Chao’s boots crunched into the snow which blanketed the ground. Her breathing was visible as periodic gusts of white vapor, but she was glad that thus far she’d managed to keep herself from panting. Her armored vest and helmet were well-fitted and didn’t chafe, but they still added a lot of weight which she had to lug around. She wasn’t used to exercise like this.
Corporal McCoy flitted like a ghost in front of her, somehow managing to make so much less noise in spite of wearing what looked to be a hundred pounds of extra gear and weaponry. Chao felt a bit of admiration at the woman’s ability, then tamped that down and tried to focus on not falling on her face.
A few of the team followed on behind Chao, all equally as silent as McCoy. Then Sergeant Shaw’s voice crackled in Chao’s ear.
“Down.”
McCoy promptly went prone, and Chao followed her example a moment later. There followed a long, horrible few minutes as the snow beneath began to spread its evil cold up into Chao’s winter garments through that annoying armored vest. She bit back a curse. Damn it, her people were optimized for the tropics. Why did the stupid aliens have to land in this frozen hellhole?
Her comm crackled again. “McCoy, bring Chao up. She needs to see this.”
McCoy bounded back up with surprising agility; Chao had only gotten up to one knee before the corporal grabbed her elbow and helped her up the rest of the way. She put a finger to her lips and motioned her head in a clear ‘follow me’ gesture.
Chao nodded and tried to be as quiet as possible as she followed McCoy up the line. Here and there she caught glimpses of the rest of the team still lying prone and doing their best to blend in with the scenery. The trail then widened out a bit, and she saw…
Oh. Oh no.
Four bodies lay strewn around this wider area of the trail, all in various weird floppy postures resembling puppets whose strings had been cut. Chao’s eyes widened and she looked around, seeing guns of various shapes also scattered about. Each body also had a wide pool of blood beneath it, which looked black in the moonlight.
Shaw stood amid the abattoir, surveying the scene with a flinty gaze. He looked up as the newcomers arrived. He spoke in a whisper, but Chao could still hear him clear as day in her ear.
“Chao, could this be due to our new playmates?”
McCoy squatted to get a look at one of the bodies, a thick olive-complexioned man who stared into the night sky with a neat hole drilled right through his forehead. His expression was confused, as if he hadn’t yet figured out what had happened to him.
Martinez crept up, silent as smoke. “Found a shitload of brass around here, Sarge. Shotgun casings too. Near as I can tell they were dumping everything over in that direction.” He pointed a knife-hand towards a ridge a few hundred yards distant.
“NATO five-five-six,” said McCoy.
Chao pulled herself together and stepped closer to the corporal. “Explain that, please.”
McCoy stood, gesturing towards the corpse with the hole in its head. “Standard issue ammunition. I’ve seen my fair share of wounds caused by it. This wasn’t some kind of raygun bullshit. This was done by one of us, Sarge.”
The sergeant let out a big breath, creating a sizeable cloud of vapor which shone in the moonlight. “Well. That’s…comforting, I guess? We still need to find the thing we came here for.”
Martinez, in the meantime, had finished another sweep of the area. “I found tracks leading from here, in that direction.” He motioned with an open hand off to Chao’s right.
“Damn, Martinez,” said Shaw with a grin. “You are as good as you claim.”
The soldier shrugged. “This time it’s not due to skill, Mack. A blind toddler could follow this trail.”
Chao watched as the sergeant paced away to look at the distant rise, clearly working out his priorities. “Right, people,” he said as he turned back to face them. “Martinez, you’re on point. I follow you. McCoy, Chao, you’re behind me. Everybody else follow behind, standard spacing and dispersal. This has got to have something to do with our little green men. Keep a sharp eye out behind and around. Move out.”
__________
The little spider-dude pilot, whose name was apparently ‘Kifa’, practically danced as it gestured an armored pedipalp at the front holographic display, one which showed a very familiar shape obscured by trees. “I’m so sorry, Captain! They must have detected us, but I don’t know how!” The alien’s distress was cute and heartbreaking enough to make Matt’s inherent arachnophobia begin to disperse. He decided to step in.
“Relax, Kifa,” he said as he moved forward to regard the display. “We humans have a lot of smart motherf…er, a lot of smart fellows. There’s no shame in getting detected.” He peered more closely at the false-color image. “Huh. Looks like one of those stealthed Blackhawks.”
The Captain strode forward. “You know this vehicle?”
“Rode in one, more than once,” he replied. “Those were fun times. Anyways, um, can you see infrared? Heat? Does that translate?”
“Yes,” replied Kifa, its posture now much more relaxed.
“Good, because you’re about to get a special forces team jamming themselves right up your behinds. Look in the infrared for any humans creeping up on us.”
Kifa gestured again at the display. “Ah! Is this the team which intends to commit violence upon our posteriors?” Somehow the spider-dudes always sounded cheerful, no matter what they were saying.
Matt now saw a line of red-outlined shapes slowly making their way along the trail blazed by the giant dude. The latter’s name was ‘Takh’, and he was apparently the XO of this merry band.
“Might as well have gone and sold tickets,” Matt muttered. Then he squinted and pointed at the second person in the line. “Wait. Can you expand on that one?”
Kifa obliged, and now Matt was confronted with the false-color image of a man he’d never expected to meet again. He leaned back and felt his entire body relax.
His ‘hosts’ must have picked up on his relaxation. “What is it?” snapped Sadaf.
“We’re in luck, that’s what,” replied Matt. He turned to the Captain. “Sadaf, you showed me great trust by showing yourself to me after…well, after what happened. I am asking for you to show me equal trust and let me go out and talk to them.”
“Just talk?” In spite of still not seeing any of the alien’s faces, he could feel the narrowed eyes of the smaller alien behind her chromed helmet.
“Just talk.”
__________
“Holy shit,” whispered McCoy. “That is a for-real flying saucer.”
Chao wriggled forward to get a better look at the black, ovoid shape which sat in the clearing. “No visible exhaust nozzles,” she whispered back. “They must have some kind of gravitic drive, like I suspected. But that still makes no sense, that’s a reactionless drive and it violates General Relativity…”
The corporal tapped her on the shoulder to cut short her muttered musing. She smiled and shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Nah, don’t worry,” replied McCoy. Then she stiffened. “Sarge?”
A bright, three-sided line appeared on the craft and began to glow brighter as a opening appeared.
Shaw’s voice was calm in Chao’s ear. “I see it, McCoy. Chao, looks like you’re up.”
She took in a deep breath and exhaled; the cold air moving through her lungs acted just like a shot of expresso.
McCoy reached over and touched her shoulder again. “I got your back,” she whispered.
Chao nodded with gratitude and stood; the door to the alien craft now formed a ramp down to the ground. The interior was indistinct, showing only a glowing yellow light that spilled out into the clearing. “Right,” she muttered, then saw something moving forward. She set her jaw and all but marched forward to the foot of the ramp.
“Chao?” Shaw’s worried voice sounded out in her ear. “Talk to me, dammit!”
“There’s something moving inside,” she said with an even voice that shocked even her. “Can’t see anything else yet, just light…okay, it looks like one of them is coming out. Just be cool no matter what it looks like, all right? Wait. Two arms, two legs, a head…that can’t be right. Maybe this is a case of convergent evolution? You know, where everything eventually evolves into crabs…”
“Focus.”
“Sorry, Mack.” She blinked a few times to clear away the tears due to the bright light streaming out from the spacecraft. The humanoid figure moved forward at a slow, steady pace while Chao kept up her running commentary.
“The alien has both arms up, hands out…wait, it has hands. Four fingers and a thumb. That can’t be right, it’s way too close to us…”
Chao’s breath seized in her throat as she looked up into the ‘alien’s’ face. A pair of black and very amused eyes stared back at her, from a head which sported a close-cropped head of brown hair. This was a human, it had to be.
“Take me to your leader, filthy human!” said the man in an overly robotic voice. He then chuckled.
There was a rustle off to one side and Sergeant Shaw suddenly appeared next to Chao, making her flinch. How the hell could someone that big move so quick?
“Toke?” Shaw asked in a tone of utter disbelief. “No fucking way.”
“Hey, Mack,” said the man in a much more normal voice. “It’s been quite a while.”
The sergeant stood in shock for a moment, then spun and fixed Chao with a glare. “Chao. Describe this man.”
“Um…” Her brain kicked into overdrive and she let it take over. “Tall, on the skinny side, probably six foot-ish, brown hair, dark brown eyes. Wearing some kind of camouflaged suit, white is the main color. He’s limping just a bit, I’m guessing some kind of injury to his left leg.” She looked up again at the man’s face. “He’s also grinning like he just stole something.”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Nah, not me,” replied the man. “I’m as pure as the driven snow.” He looked down at himself. “And I wouldn’t call myself skinny, exactly.”
Shaw shook his head. “Good. Okay. So this isn’t some kind of weird mind-fuck thing where the aliens make themselves look like someone you know.”
The man chuckled. “Hey, if you want to know if it’s really me, Mack…I could tell this nice young lady why you and I can never, ever set foot in Okinawa again.”
The sergeant spun back and pointed a furious finger at him. “Don’t you FUCKING dare, you asshole! What in the everlasting gods-be-damned MOTHERFUCKING HELL are you doing here?”
Toke shrugged. “My house is nearby. I was out for a moonlight walk, trying to clear my head, ran into some aliens. You know how it goes.”
“Oh, is that all?” Shaw jabbed a thumb back behind him. “Is your little night-time stroll the reason why there’s also four bodies a few hundred yards back thataway? Looks like they were in a very one-sided firefight? Know anything about that?”
The man’s cheerful façade faded. “Those assholes tried to kill them, Mack.”
“Them?” The sergeant eyes widened as he looked at the spacecraft’s well-lit interior. Nothing else moved that Chao could see. “Shit. You met them?”
“Yep. Seem like nice folks, even if a lot of ‘em look really funny. Um, Mack…I’m still figuring everything out. Up until now it’s been mostly language lessons, but from what I can tell something bad happened to their ship.”
“Really?” Chao looked along the black lozenge shape of the alien ship. “It looks fine.”
“This is not their ship,” replied Toke, “It’s just a landing craft.”
Chao perked up. “Ah! Their main ship must be still parked at the L5 point, then. Am I right?”
Toke glanced sideways at her. “I have no idea what that means.”
“But they’re friendly?” Shaw’s voice was steady, but Chao could tell the normally unflappable sergeant was now highly strung.
“They are.” Toke’s simple declaration made the tension in the clearing deflate. “Mack…what damaged their ship was not some natural thing. I can’t make heads or tails of what it is, but whatever it is wants us all dead. These aliens,” he nodded towards the ship, “might have saved every single one of us.”
Shaw pondered for a bit, then turned and addressed the apparently-empty clearing. “Gather round, everyone.”
Chao was once again amazed at how that empty space suddenly revealed a bunch of well-armored and well-armed soldiers. McCoy marched up and planted herself right at Chao’s side, glaring at the newcomer as if daring him to try something.
Shaw’s voice reflected his new relaxation. “Okay, people. This here’s Captain Matt Tocco. He was in Force Recon, and he’s a solid guy. You probably heard most of what we said, but for now let’s, ah…fuck. I gotta call this in.” He rubbed his neck as he thought. “Toke, can this thing move?”
“I think so,” replied Matt. “The boat is undamaged, at least.” He looked back into the spacecraft’s interior, also clearly lost in thought. “Cheyenne, maybe?”
The sergeant paced backward as he eyeballed the size of the ship. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. Maybe bring it into the south portal?”
“Good idea,” replied Matt. “Less traffic, plus it’ll fit in there no problem.”
Shaw gave a graveyard chuckle. “Yeah, it should. But we can’t have them just up and fly it into the tunnel.”
“Maybe put it on a flatbed with a tarp over it and drive it in?” asked Matt.
Sergeant Shaw sighed. “Yeah, that might work. Hang on a bit.” He walked away as he retrieved a brick-sized satellite phone, leaving Chao standing there feeling a bit useless. She decided to speak up.
“What damaged their ship?”
Matt shrugged. “That’s a bit of a mystery. There’s a bunch of names for ‘em, nothing that sounds good. ‘Enemy-of-All’ or ‘Breaker’ are the two terms which they say translates the best into English. I asked ‘em why these ‘Breakers’ are our enemies and it devolved into gobbledygook. Something to do with computation? I think?”
“Maybe hostile AIs,” Chao mused. “I need to get in there and talk to them. You said they have some language translation set up already? That’ll help a lot.”
Corporal McCoy narrowed her eyes. “I don’t want you going in there, Chao.”
Chao sighed and put a gentle hand on McCoy’s shoulder. “Haley, it’s okay. Like Sergeant Shaw said, your team’s job was to get the subject-matter expert…which is me,” she added with a grin. “…to the point of interest, which is here.” She pointed at the alien craft. “You’ve done your job. Now let me do mine.”
McCoy turned and looked up at Matt with a very pointed expression. “You look after her, okay? If she gets hurt, I will rain down hellfire and damnation upon your narrow ass.”
Matt smiled, but somehow it came across as accepting the corporal’s threatened wrath. “I believe you.”
The two stared at each other for a moment, then came to some sort of unspoken agreement. “Okay, Chao,” said McCoy. “Just…be careful, okay?”
Sergeant Shaw walked back towards the group. “Right. Toke, I’m giving you a set of coordinates for your new buddies to fly to. They can’t get a flatbed up the road to the trailhead, so we’re having one set up down near the highway. Try to get there before dawn…hopefully nobody sees it.” He looked down at Chao. “Well, ma’am? Are you ready to go to work?”
“Yes, sir!” she replied with enthusiasm.
Shaw’s mouth quirked up in a half-grin. “Don’t call me sir, I work for a living. Let’s move, people!”
__________
Chao stared at the sea of chromed, featureless helmets staring back at her. The ship’s door closed with the slightest hiss behind her. “Um. Hello?”
“Hello!” said one of the aliens, a shorter one who strode forward and stuck out her hand. “Am Captain Sadaf Ta’Shakka. I welcome you. What being name?”
“Uh, Chao Me Chu. Pleased to meet you!” She shook the Captain’s armored hand, realizing that there were only three fingers on that hand. But otherwise, Sadaf had an opposable thumb…she figured that must be a Good Trick which evolution would tend towards.
“Yes, pleased as well!” replied Sadaf. “Good friend of Matt?”
“Um…I just met him, to be honest.”
“Honest is good! Also Matt very helpful! Probably saved life!” She tapped her featureless helmet with one finger. “Good armor, but also good not to find out hard way, yes?”
Chao looked sideways at Matt, who just shrugged. “Yes, that’s good,” she replied. “Need to talk about next steps.” She motioned towards the group of armored aliens with her head, hoping that Matt got her cue.
He did, and stepped forward. “The soldiers outside know you are friends. But we need to figure out how to tell everyone else. Other humans, I mean. Could be very bad, lots of panic. Understand?”
There were various gestures in the motley crew in front of her, which Chao hoped all translated to assent. The Captain looked back at them, then back forward. “Understand. Prevent panic is good. Only wish to give knowledge, support.”
Chao’s mouth all but watered at the prospect. She tamped down the urge to lunge forward and quiz Sadaf as how how in the holy hell they’d managed to make a working gravitic drive. But she realized that there was a time and a place for such questions, and this was neither.
Matt pulled out a paper map and unfolded it. “If you fly to this point,” he said, pointing to a particular place next to a nearby highway, “These soldiers outside will meet you there. We put this boat onto truck…”
“Truck?” asked Sadaf.
“Uhh, big vehicle, flat area on back to hold boat. We then put cloth over boat. We move boat to secure facility. Does secure translate?”
One of the other short, kobold-sized aliens spoke up. “Yes! Secure, safe, discreet. What are further intentions?”
Matt shrugged again. “Honestly? Just make sure everyone safe for now. You and us. And to also get the translator working better so we can all figure out what to do next.”
The third kobold-esque alien piped up. “Safe, yes! Should have results soon, very promising, but would be better if we have samples from you two.”
Chao looked askance at Matt, who looked the new speaker with a raised eyebrow. “Dhuz, explain.”
Dhuz held up her hands as if to ward off attack. “Not saying until now! But need to know if have small things-which-kill in your air, or on you! We needed to get translator working better, before asking!”
Chao relaxed. “Oh, I got it.”
Matt snorted. “You do? I’m all ears.”
“Diseases. Think about it. When Columbus discovered the New World, there was smallpox going one way and syphilis going the other.”
“Oh shit.” Matt put a hand over his face. “Yeah, that makes sense. I was wondering why they haven’t taken off their spacesuits yet. I’m a fucking idiot. That’s why Dhuz was analyzing those samples so much.”
“Samples?
“Yeah, dirt and plants and whatnot. She’s spent a good few hours on ‘em. From what I understand she’s pulling double duty as the ship’s medic and biologist. Shit, can they ever take those suits off?”
“It’s not hopeless,” replied Chao. “This is an alien biome to them, and vice versa. Hopefully the most virulent disease in our environment for us would be harmless as far as their biochemistries are concerned. Even on Earth there are such cases. Imagine yourself catching a bad case of Dutch Elm Disease.”
Matt laughed. “Okay. Are you up for some sampling?”
“As long as it doesn’t involve my organs,” she replied.
Dhuz shook her chromed helmet enthusiastically, a gesture she’d clearly picked up from Matt. “No, no organs! Just a bit of skin…swabs? Swabs. Then a few skin cells. Then a bit of blood. Should be enough.” She tilted her head. “Unless…should also check waste. Willing to donate as well?”
“Waste?” said Chao in disbelief as she looked over at Matt.
The Marine looked imperturbable. “I won’t say that it’ll be my proudest shit ever, but…yeah. I can give you a sample. As long as I have some privacy.”
Dhuz was, by now, all but vibrating. “Yes! We can give you alone-quiet-time! We have small area in rear for relieving waste. Let me fetch sample box!” She dashed off into the back of the boat, while Sadaf and one of the spider-like aliens conferred silently (at least as far as Chao was concerned) near the front. Chao looked with interest at the saddle-like pilot’s chair which must be made specifically for the spider-person, until Sadaf came stepping closer with exaggerated care towards the two of them. Chao realized that they must be all on high alert, trying to not appear as a threat in any way.
“We move boat to Matt’s requested position now,” she said. “Dhuz will also set up alone-quiet-time in rear for Matt to provide sample.”
Chao blew out a relieved breath, then looked at Matt with amused respect. She didn’t know if she’d ever be able to shit on command, especially with an audience outside the door.
Dhuz came bustling back up with a sealed sample container, a transparent cube with a latching lid. “Press here to open, please then to deposit sample, then close lid. Will seal automatically. Will set up waste disposal facility to provide you alone-quiet-time.” Her enthusiasm completely missed the humor now passing between the two humans.
Chao snickered as Matt accepted with grave demeanor the sample container. “The things I do for my country,” he said.
__________
The takeoff of the landing boat was very much not like that of Chao’s trips in the C-130 or the helicopter. It was as smooth as glass, and Chao stared in wonder out the forward viewscreen as the ground simply fell away with no apparent noise or perceived acceleration. She sat on a comfortable stool which had, for lack of a better term, ‘grown’ out of the floor of the spacecraft.
Meanwhile, Dhuz puttered around her, talking in a low voice while she swabbed and gently scraped at various points on Chao’s body. She’d agreed to take her outfit off…the interior of the ship was held at a nicely warm temperature, after all. But she drew the line at taking off her undergarments, and Dhuz did not press the issue.
Two chromed walls formed a little cubicle at the rear of the craft, behind which Matt was presumably donating his ‘sample’. He’d already gone through Dhuz’s other samplings, and had stripped down to his underwear during that as Chao now had. She had to admit that the dude had kept in shape since retiring, although he was way too old for her tastes.
“Raise left arm, please,” said Dhuz. Chao complied, and felt a few wet dabs and a few gentle scrapes at her left armpit. “All done!” said Dhuz happily. “Now just need blood sample.”
“Ah.” Chao had tried donating blood, once, and had found out the hard way that she was pretty squeamish about such things. Especially when it came to viewing her own blood. Well, as long as she didn’t look it should be okay. “Go on.” She pointedly looked away from Dhuz, who gripped her finger with surprising gentleness.
“You feel brief…pinch? Pinch.”
True to Dhuz’s word, Chao felt a little sharp jab in her index finger…and that was all. She looked back in surprise at the tiny capsule in Dhuz’s fingers. She saw what must have been a pinhead’s worth of blood in it. “That’s all you need?”
“Yes. Our ship is exploration vehicle, we have very best analysis equipment for such things. Do not need much.”
The chrome cubicle’s walls flowed back down into the floor, and Matt walked out in his boxers. He carried his sample case behind him in an awkward manner, shielding it from Chao’s view. “Um, I got your sample.” He managed to hand the box off to Dhuz while blocking it from sight with his body.
“I have seen feces before, you know,” she said in an amused tone. Dhuz puttered off towards her analysis equipment while emitting a pleased tuneless humming.
“Yeah, but…I dunno, it feels weird to just waltz around showing off mine. Guess it beats an anal probe.” He smiled at the resulting laugh from Chao. “Anyways, you done?”
“Yep.”
“Good. I for one am gonna put my clothes back on.”
“Me too.” She stood and with gusto re-donned her clothes, although she was very glad that she wouldn’t have to put on that hateful armor vest or helmet again. If she had anything to say about it, she’d never put them on again for the rest of her life. The crew were, at the moment, at their stations within the interior. Instead of any sort of chair it looked like their armored suits could ‘lock’ themselves to the floor.
“So what is an L5, anyway?” asked Matt.
Chao continued staring in interest out the viewscreen as she answered him. “It’s a point in the Moon’s orbit where the gravity from it and the Earth cancel out. Stuff tends to accumulate there over time, I’m talking millions of years, and once it’s there it tends to stay there.”
“Huh. So they’ve hid their ship among all of the bits of rock and such?”
“I think so, but we’ll find out soon enough. I’m still curious as to how they managed to mask their heat signature.”
They both watched the landscape scrolling by. There was still no ‘felt’ acceleration, even as the ship banked into a turn. “Hm. Never thought I’d fly again,” mused Matt. “If it was this comfortable all the time, I wouldn’t hate it so much.”
Chao raised one eyebrow. “Wait. If you and Mack know each other, then you must have done stuff like jumping out of planes and helicopters. You did that and you hate flying?”
He shrugged. “I could do it, didn’t mean I had to like it.”
“You are nuts.”
Matt laughed. “You’re not the first to say so.”
One of the smaller aliens walked over and gave Chao a little bow. “Am Nadash. Willing to participate in language translation improvements?”
“Oh, right! Yes, let’s get going. I also want to find out what these ‘Breakers’ are.”
“Have fun,” said Matt. “I’ll warn you, it’s gonna get real damn boring.”