly purple glow that appeared about ten hours ago. Though there is no official word from the Air Force, many are speculating that the glow has something to do with the mythical Area 51. We will continue to monitor the situation and report any new developments as they come in."
"Snake, contact Research Command and report that we have a possible tech breach at Groom Lake, and I am going in to assess the situation, as per General Order 8," I yelled from the bedroom as I packed a kit and changed into an outfit more fitting a government auditor.
"Aye, aye, ma’am," the snake said. "Command has replied. They want you to stand by. Meanwhile, per protocol, I tried scanning the area around Groom Lake, but all sensors are dead.
I continued to hunt out scanners, tools, and a weapon to take with me as I waited for Command to get back to me. Dead sensors indicated that things could be even worse than I first thought. This was supposed to be a standard anthropological study of a pre-FTL society about to enter the intergalactic fold. I was chosen for this assignment because my mother had decided to marry a human male. Nowhere in the job description was there a mention of stopping planetary disasters.
"Rachel, incoming communication from Research Command. It’s Commander Garcia."
"Great, put her on," I said as I zipped my suitcase shut. "Mother, it’s so good to hear from you. How’s Dad doing?" I asked as I surveyed the room looking for anything I might have missed.
"Rachel, report! What in the Three Goblets of Markesh is going on there?" she yelled over the link.
"Good to hear that you and Dad are doing well. I’m doing great," I answered as I sat down in front of the monitor attached to the camera. In the screen was my mother in full uniform, her huge eyes glowing red with a variety of emotions that I couldn’t read. Before she could further blow her stack, I continued with a real report. "We just caught a newscast about a purple glow coming from Groom Lake. They showed the glow, and it looks similar to that produced by an FTL Drive Core starting down the road to overload. Per protocol, Snake tried to scan the affected area using the in situ sensors, but they’re all dead. I recommend that all RC personnel initiate emergency evac immediately. Snake and I are going to go to Groom Lake and try to get a handle on what’s going on there," I said. "Snake, get us to Groom Lake, Pronto."
"Aye, aye, Rachel," he said as he accessed another of the apartment’s computer terminals. "I assume that you want to use the "Dr. Worthington, Government Investigator" persona?"
"Yes, perfect," I said half-aware as I studied my mother’s face on the monitor.
"Rachel, you don’t have to do this. You have nothing to prove," Mother said as she looked at me.
"Nothing to prove? What about just trying to save several billion souls from annihilation? I’ll contact you when I get to Groom Lake. Rachel out," I said as I cut the connection. I looked up and saw Snake watching me. "What?" I asked, perturbed.
"I have a jet standing by for a direct flight to Groom Lake. I re-purposed some of the Las Vegas scanners to look for energy. They confirm that the purple glow is from an FTL Drive Core building up to an overload with a time-to-detonation estimate of ten hours, mark. You should do as your mother suggests and leave," he said as he coiled his body.
"Not a chance," I said as I motioned for him to get into my purse. "House, standby mode," I said as we headed through front door.
"Aye, aye, mistress," I heard the house reply as I closed and locked the door behind me.
Three hours later, I found myself in a plane on final approach to Groom Lake with Snake at the controls. Our flight plan showed that I was a government investigator coming to the facility to find out exactly what was going on. I was hoping that there wasn’t a problem, only a misstep that Snake could quietly fix, after which he and I would get out of there and back to our house in Las Vegas suburbia.
After touching down, Snake taxied the jet to a hanger farthest away from the research complex at the center of the base. As the jet rolled to a stop, I looked out a window and saw the extent of the problem. An eerie, alien, purple glow emanated from one of the buildings, and its intensity pulsed with a regular frequency. Just then, the jet's door opened and a general and a researcher walked in and greeted me.
"Doctor Worthington? I’m General Smith and this is Doctor Pagan, the Complex’s director. We are surprised and glad to see that the Air Force could send someone on such short notice."
"I was in the neighborhood when I saw the news report about the purple glow over the complex, so I came ASAP," I said not lying. "Please, take me to where the glow is coming from," I said using my "in command" voice.
"Yes, of course, right this way," the general said as he boarded an electric Jeep. Moments later, we entered a building guarded by several armed soldiers.
"We recently took possession of alien technology that was secured from a spaceship that crashed outside Denver," the general said. "The artifact was part of the spacecraft’s propulsion system."
This was not good. The spacecraft belonged to a Craytor smuggling cartel, and I had intel that it had been totally destroyed on impact. The Craytor used drives based on an antimatter-enhanced singularity drive system that was unstable at best, which is why the Craytor were the only ones that used it. The damn things had a tendency to lose containment and explode with a vengeance. If a drive exploded on-planet, there would be no planet left.
We walked into a room illuminated in a purple glow from a device sitting on a lab bench. The glow was blindingly bright, so the general handed-out protective goggles before walking us over to the bench. Standing there was a very handsome researcher whose nametag read "S. Morgan."
"Dr. Worthington, may I introduce Dr. Steven Morgan, our head researcher. Steve, Dr. Worthington is here to help us understand what's going on."
I walked up to the bench, put my bag containing Snake down and examined the device, while ignoring Steve. Unlike the rest of the people in the room, I was fluent in Craytor. My blood ran cold when I realized that the device was in the last throes of containment failure and that in about an hour this lab and the planet it sat on would become part of a black hole.
"So, Dr. Worthington, what do you think?" Steve asked as he gave me a once-over.
"I think that someone has really screwed the pooch by removing all the safety interlocks from a Craytor FTL Drive Core, and then dinking around with its innards until they initiated a containment failure. I figure we have about an hour to get this piece of alien junk off this planet or else we, and this rock, are going to turn into a big cloud of subatomic dust. Snake, escort the general and Director out of here, then seal the building while Steve and I try to fix things."
"Aye, aye, Rachel," Snake said as he exited the bag and climbed down
to the floor to face the general and Director. "You two move-along like the pretty woman said, or else."
"Or else what?" the general said as he reached for his pistol.
A pair of ruby-red laser beams shot from Snake’s eyes and cut the general’s pistol neatly in half without even singeing a hair on his hand. Seeing this, the general and the Director exited the room without another word. Once they were gone, Snake, who was already tied into the site's computer system, ordered all doors into the room be locked.
"Rachel, it won’t take them long to breach this place."
"I understand. Call mom and give her a report. Meanwhile, Steve, my name is Rachel, and this is my companion, Snake. We are an anthropological research team from the Stellar Trade Consortium, and we are here to do a work-up of your culture as a precursor to its inclusion. What you have is an antimatter-enhanced singularity drive core about to go supernova. I need to either stop it or get it off-planet. Snake, scan the core. Can we stop the containment breach?"
"In a word: no. Containment breach is inevitable. We now have fifty-five minutes, mark."
"OK, Plan B then. Get it off-planet. I assume you don’t have any small spaceships lying around that we could use to take this thing outside the orbit of your moon, do you?" She asked Steve.
"No. Even if we had a ship, it would take days for it to get past the Moon," he said. "Wait a minute; we do have the old Roswell wreck in Hangar 18. It runs, or at least it floats."
"Snake, can you tie-into that ship’s navcomp and get it over here?"
"Working… I have it. It is on its way. Oops, forgot about the hangar door. Now it’s on its way."
"I think I can speed things up," Steve said as he typed on a keyboard. Suddenly, the roof of the lab opened up to reveal a clear, purple-tinted sky overhead with a classic saucer-shaped craft arcing into view. In moments, Snake remotely landed the ship in the middle of the lab and extended its boarding ramp.
"Great. Steve, help me get this device onto that ship. Once it’s onboard, we can set the autopilot to take it beyond the moon in a matter of seconds."
