Nathan Hystad: New Threat

Slate clapped him on the arm. “Dean, you ready for this? We isolate a Bhlat, incapacitate him, take the sample, activate the thing, and walk out of here.”

“Deal,” I said, pressing my pin, green light covering me once again. Nervous sweat dripped down my back and sides as I pushed on the bar, passing through the floor of the ship and into the light atmosphere of the moon, before crossing through the two-meter-thick ceiling of the building we hovered above.

I emerged in a room, gun ready to fire at will, but it was nearly dark, soft lights coming from some wall computers. Slate was beside me; we unlatched our belts and made our way to the doorway.

“All we need is one.” Slate took the lead. The door slid open at our foot pressure, making more noise than I wanted. So much for stealth.

The hall went both directions, lights glowing along the floor. It was quiet. Left or right. Right would lead us to a group of larger buildings we’d seen from above, so Slate led us left, probably assuming there would be fewer enemies that way.

We walked quietly, our rifles held up, ready for action.

“Guys, Mae’s on the move. She’s landing in their shipyard,” Clare said in my earpiece.

“That doesn’t change anything,” I said, Slate nodding firmly. He motioned to keep moving, and we approached another door to the left. Slate stepped in front of it, gun ready to blast, and it opened. He rushed in, gun moving from side to side, but the room was empty. It looked like weapons storage, and Slate’s eyes widened at the sight of huge alien guns lining the walls.

“Later,” I assured him.

Alarms clanged through the halls, and I winced at the volume. They knew we were here.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“We keep moving,” was the reply I got.

We checked each room. Some were empty; each served a different purpose. Whatever this place was, these guys were there for the long haul, or at least intended to be. Bunks lined the walls of a massive open space, enough room to sleep fifty of the large warrior race.

Where were they all? We passed the kitchen and mess hall, and I couldn’t help but feel they weren’t so different than we were. Maybe there was hope we could all get along. Seeing the look of grim determination on Slate’s face, I doubted it. Hell, humans couldn’t even get along with themselves.

Slate slid a finger in front of his mouth in a shushing motion and crept forward slowly. “There’s a group of them ahead. This is one of this side’s larger rooms. Maybe an auditorium.”

The alarms still blazed, but not as loudly, and soon the sound went away, leaving just the flashing lights to annoy us. I snuck a peek but quickly turned around, feeling like one was about to sneak up on us at any moment. The coast was clear. These Bhlat weren’t uniformed. Instead, they wore something akin to a jumpsuit. They weren’t carrying weapons, either.

They kept moving in the same direction as us, and we poked our heads into the next room. It looked like a large laboratory, with indecipherable mathematic formulas on digital screens. The structure to them looked quite different than anything I’d ever seen, yet eerily familiar at the same time. My HUD translator read what it could understand to me, and it still made no sense.

“Maybe it’s a science station,” I said.

“It doesn’t make a difference.” Slate was trained for a mission, and he wasn’t going to sway from his objective. His linear warrior mind was focused on the task at hand, and my mind was moving a mile a minute which, after our faster than light travel, might not have been so fast.

Alien voices flowed down the halls toward us, a deep vibrating language different than our own. My translator spilled out what it could, constantly getting better as it learned more.

She comes alone. Talleidudne will be happy shiguedbggr is here. Time poloo answers.

They knew Mae was there.

We ducked into the science lab and waited as two hulking forms passed by, talking away, their voices muffled so my translator couldn’t pick them up.

“Keep going,” Slate said.

We approached the space where the group had emerged from a few minutes ago and entered an amazing room. Chairs lined the center of the space, and a glowing platform sat in the middle of the room. Either a stage or… a projector. My gut leapt as I realized this was a communication hall. They had probably been in there talking with a leader from a faraway planet, but they didn’t know the humans were here. They did seem to know Mae was, though, and it was only so long before they spotted the abnormal cloaked ship hovering above them.

Slate was right, we needed to end this now. Something rustled near the back of the room, and Slate fired a quick shot, killing the computer tablet on the wall, shutting the lights down. The helmets’ night vision sprang to life, and we covered the doorway so no one could get through. I stayed at the door while Slate headed toward the noise. I heard and saw three quick red pulse beams, and then silence.

“Slate?” I whispered into my mic.

“I got one, boss. Get the device and let’s do this thing once and for all.”

I moved to his location, seeing a Bhlat smaller than I expected. It was slender, and less ridged than the ones we’d encountered. I almost dropped the Deltra weapon when I realized what that meant. It was a female of their kind.

“Doesn’t matter,” Slate said, “just do it.” He was proving to be quite the robot, but that might have been what I needed right then.

Sliding the DNA sample stick from the back, I found a wound from the rifle, took a deep breath to stifle the wrongness of what I was doing, and jabbed it in. The device whirred to life again, following the same pattern as it had before.

“Make it snappy,” Slate called to me as we heard the door slide open.

What is idpewa here? a Bhlat asked into the darkness.

Slate fired a few rounds, and I heard two forms slump to the ground before the alarms raised again.

“What’s happening down there, Dean?” Mary’s voice came through my earpiece. I ignored it, not wanting to talk, mostly because I was holding my breath as I waited for the device to be ready to work.

“Dean, there are more coming!” Slate yelled.

“Come on, come on,” I said, and the icon glowed green. I hesitated, seeing the dead female Bhlat on the ground before me, and the door opened once again, laser fire blasting into the room at us. I nearly dropped the device; Slate grunted and ran across the room, shooting a volley of red death on the Bhlat.

Everything slowed for me for a split second. Laser fire inched around the room, Slate’s yells turned to slow-motion calls from the movies, and all there was on the moon was this device, and fifty living beings. I pressed the button, and time caught up.

“Thank God,” Slate said from twenty meters away. He was on the ground, green in my night vision. The Bhlat were all down, not a breath left in their alien bodies. I found, at that moment, that I wanted to know more about them: everything about their race, but I knew nothing, and I’d killed them without so much as the press of a touchscreen icon.

We’d been told they were evil, and that they would destroy us, but could we trust the hybrids or Deltra after all they’d done to us?

“Dean, what the hell is going on down there?” Mary asked again, this time not so cordially.

“Mary, we’re okay. It’s done.”

“What about Mae?” she asked.

I’d nearly forgotten about her. “Slate, are you okay?” I asked, moving to his slouched form.

He got up, dusting his uniform off. “I tripped on something, but no worse for the wear. Just a twisted ankle, and my arm’s still tender. We have to find Mae, and quickly.”