Consortium of Planets: Alien Test Read online

  Although the movement had a single mission statement, Dev’kall was well aware that nearly everyone staring back at him had his own agenda. Those from the private sector wanted a bigger share of the profit. The Warriors tended to be more aggressive and want revenge, power, or more weapons to fight a nonexistent foe.

  Ironically, even though retired Consul Dev’kall was a civilian, he was given the leadership position because of his ability to negotiate very complex issues. He was exceptional at finding common ground between even among the worst of enemies. So far, most of his effort had been needed to hold the W.F.C. to its original mission. He knew that he had his hands full, but the risks were worth taking when he considered everything that he stood to gain.

  It was time for him to close the meeting. “You have your assignments. Once you complete them, the cycle of implementation will begin. Thank you for coming.”

  As they stood to go, Dev’kall moved among them, making small talk and judging how each individual was holding up under the pressure of what was about to happen. He stopped at Ban’yr, the most influential Warrior, who was still on active service. If the chairman of the Consortium or Grand Senate found out about Ban’yr’s connection to the W.F.C., he would be found guilty as a traitor and beheaded. Dev’kall absentmindedly rubbed his neck at the thought and tried to smile at the Warrior Caste’s commandant.

  “Dev’kall, I admire the way you keep us groutin flurry pulling in one direction.”

  “Well, Commandant, I appreciate your candor, but I would hardly call you a groutin. As to the ‘flurry’ reference, we at least appear to be going in a single direction. Other than that, everything is fine.”

  Bany’r smiled politely at the consul’s stab at humor and then grew serious. “I know you don’t trust the Chn-maa, Dev’kall, but we must at least flash them in front of the Senate or the dullards will continue to debate and never react.”

  “After what the Chn-maa did to the Warrior Caste, Commandant, you are the last Consortian I would expect to trust them with anything.”

  As leader of the Warrior Caste, Ban’yr was well aware of the Chn-maa’s deception and the Warriors’ costly victory at the Battle of Trinity. If anyone else but the consul had insinuated that he trusted them, he would have killed him on the spot. “Consul, believe me, I don’t trust them. I only want to use them, not actually give them any warships.”

  Dev’kall listened to his argument once again and realized that he had a point. They were running out of time and needed something significant to start the process. The Senate also had a frustrating history of much more debate than making actual decisions. In the past, they could get away with business as usual and took care of minor issues well. The Warrior Caste and the University had traditionally worked together to handle all serious threats going all the way back to the Battle of Trinity. Since that battle, the University had overshadowed the Warrior Caste and the balance of power had shifted in favor of the University. That was Dev’kall’s reason for leading what was quickly beginning to look like a civil war. The balance had to be restored so that no single entity became too strong.

  “Commandant, if you can guarantee that there won’t be enough Chn-maa on a ship to take control of it, you have my support.”

  “You can trust me, Dev’kall. We will only make it look to the Senate like the Chn-maa is in command.”

  Alien Lunar Base:

  Wystl returned about an hour later the same way she had left – surrounded in dark smoke.

  Amy reacted nonchalantly. “Yes, I guess you do get used to it.”

  Dean listened to Amy’s digression and gave Sasha a look that asked her to control her subordinate’s comments.

  Sasha didn’t agree with Dean’s reaction. “Colonel, she isn’t hurting anything.” Then she looked at Wystl. “What took you so long?”

  “Aydr’n had the probes well-guarded, but I only needed one. Now he has fewer guards.”

  Beth sounded somewhere between begging and whining. “Can we just go now?”

  “Of course,” Wystl reassured her. “First, I will surround you with the clear membrane I mentioned. It will hold in oxygen and protect you from space. The air won’t last forever. You need to move quickly to your escape craft. From the outside, your fellow Humans will see you as a round, empty void. It will be even harder for Aydr’n to see you from a distance, but not impossible. He only needs to know where to look, so try to stay behind cover whenever possible. You are now protected. The cell wall has opened and you are free to leave.”

  Beth looked out of the hole in the side of the large spacecraft and down at the Moon’s rocky surface. It was surprisingly high, and she was immediately glad that the Moon’s pull of gravity was not nearly as great as Earth’s. Without another thought, she jumped with everyone else and landed softly in a puff of gray dust.

  Before they could split up, Wystl stepped to the center of the group and touched her void to theirs. All five membranes joined into a larger single bubble. She began to speak to them. “Connecting our membranes is the only way that we can talk while we’re in these voids. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for what Aydr’n has done to you and I wish you good luck in your efforts to get away from him. Now you must hurry to your craft!”

  She didn’t want to waste time with more discussion and pulled her void away from theirs before they could respond. As soon as she stepped away from the middle of the group, all five individual voids reestablished.

  Three of the black voids moved quickly in a group toward the crater’s high wall; the other two went in opposite directions. Amy was closest to her fighter. When she reached it, her membrane sealed itself tightly over the canopy so that it could be opened safely. She was strapped into her fighter and ready to go just minutes after she leaped out of the alien ship. Sasha arrived at her fighter soon after and began an abbreviated launch sequence. Dean, Wystl, and Beth had farther to go but were making good time.

  Aydr’n sat anxiously in his quarters. He stared past the pictures of dignitaries and numerous awards at the silvery walls behind them. Why did he send such an important message with such an inexperienced courier? The Warriors for Change hadn’t responded to his message and he began to argue with himself. The most important message of your life and you send it with a Warrior barely fifty-cycles old. What were you thinking? A knock at the door cut the self-loathing short.

  “What do you want?!” Aydr’n screamed at the shaking Warrior, who was only slightly older than Yeoman Alont.

  “Someone raided the armory and many Warriors are missing.”

  Aydr’n’s initial thought was that the missing Warriors took something. Then he realized it was Wystl. He yelled again at the scared Warrior.

  “Check the prisoners! Report their status to me in the armory – I’ll be there to determine what she stole.”

  The Warrior rushed off around the corner and toward the prisoners’ cell. Aydr’n ran toward the armory and tried to think of what Wystl was up to. How did she get out of her cell? Are all the prisoners running about freely?

  Before Aydr’n reached the armory, the Warrior he had just sent to check on the prisoners interrupted his thoughts. “Captain, they’re gone!”

  Aydr’n knew that he was in a game of chimbat with Wystl and tried to anticipate her next move. Suddenly, it came to him and fear gripped his chest like a vise. There was only one way that she could have gotten into the armory and the prisoners out of the cell – she was using another Dimensional Shifter control pad!

  He pulled out his pad and double-checked the armory’s walls to be sure. There it was: a slight distortion in the wall’s molecular structure, left by Wystl during her raid. His breathing was already tight, and now both of his stomachs were sinking. He would have to fight a control pad expert. The only chance he had of beating her would be surprise, but first he had to find her.

  The bridge crew jumped up as Aydr’n burst through the door and began barking orders. “Scan three-dimensionally a full three-hundred-and-sixt
y degrees for any Shifter voids moving away from our location. You’re looking for up to five separate anomalies.”

  “Sir, there are three holes moving rapidly across the plateau toward the Humans’ craft.”

  “Show me,” ordered Adyr’n.

  The flat lunar-scape, dotted with craggy peaks in the distance, appeared on the forward monitor. The monitor’s magnification increased and the Humans’ primitive space craft, the Star Chaser, came into view. The magnification increased again and three black voids moving quickly toward the craft became clear.

  Aydr’n studied the three holes, but which void was Wystl? He had her, but he didn’t. What he really had were three possibilities. If he picked the correct hole and got her, he would crush the Humans next. He had no need to keep them alive – what would he do with them? Ultimately, they would get in his way.

  He began to analyze the voids again. He was running out of time before they reached the ship. The holes were moving at about the same rate and were about the same size. Aydr’n knew that the Human male was larger than the females. That included Wystl, but at this distance, he couldn’t see any difference and asked for assistance. “Computer, analyze the size of each void and color-code the smallest.”

  Two of the voids glowed red. The third remained black.

  “Computer, make the smallest anomaly blue.”

  There was a pause. Then both red voids glowed blue.

  The computer had done all it could. Either the females were exactly the same size or Wystl had anticipated his attempt and made their membranes the same size. At least he had improved the odds to fifty/fifty. Now it was time to act. He needed to rip away the void on the right or the one on the left and expose who was within, then they would die. There was no code book to help guide his actions with the Shifter pad – only brief training he received long ago.

  Dean could see out perfectly. It was like being in an amazing bubble made of impervious glass. Wystl and Beth looked to him like round balls of emptiness, blotting out everything behind them. He imagined that they were probably looking back at him and forward to the Star Chaser, just as he was.

  Beth watched the two voids move with her toward their goal and was thankful that Earth had passed Wystl’s Test. I hope we get a chance to choose whether or not we want to join the C.O.P.

  Wystl kept one black eye on the Humans so she wouldn’t fall behind and the other black eye on the small pad’s defensive aspect. She couldn’t believe that Aydr’n hadn’t responded to their escape.

  Major Rowl and his wing-man cleared the crater’s lip and dove at the alien ship.

  “Captain Aydr’n, two enemy fighters are approaching!”

  “Swat them down with the praser canon.”

  Sasha looked up to see the two additional fighters that Martle had ordered sweep rapidly toward the aliens. There are my rescuers! Lasers and missiles flashed against Aydr’n’s ship but left no damage. They were answered with a huge red spray of light. The fighters glowed for an instant and then disappeared.

  Aydr’n pulled the intricately carved short sword from his belt and tossed it into the air. If it landed on the obverse side with the snake looking at him, he would attack the void on the left.

  The metal sword was small, but it clanked loudly on the metal floor of the bridge. The snake did not look at him.

  Is it a sign? No! He had no time for superstition. It was just an inanimate metal object that happened to land with the reverse side up. He would attack the right void. His brain throbbed. But was it the correct void?

  Suddenly, the color code spiked on Wystl’s pad and the subtle warning tone began to warble – Aydr’n was making his move. The dimensional energy flashed toward them from her old ship’s location, but it was too weak to challenge all three of them. As Wystl guessed, Aydr’n didn’t have the skill to take on all three. He would have to settle for one target, but which one?

  Before Wystl could react, the energy seized Beth’s membrane like a giant hand and ripped it away, leaving her exposed to the frigid, airless lunar surface. Wystl’s less sophisticated pad wouldn’t allow her to save Beth and react to Aydr’n’s attack at the same time.

  To save Dean, she forced herself to ignore Beth’s agony. It was time for Aydr’n and his corrupt Warriors to die. She established an amplified feedback loop so that Aydr’n’s own signal would return to him much stronger and faster. He would have no time to save himself from the same fate he had given Beth.

  Dean watched in horror as Beth became visible, fell into a fetal position, and gasped for air. Wystl’s void looked fine. What the hell was she doing to Beth? He started to fall on top of Beth with his membrane to save her, but Wystl stepped into his void.

  “No, you can’t touch her!” she screamed. “The residual energy will destroy you, too. There is nothing you can do. Aydr’n has already killed her.”

  Dean eyes glazed with tears. It was Gretchen all over again.

  “There’s plenty I can do. For starters, I can go back and kill him!”

  Aydr’n watched the large forward monitor intently. Had he guessed correctly? The void on the right stopped as the energy seized it and ripped away its membrane. Aydr’n leaped to his feet in horror.

  “It’s Human!” he screamed in terror. “Get us out of here!”

  Before the scared crew could respond, a vibrating whine seized the ship. Aydr’n felt his body being ripped apart at the atomic level and added to the universe.

  Wystl put her hand on Dean’s shoulder to comfort him. “Colonel,” she said gently, “you don’t have to do anything – just watch.” She turned him toward her ship and pointed at it. Suddenly, the ship looked like a metallic cloth being jerked up into the stars.

  Dean stood in surprised shock for a long moment, staring up into the glittering dots until Wystl broke his daze. “There, Colonel. He and his crew are gone forever.”

  “When can I touch her?” Dean’s tone had become more agitated as he waited impatiently for the lethal energy to dissipate.

  “Only a few more minutes and we can collect her body. Colonel, I can take on her appearance. Would you like that? Would that make it easier for you?” She liked this Human and wanted to make him feel better. Before Dean could answer, there – standing a few feet away, sharing his bubble – Wystl had taken on Beth’s appearance.

  Dean lost control and cried with anguish. “No! What the hell is wrong with you?! Do you really want to know what I’d like?!”

  Wystl faded meekly back to her alien form as Dean continued to yell at her.

  “What I’d like is to have never brought her on this mission – to have never met you or heard of your Consortia or Consortium or whatever you call yourselves!” He stepped far enough away from Wystl that the membrane began to separate. She barely heard him as he stepped completely out of her bubble. “Now get away from me and leave me alone!”

  A few moments later, Wystl touched her head into Dean’s bubble. She was subdued and spoke very softly. “You can collect Beth’s body now.”

  Dean had taken the time to cool off and realized that Wystl was only trying to help when she took on Beth’s appearance. She didn’t understand that such a realistic appearance of the dead would be too much of a shock.

  “Listen, Wystl, I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s hard enough losing someone and then immediately being reminded so vividly of them. And her body was still lying there. Well, it was just too much.”

  Wystl lit up slightly. “I accept your apology and will try to be more careful of your feelings in the future.”

  “Hey!” Dean felt his manhood being misjudged and had to respond. “I am in total control of my feelings! You don’t have to…”

  Wystl cocked her head to the right and raised her eyebrows as he tried to explain. He wasn’t sure how to continue. Explaining his feelings was never a strong point. What am I going to say? You don’t have to baby me? You don’t have to coddle me? Nothing that he could think of sounded right. It had always been his job to take care
of whoever was with him – not the other way around. The only way out of the situation was to change the subject.

  “Wystl, are you rolling your eyes at me?”

  “I’m sorry, does it remind you of Beth? I learned it by watching her reaction to some of your statements.”

  Dean sagged visibly and gave her a weak smile. “No, it’s okay. When we get to Earth, you should probably take on a Human form again so you don’t scare the natives. I’ll collect Beth’s body. It’s time to get out of here and update my boss.”

  Wystl detected uneasiness in Dean’s voice when he said the word “boss” but decided to wait and see what the inflection meant.

  Dean remembered Gretchen’s face vividly as he looked at Beth one last time and zipped the body bag closed with a heavy heart. He had done this before, but it only got harder with practice – even when the partner only lasted a week.

  On the Moon, Beth was surprisingly light to lift. Dean expected her – and actually wanted her – to be heavier, maybe even hurt a little to pick up. Somehow, more weight would have added to her significance. As he boarded the Star Chaser, he realized that in his haste to keep his distance from her, he had no idea if she had family or a husband. He really knew nothing about her. Still, no matter what, she was significant to him.

  He laid her down gently behind the copilot seat – her seat. Some of the equipment that he had originally talked her into leaving behind when they first arrived was still lying around. She hadn’t put it up because they had been in such hurry to get started. Ironically, they never even got a chance to use the weapons that they had taken, but the mission turned out successful anyway. Once again, he had succeeded and, once again, he had paid a terrible price.

  It was time to contact the Sit Room and let them know what had happened. “Sierra Romeo, this is Sierra Charlie, over.”