On Mars Pathfinder (The Mike Lane Stories Book 1) (16 page)

Folding her hands in front of her, she began the most interesting diatribe I’ve ever heard with a question. “Have you heard of a UFO crashing at Roswell in 1947?”

“Ma’am,” I nodded my head.

“There were two ships that crashed that night, during an electrical storm. They were flying in close formation when ionization between the crafts hulls and a very large nearby lightning bolt caused their flight control systems to operate erratically, and then fail completely. One crashed north-west of Roswell, closer to Corona, in New Mexico. The other one made it further away, and crashed in the mountains near Datil, New Mexico. This was in 1947. That night, nine aliens died in those crashes. The tenth one, a mechanic of all things, survived.” She opened the folder, took out a black and white 8x10, and placed it on the table in front of us.

The three of us leaned forward and looked at a bald, smooth headed creature that had a lot of human characteristics to its face.
Damn it,
I thought silently,
Skinny-Bob IS real!
Its eyes were a lot bigger, and more almond-shaped than oval. The bald head looked a bit bigger than you would expect, but the cranium looked very similar to a human cranium. The creature had a long neck that attached the head to a short body. The head was slightly disproportionate to its body, but then again, it probably thought we had really
small
heads given how big humans are in comparison. The creature’s legs were short like the body, but it had very long arms, and four long fingers with, like humans, opposable thumbs. The creature was standing by two human men in American military uniform. It was shaking one of the men’s hands. The alien was only a little over four feet tall. It wore human clothes; they appeared to be a two piece warm-up suit, circa 1940, a couple sizes too large.

“His official designation was EBE-1 but we just called him Bob. He lived for another five years, passing away from, as far as the doctors of the day could tell, natural causes. This alien was an Eben. The Eben are a 10,000 year old civilization that come from a planet called
Sapro
that is close to 40 Light Years from Earth in the Zeta Reticuli system, in the Cygnus arm of the Milky Way.” Given the brief but interesting astronomical training all the candidates had received, that actually meant something to me. “Through that lone survivor, we developed a relationship with the Eben, and eventually an exchange program: exchanging technology and personnel. They have helped us understand our place in the Milky Way, and what other friends and foes are out there.” She pulled another 8x10 black and white picture from the folder and put it in front of us. I snapped back from this one a little too fast. This one I knew.

“There is a star system,” she continued, “not that far from Earth, only ten light years away, called Epsilon Eridani. There is a race of aliens from that star system; we simply call them the Eridani. This image is one of their intelligentsia cast that you would know from popular culture. This one in particular is from a race called the Vesna.” She pronounced it,
vesh-nah
. She let the image sink in.

The queasy feeling in my stomach was coming back. “I don’t have a picture of an Eridani Master, the Voiya they are called, but they are the masterminds responsible for human abductions and the cow mutilations you read about in the tabloids. We stop the more serious events from making it to print, but its good disinformation to let the occasional ET story appear next to Bat-Boy or the latest Elvis sighting.” Again, the smile that was not a smile.

Hans touched my arm, “Are you okay?” he inquired? I had gone pale white.

I wiped my mouth with a shaking hand, and sighed deeply. I nodded my head. You have to understand, I’m a very composed and unflappable person. I take stress, misadventure, and crisis in stride. When disaster strikes and some people run around doing Chicken Little impressions, I’m the one standing there stroking my chin and saying,
Hmmmm, isn’t that interesting
. It had often been noted in the program training how unflappable I was. In fact, I’m the only person to ever fall asleep during the three day sleep deprivation test. I tell you this, so you will understand the full impact of this picture lying before me. Hans told me later my complexion had gone ashen, sweat formed in beads on my forehead, and my hands were both shaking. I looked up, and the General was looking at me dead pan. “We know,” she said. “January 9
th
, 1973.” I had never known for sure if it was a real memory or a nightmare. What she just said was a confirmation; it was like a kick in the balls. How could she know? I was five years old during that terrifying night, the night that was locked away in my subconscious until it all came flooding back to me when I was in my thirties. If she had known, could she have stopped it? Could they, the U.S. Air Force, have stopped it? Did they let it happen to me? The nauseating fear started to be replaced by a quite different feeling.

She pulled that second picture back, and put it back in the folder. She resumed speaking while I got up to refill my coffee cup with my still shaking hands.

“We had formed a tepid relationship with the Eridani, but it was against the advice of the Eben. The Eben and the Eridani are bitter enemies which is odd, because the Eben genetic experiments are responsible for the existence of the Eridani to begin with.”

“Genetic experiments?” Hans said out loud. He was shaking his head. “Cloning?”

The General looked at him for a moment without acknowledgement and then continued, “The Eridani and our human liaison team saw a great number of things quite differently, and while we tried to work together for a while, our visits to the Moon did not make them happy. They didn’t want to share that base of operations.”

Hans and Jayden both did a double take and in unison said interrogatively, “Share?”

Nodding, she continued, “Eventually, we started to lose patience with the Eridani and the Lectra, another race we’ve had dealings with. In 1978 a brief but defining war broke out in one of several underground bases at Dulce, New Mexico. Forty-four of our scientists were killed, along with a handful of the Special Forces there to police the facility. When I say killed, I mean most were shot with pulse-energy weaponry, but a few of them were physically torn to pieces.” She pulled two more black and white 8x10s out of the folder, and put them on the table. Back in my chair I leaned forward to look with the others. One picture showed a hallway covered in what could only be blood and viscera. Blood stained white lab coats, and some military clothing were jumbled in with the bits and bobs that had once been living humans. From the looks on what was left of the faces of the two corpses that were merely dismembered, they died slowly.

The General continued, “Eridani weapons cause a human body to internally come to a boiling point, instantly, and then explode. The others, well, the Lectra like to use their claws.” I think only John Carpenter or Quentin Tarentino could have come up with the gruesomeness depicted in that image. The second picture showed two Special Forces members holding up what was obviously a dead “grey” alien, one of these Eridani, specifically the Vesna, which are more employees of the Eridani, than Eridani proper. Part of its skull was missing from a bullet blast, and it had two large calibre bullet holes in its body.”

“Only two of the roughly twenty Eridani contingent were killed. The dozen Lectra escaped unharmed. Since then, we have broken off all formal relations with the Eridani, though we do keep some back-channel lines of communication open. They are untrustworthy, violent, and don’t really have any positive qualities. They see humans as chattel; and have no regard for our wants or needs. They tolerate us, and not very well at that. The Lectra, well, they’re another story, and I’m not going to tell you anything about them other than they have no interest in Mars.” She had no pictures of the Lectra, but the dismembered bodies in the photos on the table said enough.

“After this battle at the Dulce underground base, the Eridani have steadfastly warned us not to return to the Moon. The fact that the Corporation plans to send a colony team to Mars is known to them”, Jayden was pale white by this point. “They have told us that you will be most extremely unwelcome. Oddly enough, they didn’t come right out and say they would kill you, like they have in the past about us returning to the Moon; however, we all think that is what they mean. It has been our experience that the Eridani are very precise in what they mean through being very precise in what they say. Sometimes things just get lost in translation.”

Thankfully, she put the pictures back in the folder. They were like a train wreck, you didn’t want to see them, but you couldn’t look away.

“The Eben pulled back from formal relations with us in 1985. They are a peaceful, compassionate, and caring race. They are the friendliest beings you would ever meet, even friendlier than Canadians”, she looked right at me. “The Eben said that there was too much Eridani activity on Earth for their comfort level. Despite their pacifist mentality, they urged us to kill and destroy the Eridani at every opportunity; or else the Eridani would do it to us.”

“So Mr. Lane, if you go to Mars, it is likely you will be killed before you land, or when you land. Hell, they might even preemptively just blow your ship to bits on the way there. If you go to Mars, we are confident that there is a high probability that it’s going to be a suicide mission.”

She looked like she wanted to say more, but she was playing her cards close to her chest. Jayden let out a long-held sigh, and Hans was rubbing his jaw and thinking. They both looked at me. The confirmation of the existence of the “greys”, the Vesna, had thrown me for a loop; yet, I had recovered rapidly. As far as the rest of it was concerned, I wasn’t fazed by any of it. I walk with God, and I don’t fear death because I know of the eternal reward that awaits me. That doesn’t mean I go looking for ways to claim it early. The risks I take are calculated. I looked at Jayden and Hans, smiled and sipped my coffee.

I cleared my throat while setting my cup down. I folded my hands in front of me and addressed the General, “Ma’am. You say that these Eridani don’t want us on Mars. You say that I will probably be killed by them if I go.” She nodded once to both statements. I leaned forward a bit and continued quietly, “… and still, you haven’t told me
not
to go.” Now it was her turn to smile, genuinely.

“General Rosewood, if all that you have said is accurate, and I have no reason or compunction to doubt you, then I have a few opinions on these matters. First off, this planet is ours. Earth is ours. It belongs to humans. If we want to stay on it or if we want to leave it, that’s our business. You say these intergalactic bad boys are from a star system ten light years away. Epsilon Eridani is
their
star system. Sol and its planets, including Mars, is the
human
star system,
our
star system. If we want to go to the Moon or we want to go to Mars, then who the hell are they to tell us not to go?”

“They have very powerful weaponry, spaceships, and a highly motivated fighting force of drones”, she replied. “Granted, they have been a bit preoccupied lately with a war on a different front, but when it comes to their threats, they can definitely walk the talk.”

“So we humans are just supposed to roll over and give in to these bastards?” I was getting heated. “We’re supposed to give up our rightful presence in the galaxy because they are trying to
scare
us? General, I can’t believe for a second there is a single member of your armed forces who wants to run and hide from these jackals. I can fathom from what you’ve said that the only reason all y’all haven’t forced this issue would be the lack of political will.” She crossed her arms as I spoke, kept smiling and looked interested.

“Ma’am, if the politicos of this world are unwilling to step up and say
nuts
to these freak-a-zoids …”

“Tantaloids,” she corrected me.

“Fine, Tantaloids, then perhaps a non-political and non-nationalized organization is exactly what is needed.” I looked at Jayden, he looked like he was going to barf. “I think that perhaps the absolute best thing we can do is throw down the glove and see where the chips fall. I personally am offended and incensed that no one has had the political will to do this before. Humans first, dammit! Humanity’s expansion to the stars is not a matter of ‘if’, it’s a matter of ‘when’; and the “when” is
now
. We must not be scared away from humanity’s destiny. I will not be scared from taking the next step in our progress. If they kill me, so be it. I walk with God and have a rich reward awaiting me in heaven. If they kill me, more will be sent. If they get killed, we need to send more. We need to show them that their time of dictating action and policy to Earth has come to an end. If they want a war, then give me something to sharpen my teeth with, and the ability to bite back. I don’t like the idea of fighting. I don’t like the idea of killing. That’s not why I’m going to Mars. But I’m not going to cower in the corner and say,
‘oh-pretty-please Mr. Grey, please sir, give me some more.’
My next two words were punctuated by my finger stabbing the table, “FRAK. THAT.”

I looked around the table, and then looked back at the General. “I appreciate your efforts and taking the time to come here, but nothing has changed. Unless the United States Air Force or the United States Government plans to interfere with our launch plans, I’m going to Mars.” I looked over at Hans and Jayden again, “I’m going to Mars, period.”