The Terran Representative (3 page)

The world came into focus as my mental fog cleared, and I realized I was on another ship. It was more cramped than the Confederacy shuttle but taller. Dell stood in front of me with his hands wrapped around the neck of a terrified looking Vantagax. Wards sat in front of a console. The view screens in front showed nothing but stars.

I looked down at my body trying to figure out why I still couldn’t move. Belts crisscrossed my midsection and connected in a five point harness. Straining against them hurt. My wrists were strapped down to the seat’s armrest. I assumed my legs were the same.

“I don’t think they’ll be following us,” said the Vantagax.

“Why am I tied up?” I said. The soft edges of the world had disappeared. The lights didn’t glow with fuzzy edges; they pierced and hurt my eyes. My pain from the injuries was there, but I didn’t recognize it unless I concentrated on it or moved around too much. However, with each passing minute I could feel it welling up more and more.

Wards looked over her shoulder and said, “You’re awake. We had to strap you in because you were unconscious.” She whipped her hands and head back and forth. “You were like a rag doll. Couldn’t have you rolling around the cabin.”

“It seems your suit figured out the correct dosages to give you,” said Dell as he stared at something on the console. The Vantagax moved then chirped when Dell tightened his grip. “I think you might be able to actually function now.”

“Unidentified Vantagax vessel,” said an unknown voice. It piped into my suit which identified it as
Confederate Star Ship Omanix
, corvette class. “You are within a Confederate controlled system. Exit the system or face retaliatory action.”

“
C.S.S. Omanix
,” said Wards, “we have transmitted our credentials. Permission to come aboard requested.”

The instructions from the
Omanix
droned. My suit pinged that it had administered another round of first aid. My eyelids felt heavy, and my head drooped. A warning that something was running low popped up, but I didn’t notice what it was before I dozed off again.

I awoke to Wards standing over me. My suit had been removed, and I rested naked in a box with no lid. It was about the same size and shape of my cryo-chamber. Another Planarium looked at a tablet then at me, made some notes and walked out of view.

“Where am I?” I said. A tentative test of my right arm provided no pain. Breathing in felt normal. I must have been in some kind of medical chamber.

Wards stood with her mouth slightly open. Her tongue hung out a little bit to the left and said, “Good to see you’re awake.”

I squinted at her. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Yes.” Her tongue hung out a little more.

I took her actions to be analogous to being happy. Maybe the tongue thing was a smile. It was hard to guess as I’d only seen her, or any of the Planarium, in a serious mood. “Where are we?” I said.

“You are on the
Omanix
,” said an unfamiliar voice that resonated with a deep bass.

I pushed myself into a sitting position in my chamber and turned to the new speaker. Flashbacks of trips to the zoo played in my mind. A ten foot tall bear-like creature stood on the other side of the room. It was crammed into a military uniform with brown hair tufting out of any opening it could find. With hands behind its back, chest puffed out, and wide stance, it intimidated me with little effort.

“I am Corvette Captain Baron,” said the bear with a gentle decline of its head in my direction. It moved with a thundering grace to a chair near my chamber and sat down.

“Pleased to meet you Captain Baron,” I said. “I appreciate the help you’ve given us.”

Baron held up their hand. It was the size of my head with claws at least three inches long. “I will dispense with pleasantries. We are headed to your desert planet.”

I looked at Wards and back to Baron. “Thank you.” I ended with a rising inflection, not sure if I should make it a question.

“The Confederate Council has deemed finding your people an urgent matter,” said Baron. “While the war with the Vantagax is occurring the Confederacy cannot spare many resources, but I am proud to have received your signal and will come to your aid.”

“Uhm,” I said, scratching my head. “I don’t understand.” I knew that the search for the Terrans was important but not potentially deciding the outcome of a war important.

“We are at a stalemate with the Vantagax. My superiors think that finding the Terrans may alter the war in our favor,” said Baron.

I opened my mouth without speaking then closed it. All I could think to do was make little mouth farting noises before saying, “I still don’t understand.”

Baron narrowed their eyes. The fur on its face bunched up around its sockets. “A species that can create a fleet with FTL capabilities without outside assistance is one that the Confederacy would like to have on their side.” Baron stood and began pacing back and forth with its hands behind its back. “It shows ingenuity and tenacity. Many species limit themselves to their own system and stagnate until they either die off or are lifted up by a more advanced race, but Terrans,” said Baron, shaking its head, “Terrans did it on their own.”

“Okay,” I said. The Confederacy wanted humans as allies or a think tank or engineers or something for their war against the Vantagax. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I’d been chosen to act as a Representative for Earth when I’d been put into my cryo-chamber. Acting in the interest of the Sol System was supposed to be my job.

My mind raced. Everything since I’d woken up had come at me lightning fast and now it sounded like we were already heading toward this Masirah that Admiral Kaur had talked about. I didn’t have much time to process what had just happened. Perhaps this was what being a soldier in battle was like.

“Okay,” I said. “What’s next?”

While we had orbited SpaciEm, the desert planet Kaur called Masirah, sensors picked up wreckage beneath the shifting sands near a cave entrance. Baron gave the go ahead to send the
Omanix’s
small shuttle down to the surface after a sweep of the system. All showed clear, and that was how I ended up running through the equivalent of an oven into the cooling shade of yet another cave system.

It was me, Dell and Wards. Due to the war Baron ran the
Omanix
with a skeleton crew and didn’t want to send anyone with us, so the shuttle pilot dropped us off and returned to orbit. It didn’t matter that much as the small craft couldn’t land because the sand would have wreaked havoc on its engines anyway.

We flicked our headlamps on and moved farther down the cave away from the searing sunlight. My suit’s cooling system worked overtime to keep me from roasting alive within it. External temperature warnings blared at me until I silenced them. I knew it was hot. I didn’t need my suit telling me that I needed to get out of it.

“Did the sensor pick up any life forms?” I said.

We walked in single file with Wards leading. The light from the cave entrance had dissipated. The only source of illumination came from our headlamps. I could feel the ground angling down, heading into the heart of SpaciEm.

“No,” said Dell, “but these cave systems go deep into the planet. They might be down so far that the
Omanix
couldn’t pick them up.”

“What about the wreckage?” I said. “It couldn’t have been the whole fleet. There was barely enough to be one ship.”

Dell shrugged and said, “Scans were inconclusive as to hull outline.”

Wards held her hand up, and we stopped behind her. She pointed down to a spot in front of her. It was a staircase carved into the stone. An indentation of wear marks went down the middle. A smooth and shiny handrail, carved out of the side of the cave wall, gleamed in the light from our headlamps. The opposite side of the staircase dropped away into nothingness so deep that our lights couldn’t penetrate the darkness and see the bottom.

“Either geology works in strange and mysterious ways or we found something,” said Wards. She hissed in laughter.

“Can’t raise the
Omanix
,” said Dell. “We’ll continue on.”

Wards nodded, and we started down the staircase. I hugged the wall and took a nervous gulp. The last time we couldn’t raise a ship it had been blown out of the sky. I tried to keep my voice calm and level as I spoke. “Do you think they were attacked?”

“No,” said Dell. He patted the cave wall as we continued down. “Interference.”

“Yeah,” said Wards. “Don’t worry. They’re probably bored to death because we’re the ones having an adventure.”

“A mission,” said Dell. “We’re not here to have fun.”

Wards gave a small shrug and continued down the staircase.

Dell’s words barely registered because I was focused on the walls and stairs. At the top the stairs were cut out of the living stone in near perfect precision. As we continued down they became more and more uneven. Some were less wide while others weren’t level or had differing heights from step to step.

Where we had started the walls had been smooth as if buffed and sanded, but now they were rough. There were symbols carved into them that I didn’t recognize but looked vaguely like hieroglyphics. As we moved further the carvings migrated onto the stairs in addition to the walls.

I didn’t know if Wards and Dell saw the carvings or even cared. Wards’ headlamps focused straight ahead the entire time we walked. Dell’s lights moved about, all over, never staying in one place very long. Whenever Dell swung his lights around quicker than I expected I jumped. The environment was perfect for something to come flying out of the darkness and attack.

The stairs ended and the floor leveled out. The pathway turned away from the drop off, and I heaved a sigh of relief, unplastering myself from the wall. We headed through an arched hallway that crowded overhead and squeezed our shoulders. Just as I was about to complain about the claustrophobic nature of the passage we popped out into a large room. Our lights disappeared into the darkness, not reaching the far side or the ceiling when I looked up. The sides sloped away and disappeared into the murkiness.

“I’m reading two lifeforms ahead,” said Wards. “Their life signs are weak.”

Dell nodded, and we continued forward. I felt something crunching under my feet, and I looked down. With each step we were crushing bones: femurs, skulls, hip bones, rib cages and a myriad of others of which I didn’t know the names.

I screamed.

If there had been atmosphere in the chamber my voice would have echoed around it. My suit pinged me that my heart rate was elevated to a dangerous level. Each thump pounded in my head. My breath fogged my visor. I whimpered a little bit, not wanting to move for fear of what I’d find.

Dell kneeled down and looked around us. He picked up a bone and held it close to his helmet then passed it to Wards who examined it.

“They look Terran,” said Dell. He looked around the chamber. “Odd that there aren’t any suits.”

I let out a small moan. This wasn’t how I wanted to find the colonizing fleet. Not finding anything was better than this.

“I’ve still got those two life signs,” said Wards.

Dell stood up and dusted off his hands. He moved over to me and patted me on the back. “Death is ever present in the galaxy. It must be embraced as an inevitable and accepted as unavoidable.” He started walking towards the lifeforms.

Wards took a deep breath and sighed. “He can be morbid,” she said, looking around. “I’m sure this isn’t everyone. You’d need a lot more caves for it to be an entire fleet.” She followed Dell.

I continued to stand still. Dell’s and Wards’ lights continued away from me, turning into small specks in the distance. My fear of being left alone in the dark without them overcame my fear of what I might find if I moved, so I took after them at a run.

I ran with my eyes closed. My heavy breathing, from the exertion of running, was the only sound I heard. My suit issued a proximity warning, and I opened my eyes just in time to skid to a halt so as to not run into Dell and Wards.

They were crouched next to two small things that looked like ants, at least two feet long. Each ant had four arms and two legs plus what looked like three distinct sections of body. Their helmets were molded in such a way that one could see they had mandibles and antennae.

I ignored Dell and Wards as they conversed with each other and looked past them. My headlamps fell upon an altar of some sort. It was sculpted straight from the stone with carved steps leading up to it. The ants lay at the bottom of these steps.

I made my way around the four and started up the stairs to the altar. It had deep gouges in the top and was stained with dark splotches. I looked up not expecting to see anything but my lights landed on what must have been the apse.

It was half domed over the altar hundreds of feet and extended down to ground level flaring out at least fifty feet each way. It wasn’t cut from the rock but rather made from something. I walked to it and gasped.

The entire structure was made from human bones.

I leaned in closer. Bits of something still clung to the bone in places. Something else wound between them and wrapped its way from end to end. My suit told me that it was sinew, potentially tendons from humans, and that the clinging bits were most likely flesh long since desiccated.

Stomach acid burned the back of my throat as I struggled to keep my most recent meal from ending up sloshing around in my suit. Gagging, I recoiled from the structure and put my hands on my knees. My abdomen flexed, and I felt another heave come forth. It took all of my willpower to keep from vomiting.

Sweat dripped from my brow onto my visor. The droplets trickled down leaving small rivulets that distorted my view. I tried to ignore the gnawing at the back of my mind that something poked and prodded at my thoughts. I focused on my breathing to make sure I took in even, measured breaths. After a little bit I felt steady enough to move, so I straightened up. My stomach didn’t try to eject anything through my mouth: a good sign.

I walked over, legs a little wobbly, to where Dell and Wards continued to huddle around the two ant creatures. “Are they going to make it?” I said.

Wards glanced up at me and shook her head. “No. They’re part of The Hive. It’s a singular mind shared by all within it.” She looked back down at the two. “Their connection has been broken. They wouldn’t be able to reintegrate.”

“I don’t understand why they’re down here,” said Dell. “I’m pulling all of their suit info and quarantining it for examination back on the
Omanix
.”

One of the ants looked at me. Its antennae flopped to the side and aimed at me. It pointed with shaking claw and said, “Uncorrupted.”

The other turned its head to look at me and said, “Untainted.”

“What do they mean?” I said.

“The Hive members have psychic abilities,” said Wards. “It’s part of how they’re able to have a hive mind.” She looked back to me. “Maybe they’ve seen something in your mind that runs counter to what happened here.”

I snorted and motioned around me. “I wouldn’t have taken part in this.”

“Or maybe they’re in the last throes of death and are babbling,” said Dell. He stood up straight with one of The Hive members over his arm. “We’ll take them to the surface, alert The Hive about what we found and send these two off.”

“Isn’t it strange that there are only two though?” said Wards as she stood with the other. “They usually travel with at least five or six. What happened to the others?”

“Ripped,” said Dell’s Hive member.

“Torn,” said Wards’ member.

“Absorbed,” they said together.

Their voices were weak. They looked like rag dolls. I felt sorry for them dying so far away from everything, in the depths of a cave that bore witness to atrocities.

“Should we find their companions?” I said as we began walking towards the exit.

“No,” said Dell. “We haven’t picked up their life signs. The Hive doesn’t care about physical vessels. It already knows they aren’t connected to the mind anymore. To The Hive, for all intents and purposes, these two and their companions are already dead.”

“It’ll probably have us leave the bodies here,” said Wards.

I wanted to protest. They should be given a burial or something, but maybe The Hive had already held a funeral for them. Maybe it had already said its goodbyes. These two were like a memory of your dead grandma; you don’t have a funeral every time you think of her.

We walked in silence into the claustrophobic hallway. I took one quick look over my shoulder and felt a wave of revulsion wash over me. The apse, the altar, even the bones strewn about on the floor was lost in the darkness. I let out a sigh of relief we were leaving. A shiver went up my spine. I knew my dreams would be haunted by this place.

“Go to Nasee Four,” said Wards member.

“Alone,” said Dell’s.

“What’s on Nasee Four?” said Wards as we climbed the stairs.

“A tribe,” said Wards’.

“Cut off,” said Dell’s. Its body went rigid, shuddered then went limp again.

Wards’ let out a small wail. “Alone,” it cried. “No one. All alone.” It whimpered until it too went limp.

Dell and Ward set down the corpses on the stairs and continued upward. I looked at the little bodies. Seeing them go in the way they did hurt. My chest tightened, and I bit my lip to not think about it. Seeing the death and destruction of the
Alpha
, Scort and the Vantagax had been different. I’d been removed from it either through distance or drugs, but this was first hand. This was in my face, unaltered death. I didn’t want to think about it and hurried up the stairs to catch up to the others in order to escape.

“So,” I said as I slowed and matched the pace of the other two, “what now?”

“We go to Nasee Four,” said Dell.

“Do you think we’ll find any humans there?”

Dell shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“But it said there was a tribe there,” I said. “Cut off.”

“Maybe,” said Dell. “Maybe not.” He continued to trudge up the stairs, looking straight ahead. “After what we saw here I’m not sure I want to find the people who did this.”

I hung my head. I wasn’t sure I wanted to either. No explanation that I could come up with made the chambers below acceptable.

We returned to the surface in silence.