Chapter 33

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans."

~ Stephen Hawking

John watched as Enki was hauled off into the unknown by a pair of beasts and a lizard guard. He didn’t know what they would do with the Sumerian, and he imagined it would be worse as Enki was a member of The Alliance, one of their own. John had not thought this group of aliens was kind to traitors. After the guards shut the door, he noticed something stuck to his hand, the hand Enki had grabbed at the last second. Looking at it, John couldn’t figure out what it was for. A small round device, the shape of a watch battery, was sticking to his palm, refusing to release its grip.

“Sir, is everything okay?” Heidi noticed John’s frantic attempt to remove the alien device from his palm and grew concerned.

“Yes, lieutenant, I just can’t get this thing off.”

Heidi took a quick glance at the guards in the prison hall, none of them paying attention to the humans. “Here, let me see.”

Taking Johns hand in hers, she examined the device and quickly removed it with a pinch from her right hand. “See, easy. What is it?” She studied it, holding it with her index finger and thumb over her head to shine as much light as she could on it.

“I’m not sur….” John hesitated, suddenly remembering a slight tick Enki did right after the handoff. Enki placed his index finger on his temple, just behind one of his eyes as he was hauled off. “Let me see that. Enki was trying to tell me something.” John grabbed the device, gave it one more stare, but hesitated. Deep in the back of his mind, his senses were screaming at him. He somehow knew this device was dangerous and would be painful. He looked at Heidi, questioning his actions. In the end, he didn’t care. Heidi reminded him of what he needed to do without saying a word. He would sacrifice his life to save his crew, or he would sacrifice his crew to save Earth. No matter how dangerous this device was, John had to use it. Staring at Heidi, he lifted his arm and placed it on his right temple, just behind his right eye.

Heidi’s eyes grew in horror as John started to emit a scream of pure intense pain. Worse that she had heard during his torture. The device stuck to his temple and started drilling into his skull. Blood was being flung everywhere as the tiny blade dug through the captains brain. “Sam!” Heidi screamed at the top of her lungs, calling for the ships Doctor to help.

“What is... Oh my god!” Doctor Lee saw the disc burring itself deeper into Johns skull. His screams of agony grew more intense as the device dug deeper. Heidi and Sam tried gripping the device, in a feudal attempt to pull it out. Johns screams stopped as the device finally settled into his skull, the outer layer being perfectly flush with the surrounding skin. “What the hell did you do John!”

Taking in a deep breath, John was finally able to mutter something incoherent.

“What?” Heidi asked as Sam grabbed Johns head and peered into his eyes, hoping to gauge his pupil responses. “Sam, what do you make of this?” Heidi pointed to the device that was flashing a red strange symbol. The sequence got quicker as it started to emit a beep.

“Donavan!” Heidi and Sam almost yelled in unison hoping to get the skilled engineer over.

“What the bloody hell is that?” Donavan remarked as he was already on his way over to the commotion from hearing his captains screams

“We were hoping you could tell us!” Sam replied.

“I don’t have the faintest idea; I have never seen anything like it!”

The three glanced at the device as the beep had mutated into a high pitch steady sound and the symbol was flashing faster than the human eye could see. Before any of them could react, the symbol transformed, mutated into a number. 58. Then switched to 34. Again to 89. It continued to rotate two digit numbers in a wild and random pattern until it finally settled to 22 and turned Green. John started grunting loudly as pain had returned, Heidi and Donavan held John as Sam tried to examine him with just the feel of her hands. Their efforts turned grim when John’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and he started to violently convulse.

“Lay him down on his side! Hold his head and jaw!” Sam ordered.

Tears started flowing down Heidi’s eyes as she held Johns head in her lap, blaming herself for what had happened. “I should have stopped this. I could have stopped this. I knew this was bad.” She started to mutter as she couldn’t control herself.

“Laddie.” Donovan put his hand on Heidi’s and looked her in her eyes. “Don’t beat yourself up. I’ve served with the cap since he was the chief on the Avenger. He taught me everything I know. One thing I’ve learned about the stubborn old man here, he never does anything he does not want to do or put serious thought into it. You couldn’t have stopped him. He would not have let ya!”

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Heidi had not known her captain that long. She had met him in the academy, where they did not get along, but that was only a brief few months. She had served on other posts during the years. She had come to the WarpStar with some of the old, bitter memories and feelings, but no matter how she felt she never would wish suffering to this level on to anyone. Heidi had also forgotten their past and had grown quite fond of her captain. He surprised her, and surpassed the arrogant jerk she knew in the academy. She never had a chance to tell him she was sorry for how she treated him back then, she did not want to lose the chance now.

After a few moments John’s convulsions stopped and his eyes opened wide as he took in a massive deep breath. He slowly sat up as his breath returned to normal. “Ohhh what the hell!” he grabbed his forehead in pain.

“Sir, how are you feeling?” Sam asked as she moved his head towards hers to try to examine him once more.

“Have you ever had Orion Bourbon?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

“Good, don’t. This feels like I had maybe thirty too many..uugh!”

Everyone laughed as relief hit them, their captain was back.

“Aye matie, you sayin thirty drops too many? I had about twenty shots one night and didn’t feel a ‘Lic!”

John just stared at his engineer, his brain in too much pain to retort, then turned to the Doc. “Sam, when we get back to the ship, I want a full Bioscan on Donavan here. Make sure he’s still human!

A few moments passed when a message scrolled on the overlay in John’s eyes: “Host biology changed. Registering new species. Subspecies of Terran detected. Altering language output. Loading galactic common.” Suddenly everything was in English and understandable.

“Whoa,” John said as he gazed all around the room, information flooding the overlay with everything he looked at. The device even guessed some information it had no access to, like age, height, and weight of the people he looked at. Military ranks just showed ‘N/A’ since the system could not guess without uniforms.

“Sir? What is it?” Heidi noticed John’s behavior and curiosity to the entire room.

“I can see everything.”

“Umm…sir?” she began to be worried.

“It's all here!”

“Doc!” Heidi called over Doctor Lee, convinced her commanding officer had just gone insane.

“No, I’m fine,” John interrupted as the doctor gave him a quick look over.

“Without the ship’s medical equipment, I honestly cannot say if he’s hallucinating or not. He appears to be so, but—he is wearing technology we do not understand,” Doctor Lee said as she watched John’s abnormal behavior.

John was taking in the information like a sponge. Everywhere he looked had something of interest. Blood vessels and neurological conduits behind the walls, current bone density of the cell cages. He took note when he found a brittle point in the bone of the cage, this is where they would escape. He glanced at the two guards in conversation and could eavesdrop on them. Nothing exciting, just typical talk about the next Hoffman game, some sport they’re apparently excited about. ‘This is interesting,’ John thought. Sect-One Jer`Frem was in a secret relationship with another male, and Sect-Two Kilop`Grath does not know about it, and Jer`Frem is extremely terrified the other guard will find out. This could be a very homophobic species, and Jer`Frem could face dire consequences if caught. John continued to glance around, skipping over a section of wall he had examined a few times before. Something caught his eye, and he had to glance back at it. A “please wait, examination in progress” bar was just over the wall, and John stared, watching it go through the motions.

“Jackpot!” John said loudly, enough to make the guards notice and walk over.

“Quiet!! Terran!” Sect-One shouted while pointing his weapon directly at John.

“I wouldn’t threaten me with that if I were you,” John smiled, a newfound confidence beaming through. The guards did not appreciate it.

Sect-One shoved his weapon in between the bone cages in an attempt to strike and paralyze John, but missed. “You know, I’m not quite sure your lover—umm, what's his name?” Sect-One’s lizard eyes widened, stunned in surprise. John registered the increase in heartrate of his captor, and notice Sect-Two staring at his superior, uncertain. “Gler`Vam, is it? I don’t think he would approve.”

“Liesss!” Sect-One hissed and made a second attempt at the stick, failing again.

“I knew it!!” Sect-Two hissed. “I knew you and that… Filth! Were…were…. Disgusting!!… Sect Liege will hear about this!” He waved his hands about the lower-tier guard just threatened his superior in some fashion and began walking towards the hatch, fully intending to follow up on the threat.

“Noo!!” the primary guard screamed and shoved his weapon in the back of his subordinate, killing him before he hit the floor.

“Whoa! I did not expect that!” John said softly, only audible to Heidi and Doctor Lee.

“You!!!” Jer`Frem violently shot back at John “You will die for this!” he marched towards the cell doors, hunger for blood seething from his teeth.

“All Sect Leaders report to chamber epsilon immediately.” Saved by the bell, literally. To John’s surprise, that stopped Jer`Frem’s advance, and made him even more agitated.

“I will return, ssssssscum!” he hissed “And when I do. I will cook you withhhh thhhhe best corgmir ssssssseaoning.”

“Sounds delicious!” John licked his lips. “I can’t wait!” John mocked the lizard guard, who returned a loud roar in response as he left the room, dragging his dead companion with him.

“What. The. Hell. Just happened.” Heidi just said what everyone was thinking, the crew had dumbfounded looks.

“No time to explain in detail. I hacked the system and told the computer to call the guard away. That’s what it did. Okay, now the next step. Major!!” John made a hand movement, making sure all his senior staff were present along with the commander of the Marines.

“Sir,” everyone almost said in unison.

“Good,” John said, not looking away from the wall that did not, to anyone else at least, show a single advantage. “We don’t have a lot of time, get your Marines ready.”

“For what, sir?” the major interrupted.

“No time, major, just shut up and listen.” Heidi and Donovan gave the major a hard look, telling to drop it.

“Alright, in a minute or two, we will be storming the hangar, weapons will be here iiiiinnnnnnn—” John held the word as he worked his seeming ‘magic’ before the transporter system materialized a full array of rifles and combat armor for the Marines.

“How the hell?” Donovan said, but John did not glance at anyone. The Marines just grabbed their gear and suited up, checking every weapon for ammunition, safeties, and tampering. Along with the weapons and combat armor, a pile of uniforms materialized for the crew.

John concentrated even harder on the wall that showed nothing. “Major, when I say, you need to strike this point in the bone structure.” John pointed to the one weak spot in the bones he spotted earlier. “The rest will crumble on impact. Then, we storm the ship.”

“She's here?” Heidi whispered, still in shock over everything.

“Yes. Still badly damaged, the Antimatter reactor is online and pumping out energy. I was able to hack the systems, initiated startup.” John finally looked away from the wall and towards his crew. “She’s ready for us. It’s time, major.”