BETH

Did her body heal faster than a normal, non-powered human? No, but the metal kept her skin intact which kept her insides inside. Beth pulled on a fresh t-shirt. The wound still burned on touch and when the muscles in its vicinity stretched. She could move again, but with a slight discomfort. She slid off the bed and stood beside it. The nurse helped her. The catheter had been removed the day before. A true bliss to pee in the toilet like a normal human being.

Beth ushered her kindly away. “No need. I feel better now. No nausea at all.”

Well, almost no nausea. But nurses were so easily worried and she was done with lying still. Time for action.

With her hand terminal she navigated through the ship. Muscles warmed as she moved, making them limber, also it made the wound hurt less. But it still made itself known. She halted, hand clutched over her stomach and leaned against corridor’s cold metal. A few deep breaths, but the pain would not slip away. She afforded herself a trickle of sweetness in her mouth, her strength shed effectively away the pain and fatigue. It would have been nice to be thrown into the hibernation pod, instead of having to endure this. She understood the reasoning, but still it would have been nice. Like teleporting back to Earth.

Maybe she could heal after they arrived home? Fifteen years. She recalled a paper about the subject. The human body’s properties after extended duration of hibernation sleep. The theories presented by that paper were interesting, but they lacked thorough experiments. The paper had not finished yet, since the cloned flesh still slept in hibernation. A paper with a fifty year experimental cycle. It should be finished when she returned. Could she wait to heal after the long sleep? She chuckled. A prominent theory in the paper suggested that if the body was put in hibernation for long enough, its state prior to the sleep would get stuck. Even down to a DNA level! This meant that any unhealed wound would never heal naturally and even medical treatments might not be able to synthetically heal it. Too risky and it meant she would miss the opportunity to study the aliens.

Admiral Harris stood sharp, hands locked behind his back, in an absolute disciplined posture. Like a sword in its scabbard. She could not wait to see Tom. The Admiral had an ability to anger her. The door to Tom’s and her quarters was closed. Why was the Admiral here? Tom didn’t belong to the crew.

“Beth! You are on your feet. Great to see. You got pretty beat up,” Admiral Harris said, turning to her.

She met his cold stare. “Fine. I am fine. Thank you. Tom’s busy?” And why are you here, Admiral? Looking over your new arsenal? She thought, but didn’t ask.

“He is eating. I will talk to him later. I need to go. Have you been to the lab yet? I saw that you accessed the feeds,” Admiral Harris asked.

“No. I am on my way there,” Beth said. “To check upon the catch.”

Admiral Harris nodded and walked away. The man’s pride and absolute discipline had a cold touch to them.

She turned to the door, which slid open before she sent her access tokens to it. Tom sat on his bed, chin dipped low and eyes locked to the floor.

“How are you, Tom?” Beth asked, carefully stepping inside. “I am ready to continue our training again.”

Tom mumbled. “The therapist says that I need to process the violence and action. She told me to do these exercises, draw pictures and write a diary.”

That sounded worrying. She had not thought about how the boy would react to everything. The aliens and suffering, dying men. She had focused only on herself.

Beth stepped forward. “But how do you feel, Tom?”

“These things will not change anything,” Tom said, eyes still locked down. “They will not make me feel better. I told the therapist that I thought the action was just like in the movies and video games. Just like superheroes, I told her, you know.”

Tom’s hands trembled. The invisible tug was real, but weak. Would he hurt her? No, why would he? They were friends. The combat suits he had slammed into the wall had not been.

“The therapist kept saying that I need to process. To process. So I could move forward without losing my mind,” Tom said, planting his face into his hands. “She was very strict that superheroes are not real. They never feel anxious or have to process the violence they do. Because violence has consequences, also for the person doing it. I do not understand.”

Beth sat down beside him. “It is alright, Tom. You will be alright.”

“Do not touch me!” Tom yelled, shoving her away.

His hands trembled, the invisible tug pulled at her. It would be easy for him to snap her neck, just a thought away. The sweetness grew in her mouth and her neck muscles stiffened. How would she disarm the tension between them?

“Chill out. I will not touch you. But a hug or two might make everything a little better,” Beth said.

Tom hugged his legs tightly. “I do not like death. Is that what the therapist meant about consequence? Pain of losing someone?”

Beth paused, not wanting to provoke him. “Partly. Focus on your mom, Tom. Would she not like you to be calm and friendly?”

“I do not like death. It is so final. You had your hands around Lisa’s head, ready to break her neck. To kill her. And you want to kill people back home. I do not like your anger,” Tom said. “You look like a different person when using your strength. Someone with little regard for human life.”

Oh. Tom really had a difficult time to handle what had happened. But his reaction to her rage was too much. What had that therapist put in his head?

“I have no problems with anger. It is a tool, my hook,” she explained.

“In that moment you were just like all the other people you talk about. You said it yourself, how humans would rather use violence to solve their problems. Is the anger I feel towards you part of the consequences?” Tom asked, looking up, his eyes were red. The kid looked old, worn and tired.

“Can you sleep, Tom? Do you have nightmares? All the feelings you feel now are the consequences, not just the physical pain or the feeling of losing somebody close,” Beth said.

Tom looked away, he snorted. “I do not want to talk about it. Or mom. Or with you. You deny your anger, but I see it. Clear as day. When the action starts you will not stop until your opponent is crushed or torn into pieces. You made this fine speech on how primitive humans are, but you are just the same.”

Was the kid playing with her? His mood swung like a rollercoaster. It had to be post traumatic stress. Tom had not been ready.

“It is not the same thing! Different situations!” Beth said. “Can you not see that?”

“You would have killed Lisa? You want death to another human being?” Tom asked, staring at her.

How could she deny it? It was the truth. She would have killed Lisa. And Saif, without hesitating. But did that make her a bad person? A villian? No. Justifiable revenge.

“Yes,” Beth said. “If she is left alive, she has the potential to harm others. If dead, she will never get the chance. A permanent solution.”

Tears trickled down Tom’s face. The kid stared blankly at her.

“The world has gone insane. Aliens. Suffering and death. I do not like it. I am going back into the hibernation pod right away. I will sleep the whole way home,” Tom said.

“The nightmares and the feelings will not go away just because you sleep. You need to process everything,” Beth said without thinking ahead.

“You too!” Tom yelled. “That bloody word again!”

An invisible force grabbed around her, she gasped after air and was thrown out from the room. She crashed into the wall and fell to the floor. The muscles around her neck stiffened, enhanced with her strength, but the force had not tried to twist her neck. She looked up at him and was met with cold eyes. The door slid closed.

-

Tom’s outburst had surprised her. He had been severely affected by the event, or whatever they should call it. Had she made an enemy with Tom? Probably. He had easily flung her out of the room, their training had made his hook readily available. If he suffered a full mental breakdown, there was nothing that could stop him from killing everyone within sight with simple thoughts. He was already unstable.

The hand terminal navigated her through two floors and several junctions before finding the lab. Two guards in combat suits flanked the lab’s internal airlock. She didn’t recognise the rifles they held, they were not the standard beam or projectile weapons. But wait, did they not resemble the new designs the Admiral had showed her? Electronic free projectile rifles. Beth walked up to them, still shaken after the incident with Tom. The guards must think that she was afraid of them.

“Access token,” one guard grunted deeply.

Stolen novel; please report.

Could the combat suits transform their voices into sounding more threatening or friendlier on command? Because different situations required different approaches.

Beth swiped on her hand terminal and the access token the Admiral had provided to her was sent across. “Admiral Harris told me that I could visit.”

“If your access token cannot authenticate you, you cannot enter. I don’t even care if you are Admiral Harris himself,” the other guard said. “No. Exceptions.”

Good to know that the Navy handled their security with distinction. Or maybe these routines were not standard at all and instead a reaction to the event. ‘event’ was a bad way to describe what had happened. She should formulate something better and more specific. Maybe ‘catastrophic first alien contact’? No, not concise enough.

The second guard looked back at her. “Your hand, please.”

A panel slid away from the combat suit’s oversized gauntlet and revealed a slick, glass-like surface. The surface was cold against her hand.

“Ouch!” Beth said, the guard pressed her hand even harder against the gauntlet. But just for a brief moment.

“You can enter. Follow the lab protocol. Entering equipment are found after the first airlock and the lab is found after the second lock,” the guard grunted in the same deep voice.

The airlock’s outer door slid aside.

Beth turned around before entering. “Be nicer next time, tin can.”

The door slid closed behind her. Did the guards laugh? She could not be sure. A little banter could go a long way to make people behave calmer towards you. A warm gust blew at her from all sides, cleaning away particles. Beth stepped into the next room. The next layer of defensive mechanisms for perfect containment. She recalled similar lab procedures back at Callisto, also the decorations looked alike. Green walls. Rubber like overalls hung from simple hooks. Some dressing lockers stood on the side. She elected one which stood empty, undressed the crew fatigues and threw them inside. She stepped into one of the sterile suits. Cold to the touch and a little stiff to move in. The suit had a minimal amount of seams, the hood pulled over like an enclosing helmet. It had a transparent visor, unlike the combat suit’s opaque one. But it had to have some electronics? Even these suits looked like the equipment she had used at Callisto. A small display on the forearm showed her vital signs and suit integrity. Yeah, it had electronics alright.

The second airlock opened, Beth stepped inside. Hosed down by a bacteria killing liquid, only a light sense of touch penetrated the suit and all smells were filtered out. Maybe it would have smelled something similar to disinfectants? The visor cleared itself clean when the shower stopped. She exited the second airlock.

Four other persons dressed just like her stood scattered around the lab, the two transparent containers were positioned just like the video feed had revealed. The orb had definitely absorbed more of its friend’s fleshy corpse since her last viewing. Transfixed, shoulders tensed and a slight nausea crept along her spine. An actual, living alien being. And she had battled it, killed it. More precisely, she had battled both of them and won.

“Hi. Hello? Are you there,” a voice asked.

Beth turned her head in the general direction of the distracting sound.

“Yes, you. I am Dr. Birgitta. And welcome to my laboratory,” Dr. Birgitta said in a nordic accent; the suit’s communication system made the scientist’s voice crystal clear inside Beth’s sealed hood.

Beth snapped out of it. “Yeah. I am Beth Shepherd, thank you for letting me in. My Phd is not really about aliens, but I believe I can be of assistance anyway.”

Dr. Birgitta’s smile was big and showed a lot of teeth. Beth shook hands with her, the doctor’s hands dwarfed hers! She was used to being the smallest person in a group, but this was ridiculous.

Dr. Brigitta noticed her reaction. “Ha, then you should meet my younger sister. She’s a giant. ‘the princess giant’, grandpa always joked.”

“Are you from Norway? Your accent. I have a friend on Callisto who has just the same accent and he was from Norway,” Beth said.

The smile again. “Half right. Spent my youth in the Norwegian forests, but moved offplanet when I turned twenty. Research station on Mars,” Dr. Birgitta said. “You are a Callisto student and if that is not rare enough you also fought these things with your fists! Okay, your skin turns into metal and you are exceptionally strong. Where the soldiers’ weapons barely scratched the surface, your fists shattered it. I think that is awesome.”

Beth looked away, hiding from the praise. “Would you show me the aliens?”

“Of course,” Dr. Birgitta said, grabbing hold and shoving her in the direction of the containers. “These beings are amazing! I read your notes and I agree that the aliens are two separate sentient beings, which live in symbiosis. There are merits to it.”

“But what can be the reason for them living like that?” Beth asked.

“Beth, why would organisms live in symbiosis?” Dr. Birgitta asked.

“Because they help each other, a synergistic effect. Together they achieve a higher level of fitness and probability to survive. They thrive instead of struggling as separated individuals,” Beth said.

Dr. Birgitta’s toothy smile was wide. “Yes, in general terms. But we are scientists, we want to know the specifics. There is a clear distinction between the two creatures. One is of metal and machine components, one is of biological tissue and natural building blocks.”

“Yeah, I have noticed that too,” Beth said. “Strange is it not?”

“Maybe not. Even if we cannot know for sure yet, the two creatures might serve two different roles. Which would also reinforce the reason why they have a symbiotic relationship,” Dr. Birgitta said. “But think about it. In your notes, you observed the specific radiation the orb emits. It is possible it works as a nuclear-like reactor. Answer me this, what do we lack the most in the darkness of space? When we are between stars and planets.”

Eyes opened, Beth gasped, hand over mouth. “Food! Nutrition. Energy!”

“Yes, yes!” Dr. Birgitta said, smiled. “So imagine this. The orb acts as a battery, of sorts, for the fleshy creature when times are tough.”

“It sounds plausible,” Beth said. “But why would it need the fleshy creature? For the theory of symbiose to work both the creatures needs to provide the other with what it lacks. Or strengthen the other’s weaknesses.”

Dr. Birgitta leaned forward, towards the containers and studied the orb. “What does the orb lack? It has energy and lethal weapons. Able to survive in a varied array of environments. It might have its own synthetic brain and processing powers we have never seen before.”

“Arms. Appendices,” Beth suggested.

Dr. Birgitta circled the container which held the orb and the partial corpse. “Exactly. The quadruped provides physical appendices, if they need to interact with alien technology when the orb’s software and hardware are not adaptable enough. But it is not enough. The quadruped looks primitive, but what hurt you the most, its twig or the orb’s weapon?”

Beth looked down, feeling stupid. “The twig. No objections.”

“By living in symbiosis they increase both their survival chances in many unknown circumstances. The split between metal and flesh gives them the best of two worlds. A tool or weapon for every possible scenario. Adaptability is the name of the game. This is still just a theory and needs proper testing. One of the things I want to know is the fuel the orb uses,” Dr. Birgitta said. “If its energy reaction is so advanced, why would it need to consume its dead friend?”

“Maybe I damaged it too much,” Beth said. “Maybe it needs extra fuel to restart its reactor?”

“Could be a possibility, one which I am already investigating. The quadruped’s flesh could be transformed from bio matter to electric energy. Again, symbiosis. They help each other survive, even though one is dead,” Dr. Birgitta said.

Beth leaned forward. “It sounds logical, but creepy and cold. It is eating its dead friend so that it can heighten its chance to live. The friend is dead, so why not use the available resources? It is not like it needs it any longer.”

“You would be surprised. The world is a cold place. Survival of the fittest. And these two, their relationship could be the most adaptable thing I have ever seen,” Dr. Birgitta said.

The cracks along the orb were not as defined as when she had punched it. A clear, thick fluid seeped out between the seams. What could it be? Could it be doing repairs?

“Is it repairing itself?” Beth asked.

Dr. Birgitta nodded. “We think so too. Maybe it is using the extra fuel to do repairs, because you broke its reactor. Or at least you damaged it enough to cripple its energy output, which might not be suffice to make repairs. ”

“I wonder, will its crippled reactor sustain it when it’s through with the corpse?” Beth asked.

“We don’t know. Could it go into hibernation? Maybe. Something has to sustain it, something in the world has to have been used for igniting the reactor in the first place,” Dr. Birgitta said. “Or it just dies.”

“This find will shock the world and keep researchers occupied for a long, long time,” Beth said.

Dr. Birgitta’s chin dipped. “Admiral Harris has put a black seal on it. The rest of humanity will not be told, not after a certain period of time which the government probably wants to control. Mass panic and such things.”

“But they need to know. Humanity is stupid and violent, they will declare a war against these things. Just because they don’t understand them! The world also has to know about what goes on in that facility. The experiments,” Beth said. Screw Saif, he cannot stop me.

“We are scientists, we don’t cook up politics. The decision will fall upon higher ranks. I have wanted to ask. If it is not appropriate just say so,” Dr. Birgitta said.

“Okay,” Beth said, slowing her breathing from her rant. “Go on.”

“I have read your files, I know what was done to you. But as a scientist, I would like to do tests on you and others. Test your powers,” Dr. Birgitta said.

Warm anger. Beth frowned, sweetness crept forward. “I am not a fan of tests or authoritative people anymore. I just said so!”

Dr. Birgitta flailed her hands. “But under friendly, mutual circumstances! Of course! Only if you want to. I am not evil or mean. But I thought that since you are also a highly educated person that you might have some ambition to understand how you work.”

“Of course I have. But I am not going to be put under a scalpel again,” Beth said. “Never!”

“Alright, but maybe we could start by talking about it while investigating the aliens? How long have you decided to stay awake before going into hibernation?” Dr. Birgitta asked.

Beth shook her head. “I do not know. Maybe. You seem like a trustworthy person. We could talk about it. I will stay awake for some time, my wound needs time to heal before I go under. I am not going to miss the chance to study the aliens. I really, really would like to. What if I missed them and the orb died while I slept? That would be the miss of a century.”

Dr. Birgitta’s toothy smile was wider than ever and her voice excited. “Great! Then both of us can learn more. Amicable, of course. Like symbiosis!”

“I actually did some minor experiments before the ‘symbiotic alien event’,” Beth said. “I performed physical exercises using only my normal human strength and among them was bench press. The testing pool is too small to draw any firmer conclusions, but from what I felt and saw, the result was that my powered strength gained effect.”

“I knew it, like I said, you are interested in studying your powers. But on your own terms. That is what I am suggesting,” Dr. Birgitta said. “That is a great observation! I wonder how it could relate to other powers? How their normal properties impacted their powers. How about other properties? What if you gained weight or contracted a disease? Very interesting.”

It seemed that when Dr. Birgitta started thinking and analysing a problem, her mind just chugged at it and spat out new ideas and concepts. Attacking the subject from as many angles as possible. Just like Beth sometimes did.

“I was thinking in the same direction. There are more input parameters than the body’s water,” Beth said. “My normal strength improved, thus my powered strength improved. For example, what if my body is able to store more water?”