There is a certain duality to primordial jungle. It is certainly majestic, lush, vibrant and generally appealing to look at, especially from the distance and comfort of your home. It is also incredibly moist, annoyingly hot and very inhospitable to human life as a rule. Survival is complicated but doable, however living here? Mike shuddered and looked at his watch, noting the date.
The magic of the untouched land did seem to wear out slowly as he was trudging along through a bit of a less overgrown part of the Amazonian rainforest.
A lot of annoyances can easily be dealt with by careful planning and preparation, browsing a lot of advice and spending a significant sum on equipment. Mike never actually understood why good outdoorsman equipment costs so much until now – where every gram saved by expensive polymer materials was worth it’s absent weight in gold.
But the annoyances started to add up. A weird bite, wet boots, the sweaty tent, the ants that got to half of his rations before he noticed. All of it was an amazing adventure, one that he would be sure to tell his kids about…
The kids. The wife.
Mike sighed for the hundredth time shaking his head and himself out of an unpleasant memory. It was actually getting better.
A rash and perhaps a stupid decision – to go out in the middle of nowhere and prove to himself first and foremost that he is a worthy member of the species. Not just some button clicker. And have time to think, read, and not be distracted by modern society.
People deal with stress in different ways. And while Mike thought he was somewhat stress-resistant it looks like a cushy IT job did not prepare him for a stress of his first and only official breakup. Mom was wrong after all, and Helen wasn’t after his money. But in the end, it didn’t matter and she found a manlier man than him. Her words, not his.
This stung way more than the weird bite he got on day two, and was bothering him just as much. It shouldn’t hurt so much but he honestly was absolutely certain that this was the love of his life and he will live on in happiness and prosperity ever after. Together forever. Childish perhaps, but two years of bliss ended abruptly and out of nowhere. There was no fight, no bad words exchanged. Helen just left him and disappeared as if she was never there.
Overanalyzing his many failings as a husband was rather painful and eventful. Swinging between blaming himself, blaming her, blaming society, blaming the universe itself wasn’t really productive.
After several sleepless nights and his friends and family being all supportive Mike said to hell with everything and took his long overdue vacation with a hope to clear his head. To have time to think things through and force himself to not be distracted by alcohol or videogames. The earlier you deal with a potential crisis the better.
The pilots did look at him like he was an idiot but a rich (by their account) man pays and the less questions you ask the more he usually pays. And thus, just a week after his plans were made an old, shaking and in places very rusty helicopter of Russian origin provided a gorgeous view of his destination. A literal middle of nowhere where only a satellite phone can be his lifeline to civilization.
The helicopter landed on a clearing that seemed tailor made for this goal and Mike was left to his own stupid devices with a guarantee that the pilots will come back for him in three weeks to this very glade. Well not for him necessarily, rather for the other half of the promised payment.
The first days were both hard and fun. Setting up his base of operations, securing water and firewood. Constantly being afraid of snakes, spiders and using a nauseating mixture of bug repellents of various manufacturers. He was already writing a review on his pad for how well they all worked.
The rainforest wasn’t silent by any means, but in a week, Mike got used to the bird calls, the creaking, the hissing and weird burbling sounds he still didn’t know the origin of. And then the thoughts came in as expected.
The thinking and pondering sometimes got interrupted by the need to “survive”. And in time it got easier. Punching trees helped. Fishing surprisingly helped too. More than once Mike caught himself in a meditative state while sitting there still on the bank of a rushing river. He was powering through his self-imposed isolation and bringing back all of the stories – however minor they were – to people who really mattered. His friends, his family and most importantly - himself.
He just needed to not break his legs for another week.
Used by now to the noise scene of the jungle Mike suddenly registered a change. Together with all other inhabitants that abruptly went way more quiet than usual he heard a low drone of something alien to these woods.
Did the helicopter came earlier? Also, it didn’t sound like the helicopter he came in but maybe the rainforest distorted the sound this way. Regardless, it was a welcome change of pace and he started making his way towards the glade, not necessarily minding that much to cut his vacation short.
* * *
“Is the scanner ready?”
The bulky contraption slammed into the ground with a heavy thud as Wolta Jar – 2-Star operative of the Nadeen expeditionary fleet relaxed the artificial muscles of his exoskeleton and let the somewhat lower gravity of the planet take care of the package.
“Got it right there, sir,” he responded to his superior with a slightest hint of irritation.
Not at the question, Wolta completely understood the utmost priority of setting up the bio scanner since the one on the dropship wasn’t really usable on the ground. It was part of the procedure and they trained for this. Secure the perimeter, set up detection equipment, and then and only then – care about the minor stuff like unloading the myriad of boxes the squad brought with them on this expedition.
The problem was the excited science crew shoved so much stuff into the cargo hold in the last minute that unloading messed up the schedule of establishing the perimeter.
“Setting up now.”
Wolta pushed the big blue button and with a mechanical whine the box started unwrapping itself, producing several pointy and menacing looking antennae. The helpful ping of new equipment automatically connecting to the perimeter network made the operative happy. The follow-up message did not.
“It’s running first time setup self-diagnostics. Damn it.”
“How long is it going to be?”
“No idea. I just got cleared on using it tonight so I have literally no experience with It. No reference for the older model either.”
“Damn eggheads,” 3-Star operative Nok, the leader of the squad groaned. His irritation was understandable too.
When a rather routine, if longer than usual research voyage of new systems uncovered a planet with an atmosphere – the scientists on board the ship immediately threw a party.
When Pride of Calemea detected a massive amount of radio waves and it appeared that the planet was not only supporting a rudimentary biosphere but was actually inhabited by a sentient species – the anticipation of going down and doing some research was almost physical.
But none of the scientists, not even the ever-prepared chief Corx had completed their dirtside training and thus were not legally authorized to assist in sample collection. Yes, the risk of finding something like that was infinitely small, but come on! Do your training, you had months of calm and uneventful transit.
But no, the science deck of the Pride spent their time doing anything else, like bothering the rest of the crew for volunteers, conducting space rock studies and arguing about the nature of space resonance and black holes. Or something like that – Nok while respectful towards the very smart scientifically minded individuals didn’t really care for the trip as a whole. The war still raged on and instead of actively kicking the crap out of Fonor Confederacy he had to babysit a completely irrelevant voyage of deep space exploration.
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He was wrong about the irrelevance, he would be first to admit that. The last time someone found a new intelligent species was about 400 years ago. And now the lizard-like creatures were an integral (albeit dumb) part of Fonor assault troups. Maybe these by comparison almost space-worthy apes would be actually useful to the commonwealth.
Regardless, the scientists were lacking the necessary training and now the squad of operatives had to not only care about security but also collect samples and do the experiments with no idea what to do and why, all while a nervous gaggle of “helpful” scientists squabbled about who’s experiment is more important and urgently tried to study for a virtual exam to eventually join them dirtside for at least a couple days. Despite the massive discovery the ship was on schedule and delaying the landing was out of the question.
“Hey 3-Star? What do they expect us to catch with this?” Star Gouts pointed at a recently unloaded specimen cage of massive proportions. The crate was busy whirring, sucking in the primordial air for its internal reserves, preparing for an unlucky creature to be stored inside.
“Did you sleep through the briefing Gouts? There’s all sorts of sizeable predators and herbivores to fit inside.”
“No, no, I mean specifically. I just heard you talking to Corx and she was all sorts of excited and asking to “please get it” whatever it is?”
“Oh. Oh, right, yea, remember those big felines we tried not to laugh at on the “potentially dangerous” slides?”
“The spotted ones? The one who look like…”
“Shh! Yes, and don’t even mention the resemblance! So, yea, that one, because… Well you realize how absolutely hilarious it would be to…”
Information about what exactly the chief scientist Corx would do with a Jaguar was interrupted by an alarmed shout of Star Roeant - fourth member of their squad who was standing watch on the edge of the clearing.
“Contact! Marked yellow on the HUD!”
It’s amazing what having a lot of free time to do drill after drill does to your reaction time. When there is literally nothing else to do on a ship during a long transit what you do is train with your buddies to at least be miserable and bored together. This time the training kicked in immediately and the whole squad exploded into motion like a well-oiled machine… that exploded... Before the sentence was even finished everyone dropped what they were doing and rushed into cover, checking their weapons.
“It’s a native. Sentient. No hostility yet!” Roeant went on with his report.
Nok was rushing around the hull of the dropship to lay his own eyes on the target. The problem was not that they spotted a native. That fell into dozens of unpleasant scenarios that they all studied and prepared for. The problem was that the yellow dot on the HUD was actually inside the perimeter. Right on the edge of the clearing. The native has seen them and it was doubtful that they will just walk away and forget about the encounter.
A decision had to be made swiftly.
At this point Nok reached the nose of their spacecraft and saw the native for himself. He was tall, somewhat lanky. And just like their basic intel package said on yesterday’s briefing looked amazingly similar to a Vautari. So much so that the first instinct was to shout something about trespassing and authorization to be on the site.
The native started wide-eyed at the clearing. He was holding long pointy stick that from the first glance didn’t look like a spear – but who knows, taking chances wasn’t one of his best plans.
Star Roeant on the other hand was crouching in front of a crate in all his full environment suite glory, holding his service weapon trained at the native.
The most important question still on his mind - was he alone? And it could not have been answered immediately without the damn scanner working!
Ping!
A melodic jingle announced that the bio detection array finally unfurled all of its antennae, finished self-diagnostic procedures and helpfully provided the first scan of the immediate area.
“Wolta! Bioscan data! Is he alone?” Nok did not dare take his eyes from the standoff.
After couple seconds of awkward silence Garret provided an answer
“Nothing in the immediate vicinity bigger than a bird. Unless they are cloaked. Setting up a wider area scan.”
“Okay, he’s alone then,” Squad leader came to a decision.
“Non-lethal. Incapacitate.”
There was a click, followed by a crackling sound of the wide-range neutralizer. The amount of energy wasn’t massive, but was very effective in rendering almost any kind of biological species with a nervous system an unconscious.
The native gurgled and moaned something incoherent, clutching his chest but instead of collapsing on the spot stumbled back into the thick vegetation.
Roeant immediately rushed after him, gun trained. The neutralizer wasn’t the best weapon for jungle since the energy dissipated very quickly once anything was hit.
A loud blam forced the birds that just calmed down from the whole “giant spaceship landing in the middle of the forest” ordeal to fly up again, accompanying the gunshot echo.
Several more zaps and a thud of a fallen body immediately followed before Nok barreled through the underbrush to see the scene.
The native was down and out, while Roeant was in the middle of kicking some sort of crude weapon from his hand.
“Status!”
“Damn native was armed after all. Projectile of some sorts. Missed me though, he was half-conscious already but I shot couple more charges in him for good measure. Might have been a bad call to rush in but I didn’t expect…”
“Cut it, debrief later. Have to deal with all this shitshow now. Search him for any electronic devices or communicators. Wolta?”
“AI reports no outgoing signals detected, also still nothing on the bioscanner. It looks like we are clear for now.”
“Right. Stay vigilant. Gouts, help Roeant bring our new friend and put him… in a big game cage I guess? I got to report this and get new orders.”
Nok finally sighed in a semblance of relief after the rush of adrenalin died out. The crisis might be averted. No casualties, and the native might just be a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. What are the odds though…
“Nok, Pride of Calemea here, come in.”
Damn it. They must have detected the energy discharge. Oh well, no time like the present.
“3-Star Nok here. Sir we have an issue with…”
“Listen first,” He was somewhat rudely interrupted by the captain of the ship, “We got new orders. Pride is being recalled and is returning to the front. We are aborting the mission and cutting short your trip. Instead of a month we have a week to finish repairs. You have 40 minutes to throw anything you can into containers, pack everything up and be on your way back.”
“But… Wh.. Yes sir. Any priorities?”
“Soil, vegetation, eggheads are begging you to at least catch some bugs if you can, but the schedule takes precedent. Now what’s your problem?”
“Well sir, we have an unconscious native. He’s alone and unharmed but he sneaked up on us while the bio scanner was being deployed. We basically landed on top of his head. He have definitely seen us.”
There was silence for several seconds. It wasn’t really awkward, more – astonished.
“Okay I have no time to deal with this shit, so you deal with it.”
“What do you mean…”
“3-Star I might be your senior but you did take course and studied first contact ethics. This is not first contact. It can’t be first contact. You deal with the situation and I will support your decision. I have a ship being prepared for emergency departure and we were planning to be here for the next month so I’m a bit busy too. Deal with it in any way you see fit and I expect you on the route back in… well two hours tops. Maybe call Corx, see if he can help unmess this. Good luck. Pride out.”
Nok stared dumbfound at the container where the native was unceremoniously deposited.
What was he going to do with a native. Maybe Corx can erase his memories somehow?
***
“Heya Corx,” Nok decided to contact the ship’s chief scientist after all. The ever excited helder of many degrees answered with the usual swift speech pattern.
“Oh, so you heard the news already? Good. I mean bad. I mean the news are bad, but it’s good that…”
“Okay okay, I get it, listen for a moment. We’ve got a situation.”
“ANOTHER situation?”
“Yes. One you will be both very happy and unhappy about.”
“Oh? Intriguing. Tell me more!”
“We are bringing a native on board.”
“WHAT? But that’s…”
“And you have to do your science to remove his memories or something.”
“WHAT? But that’s…”
“And then we return him back here, just before we jump. And tell me something else beside’s “What?”. Can it be done? Can you do it?”
After a full ten seconds of silence, a very uncharacteristic pause for Corx she got ahold of herself and answered.
“Theoretically yes. But, we have no idea how their brain works and we have to run the scanner for the whole duration. It normally takes months, and that’s for species with known structure that was scanned a million times already. You are asking me to mess with the brain of a native within a week? This is insane! And he will probably be insane too by the end of it!”
“It’s that or we have to get rid of him.”
“Oh. Bring him here then. We’ll start calibrating the equipment. Say did you by chance manage to find…”
“No. No giant cats that look like your ex-wife. Be happy if we bring couple plant cuttings to you.”
***
A week later the last pre-flight checks were being made and the Pride was almost ready to get back to her fleet. Nok and Corx stared at the the unconscious native under all the machinery.
“So, you are sure it can’t be done?”
“I am certain, yes. The scans are way to incomplete to do anything but turn him into vegetable. If I had a couple more weeks we could have done it but now?” Corx sighed.
“I mean, can we just… NOT throw him out of an airlock or whatever you planned to do with him?”
“What do you mean?”, Nok furrowed his scaly brows
“I mean we can just chuck him into a cryopod since he’s only choice otherwise is death. So what does it matter if we just take him with us instead?”
“That… actually makes sense. And frankly speaking it would be a massive load off my chest. I know I’m the tough operative and such, but I still would gladly avoid killing innocents.”
“So it’s decided then?”
“Yeah. Throw him into a cryopod, continue running scans. Maybe our deployment will be short enough and we’ll return him in a couple months. We… we have to prepare a whole lot of legal defence though.”
“Oh don’t worry about that, my brother is an exceptional lawyer. We’ll get out of this with a commendation, not punishment!”
“If you say so.”
An internal network message warned the crew about the upcoming jump. The whole ship shuddered violently and disappeared from Earth’s orbit, taking the unlucky native with it.