In the Presence of My Enemies (9 page)

   Wilcox did as he was asked, then returned a moment later to stand by Shawn and the parted-out fighter craft. “Time to take a look at that Akturian vessel, sir?”

   “The sooner the better.” Shawn looked down to his computer, bringing up a detailed map of their location. “There’s a passageway just over there leading to a stairwell. Take point, Sergeant.”

   Wilcox looked over to Tausan, who could neither speak nor hear in the vacuum. “What about him, sir?”

   “He’ll be behind you, and I’ll take the rear.”

   Wilcox grunted, then headed for the open doorway at the opposite end of the hangar. Shawn pointed first to Tausan, then to the Marine. Nodding in understanding, the Kafaran fell in several feet behind Wilcox. Reaching down, Shawn withdrew his sidearm, mindful of exactly who and where he was orienting the weapon.

   At the end of the short corridor, Wilcox came to the aforementioned stairwell. Wide enough to accommodate three men side
by side, the trio filed up the first flight in line with one another. Rounding their first run, Wilcox quickly brought the team to a halt.

  “Sir, I’ve got something.”

   Shining his light to merge with the Marines, Shawn was greeted by the eviscerated, frozen remains of an Akturian. The alien’s suit had been torn open in several places, exposing the fragile creature inside to the harsh vacuum outside. The face was drawn, with an expression of terror etched for eternity. A blob of green-gray organic material, likely the Akturian’s innards, were frozen solid as they had oozed out from a large gash across its abdomen.  

   “What the hell could have done this, sir?” Wilcox asked, his weapon pointed squarely at the body.

   “Look like some kind of wild animal got ahold of him.”

   Tausan slowly pushed the two men aside as he leaned down to inspect the corpse. Reaching out, he fingered the edge of the Akturian
’s torn suit with his claw-like fingernail. Examining the material for a second longer, Tausan stood tall, and to Shawn looked both alert and concerned as the Kafaran gazed up the next flight of stairs.

   “Sure looks like something spooked him,” Wilcox said, following the Kafaran’s ruby eyes to the empty landing above.

   “Can’t say I blame him,” Shawn said, scanning the body with his computer. “Getting some odd readings.”

   “Shawn?” Melissa’s voice called to him nervously. “Report.”

   “We’ve got a body. It’s pretty torn up. We’ll have to check these readings out later, though. We’re running out of time,” he said, as much to Melissa as to Wilcox. “Continue on point, Sergeant.”

   “Aye,” the Marine replied, taking extra caution as he ascended the stairs. At the top, the team was greeted by a long passageway.

   Trent’s voice came over the communication channel. “The signal is coming from directly ahead.”

   Shawn scanned the area behind them, then turned his attention forward. “Understood.”

   Fifty yards down the corridor, they came to another body that was curled up next to a closed airlock door. Wilcox trained his weapon toward the unmoving form, and Shawn reached down to turn the body over. This Akturian had fared less fortunately than the previous one. One arm was missing, as was one leg and half the other. A large object had perforated the chest cavity and gone clean through the body.

   “We’ve got another one,” Shawn said, addressing Melissa. “Looks like whatever killed the first Akturian got this guy, too.”

   “Any indication of what it was?” she asked.

   Shawn turned to Tausan, who was looking around the corridor with marked fascination. “I think the
colonel might, but I’m not positive. Something sure has him on edge, that’s for certain. We’re at the door to the docking ring. Once we get inside and pressurize the area, maybe he’ll enlighten us.”

   Moving the body aside, Wilcox opened the airlock and the team slowly stepped inside and closed the hatch. Once the thirty-foot
-long tube connecting the Akturian vessel to the Sector Command carrier was pressurized, Shawn and Wilcox in turn removed their helmets.

   “Okay,” Shawn said, immediately turning to Tausan. “What’s go
t you so spooked?”

   Closing his eyes, Tausan took several deeps breaths before speaking. “I do not believe we are alone on this vessel, Commander.”

   “Could you be little more specific?” Shawn asked impatiently.

   “The bodies of those
Akturians. I have seen this before.”

   “Me too,” Wilcox chimed in. “In a nightmare.”

   Shawn, ever thankful he’d brought his sidearm, quickly withdrew it. “What did this, Colonel?”

   “A very dangerous one.”

   “No crap,” Wilcox snorted.

   “Get the door to the salvage ship open, S
ergeant.” Shawn said, then turned to Tausan, quickly losing patience. “I hope you and that little translator of yours can be a little more specific in the next five seconds.”

   Tausan looked to the Marine opening the door,
then faced Shawn, cocking his head as the translator put narration to his clicks and grunts. “Meltranians.”

   “What?” Shawn asked in confusion, but was immediately distracted by a scream from the far side of the room. He turned in time to see Wilcox hoisted from his feet by some unseen force, then flung down the corridor until he impacted with Tausan. Stunned, the
colonel fell backward under the impact. That was when Shawn clearly saw the threat.

   The creature, for there was no better explanation, was easily ten feet tall. Bipedal, with grayish-purple skin and rearward hinged legs, it hunched down as it traversed the doorway, then stood upright. It had two elongated arms, with two claw-tipped forearms jutting from each of the two elbows, giving the Meltranian four dangerous
-looking grapples. The elongated head was split vertically from between the creature’s four yellow eyes to the bottom of its pointed chin, and the crown of its head pointed back with an overlapping series of sharp, scale-like layers. The Meltranian advanced slowly, its clawed, three-toed feet stamping loudly on the deck as it did so.  

   Shawn was quick to aim his pistol, firing several rounds at the alien. Blue-white bolts of energy crackled from his gun, which seemed to have no ill effect on the alien other than halting its advance. Shawn began stepping back, continuing to fire at the creature as he quickly ran out of maneuvering room.

   “You are only succeeding in making it stronger!” Tausan yelled from the floor over the din of the discharging pistol.

   “If you’ve got any ideas, pasty-face, I’m all ears!” Shawn screamed in response.

   Unseen by Shawn, Tausan scurried to his feet. Reaching beneath one of the armor plates on his dark bodysuit, the Kafaran withdrew a short, curved dagger. “Aim for its eyes, Commander, to distract it.”

   “Distract it?” Shawn yelled, doing as he was told. “Distract it from what?”

   Shawn watched as the beams from his weapon impacted the octal region of the creature, appearing for all intents as if they were being absorbed into the Meltranian’s body. Beside Shawn there was a flurry of moment, and he realized that Tausan was rushing toward the alien. “Get back here, you crazy idiot!”

   Trying to maintain his aim, Shawn watched as Tausan grabbed ahold of one of the Meltranian
’s elbows, then used it as leverage to spin to the backside of the creature. The glint of something caught Shawn’s attention, and the commander mistakenly fired a round that impacted with the armor protecting Tausan’s left shoulder, charring but otherwise not damaging it. 

   “Take care with you
r aim,” the Kafaran shouted.

   “You think this is easy?”

   “Do you think
this
is?” Tausan grunted, using all his immense strength to keep the Meltranian as immobile as possible.

   Shawn watched as Tausan hefted his knife before plunging it into the Meltranian
’s neck. The response was immediate, and the creature lurched its spike-like head back. The intended impact was stopped by one of the Kafaran’s armor plates, but the creature kept jerking its rearward assault until a strike got into a kink in the Kafaran’s armor. Yelping in pain, Tausan was forced to release the creature, who immediately staggered to the ground, the knife still buried deep in its neck. A purple, syrup-like fluid oozed from the wound.

   Shawn ceased firing, taking a moment to check on Wilcox
, who was lying at his feet. The Marine was unmoving, a large tear in the chest of his suit. And there was blood. A great deal of it. Shawn risked leaning down to check for the man’s pulse. Just as his fingers brushed Wilcox’s throat, the Meltranian leapt to its feet.  

   Shawn once again began firing his weapon, which was just as useless as before, and quickly depleted his pistol.
Tossing the empty weapon aside, he reached for the fallen Marine’s pulse rifle. Heeding Tausan’s warning, Shawn flipped the weapon from energy rounds to conventional projectiles. Firing in long bursts, round after round hitting the advancing creature. Some seemed to penetrate, while others appeared to bounce off. With a limited amount of ammunition, Shawn knew his options were quickly running out. Even if he could open the airlock and get back into the corridor, Wilcox would be killed by the instant vacuum that would form.
If he wasn’t already dead.
Besides, with his own helmet on the floor and between himself and the Meltranian, it would mean a quick death for Shawn as well.

   The Meltranian lurched to within striking distance, raising two of its clawed hands in a move that Shawn knew to be the precursor of a death stroke. As the two mighty arms began their descent, a dark, armored forearm wrapped itself over the Meltranian
’s eyes and jerked the creature’s head back in a move that would have snapped a human’s neck instantly. Shawn watched as Tausan, momentarily recovered from his injury, firmly grasped the knife embedded in the Meltranian’s throat. In one swift, powerful movement, the Kafaran pulled the knife along the valley of two plates in the creature’s skin, and with his multi-jointed wrist, neatly decapitated the Meltranian.

   Purple blood sprang from the mortal wound as the Meltranian
’s lifeless body crumpled to the floor, leaving Shawn gaping up from the floor at the Kafaran who still held the Meltranian’s head as if it were a trophy. Holding the creature’s face to his own, Tausan looked into the dead eyes of the Meltranian, then tossed the prize aside as if were garbage. “Disgusting creatures.”

“The first hurdles in getting the Kafarans and the Unified Collaboration working together were leapt with a great deal of kicking and screaming at nearly every level in the chain of command except for the one that truly mattered—by the people out there doing the fighting and the dying. I’d never in my life seen two cultures work so well together so quickly. It was incredible, but it also frightened me to my very core.”

—
Senior Agent Melissa D. Graves

Deputy Commander, Office of Special Investigation
Interfacing with New Cultures: A Field Agent’s Guide to Dealing with the Unknown, 10
th
Edition.

   Melissa’s voice was near
-frantic as she called to the team over the communications channel. “Shawn, what’s going on? What’s happening?”

   Shawn, still dazed from the vicious, light
ning-fast attack by the Meltranian, stared down at the headless corpse at his feet. It wasn’t until after Melissa’s second volley of questioning that he managed to pull himself to his feet and address her. “We were attacked. Wilcox is down.”

   “Attacked? By what?”

   Shawn looked over to Tausan, who was still standing victoriously over their attacker’s head. “The colonel says it was a Meltranian.”

   “Was? Meaning you killed it.”

   “No,” Shawn said slowly. “Colonel Tausan did—and quite effectively, I might add.”

   Tausan shifted his gaze to Shawn. The
commander noted what could almost be described as pride in the Kafaran’s eye.

   “What about Wilcox?” she continued. “He’s hurt?”
   Tausan turned from the decapitated head and leaned down toward Wilcox, then ran a finger around the opening the alien had town in the sergeant’s environmental suit. There was a great deal of blood, and judging by the depth of the wound, Shawn doubted the Marine had survived the surprise attack.

   “He’s dead,” Tausan offered somberly. “And we should all be thankful for such.”

   “Why is that?” Shawn asked.

   “The attack by the Meltranian infected him with what we call the Shadow Syndrome.”

   Shawn gave the Kafaran a look of confusion, wondering if the colonel’s voice translator was acting up. “You’ll have to be more specific than that.”

   Tausan stood and stepped closer to Shawn. “It is a condition brought upon by toxins inherent to the Meltranian warriors. The victim’s DNA reacts destructively with the fluid injected into the host. Instead of healing the wounds, the body makes the condition worse. Once the Shadow Syndrome has worked to its completion, there is little of the original host left. The process is quite slow and agonizing.”

   Shawn licked his lips. “That’s how the Meltranians kill, is it?”

   Tausan cocked his head as the translation was read to him. “No, Commander Kestrel. That is how they feed.”

   A lump formed in the commander’s throat as he looked back to the body of Sergeant Wilcox. “Are there any more of them on board?”

   Tausan grunted, then looked to the open doorway
of the Akturian salvage ship. “It is doubtful. They are usually found in groups of four. That we were not immediately attacked by others is a sign that creature was here alone.”

   “But if they operate in fours, then why—”

   “Very likely a scout. I have no doubt that, upon a closer visual examination of the hull of this derelict, we will locate its ship.”

   “You’ve seen this kind of behavior before?”

   Tausan nodded his large head. “Yes. We would do well to get back to your ship and leave this area immediately. It is unsafe to remain.”

   “Any more of a reason than the obvious of getting pummeled by random space debris?”

   “Meltranians can sense the presence of other biological life-forms and their power emanations at a great distance.” The colonel then looked once more to the horrid, decapitated alien on the ground. “That is their singular purpose, Commander. They conquer their foes by infecting the populations. Once they have achieved victory, the warriors all but die off, and the few females left repopulate the species on the new host world.”

   It was all too much for Shawn to take in at once, and even though he had a dozen questions pop into his mind, he knew now was not the time to ask them. “Then let’s get out of here before it’s too late for any of us to make a difference. If they can read those discharges, we should deactivate whatever is
giving them off on the Akturian ship. We don’t want to attract any more of those . . . things.”

   “A sensible precaution, Commander.”

   Inside the Akturian ship, Shawn and Tausan had quickly located the energy reading—a computer terminal that been set to run in a continuous diagnostic cycle. Switching the unit off, the only thing still humming with power was Shawn’s environmental suit.

   “Why do you think they left this on?” Shawn asked Trent over the intercom.

   “Beats me. From your description of the panel, it sounds like all it was doing was constantly rechecking the memory banks.”

   “This is not an uncommon tactic of the Meltranians,” Tausan offered from behind Shawn. “They will sometimes leave a single power source functional in hopes of drawing in victims.”

   “Like a
spider’s web,” Shawn said approvingly.

   “I do not understand the reference.”

   “It’s a Terran insect . . . a multi-legged species that draws its victims into a trap. It then devours them from the inside out.”

   Tausan seemed to grunt in approval. “I take it that you eradicated this species.”

   Shawn smiled, remembering a rather large spider Trent had discovered in
Sylvia’s Delight
only a few weeks prior. “No, much to the chagrin of many of my people.”

   Tausan shook his head in confusion. “I have much to learn about your people.”

   “I’ll tell you all about it when we get back to the ship,” he said, finding himself still smiling until his eyes fell on the body of Sergeant Wilcox. “We’ll need to get him back to the ship. Is this Shadow Syndrome contagious?”

   “No, Commander. The virus loses
its potency after the victim has died. To be infected, one must be in direct contact with a pure source. At least, it is that way for my people. However, I cannot say for certain exactly how the Sergeant’s remains will react. Humans are . . .
fragile
things.”

   “I don’t want to leave him behind. He deserves better.”

   “To bring him back invites a dangerous unpredictability, Commander. This mission is too important to risk over the death of one man.”

   Despite his frustrations, Shawn knew that the
colonel was correct. He only wished for a better alternative.
Damn it
. “Fine. Wilcox stays, but I want to take a sample of his tissues back with us. It may prove valuable.”

   “The risk of contamination will still remain.”

   Shawn nodded as he leaned down toward the body of the fallen Marine. “If there is any contamination to worry about, then I may already be infected. If this Meltranian poison is anything like venom, there may be a way to counteract it hidden in its own genetic makeup. A sample is worth the risk.”

   “As you wish,” Tausan nodded.

   Withdrawing a small vial from his suit pocket, Shawn captured a sample of serrated flesh and a fragment of Wilcox’s torn suit. “By the way, thanks for saving me back there.”

   “It was my duty, Commander. Think nothing more of it.”

   “Well, in my culture, saving a man’s life is a pretty big deal. It demands some form of gratitude on the part of the person whose ass you saved.”

   “Your role in this mission is critical, Commander. You are our pilot.”

   Placing the sealed vial back in his pocket, Shawn stood to face the Kafaran. “To be honest, Trent and Melissa could pilot the ship just as well as I could.”

   To this
, Tausan grunted. “Then perhaps I should have let you die.”

   Shawn stopped in his tracks. “Whoa
, now. That’s not what I’m saying at all, pasty-face.”

   Tausan let out a throaty growl, which Shawn took as laughter. “I am only joking with you, Commander. Did I not project that
correctly?”

   “Let’s just say that your sense of humor is a work in progress and leave it at that.”

   “As you wish,” the colonel replied, then began walking toward the airlock hatch. “And what is the meaning of the term ‘pasty-face’? I do not understand its context.”

   Shawn suddenly found himself uncomfortable with the fact that, not only was the term a derogatory remark
toward Kafarans, he’d likewise just insulted the man who saved his life. “It’s what we call Kafarans,” he said, his mouth reacting faster than his brain.

   “Why not simply call us Kafaran
s. It seems much easier.”

   “It’s not a technical reference,” Shawn attempted to explain, but knew that somehow he would fail on all fronts. “It’s more
. . . critical.”

   “About our appearance
,” the colonel said in understanding.

   “About how unsightly it can be. At times. To some.”

   “Then it is meant offensively.”

   Unable to find a way out of his situation, Shawn resigned himself to his fate. “It is. And it’s not appropriate. I’m
. . . I’m sorry. You risked a lot back there to save my hide, and I shouldn’t just pop off like that.” When the Kafaran officer stared at him blankly, Shawn forced a chuckle. “I’m sure you have your own slang for humanity.”

   Tausan snorted, which seemed to be his way of indicating that he was pondering his next words. “We do have a similar term for humans. To be more precise, the word ‘human’ is analogous to our word hu’mock, and we often use that when describing Terran life in general.”

   “And what does it mean, this hu’mock? Short? Gangly? Pink-skinned?”

   “It is a single term applied to the expulsion of bodily waste products.”

   Shawn found himself laughing at the translation. “Well, maybe we won’t have to work on your sense of humor after all.”

   The
colonel stopped as he neared the airlock door leading back into the derelict Sector Command carrier. “It was not meant in jest, Commander. It is a true statement.” Before Shawn could come up with a reply befitting the Kafaran’s declaration, Tausan reached for the hatch controls. “Please place your helmet on, Commander. Our conversation, for the time being, has come to an end.”

   Ten minutes later, Shawn and Tausan were back inside the airlock on board
Sylvia’s Delight
. As soon as the inner door opened, Shawn and Tausan were greeted by Melissa, who was not shy about her eagerness to embrace the commander. Shawn dropped his helmet as the woman’s arms tightly encircled his neck.

   “Thank God you’re al
l right,” she whispered into his ear.

   “I told you I’d be back.” Her grip loosened, and he held her at arm’s length. “I only wish Wilcox was as fortunate.”

   “What happened?” she asked, turning from Shawn to Tausan.

   “An ambush,” the Kafaran replied. “S
ergeant Wilcox’s death was instant.”

   “What he means,” Shawn quickly added, “was that the
sergeant did his duty.” He then reached into his suit pocket and withdrew the sample vial. “I’d like you to hold onto this.”

   “What is it?”

   “A highly potent toxin, or so the Colonel says. It’s secreted by the Meltranians.”

   “Only the warriors are so equipped,” Tausan injected.

   Shawn’s eyes never left Melissa’s. “Lock this up in your cabin.” He then quickly stepped past her with Tausan close on his heels.

   “Where are you two going?”

   “There may be a Meltranian ship nearby,” Tausan said without turning around. “And we must destroy it.”

   Jogging through the passenger compartment, Shawn and Tausan leapt through the doors leading to the Mark-IV’s cockpit. Trent, surprised by their abrupt entrance, bolted from his chair.

   “What’s going on?” he asked, then noticed that Tausan was standing directly behind Shawn. “And what’s
he
doing up here?”

   Shawn paid his mechanic little mind as he jumped into the pilot
’s seat.

   “Are your scanners capable of detecting negatively charged particles?” Tausan ask
ed Trent.

   “Uh
. . . well . . .” Trent stammered, looking to Shawn for an answer.

   “Just tell him everything he needs to know,” Shawn snapped, his hands working feverishly at the controls. It wasn’t until the magnetic locks were disengaged and
Sylvia’s Delight
was floating freely that Trent finally answered.

   “Uh, yeah. I mean
, yes. We can.”