Second Chance
by
Thomas Watson
Second Chance by Thomas Watson
Copyright ©2013 by Thomas Watson
All Rights Reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact the author at:
desertstarsbks@gmail.com .
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
The author expressly prohibits any entity from using this publication for purposes of training artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text, including without limitation technologies that are capable of generating works in the same style or genre as this publication. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
With thanks to Stephanie Hansen and Linda Watson for beta reading and copy editing.
This story takes place in the same universe as the War of the Second Iteration series, between The Courage to Accept (Book Four) and Setha’im Prosh (Book Five). In a somewhat different form, it is repeated in Courage to Accept.
Second Chance
“It got off your ship?” Jan Costa leaned back from his gray metal desk, not caring at all that his annoyance was visible. “What the hell were you thinking, bringing that thing here if you weren’t certain you could control it?”
“Until the breakout,” Captain Morrissey replied, “we had every reason to believe we had the specimen well in hand.”
“Well, you were wrong. And now that thing may be loose on my station!”
“It’s lost in the docks, somewhere, no doubt floundering around in zero-g,” the Captain insisted with a small, dismissive wave of one hand. “Not out in the station proper.”
“We can be sure of that? Completely sure? Huh! I rather doubt it. Now I have to put station security on alert and probably call in off-duty staff, just in case.”
“My people are in the dock area searching right now. They’ll find it. And I do apologize for the inconvenience and expense, which the RDF will … ”
“Inconvenience and expense? I’m far more concerned with the potential hazard this thing creates for the residents of the station!” Costa said, with a gesture toward the now motionless display projected over the center of the desk. “Though you can be damned sure our investors will squeeze the RDF for this!”
“The creature’s abilities were not revealed until it used them to escape,” Captain Morrissey said, gaze dropping down to the small holograph between them as he shook his head. “My crewman found the cell in the brig empty, or so he thought. He was surprised, and opened it to investigate, just as you saw.”
“You said the crewman was injured?” Costa asked.
“A broken arm, severe concussion,” Morrissey replied. “It could have been much worse.”
Costa stared at the Captain, who sat before him in the deep blue uniform of the Republic Defense Force, troubled by the feel of this situation. Costa was a veteran of the RDF, himself. He’d led men in combat, all manner of men, and in that context seen many things. So he knew a liar when he met one, and the entire exchange with Morrissey felt false. But what exactly was the lie? From what he’d heard and seen thus far, it seemed a lie of omission. What was Captain Morrissey not telling him? “From what you’ve said, and from that bit of video you provided, I wonder that this animal didn’t tear your crewman to bits.” He kept his words quick and blunt, though Costa was nowhere near as angry as he sounded. He wanted Morrissey to think he was angry, very angry indeed. He wanted to goad the Captain, to see if he might grow defensive and respond in kind. Anger often made a man careless, and a mistake by Captain Morrissey could be revealing.
But Morrissey was a cool one, and didn’t take the bait. “It was in a hurry to escape,” he replied with a shrug. “It injured him by knocking him down and trampling him in its rush for the door. As I said, it could have been much worse. He was lucky it just wanted to get away.”
“Damn fool shouldn’t have opened that cage,” Costa muttered. He looked at the frozen image that occupied his desk. “Replay,” he commanded.
The scene was of the RDF Richmond’s brig; bare and functional and brightly lit, it was the only place in the cruiser that was designed to safely hold a living thing in captivity. Centered in the camera view was a cell closed off by slender, shiny titanium bars, set close enough that a man would have had trouble slipping an arm through them. Something behind the bars moved, a shadow shape and nothing more. A crewman in dark blue standard-issue coveralls appeared before the door. Dark hair and a dark uniform gave his youthful face a pallid look. He wore a long-barreled sidearm on his right hip and a look of concern on his pale face. His hand never went to the weapon. The young man was speaking to whatever was held behind the bars, but the clip did not display with audio; Costa couldn’t even guess what was being said. The crewman leaned closer, then looked frantically up and around. He reached to one side and slapped at the lock’s palm panel and, when the bars slid aside, stepped toward the door of the cell. At the same instant there was a rush of motion, a large grey blur that gave an impression of angular limbs. The crewman gave a shout of pain and anger as the animal bowled him over.
The replay in its entirety was less than half a minute in length.
“Back three and freeze!” Costa leaned forward to peer at the creature in the frozen 3-D projection. “God save us,” Costa said. He shivered a little as he tried to fathom the uncanny form now visible on his desk’s projection area. “What the hell is that thing, anyway?”
“Wish I could tell you,” the Captain replied. “Our ship’s doctor is the closest thing we have to a scientist on board. He’s not at all sure what to make of it. Nothing on record matches.”
“And you found it where, again?”
“We were on a routine check of an unsettled system, LU-12-167B, a couple of translocations from here. There’s a living world there and it’s due for its first wave of settlers in about a month. We were sent to make a final sweep of the colony landing site.”
“And found this?” Costa asked with a frown.
“Actually, it found us,” Morrissey replied. “It wandered into the landing site and was found messing with some equipment. We hit it with a stunner and took it back up to the ship.”
“Why in God’s name would you do that?” Costa demanded.
The Captain raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? The animal wasn’t described in any of the survey reports. Hell, by our onboard database, at least, there’s never been anything like it seen anywhere! The potential bonus for my crew is enormous!”
“Make sure your crewman gets an extra share,” Costa muttered. “Any idea what he was saying at the time?” he asked. “I can see from the vid record that he was talking.”
“Knowing Simmons, something profane,” Captain Morrissey replied, looking away.
“Now that I’m thinking about it, how is it this record lacks audio?” and Costa waved his right hand toward the frozen image. “Since when does an RDF brig lack complete surveillance?”
First Captain Morrissey looked surprised; then he tried to cover it by giving the frozen 3-D image a hard stare. “You’re quite right, station master Costa, there should be an audio component. I thought you had the sound muted.”
“I don’t.”
“I’ll have to find out what the problem is,” Morrissey said.
Costa suppressed a knowing smile and thought, My dear Captain. You should never, ever take up the game of poker! What is it about your crewman talking to that thing that you don’t want me to know? “Please do,” he said aloud. “It’s possible your crewman said something in his surprise that might be of use to us … Excuse me.” Costa tapped the flashing com tab on his desk and said to his security chief, “Yes, Pauline, what is it?” He pretended not to notice the vexed look on Captain Morrissey’s face.
“Sir, we’ve had some sort of incident reported in the core, just beyond the docks. Noises were heard, and crew checked it out. There’s extensive damage to a secondary access hatch leading into a bundle of utility tubes.”
Costa knew Pauline had followed his instructions to listen in on his meeting with Captain Morrissey. She knew what he knew, and had come to an obvious conclusion, hence the interruption. “Security level one, Pauline. Get our people armed and out there, including off-duty security staff.”
“Public notice?” she asked.
“Not yet. But have maintenance quietly extract any crews it has in the core.” Costa kept an eye on Morrissey, noting the frowning, tight-lipped expression. Costa was sure the good Captain was most displeased with this turn of events. If civilians were harmed by the creature, he could well face a court-martial instead of collecting a fat bonus. It could even mean the end of his career.
“We need to hunt that thing down and kill it, quickly!” Morrissey said. “I have a contingent of Marines aboard, skilled in zero-g fire … ”
“We do indeed need to locate it,” Costa replied. “But my people know this station, and most of my security people are vets. Some of us saw combat together. They’ll be more than sufficient.” He looked again at the image, a nightmare shape of angular limbs, smooth skin like some sort of exoskeleton, a rounded head with protruding clusters of black orbs he assumed were eyes, and spines and claws and – well, it looked like something a vid producer might design to frighten children for fun and profit. “Isolate central image,” he instructed the computer. “Distribute file to security. Standing order, locate creature and report. Do not use deadly force unless necessary to safeguard station personnel. Disable and capture if possible. Standard stun settings have proven effective.”
“You can’t be serious!” Captain Morrissey said. “That thing is dangerous!”
“So is a fire fight on a space station,” Costa replied. “My people will use stun settings. You said that brought it down back on its home planet.”
“I have sharpshooters among the Marines assigned to my ship,” Morrissey said, and somehow it didn’t sound like a suggestion. “Minimal risk to personnel.”
“I see no reason to risk my people at all!” Costa snapped. “It’s in our jurisdiction, now. We will handle this.” The glare he turned on Morrissey was no longer feigned.
Morrissey gave him a long, hard look in return, then said, “I need to get back to my ship. I trust you’ll keep me up to date?”
“Yes. We’ll even bring it back to you,” Costa replied. “If we can keep it alive.”
The RDF Captain stood up, seemed about to say something more, then turned and strode from the spare, white-walled office. His body language suggested he wanted to bolt from the room. Costa had no doubt the man would be on his personal com and giving orders as soon as the door closed.
“Pauline?”
“Yes, sir?” Her image appeared in the air where the Captain had been sitting a moment before. Pauline was anything but petite, though there wasn’t a spare kilo anywhere on her. They were no longer soldiers, either of them, but like her former commanding officer, Pauline had stayed fit. She sat behind a desk ringed with projected monitor screens that floated to either side, allowing a direct view of the station master.
“Monitor all traffic, physical and otherwise, from the Richmond. Captain Morrissey may succumb to the temptation to – help us.”
“Understood.” She reached out a blunt-fingered hand and touched something. “Implemented. Rory is on it.”
“Thanks,” Costa replied. “Now, I need one of your crew to hack into the Richmond’s database and retrieve anything and everything about the colony site they checked on LU-12-167B.”
“Tall order, cracking an RDF onboard,” Pauline said, raising an eyebrow. “I’ll put Rory on that, too. He’ll enjoy it.”
“Yes, he will,” Costa replied.
“Uh, sir? If you don’t mind my asking … ”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Yes, sir. Can’t help being curious.”
Costa sighed and said, “The good Captain is hiding something. Pauline, have you viewed the video he brought? Can you guess what that crewman is saying?”
“Better than guess, sir. I can read lips. He was talking to it. Seemed more concerned than alarmed. Pretty sure he was asking it if everything was all right. Then he very clearly said, ‘Where the hell did you go?’”
“I was afraid of that. Add the advisement that this creature can mimic its surroundings to a high degree and blend in. Make sure the security crews have infrared scanners.” Costa thought a moment. “Isolate and monitor the infrared channel on the security system, while you’re at it.”
“Yes, sir. That’s already done.”
“Of course it is,” he said with a short laugh. “So, now we wait … ”
“Sir, we have another report of an access hatch destroyed. The image I’m getting – hell, it looks like someone backed a shuttle into it!”
“Where?” Costa demanded.
“Damn! Habitat level. Went half the length of the station core, real quick! Direct access to spoke six.” She looked up at him, clearly alarmed.
“Trying to find its way into the ring,” he said. “But no sightings or alarms raised by anyone still in the core?”
“Not so far, but then, we’re clearing people …” Pauline replied as her eyes swept the various displays around her. She frowned and centered one of them, peering at it intently. “Now isn’t this odd?”
“What?”
“I’ve got a string of infrared anomalies going up and down and around that section of the core. If we were dealing with a person, instead of an animal, I’d say there’s a careful search being performed.”
The record of which she spoke appeared immediately before him. Many of the marks had been recorded after the destruction of the second hatch. “Not in spoke six, then,” Costa said. But we’re supposed to think it’s in there. He would not say something like that out loud, not yet. “I want teams coming in from both ends of the core, working from opposite directions toward the ring interface. Muster a squad and meet me at … ” And with his right forefinger he traced the route of the creature as revealed by infrared sightings. “Access seven, section fifteen. And bring me a sidearm, if you would.”
Costa left his station master’s office and hurried through the upper deck corridors, ignoring the puzzled looks of station crew he passed, then took the nearest available lift access. As the lift capsule carried him to his destination, he touched a spot behind his left ear to activate his personal com. “Rory Pike,” he said.
“Hey, boss,” a voice replied. “What’s up with the local sheriff? She sounds alarmed, if that’s possible!”
“She is, and for good reason. Anything to report?”
“Not yet,” Rory replied. “This’ll be tricky. They shoot people for doing this sort of thing, you know. The Republic is still technically at war.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Costa said. “The current government is on the way out. We’ll be at peace pretty soon.”
“It’ll still be illegal to hack a warship in the Fleet.”
“Only if they catch you,” Costa replied.
“So I should be careful and take my time?”
“No,” said Costa. “I needed those log entries ten minutes ago!”
“I’m gonna get shot,” Rory muttered into the link. “Go away, boss. I’ll let you know when I’ve got what you need. Unless I get shot.”
The capsule slowed and then opened, releasing Costa into the main habitat ring of the station. Bright light and warm air, bearing the scents of leaves and flowers and moisture, greeted him. Also on hand were half a dozen grey-clad security officers, wearing light body armor and armed with rifles and sidearms. They were faces known to him, vets like Pauline who had followed him into retirement, to this frontier station on the back side of the Great Rift, the far side of the Republic and as far from war and politics as one could be. Some of them had even brought their families to this out of the way facility, all of them seeking a quiet life away from the war. Standing just ahead of them was Pauline, tall and lean, in the same grey coveralls and armor. She held a holstered gun out to Costa, who took the weapon by the belt fastened to the holster. In a moment he had the belt around his waist and buckled.
“What’s our next move?” Pauline asked.
He felt the weight on his hip, so familiar, and unwelcome. Like the retired soldiers who had followed him, he wanted very much to be done with such things. Costa wanted his share of the shooting finished, but here he was armed, and facing a crisis he was not yet certain he understood. Focusing on the present moment he said, “Depends on our visitor’s next move, which we should try to anticipate.”
“It’s an e-tee, boss,” Pauline said. “How can we figure it?”
“It’s a living, breathing … um, thing,” Costa replied. “It’s going to need food and, presumably, water. Look, it was found on a human-compatible living world. And it’s able to breathe the air on this station. Whatever else it is, we have some commonalities to guide us. Now, I want to see those recorded sightings again, plotted on a level three schematic of the core. Where’s it been, and when?”
“Shouldn’t we be heading to the last wrecked hatch?” a security officer asked.
“That’s a setup,” Costa said. “It wants us looking in the wrong place.”
“It’s being watched,” Pauline said. “Just in case.”
In case I’m wrong, Costa filled in silently. And of course, he knew he could be. So he just nodded, then peered at the projection that appeared in the air above Pauline’s open hand. A small, oval linker rested in her palm. The display was a to-scale image of the inner core. A segment of it was dotted with red icons. “Flash them in order of occurrence.” And watched the pattern unfold.
Pauline saw it, too. “Definitely looking for a way into a spoke,” she said. “And from there, into the ring.”
“How old is that last sighting?” Costa demanded as he peered, trying to read the time stamp.
“Less than five minutes,” Pauline said.
The traces stopped there. “Sightings in that spoke?”
“Nothing visual,” she said slowly. “Damn! Infrared is useless in there. Too much residual heat from the pods coming and going. Should have realized … ”
Costa cut her off brusquely. “I want the searchers in the core to converge on the utility access points for that spoke immediately! And get as many people to the ring junction as we can. It does not get out into the ring!” Even as Costa raised his voice and snapped out the instructions, Pauline had closed her hand and shut off the projection, while relaying his commands. They had worked this way many times, in far more dangerous situations. She never so much as blinked. Without waiting, she turned sharply and led them to the center of the clear area in front of the lift station. A moment later an emergency transport appeared over them and settled nearby with a whisper of fans fore and aft. Red warning flashers cast a lurid glare even in the light of the station’s day cycle. Costa led them aboard, and a moment later the flier was airborne and rushing along the inner curve of the broad habitat ring. A glance out the transparent canopy gave the illusion that they were stationary, while the ring rolled by at an impossible speed.
“ETA?” Costa asked.
“Minute twenty-five,” the pilot replied, without looking away from his controls.
Pauline regarded him with a puzzled frown. “Boss, you’re running this op like that thing has a brain or two in its – carapace. Or whatever.”
“This is no dumb animal,” Costa said. “How bright it is remains to be seen.” Into the com he said, “Rory, how’s it coming?”
“I’m in,” Rory replied in his left ear. He sounded distracted to Costa, which was normal for the man when he worked, and a good sign. “Download is complete. Got a search and sort going now, and so far no shots have been fired. Uh, boss, you’ve got that RDF captain on the way to join you, I think.”
“Shit!” Costa said. “How far off?”
“Unknown. A boat has left the Richmond and an RDF jamming signal just hit us. Now we have every emergency port showing a hard dock, but we aren’t getting any other data from them.”
Costa looked at Pauline, who was following Rory’s report on her own com. She grimaced and said, “We used to do that when boarding enemy stations.” There was the briefest pause, then, “Com one, I want crews checking emergency access ports within three minutes of my position. Visual check. Surveillance is down. Report intrusions and follow, but do not engage.” To Costa she added, “We’re getting spread too thin, and I want armed security here.”
“Agreed,” was all Costa said. “Rory, what about those log entries I asked about?”
“Search and sort, like I said,” Rory replied. “I’ll get back to you. Stand by.”
The flier tipped back at the stern as the pilot killed their speed and set them down gently on the concrete deck around the base of the spoke, a huge flared structure that reminded Costa of looking up into an old-fashioned bell. Where a clapper would have dangled, a great fat pylon descended, vanishing into the broad deck beneath their feet. Other fliers settled around and grey-clad security jumped out, taking positions that covered every lift tube access around the base of the pylon. It was a busy place; crowds were scattering and people leaving the lifts gawked in shock and fear as armed guards hustled them out of the way.
“Move them off!” Pauline shouted. “Move these people! Clear ‘em out! Now!”
“How much more traffic headed down?” Costa asked a tech specialist near him. The man was studying a display that floated in the air before his face.
“Thirteen capsules,” the tech replied. “I’m parking new arrivals downstairs, once their passengers are out. There’s no core-bound traffic now.”
“Nice. Good job,” Costa said with a nod.
“Sir,” Pauline said, “Morrissey and three Marines are on the station and headed this way, more or less. Two of the Marines were sent off on different routes, but headed here all the same.”
“Watch him when he gets here,” Costa instructed. “Take some armed guards off this duty to deal with the other two. They’ll be looking for spots that let them cover both sides of the pylon.”
“Got it,” she replied, and issued instructions.
“Sir,” the tech said abruptly. “We have a capsule coming in on the other side of the pylon! Its security pickups have been disabled!”
Costa looked around at the crowd, which was proving slow to disperse. “Damn! Pauline!”
“Got it! They’re on the alert over there!”
Costa started to jog, then broke into a flat-out run around the base of the pylon, Pauline gliding easily along beside him, with her squad stomping along behind. A half-dozen armed men came into view around the curve of the structure, all training short-muzzled rifles on the lift access in that quarter. Two other men were trying to back off the crowd that, regardless of weapons in plain view, seemed reluctant to give up their chance to see what was going on. Costa didn’t try to take a count, but got a clear impression that a nearly complete cross section of the station’s inhabitants was on hand: overall-clad station workers, office drones, and business suits stuffed and otherwise. There was even a black-and-white clad governess with half a dozen small children. She, at least, was hurrying away, albeit dragging one reluctant little girl by the arm.
Just as he looked back toward the lift the door slid aside, revealing a dark interior. In the split second it took Costa to realize the creature had killed the lighting system, something moved. A blur of motion, something that seemed to flicker in and out of view as it moved, flew toward the men and women arrayed between the lifts and the interior of the habitat ring. But Costa’s people, facing the lift, saw enough in that blur of motion to react, firing quick volleys of stunner shots even as the indistinct shape was among them. They toppled as if the station spin had lurched, yanking their feet from under them. One hit and rolled, firing one more shot, which to Costa’s horror was in the direction of the crowd. Stunners were technically non-lethal weapons. Technically.
“Cease fire!” Pauline shouted. She darted forward, toward where the blur seemed headed.
But there was no more blur. The thing was real and clear to their eyes, and now the crowd, finding a real-life monster in their midst, fled in screaming panic from the multi-colored apparition before them. The creature did what armed security officers could not; it cleared the crowd, all but the governess and her charges. The woman was suddenly trapped in a ring of shrieking children, all of whom turned instinctively toward her, reaching and clutching. She could not turn them around in time, and to escape meant shaking them off so she could run. Instead, she stood her ground.
Costa suddenly realized how young the governess was. The terror in her expression made it so very clear. But she clutched the children to her, tried vainly to gather them all up in her arms at once as the apparition lurched toward her on thin, angular legs.
It stopped. Stumbled to a halt, actually, and Costa realized that the last shot fired had been a hit. The thing turned toward the armed men and women advancing toward it. Colors flickered and raced across its body. It had four multi-jointed arms, and one lower arm cradled the other against what looked like bony plating that covered the roughly triangular chest. There was a rhythmic hissing, as of exhausted breathing. Even half-crouched it was taller than Pauline. As they watched, it sank down further and trembled visibly as it regarded the danger before it. More than once the smooth, round head swiveled, owl-like, on the neck, to peer with gleaming, jet-black eyes at the children and their frightened governess. Then it looked back, straight at Costa, who pointed his weapon straight at the thing.
“Jesus, boss!” Pauline didn’t raise her voice, but the edge of anxious frustration was there to hear. “No shots! We’ve got no clear shots with the kids back there!”
“We can take it,” a familiar voice said from behind. Morrissey had arrived with his Marine; he stepped up beside Costa and with a motion of his head indicated the terrace decks overlooking the floor of the ring, up and to each side. “My men are ready. We just need to crowd it a little, get it to shift to one side or the other … ”
“Nobody moves!” Costa snapped. “No one fires a shot!”
Morrissey made a sound of disgust and said over his own comm channel, “Corporal, the shot is yours when you have one with minimal risk.”
Costa heard the order given. He watched the creature, which in turn watched him without moving. He could just hear the children crying. Even as Morrissey spoke, the creature pointed an arm toward the children and their terrified guardian and very deliberately shuffled to one side, putting them out of the line of fire.
Costa raised his gun and pointed the muzzle at the side of the Captain’s head. “If that shot is fired, you’re dead.”
“What in God’s – this is treason, Costa!”
“If your man pulls that trigger it will be murder.” Costa made sure that Morrissey could see what he was doing, then thumbed the setting over from stun to a lethal charge. “I don’t intend to stand by and be an accessory.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Morrissey demanded, frozen where he stood. The Marine with him, suddenly facing several rifles pointed at him, didn’t so much as blink.
“You!” Costa said to the Marine. “You have comm with those men?” When the soldier nodded slightly, Costa said, “Tell them to stand down immediately. If they fire a single shot, at me or at that thing over there, you and the good Captain will be killed in the next instant. Understood?”
The Marine nodded again and spoke softly, as if to himself, then said to Costa, “Captain’s right, you know. This is treason. You’re gonna hang!”
“I very much doubt that,” Costa replied. He looked at Morrissey, who stood quivering, speechless with rage.
Then Costa looked at the creature, and saw that it stood as still as stone, watching. One of the upper arms moved slowly to touch a spot near its neck, and the riot of colors racing over its gaunt form vanished. It stood there in what Costa assumed was its normal colors, or rather, the shades of green and soft gold of what clearly was a garment of some sort.
Costa gave Pauline a sign and she turned slightly, just enough to cover Captain Morrissey with her rifle. “The rest of his people?” Costa asked.
“Working on that,” she said.
Not quite the answer he wanted to hear, but there was nothing for it. The situation was too unstable; he dared not wait. Costa stepped slowly forward, torn between certainty that he was right, and fear of the uncanny apparition before him. It remained motionless until only a few meters of tiled concourse lay between them, then shied away. Up close, Costa could see where the stun shot had burned its arm; the creature appeared otherwise unharmed. Costa crouched slowly, never taking his eyes from the visitor, and set his gun on the ground, then rose with his hands extended, empty. “Let’s not do anything stupid, okay?” he said to it, knowing full well it did not understand, but certain that speech was necessary. “Let’s not make this worse than it already surely is.”
And the creature answered him, a series of incomprehensible clicks and ticks that issued from somewhere inside the thing. There was a mouth-like opening in the lower half of the head, but Costa could not tell for certain that the sounds came from it. The visitor crouched down, sitting back on its haunches, and regarded him with round, uniformly jet-black eyes. From behind, Costa could hear Morrissey’s litany of retribution, which included threats to every member of Pauline’s security team. A quick glance back showed Costa that his people kept their weapons on the RDF captain and his guard; no one so much as flinched as they listened to Morrissey’s steadily more venomous threats. Loyalty to their former commander overcame whatever concerns they had for their own situation, and Costa prayed that he had not just let them down in a big way.
“Boss, I think I have what … ” Rory started to say in Costa’s ear.
The creature uncoiled and leaped forward, tackling Costa and throwing him down to the hard brown tiles of the concourse, even as something hissed through the air a hand’s breadth from his right ear. The impact knocked the wind out of him. A flurry of shots went off around him, and Pauline’s voice cut through it all with coded commands. There was the sound of blows falling, and the grunt of a body flung to the ground nearby.
And suddenly it was quiet. The creature was wrapped around him, and it was like being pinched in a cage of steel wires and bars. Very slowly, emitting a string of staccato clicks, it unfolded its limbs and rose, pulling Costa carefully to his feet, supporting him as Costa struggled to catch a breath. All three uninjured arms were extended, and hands that looked as subtle as clawed vice-clamps nonetheless grasped him with a gentle touch. The head of the visitor tilted one way, then the other, and the sound from within was keckkeckekeck-keckek-ekek.
“I can’t argue with that,” Costa said. He coughed a moment. “Since I have no idea what it means!” He turned away, and the visitor released its grip. “What the hell just happened, people? Pauline?”
She was there, quivering with rage. “They had you tagged, boss. You were going down. Guess our new friend can see infrared.”
“I thought you had an IR implant?” Costa asked.
“I do,” she replied, looking vexed. “Our guest was faster than me.”
“And less subtle, if you can believe that,” Costa said with a smirk. He noticed his sidearm, on the ground by his foot, and scooped it up.
Pauline didn’t react to his comment. “One of our people was shot as you were hitting the deck. Soldier boy pulled a gun and Morrissey tried to do the same. We took them down.”
“How bad?” Costa asked, with a glance at the security man seated nearby, receiving first aid.
“I’ll live, boss,” the man said.
“Him, too,” Pauline said of the unconscious Marine stretched out nearby. “Our people have the snipers.” Morrissey sat on the ground nearby, uniform in disarray and holding his hand to the right side of his face, clearly in pain.
Costa nodded, then said, “Rory, report.”
“Christ on a … Boss, what the hell just happened?”
“We had a situation,” Costa replied. “It’s been resolved. Report.”
“Boss, that thing’s sentient!”
“You have anything we don’t already know?”
“Uh, right. Sorry. The Richmond spotted a crash near the survey markers that ring the colony site. They set down a boat to take a look. Recorded the whole thing.”
“And our visitor came out of the wreck?” Costa guessed.
“Yes. I’ve got the complete record duped station side, now. It came out, hands literally in the air. These bucket heads shot it anyway!” He paused. “Boss, they recovered bodies of the same species. A dozen of them. And artifacts, a fekkin pile of them!”
“God forgive us,” Costa said softly. He was taken with an urge to kick Morrissey where the rumpled, glaring figure sat. Rage flared. “You stupid son of a bitch! Decades of war with the first alien species we meet – that wasn’t enough? You started the next contact by shooting first and asking no questions!” He strode forward. “Well? Explain yourself! What the hell were you thinking?”
“I follow orders,” Morrissey said quietly. And with equally quiet contempt added, “I don’t answer to the likes of you!”
Without looking away from Morrissey, Costa said, “Pauline, I want the Richmond locked down and isolated. Target with station defenses. If they try to leave, burn them!”
“What about these two?” she asked.
“In the brig. Same for the snipers, as well. Rory!”
“Boss?”
“I want a packet made containing the data you grabbed and a record of what just happened out here. Start sending drones out to the surrounding systems, and download it to any ship about to depart. We need everyone to know we have new neighbors, and how close we came to doing it wrong again.”
“Consider it done,” Rory replied, and cut out of the link.
“You’ll be shot for this,” Morrissey said, not for the first time.
Anger surged again, fueled by the adrenaline rush of knowing that his death had been so near. “There isn’t going to be another war, you bastard! Not again! Not out here!” His voice rose as he went on, and Morrissey shied away from him as Costa edged forward, the weapon in his hand pointing for a moment at the Captain, as Costa dressed him down.
Kekkkkk-Ek. Kekkkk-Ek.
A thin, powerful hand grasped him by the shoulder, half turned him around; there was no resisting the strength of the creature. Costa met those featureless eyes, his anger suddenly cooled by what the visitor had just done. He hadn’t intended to shoot Morrissey, but the visitor could not have known that. It had intervened to save the man who had captured it and treated it like an animal. Costa carefully slipped the weapon into its holster, and the visitor released him.
After a moment, Costa reached out to take one of the lower forearms in his right hand, and found the limb cool and hard under his fingers. The visitor did not pull back from his touch. With a gentle tug, he began to lead the newcomer away.
“Come on, friend,” Costa said. “Let’s see if we can get it right this time!”
The character Jan Costa played a pivotal role in the War of the Second Iteration. When all was said and done in that story it was obvious to me that his own story would be worth telling. I picked it up two years after the end of the war, and told it in…
Under Desert Stars 