Extinction (32 page)

Wilks kicked at the weapon instinctively
and hit it out of the alien’s hand. The alien’s top left hand was just as quick,
though, and grabbed Wilks’ ankle and crushed it like a flimsy beer can. Wilks
screamed in pain as Fang brought the hilt of his sword down on the attacker’s
forehead, leaving him unconscious once again.

“Tie him up now!” Wilks said through clenched
teeth. Snake was already up and removing several meters of Kevlar rope from his
pack. They had the alien hog-tied in a matter of seconds.

“Wilks to Lieutenant O’Riley”, he said
as Scan wrapped his broken ankle in a splint.

“Go ahead, Wilks”, Emily said from her
console in sickbay.

“We just nabbed one of those bastards.
Fang and Scan both think that he was the only one down here. We’ve got him tied
up. You wanna come down here and ask him a few questions?”

“Negative. Bring him to the lab; I think
we found something that will help.”

“Copy, el-tee. It’ll take us a few,
though. My ankle is broken and Martinez is dead.” Wilks winced as Scan
tightened up the brace for walking.

“Understood. I’ll send Cannon and Jockey
to help with the load. See you guys in a bit. Out.” Emily turned to her
companions. “All right, let’s get the finishing touches done on this thing. We’ve
got a guinea pig to try it out on.”

The room was alive with a new sense of
purpose as each soldier worked double-time to finish their task.

Thirty minutes later, the advance team
came through the doorway to the lab with Wilks on makeshift crutches and the
huge alien carried on a stretcher between six men. Martinez was in a body-bag
that was placed on an examining table at the far end of the lab.

Daria took a medical scanner to the body
and examined the entry wound. The odd reading around Martinez’ skull was also
present in Snyder’s wounds, and Daria just couldn’t figure it out. The energy
signature and tissue damage looked vaguely familiar but she couldn’t quite put
her finger on it.

“Doc”, Scan said from beside Wilks, “could
you come over and take a look at this ankle? Tough guy here says that it’s OK
but he can barely stand.”

“Yeah, sorry”, she said sheepishly,
momentarily forgetting that she had a live patient who needed her help. As she
approached Wilks, she began to explain, “Sorry but there was a weird energy
reading in Snyder’s wounds that disappeared over time. I wanted to see if it
was just an anomaly with him or if it was the alien’s weapons. Turns out that
Martinez had it, too.”

“Is that important or just medical
curiosity?” Wilks winced as Daria manipulated his ankle.

“Could be important. I’m really not
sure.” She turned to Scan and handed him her medical scanner. “Hold this steady
at his ankle. I need the real-time x-ray view of his ankle as I set the bones.”
Scan obeyed and Daria went to work setting the three tarsals that were broken
in Wilks’ ankle. “Anyway, I’ve seen the energy signature before; I just don’t
know where. Not in any weapons that we’ve encountered but something in
medicine. The way the tissue responds to the energy is also odd.”

“What’s tissue supposed to do when it
gets hit by plasma?” Scan asked.

Daria pulled and then squeezed the last
bone into place before answering. “Plasma weapons super heat the fluid in
tissue cells and cause them to implode violently. There isn’t enough mass in a
body to displace the heat, so the plasma bolt goes all the way through two or
three people until the energy is lost in the heat transfer from the bolt to the
tissue cells. Or whatever target it hits.

“This plasma bolt causes more of an
aging process on the cells. It’s still super-hot plasma and most of the cells
do implode but the ones that aren’t hit directly with the energy die of old
age. The cells are aged at an astronomical rate and they just die. The process
of aging and tissue death occur for some time after the initial energy
explosion.”

“Why is that important?” Emily came in
to the conversation from the other side of the lab.

“Well, let’s say that you get shot in
the leg but you don’t die. The rapid aging process of your cells continues
until your leg dies off and then eventually the rest of your torso and you go
with it.” She paused on reflection of her own words before she and everyone
else looked slowly towards Scan at the same time.

Scan began to tear off the bandage on
his stump. Daria helped him with some trauma shears and together they unraveled
the bandage. The stump looked fine but Daria scanned it with her equipment to
double-check.

“It seems as though the steroids and
your body’s natural healing ability has negated the aging process of the plasma
bolt. But if you look at these readings, I think you’ll agree that your healing
process is quite behind schedule. You should have about a half to centimeter more
tissue regeneration than you do now.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right. At least
it’s growing back, though. It might take an extra two or three weeks to get it
done but I think that I’ll be fine.” With a sigh of relief, Scan took out some
fresh bandages and began rewrapping his stump.

“This may be a dumb question”, Emily
started as she scooted forward to get a better look at Scan’s hand, “but, if
your hand is going to grow back, won’t your webbing come back with it?”

Scan finished wrapping his hand. “Not a
dumb question at all Ma’am. No, my webbing won’t come back.” Scan’s facial
spikes turned a light shade of orange. “Once our webbing is damaged to a
certain extent, the scar tissue becomes a part of the cells’ memory and the
hand grows back the way it was before it was removed.”

“That sucks.” Emily didn’t know what
else to say.

Daria spoke up to end the awkward
silence. “I’m almost finished with Wilks here and then we can start on that
one.” She thumbed towards the tied-up alien. “As soon as I remember where I’ve
seen this type of tissue damage before, I’ll let you know. It might or might
not matter. I’m sorry that I can’t tell you more.”

Daria used her scanner to verify that
all the bones were in place before she pulled a pen-sized object from her kit.
She loaded it with six titanium alloy pins. Each one was twice the diameter of a
strand of hair and only two centimeters long. She placed the pen up against
Wilks’ ankle and fired the first pin into place. She proceeded to put two pins
in each fractured bone. After the pins were in place, she applied a thin
stocking over the foot and ankle and then sprayed the material with a chemical
that heated the cloth and caused it to harden into a durable cast.

“We’ll be able to take that off in a
week or so but you should still be able to walk on it. After every march, I
want to scan your ankle to make sure that the pins are holding and nothing is
out of place. All right?”

Daria began to give Wilks a pain
reliever when he waved her off. “I need to be on the ball. I can live without
that stuff.” With a wink, he added, “I didn’t take anything after they fixed me
up from you.”

Daria just shook her head and walked to
the alien, who was becoming conscious. “So, do we have the tube ready?”

Davies was tightening a bolt on the back
side of the tube while Bloom tapped in commands at the main console. Bloom
looked up. “Yeah, I gotta hand it to these guys; their equipment sure does last
a long time. I usually can’t keep our hardware operational for more than two
years, let alone a thousand.”

“What is this thing?” Fang asked as he
inspected the tube and the surgical instruments that whirled, spun, and poked
in the air as Bloom ran through a diagnostic routine.

“We thought that it was some sort of
surgical bay at first but now we know what it’s truly for.” Emily looked at the
alien, who was coming out of his stupor. Waking up, he began to struggle
against his bonds until he opened his eyes and found himself directly in front
of the tube. All struggling stopped and his eyes grew large as sweat beaded on
his forehead. “Apparently, our friend here already knows what it is. Good, you
bastard! I’m glad that you know what’s in store for you.”

Bloom picked up where the el-tee left
off. “It’s a torture device. We think that it can be used for surgery, too, but
mostly torture. See, you put the guy in the tube and it clamps him down. The
probes find weak points in the subject’s nervous system and then exploits them.
From the visual and audio logs we found, it does the job quite well.”

“We need to strip his clothes off”, Bloom
said while still typing in commands. When no one moved, he looked up. “Hey,
it’s not my machine. I’m just telling you what it says we have to do. C’mon,
Fang, give me a hand.”

Both soldiers pulled out their field
knives and went to work on the alien’s armor. When they couldn’t get through
the thick vest, Daria pulled out her fighting knife and cut through the
material as though it were butter.

When they had finished and stepped back,
everyone could see the fresh wounds and probe marks all over the alien’s body. “Looks
like he already had a go-round with one of these tubes”, Daria said.

“Who cares? I say throw him in, even if
he starts to talk on his own.” Wilks walked over. “Besides, he knows what’s
coming. If he wanted to talk, he’d already have started.”

“I agree, let’s put him in.” Emily
looked at Bloom. “Is it ready?”

“Yeah, let’s pick him up and then put
his back in first. This thing was designed to untie prisoners itself and then
arrange the body in whatever position it needed to. I guess most of the
subjects didn’t go willingly. Go figure.” Bloom waited until the alien was
lifted to the chamber before he touched the last button that started the cycle.
Two powerful arms came from the device and pulled its subject in while a
cutting blade removed the wraps from the prisoner’s arms and legs.

“He isn’t even fighting it”, Fang said
almost to himself.

“He knows that he can’t win”, Bloom said
before turning to Emily. “Ma’am, it looks as though it’ll take about one to
three hours for this thing to find the subject’s weak points. Maybe less considering
he has had a recent encounter with another one of these tubes. I suggest we set
up camp and explore a little bit.”

“Let’s set up camp in the adjoining lab.
I want at least two men in this room on watch at all times. As for exploring,
we stick to data exploration for now. No one leaves a fifty-meter radius of
this lab.” Emily paused and thought a moment. “Bloom, Davies, and Doc, I need
you three to help me gather as much info from the database as possible. I don’t
want anyone working for more than two hours at a time. You might pass something
by that was important. After camp is set, you three take a two-hour break
before starting again. Wilks, put together a watch schedule and whoever is not
on watch will relax, and that’s an order.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am”, came from everyone as
bodies went to work and some went to sleep. Through all of the commotion, no
one could hear the ever-so-slight whimpering that emanated from the tube
against the far wall.

Detrill Home World

“The court dancers are exquisite, Your Highness”,
the guest said from his seat next to the emperor. The men and women of the
Royal Court Dance Troupe continued to dance and jump in the air with a precision
that was unmatched throughout the Coalition. The costumes were simply divine
and the choreography impossible to duplicate.

“Thank you”, the emperor replied with
great satisfaction. “They begin training from almost the time they are born.
They have done me and the empire a great honor in agreeing to become an
official part of the court. They are without equal.”

The two men watched on from their places
at the throne as the show continued. A court messenger came running into the
great hall and bowed before his liege. Through his panting, he asked, “May I
speak? I have an urgent message.”

“Please remove yourself from the floor”,
the emperor whispered as not to disturb the performance. “You know I don’t like
the whole kneeling thing. It’s just too, too, gaudy.” The emperor was a fair
man who rose from the lowest levels of poverty to his great position over the
empire. He ruled his people with integrity and a light heart. He didn’t
consider himself a real emperor, but rather a servant to his people and empire.

“Yes, sire, I apologize.” The messenger
stood and leaned to whisper into his master’s ear. “The Empress of Nortes
wishes a conference with you at once.”

The emperor became rigid. After almost
nine hundred years of unbroken silence, the ruler of the Nortes requested an
audience with the ruler of the Detrill. This could only mean one thing, and for
the first time in more than twenty years, the emperor wished that he were still
a peasant.

The rain was pouring down so hard that
Davies felt certain they were using fire hoses to supplement Mother Nature’s already
impressive onslaught. With the accompanying wind, he found it difficult to
stand at attention but that wasn’t nearly as difficult as it was to watch the
rest of his squad performing pushups in the torrential weather.