"Jesus loves you. Everyone else thinks you�re a hacking lamer."
-AQD3
|
| Contact | | | Author: | | | IP: | huru27.wXXXX | | Date: | 02/14/00 07:02 | | Game Type: | Other | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 7, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for Lemur_Tamer: 6.3333 |  |
Note: This is a chapter in the middle of a fictional series. To read the other chapters please do
a search on my name.
Contact
Captain Maxwell K. Kinsley leaned back in his quarter's leather chair with a soft moan as he
glared at the holographic display accusingly. The complex array of numbers and flags displayed by the holographic
projection could have been battle plans or a military training stimulation, but as any officer of the Inter-Stellar
Navy could tell you it was just three dimensional mine sweeper. A couple of admirals had actually gone as far to banish
it from their fleet it had become such an embarrassment but few officers had trouble keeping a private copy on their personal
holographic computer.
Kinsley certainly didn't give a rat's ass for the brass and what games they decreed were acceptable. The brass for their
part accepted Kinsley's insubordination because they needed him, but even that had its limits. This would be the Captain's
last mission. At thirty-eight Kinsley was the oldest captain in the ISN. He wore his rank as a badge of honor, a symbol
of all the times he had disobeyed orders out of moral objection, concern for his crew, or simply belligerence. And now
his military career, if you could call it that was coming to a close on board the brand new ISS Beacon with a commander
ten full years his junior. The ISN had changed drastically over the last fifteen years and there no longer seemed to be a need
for men like Kinsley. The ISN had managed to 'throw off the shackles' of the Inter-Stellar Congress and its huge bureaucracy
just to become a huge bureaucracy itself.
Kinsley's official title had changed frequently but his job had not. On this mission he was the Exploratory Environmental
Engineer, but despite the title of 'engineer' Kinsley had little technical know-how and no more understanding of his PHC than
how to play mine sweeper and dictate reports as he was occasionally beaten into doing. His real job was to sit around
and play mine sweeper until all hell broke loose, as it inevitably did, and then he bailed the commander out. With that in
mind he was doing a good job so far this trip though somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered why they had been sitting
on the surface for almost an hour now and no exploration team had been organized. What were we doing investigating this planet
again? All the mission briefings were beginning to blur together.
"Ka-Ka-Ka-Ka-Ka-Ka," the little animation in the center began twirling and mocking the captain.
"Fuck," The captain muttered and snapped his PHC shut on his desk. Just then, Suzan Trelinsky the companies sexy xenobotanist
walked in through his open door. It was little wonder she had been picked to come on this expedition. As most of the crew
had become aware she was engaged in an, er, improper relationship with our commander. Though such things were strictly
forbidden and Admirals frequently made a point of condemning them, relationships of this sort were almost as frequent as
the number of females in the ISN allowed.
"I'm sorry. Am I interrupting anything?" she asked not appearing terribly concerned.
"No, not at all. What can I do you for?" Max said putting away his PHC and wondering to himself why anyone so attractive
would join the Navy.
"It's commander Jenkin. He just keeps pacing and muttering under his breath. I was wondering if you wouldn't come and give
him some advice, seeings how you've been in active duty for so much..."
"Yes, I'll come see what I can do." Kinsley replied as she began to trail off. "He in his office?" Suzan nodded and fell in behind
him as he walked down the corridor towards the commanders office. He gave a short rap-tap-tap when he reached the
commander's main work station and the 'door' which was really a holographic and electromagnetic force field disappeared.
The commander seemingly unaware of the new arrivals was pacing violently behind his desk muttering expletives as he walked.
Major Jonathon L. Jenkin, 27, had graduated top in his class at the Academy. He had then worked in the intelligence
department where he had astounded all of his commanding officers with his deductive power. He had risen through the ranks
quickly but he knew he couldn't continue to advance without command experience. So, he threw his name into the pool of
officers looking for a ship to command. But what was he doing here? What idiot bureaucrat had sent a rookie on
a mission of such importance?
His mission on the surface appeared straight forward. Go to XN-04782, land an expeditionary team and investigate possible
deposits of zource and keep a detailed log of all findings. Of course what this failed to mention was that zource was by
far the most important resource in the galaxy and furthermore these 'possible deposits' were quite real and according to
Jenkin's readings contained more of the precious substance than all the other planets in the galaxy combined. And what it
certainly failed to mention was the presence of little purple men who were currently setting up camp outside of his ship.
"Ahem," Kinsley cleared his throat. "Major, you seem distressed; I was wondering if there is anything I might do to help."
The Major blinked twice as if seeing other humans for the first time.
"Ahh Captain Kinsley, Lt. Trelinsky," Jenkin nodded at each in turn. "Well, you can see for yourself," he indicated a set
of monitors set into the wall which were displaying scenes from outside of the ship.
It took Kinsley a minute to see it. There were people climbing down the wall of the crater that had been made by the ship.
He guessed they were about five feet tall and had a sort of purple tint to their skin. They were completely hairless
from what he could tell and appeared to be wearing loose clothing around their torso. The aliens, indigenous people
Kinsley reminded himself, we're the aliens here, were carrying various primitive looking instruments a long with what
appeared to be some manual recording devices similar to the archaic human book.
"Cute little fellows aren't they," Kinsley said at long last.
"Little ooglings," Suzan murmured in awe walking up to the screen.
Kinsley rolled his eyes, "You know ISN policy regarding alien sentient life as well as I." No one had to be told Kinsley's
opinion on this policy. The official policy, investigation, evaluation, deliberation always translated into
extermination. The exploration team's responsibility was to turn the planet over to the a unit which was almost universally
know as the XTERM Unit despite efforts from top Navy officials to eliminate this name. The XTERM Unit then conducted their 'investigation' and
provided they could not find a useful purpose for the continued existence of the alien race they were destroyed. The
policy had been argued from a large number of moral grounds all of which were tenuous at best. The Inter-Stellar Congress
didn't know and didn't care when they did know. The people back on Earth or the colonies believed honestly that there
were only four sentient species in the galaxy: The Alliance: Humans, Krathanians, and Soldiuns, and of course the evil
Zivhot. Kinsley wondered if the First Inter-Stellar War had turned out differently if the Soldiuns would have been included
in this list.
"I'm afraid ISN policy doesn't apply here," the major replied shaking his head. He could see Kinsley was confused so he
continued, "You see we are not technically in Human space."
"What!?" Kinsley exclaimed. "Where the hell are we?"
"Well.. Actually we are in Zivhot space." It was Suzan's turn to gasp. Since the Second Inter-Stellar War
only nine ISN ships had entered Zivhot space and none had returned with their crew intact.
"What the fuck are we doing in Zivhot space?" Kinsley demanded. It was the captain's turn to start pacing.
"I'm afraid I haven't been completely honest with you about our mission here," Jenkin began, and it suddenly occurred to
Kinsley that the reason he couldn't remember the briefing video is that it had been quite vague. "The real purpose," the
major continued, "of our mission is to chart out the location of zource deposits on this planet."
Both Kinsley and Trelinsky were visibly stunned. The substance military personnel referred to as 'zource' had only been
discovered about ten years ago and its amazing power less than five. Word of it had first gotten around the ISN when
electrical and mechanical engineers were given the designs for the warp drive of new ships. The schematics simply showed
a small box for the power supply with output wattages which were impossible to believe. Nevertheless the new ships worked,
the ISS Beacon was solid proof. The little black box as the electrical engineers called it, was invariably described as Z-source on the
schematics, and the name zource was soon adopted by ISN officers. Only a few scientists and top level government officials
knew how the thing actually worked or even what it was. Rumor had it that the energy source would be powerful enough to
warp whole space stations, some even guessed planets half way across the galaxy, or more amazing still, warp space craft to
another galaxy and back. That didn't explain why an Exploration and Evaluation Team had been sent into Zivhot space. Perhaps
the ISN wanted to maintain a low profile. Perhaps they would rather lose an EET than an entire armed division Kinsley thought
to himself ruefully.
"Have you reported back to misHQ yet?" Kinsley asked the Major finally.
"Can't," Jenkin said shaking his head. "We lost contact with the uplink. Rick said we couldn't launch another one for
16 hours when the ship's cooled down from re-entry."
Max sighed. Developing faster than light travel had been much simpler than superphotonic communication. To move a ship
across vast distances in space a warp drive simply tore a hole in the space-time continuum, twisted it and then stitched it back
together creating a channel which the entire ship and small amounts of debris surrounding it was sucked through. The more
powerful the drive, the bigger the tear and thus the larger the ship that could be moved. Unfortunately for communicating
this proved to be too energy consuming and too slow. The solution to this was for both sides to create a very small tear
and then link these two together. The holes were too small for even a single electron to pass through but when one side
varied the intensity and position of its hole it could be detected on the other side like plucking a guitar string Max's
physics teacher had explained to him. After years of experimenting and the addition of a second linkup for bi-directional
communication a device capable of nearly delay free video conferencing across the galaxy was developed. The only problem
was it wouldn't work in the gravitational well of a large planet so when landing, a ship would leave a satellite in space
known as an uplink. Sometimes these satellites were beaten up by space debris, sometimes they just weren't launched at
the right velocity. In any event they wouldn't be able to report in to mission headquarters until tomorrow.
"Well, I guess you better form a surface team to go out and explain to these ooglings why we just burned up half
their city." Kinsley said at last, for upon closer observation it was obvious from numerous structures surrounding
the crater that they had not landed in an unpopulated area.
Suzan let out another soft gasp. "Oh don't worry," Kinsley said, "I'm sure any ooglings we killed in landing
will quickly be forgotten in the carnage to come." And at that he turned and left the room in true Kinsley style.
After sitting there for an eternity and then some, Lt. Biirros slowly turned and flipped the ignition switch.
Ttt-ttt-ttt-ttt-tuh "Muillao!" the lieutenant muttered underneath his breath conscious of the children in the
back seat. These jeeps were meant for surviving battles with the Beasts; it certainly shouldn't have been disturbed by
that light shock. He hit the switch again with similar results. Jiieb jumped out of the jeep and pulled out the
panel containing the xenet engine. These newer engines were known to be less reliable than the heavier uranium
ones they were quickly replacing. Jiieb was convinced that the scientists still hadn't quite figured out how to use this
xenet stuff.
It didn't take the Lieutenant long to see the hopelessness of trying to fix the thing himself. The engine looked nothing like
its fission powered counterpart which he had worked on before. He noticed the two kids watching him and cheerfully said,
"Looks like we are going to have a little Picnic. You guys ever had pre-prepared meals?" Just then though, a long stretch car
with government markings pulled up along side the jeep. A rear door opened and a man with a body looking upwards of forty
years but the bright vibrant eyes of a twenty year old slipped out.
"My jeep broke down when we were trying to get away from the.. thing," Jiieb indicated the metallic monstrosity. "I can walk
out the rest of the way but these kids.." he pointed at Reegglak and Kina who were peeping over the back seats.
"I'm on extremely important business of the Society," Dr. Pellooja said crisply but something in his mind felt differently.
Perhaps it was the fact that he had never been paired and had no children of his own and his work didn't allow for much
exposure to kids. Perhaps he just liked the idea of having all generations represented in their embassy to the aliens, for
having seen the ship he was now certain that that's what they were. Whatever the reasons he finished with, "but I suppose
under the circumstances we can let these two ride along until we can get them to their parents."
Jiieb turned to the two children who looked liked they had seen about all they could handle for one life time. "Come on
guys, you get to ride in a stretch car!" Reluctantly Reegglak and Kina got out of the jeep and walked over to the older man.
Pellooja made a gesture with his arm and both scooted into the car. Rewin saluted the Lieutenant and then got in himself
closing the door behind him.
It took a while for Reegglak's eyes to adjust to the darkness. There were three men siting facing him. All looked younger
than the man who had invited them into the car. On his right was a young woman who was flipping through some notebooks.
On his left were Kina and the man who said his name was Dr. Pellooja. Everyone was visibly tense.
"Did you see the landing?" Rewin asked the children trying to sound as relaxed and friendly as possible. Reegglak and
Kina looked confused. "The space ship?" the doctor persisted. Reegglak's mind started whirling. Space ship? He had
read a story once about how the Society built a space ship and went to Peranthia the nearest planet. But that was just
a story. The Society needed all of the xenet and uranium for fighting the beasts.
"Why did it land on the school?" Reegglak finally got up enough courage to ask.
"Well maybe we can ask them that," Rewin replied.
"Them?" he asked even more confused than before.
"The aliens who drove it here, we are headed to the space ship right now." Rewin responded jovially.
"Aliens? You mean Devil-Beasts?" Kina almost shrieked.
"No, no. Aliens from another planet. Like Peranthia." Pellooja said reassuring the girl next to him.
"Are they nice aliens?" Kina asked finally after having calmed down from her initial hysteria.
"Yes, I'm sure they're very nice aliens." Pellooja assured the little girl although for the first time it occurred to him
that he didn't have anything to base this on. After all they had landed on top of the school. Time will tell he told himself;
time will tell.
The car stopped at the edge of the crater and everyone got out. The line in the ground where the destruction began was
amazing. Everything on one side was standing perfectly in tact while everything on the other had been incinerated into
a fine sandy ash. Pellooja asked the driver to wait at the car for their return and told the other scientist to take whatever
they needed that they could carry, and the Society's Embassy to Extraplanetary Life's first mission was underway.
Rewin who had not brought any equipment with him took the lead as they walked down the silty slope. Behind him was one
of Rewin's closest friends, and one of the best doctors in Capital City, Dr. Uuissilaannder. He had known Rewin since their
days at Capital City University and when Rewin had called he had no problem dropping what he was doing and coming to help.
Behind him and carrying all sorts of odd medical supplies and instruments was his assistant Piirroleevvad.
Walking behind Piirrol was a man named Hyynnikooss. Though few knew it Kooss was actually the foreign affairs advisor
for Nookkilosk. Because foreign affairs for the Society had been a rather simple matter in recent history with the exception
of the war with the Beasts which was run by military advisors, Kooss had little to do and almost no prestige in Nookkilosk's
cabinet. He therefore had no trouble agreeing to come on Pellooja' expedition even if it was to go examine some rock.
Behind Kooss were the two children who had finally gotten over the shock of witnessing 'the landing' as they now thought of
it and were bounding along trying to keep pace with the longer legged adults. Bringing up the rear was the young
linguistic student at Capital City U, Miss Serinaarria. Rewin had never met her before but she was highly recommended
and more importantly she said yes.
When they finally reached the ship the crew spread out standing back a few uupis from its steel walls in awe. From close
up one could see that it had in fact been constructed from many huge sheets of metal which had been bolted together with
huge bolts that were flush with the side of the ship.
"What now?" Dr. Laannder asked at last.
Everyone turned to Pellooja. "Well, let's see," Rewin began cautiously, "Every vehicle has a door right? So I say we
spread out and look for some seams that look like they might form an opening. If someone finds something just holler and
we'll all come check it out."
"And then what? Knock?" Uuissil asked.
"Lets just take one thing at time," Pellooja answered wondering to himself just how long he could keep up the pretense
of knowing what he's doing.
Dr. Pellooja, Dr. Laannder and the two children followed the ship's curve off to the left while Kooss, Piirrol and Miss
Naarria walked to the right. After a couple of minutes Rewin heard Kooss' voice, "I think we've found something here."
Rewin, guessing he must have walked most of the way around the ship already started running in the direction he had been
going, leaving Uuissil and the kids behind. He misjudged the size of the ship however and was quite breathless by the
time he found Kooss, Piirrol, and Serin examining some seams in the side of the craft.
"There certainly doesn't seem to be any others like it." Piirrol was saying.
The seams they were looking at formed a perfect square about two times the height of the doctor's assistant and the bottom
of the square was just within arms reach of Dr. Pellooja. They were very faint, but if one looked at the ship at an angle
the area inside the square seemed a different color than the rest of the ship. Just then Dr. Laannder and the children
came jogging up.
"Miss anything?" he asked. And then it moved.
Max Kinsley stood in the airlock with the three other men selected as the first land team on the planet. Mike Derbuck a
competent if somewhat inexperienced xenobiologist was the fearless leader of their team. As usual Kinsley was only expected
to intervene if and when things went to hell in a hand basket. If all went well Derbuck would be the hero. If something
fucked up it would be Kinsley's head. It was a thankless job but at least Max got to play a lot of mine sweeper. The other
two members of the crew were James Ritley the xenopsychologist, another decidedly thankless job, and Henry Wells the
xenolinguist. They would do all right even if Kinsley was the only one who had seen a first contact before.
The captain had seen lots of them and initiated a few. They were all pretty much the same once you had the basic pattern down.
This one didn't look like it was going to be any different. The same excitement, the same assumptions, the presumption of
understanding, the complete lack of just that. Well there would be one difference. This species might, under these
extraordinary circumstances live to see another generation.
The air from outside began to come in through the vents. They were not wearing any sort of protective gear as the air had
been tested for toxins and approved for human consumption and furthermore the surface temperature was reported at 42 degrees
centigrade which was evidently an average day in late spring here on XN-04782, (Jenkin still hadn't gotten around to naming the planet
yet). As for biological pathogens these cute little devils might be carrying, the only way to test for that was to have one
of them cough on you and see if you died.
This was the thought on Kinsley's mind as the airlock doors opened. Standing before him he saw seven of the creatures he
had witnessed earlier on the monitors. Two of them were smaller than the rest, children maybe but who could tell. The 'adults'
were all around a hundred fifty centimeters by Kinsley's quick estimate. They all had the same expression on their face
which could have been surprise, fear, hate, intense satisfaction or just the way their faces looked all the time for all
he could tell. The look of bewilderment on Mike's face on the other hand was no trouble for Max to spot. He gave him
a small poke in the back. The xenobiologist cleared his throat and looked like he was about to say something for a while
but nothing came out.
"Say hello," Kinsley said under his breath.
"I don't think they speak IS Standard," Derbuck returned.
"Neither do I, but say 'hello', wave and smile. They won't understand any of it but one day they will and besides it'll
look better in the history books." Derbuck did as he was instructed. One of the ooglings finally stepped forward
and mimicked Derbuck's movements. It then proceeded to make a long string of high pitched noises which would be recorded and
later analyzed. Well, well, well another peace talks have begun, Kinsley thought. The best of luck my little purple
friends. You're going to need it.
|
|
|
|
|
Home
Forum
Starcraft Tournaments
