Extinction (35 page)

Davies silenced her with his lips and
the two bodies became one as they gently made their way to the floor.

Almost two hours later, they had just
finished getting dressed and started to sift through information that their
datapads had gained in that time, when their reliefs walked through the door.

Snake was first to the console. “We’re
here to relieve you guys. I’m not sure if I’d go back there just yet, though.
He’s screaming worse than ever. Not ready to talk yet, maybe never will, but he
sure doesn’t have anything against screaming.”

Patz held his head tightly between his
two palms. “Got anything for a headache, Doc? I can’t stand it anymore. We
almost came a half-hour ago to relieve you, that’s how bad it got.”

Davies and Daria smiled at each other
shyly. A half-hour ago and they all would’ve been just a little more than
embarrassed. “Let me get my bag. I got some stuff in there. I think I’ll stick
around to go over some intel that we found. I’m in no hurry to go back.”

“I think I’ll head back. There are some
things I want to talk to the el-tee about.” Davies walked out the door without
looking back.

Daria continued talking to Snake without
watching Davies leave. “I’d like you to help me with this set of encrypted
messages. The last message I could access talked about some sort of plague and
a rising death toll among the new colonies out in this sector. Then without
warning, the rest of the log entries and all of the messages are encrypted.”

“You don’t think that a plague virus
could have lasted down here for a thousand years without hosts, do you?” Patz
was beginning his attempt at decryption from another console.

“I hope not. If it’s like anything that
we know, then no. However, the alien’s make-up is very different from our own
so they could’ve imported different viruses and bacteria to this sector from
their own.” Daria began going through a different database. “While you guys are
working on that, I’m going to try to get more information on their physical
make-up. That will help me to determine whether or not we could be in danger.”

The three soldiers went to work at their
terminals. Daria paused from time to time to think about her encounter with
Davies. It was the first time she had been with anyone other than Mike in over
a decade. She felt odd but not at all ashamed or guilty of her actions. Mike
would be happy for the only two people in the universe who he loved.

~

Emily looked at the alien and signaled
Bloom to stop the machine. As the pincers retracted from the exposed nerves and
flesh, the screaming subsided. “Who are you and where are you from?” Nothing.
Emily signaled Bloom, who increased the intensity and started the process
again. Screams echoed through the hallway.

Wilks stepped forward. “Look pal, we
know that you’ll talk soon enough. The records we uncovered says that you will.
What’s the harm in talking now instead of later? We’re going to kill you when
it’s over anyway and we both know that, too. So talk now, less pain, and death
comes earlier.”

“Fuck…you!” he managed through his own
screams.

“Turn up the intensity but don’t kill
him. We need him to break soon.” Emily motioned Wilks to the hallway. “How long
do you think we should give him before we give up?”

“If we get nothing by tomorrow morning,
I say we kill him and head for the launch bay.”

“I’m not sure about killing him. Why
don’t you want to take him along? Aside for the obvious reasons of Snyder and
Martinez.”

“If he’s stoic enough to hold out
through that shit,” Wilks pointed at the torture tube, “you really think that
he won’t try to escape? He’s stronger than three Shirkas and just as fast. I
don’t want to take the chance of him getting loose and taking more of us out.
He’s too big for us to drug and carry.”

Emily thought and then said, “What if we
drug him and leave him in the torture tube on a lower setting so that he’s
trapped until another team can come for him?”

“I don’t like the idea of leaving a
formidable enemy to our rear and unguarded. He may know of a way to get out of
that thing and also where some weapons are stashed around here. No, we can’t
leave him behind. Besides, even if we could get him out, there’s no way we
could make him talk back home. We don’t have anything that comes close to this
torture device. If that doesn’t break him, nothing will. There’s no reason to
bring him.”

“All right, we kill him. Oh-six hundred tomorrow
morning we pack out.” As an afterthought Emily asked, “Who’s supposed to do it?”

“Well, ma’am, you can order me to do it—we
both know I will without a problem—but you’re the ranking officer. You’re the
one who’s supposed to carry out execution orders.”

“I figured as much.” Emily walked back
to Bloom to see whether any progress had been made.

“Hey el-tee, I was just about to get
you. I think I found his Achilles’ heel.” Bloom walked from around his console.
He took out a laser pointer and marked a spot inside the alien’s open chest. “That
large nerve bundle attached to their spinal cord has a very specific purpose.

“The machine is going to single out a
nerve branch that once severed, should reduce him to a quivering bowl of Jell-O.
The nerve controls his bravery.”

Emily looked at Bloom with disbelief. “What
are you trying to pass over on me?”

“Really, el-tee”, Bloom defended
himself. “That’s the translation that the computer gave me. It seems as though
these aliens are to a great extent bio-engineered, either by themselves or
someone else entirely. The info on this nerve was buried deep in the computer
and even then it was encrypted. That’s why it took me so long to get it. But
when that nerve is cut it makes them talk like they were on the
Jerry
Springer Show
.”

Emily looked at Bloom with disgust. “That
show was shit four hundred years ago and it still is. I can’t believe you watch
it.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault the guy was
cryo-reserved for ever  and then put back on the air. It’s better than that
Geraldo guy that they play reruns of.”

Bloom continued with the information he
had found. “These guys were the soldiers for their empire. Just like every
other species, they had a specialty. Whoever the rulers were, they seem to have
been extremely paranoid. Even though the warriors were genetically engineered
to be absolutely loyal to the rulers of the empire, they still weren’t trusted.
This nerve was engineered so that warriors who were assigned as personal guards
to high-ranking officials could be questioned concerning their master and what
they did or said.”

The machine had delicately singled out
the nerve and the laser cut it in two. Bloom shut down the torturing device. “He
should be ready to talk.”

Emily took a step closer. “What is your
name? Why are you here?”

“I am captain of my vessel. You would
not be able to pronounce my name or even comprehend the sounds my language
makes. My vessel was sent here to observe you.”

“You’ve done more than observe”, Wilks
cut in. “Why have you attacked us?”

“I initiated the attack on my own
without orders. I was removed from command and punished severely for it before
I escaped to hunt you down. I have attacked you because you stand on my
ancestors’ ground and are in places you should not be.”

“Why didn’t your government contact us
and let us know that we were digging on your ancestor’s world? Why wasn’t a
peaceful arrangement made?” Emily stepped closer.

“Whoa, el-tee,” Bloom said. “That nerve
just makes them talk, not become docile. I’d feel better if you’d step back.”

The alien continued, “Government, we
have no formal government as you know it. Our war tribunal meets to decide
which system we will take over and which inhabitants will be useful and
therefore spared. All others are removed. I do not understand ‘peaceful’ so I
cannot answer that question.”

“What were your ancestors doing in this
sector? Why did they leave?” Wilks asked.

The alien looked at him with puzzlement
before he answered, “To conquer, why else?”

“I think I can answer that last
question.” Daria came in. “They didn’t leave, they died. A plague destroyed all
of their colonies in this sector. The rest of their empire was ordered to
remain in their own space and never to come here or else the whole empire would
be doomed.”

Bloom looked at the alien. “Is that
true? And if so, then why did you disobey those orders and come here now?”

“Yes, it is true. We are here now
because we received a distress signal that told us the plague was a hoax. It
was never true and that we were lied to. We came to find our masters and our
emperor.”

Emily reflected, “That must have been
the signal our archeologists accidentally tripped all those years ago.” She
looked back at her prisoner. “How long did the message take to get to you and
how long does it take to get from your sector to ours?”

“We received the message four of your
months after it was sent. We can travel to this sector in two months with our
fastest ships.” The alien was becoming obviously more and more angered as he
was forced to betray his own people.

“Why did it take you so long to come
here then? Five years later, isn’t that a long time to respond to a distress
signal?” Wilks had his hand resting on his sidearm.

“We had to make sure that it was real.
And as I said, we have no real government; it sometimes takes a while for
things to be decided. That’s why we need our emperor back!”

“I got news for you, buddy, I’m pretty
sure he’s dead by now”, Bloom mocked.

The alien thrust himself at the soldier
but the tube immediately responded and pinched a nerve on its subject that
caused his struggle to subside with a scream. The body went limp and the
prisoner was unconscious.

Emily shook her head. “Bloom, stop
fucking with our prisoner!” After a curt nod from Bloom, she turned to Wilks. “When
he wakes up, we’ll ask him all the questions that we had prepared then we’ll
have the tube dispatch him. Anyone got anything else?”

Daria motioned everyone towards her
console. “I remembered where I saw that energy reading before. It’s a device
that was invented about two years ago by someone at the Mayo Clinic back on
Earth. It’s a plasma wand. It uses highly focused plasma on certain types of
tumors to stop their growth and eventually kill them off. It’s a great new
cancer treatment, still experimental but so far highly effective.

“Thing is, the information I have in my
database on it shows that its energy signatures match those of the alien’s
weapon exactly. That’s just not possible unless the same people made both
items.”

“So are you saying that these aliens have
been secretly inventing medical equipment and then smuggling it into our
society?” Bloom just couldn’t resist.

“No,” Daria was calm despite herself, “but
after I got that mystery solved, I started to cross check other medical
equipment with the stuff I’ve found in this lab. There are so many similarities
in design, energy use, and circuitry that it can’t be coincidence.”

Emily’s eyes got wide. “So you think
that someone’s been leaking information about the dig sites and exploiting the
finds for profit?”

“I don’t think so. Some of the equipment
we use was invented several hundred years ago. Someone has had access to this
stuff for a long time and has been putting out inventions every so often. I do
have to say, though, that I don’t think that whoever is doing it is trying to
profiteer from it. All the inventions I have been able to cross check have been
donated to science and medicine without any personal gain. That is unless you
count the Nobel Prizes and other notorieties that go with inventing this stuff.
As far as I can tell, none of the inventions have had military or destructive
applications. I can’t pinpoint one species that has more of these inventions
tied to them anyone else. They all seem to come from different species. I
honestly don’t get it.”

“Wilks, add that to the list of
questions we ask our friend over there for when he wakes up. Let’s get our gear
ready to move at oh-six hundred.” Emily went back to her console to dig through
more information.

Somewhere In Space Between
The Detrill And Nortes Home Worlds

The honor guard led Emperor Nogil
through the ship to the empress’ chambers. Nogil noticed every little nuance of
the ship; after all, his people had designed it more than a millennia ago.
Before poverty struck, Nogil himself had been a shipbuilder at one of the main
Detrill shipyards. That was before he and a thousand other workers were laid
off by the last emperor and his budget cuts. His untimely heart attack was the
best thing for the empire and not many people mourned his death.

Nogil was brought back into the present
with the smell of the empress’ perfume and the candle scents that flowed
through the hall. As he entered the chamber, he knelt and addressed her, “Your Highness,
I am honored by your invitation.”

“Please, Nogil, sit beside me.” The empress
motioned to an empty pillow next to her. She smiled to herself as she thought
of his name. It was the name reserved for the Detrill emperor. No Detrill child
could be given that name since the day their people were liberated from
enslavement. The master shipbuilder who worked with the Nortes emperor to free
the entire empire from slavery was named Nogil. It was decided by his people
that in honor of his bravery and accomplishments, no one else would ever be
named Nogil. When a new emperor was elected, his given name was abandoned and
he took the honored name of Nogil. “The day when your people knelt before mine
is a thousand years past. Please know that I hold my twelfth
great-grandfather’s opinion about all races being equal. No one bows in my
court and neither should you.”