Flight (12 page)

“Okay. Thank you,” Stanley said.
The Hrwang nodded and left, closing the hatch. It sealed with a
thud and a latching sound.

“I don’t like being locked in
here,” Irina said.

“We’re not locked in. All the
hatches probably seal. You know, for fire or something.”

Irina thought for a moment. “Air,”
she finally said. “They seal for air. This is a combat vessel. It’s
designed to withstand breaches. Sections can be closed off to
prevent air loss throughout the ship.”

Stanley thought she was probably
right, it made sense, but he didn’t want to say it. She could also
be wrong.

They waited a few
minutes, Stanley inspecting the alien ship. Only it didn’t look
alien. It looked so perfectly human. He’d never been inside of a
submarine, but it really did look like how he might have imagined
it. The
Beagle
didn’t have a mess hall. There was a small galley where the
crew prepared meals, but people ate where they wanted to
eat.

He was on an
alien ship, though. No matter how human the occupants looked, he
was on a alien ship, one that looked massive compared to the
Beagle
, which was the
finest of what Earth could build. The alien propulsion systems
alone must be incredible. He couldn’t wait to take a
tour.

He marveled at the suit he wore.
It held him to the bench when he sat, but he could move
comfortably, just as if gravity held him in place. Even his arms
could rest comfortably on the table, the magnet suit hold them just
in place. He experimented with how much he had to pull up to free
the suit from the table.

The hatch cycled open and his and
Commander Samovitch’s attention was immediately drawn to it.
Through the opening stepped a tall, thin man with short, light
colored hair speckled with gray. His eyes were pale blue, his nose
and ears a little large, his arms and legs long and gangly. He wore
the same style jumpsuit that Stanley, Irina, and the rest of the
crew wore. Only his fit like it had been hand tailored for
him.

Stanley wanted to stand, but
remembered the Lieutenant Grenadier’s instructions. He
nodded.

“You are the Lord Admiral, I
presume?”

The man nodded back. “You must be
the Captain. I am pleased to meet you.” He extended his right hand
to Stanley and Stanley partway stood off the bench and took it.
They shook, the Lord Admiral having a firm grip, his hands stronger
than his thinness might suggest. Stanley shook the man’s hand
firmly back.

The Lord Admiral shook Irina’s
hand also, holding on to it for a moment. He smiled with a
mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“It has been a long time since my
crew has seen a woman. You are most beautiful.”

Irina hated being treated like a
woman. She always wanted to be treated like an officer, and Stanley
wondered how she would react to the man’s compliment. She half
smiled and nodded back at the man, sitting back down when their
hands released. Stanley watched his second-in-command’s reactions
and decided Irina liked the man, treating him like she might treat
an admiral in her own military.

The Lord Admiral sat down on a
bench attached to the table next to theirs, his back against the
table. He looked between both of them. He grinned a
little.

“We must get you clothes that are
your size. Before we eat a meal with the crew. You must look
better.”

“That would be nice, sir. Thank
you,” Irina said.

The Lord Admiral looked at
Stanley, contemplating something, then asked, “Why do you greet
each other with your right hand?”

“It’s our custom. I don’t know
why,” Stanley replied.

“If I may, sir, I know why,” Irina
said. Stanley nodded and the Lord Admiral turned his attention on
her, a content look on his face. This man could lead armies and
nations, Stanley thought.

Irina explained. “When people used
to carry swords, most of them were right handed. If a man shook
your right hand with his, neither of you could have a drawn
sword.”

The Lord Admiral listened
carefully, then pulled a small tablet out of his pocket. He typed
something into it, frowned, then asked Irina how to spell ‘sword’.
She told him.

He held the tablet towards them
and there was a picture of a wicked looking blade on it, the hilt
barbed, with additional barbs halfway down the length of
it.

“Yes, that’s a sword,” Irina
said.

The Lord Admiral turned the tablet
back so he could look at the picture again.

“You are truly a warrior
people.”

Stanley frowned. He was a
scientist, not a warrior, and he was proud of it. But Irina spoke
before he could say something.

“Where did you learn to speak
English so well, sir?” she asked.

“Please, do not call me ‘sir’.
Call me Lord Admiral. Your Captain is your ‘sir’. Am I
correct?”

Stanley had never seen Irina so
conflicted. He almost laughed at her.

“Captain Rus..., the Captain, is
the civilian commander of the mission we are currently on. But I am
part of the United Nations Navy and I’m the second-in-command, Lord
Admiral.”

“Do all of your women serve in the
military?” he asked.

“No. Military service is not
compulsory for men or women, Lord Admiral.”

He shook his head and frowned,
looking down at his tablet.

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s no draft. No obligation
to serve.”

The Lord Admiral stared at his
tablet. “Ah,” he said, then said a word that sounded like ‘bread’
to Stanley.

“Now I understand.” He looked up.
“We have no women in our military.”

Irina bristled a little. She
suddenly seemed a little less impressed with the Hrwang Lord
Admiral. Stanley jumped in. It was time for diplomacy.

“As my second-in-command said,
Lord Admiral, your English is amazing. How did you learn it so
quickly?”

“Much hard work,” the Lord Admiral
replied. “And this translates your words as you speak them, when it
knows what they are.” He held up the tablet. “Only automated
translations are not good. Words are mixed up.” Stanley saw a
strange script on the screen. The letters looked like a cross
between Arabic and Sanskrit. “And we have other ways.”

“But how did your people learn
English in the first place?” Stanley asked.

The Lord Admiral consulted his
tablet, then said, “Drones returned with years of broadcasts. Our
scientists who are good with languages studied them and I prepared
for this mission by studying the dominant language. But many things
about it confuse us. Talking to you is helping.”

“We have many languages on Earth.
I’m sure it’s confusing,” Stanley said.

“We have many languages also,
Captain,” the Lord Admiral replied. “On Earth, my Earth, we have
many peoples and countries and languages.” He smiled and his eyes
held the same twinkle as they had when he told Irina she was
beautiful. “Captain, remember. We are just as human as
you.”

“How?” Stanley asked, not even
realizing how curious he was about the Lord Admiral’s humanness
until he asked. He still sort of expected the man to be a lizard
cloaking himself inside of a human body, or any other of a hundred
crazy theories proposed by the conspiracy nuts on Earth. How could
the Hrwang have possibly evolved the same way as humans? Did the
aliens even know why people from two different star systems were
both human? And how much did they have in common? Stanley realized
he had many questions. He wondered what answers the Hrwang
had.

He didn’t expect the first answer
he received, though. What the Lord Admiral said next shocked
him.

“You believe in God, right,
Captain? Did he not create the humans on your world after his
image, just as he did the humans on my world?”

19

Wolfgang and Leah hiked and the
sky finally grew gray and he put his flashlight away with relief.
He wished now for a hiking stick.

They reached the tree line and
stark rock faced them. They would be exposed, but hopefully far
enough away that they could not be caught. They had the rifles, and
Wolfgang knew that if he were chased and fired upon, he would
probably fire back. He thought about it and decided he definitely
would fire back. The boy’s friends had hurt him, had hurt them, and
he wouldn’t allow them to hurt them anymore.

“I am a fool,” he said suddenly in
German.

Leah almost laughed.

“Why?”

“I should have stayed behind with
the boy. Kept him from talking. Held off the gang for a while with
my rifle. I am slowing you down.”

“I don’t care. I would not have
left you.”

“You are a fool, too.”

“I don’t care.” She did laugh now,
and the sound of it pleased Wolfgang.

“I must take a break,” he said a
few minutes later. He sat on a rock and it was comfortable. “I need
to sleep.”

“We need to catch up to the
soldiers,” Leah said. They couldn’t see them.

“A minute.”

Leah got water out of her pack and
handed it to Wolfgang. He drank. His head pounded and he prayed for
medicine. As soon as he opened his eyes, Leah held two
pills.

“This will help,” she
said.

He took them and swallowed them
with water.

“I can’t go much longer,” he told
her.

“I know. You wait here. I’ll catch
up with them and tell them to wait.”

Wolfgang caught her arm before she
could leave.

“Too dangerous,” he said. “I have
to keep moving.”

Leah looked like she wanted to
cry, but she shouldered her backpack, the two rifles, and helped
Wolfgang to his feet. He took a deep breath and continued up the
mountainside.

He walked with his eyes mostly
closed, relying on Leah’s guidance, her firm arm on his. She’d
hiked all night like him and must be running on adrenaline. They
couldn’t keep this up much longer.

“Where is the other one?” she
called out suddenly, startling him. She stopped and Wolfgang
stopped with her. He looked and saw Lieutenant Colonel Robertson
resting with his back against a large rock. The man stared out over
the distance, valleys and forested hills stretching to the horizon,
the sun rising into a dense pack of gray clouds.

“Where is the younger officer?”
Leah repeated.

The lieutenant colonel didn’t
reply.

“Maybe he went on ahead,” Wolfgang
suggested.

Leah’s hand on his arm
tensed.

“Where is the other one?” she
asked more insistently. The American looked up at her.

“He’ll be along shortly,” he
said.

“Did he go ahead?” she
asked.

“He’ll be along shortly,” the man
said again, as if the words were rehearsed. As if he had decided
ahead of time that’s all he would say. His face looked grim. He
turned away and continued to watch the sun rise.

“No,” Leah cried.

The expression on the soldier’s
face didn’t change.

“No,” Leah cried more desperately.
“No, no, no, no, no.” She fell to her knees next to Wolfgang,
burying her face in his hand. She began sobbing uncontrollably.
Wolfgang knelt slowly next to her and she held him, crying into his
shoulder.

The soldier looked at Wolfgang
sympathetically. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed, then turned away back to
his sunrise.

Wolfgang understood. He couldn’t
have done it himself, but he understood in a way that Leah didn’t.
The boy had to die.

He held Leah and tried to console
her.

They could see Wlazlo below them,
moving quickly to catch up. Leah stood and pulled Wolfgang to his
feet.

“We go now,” she said and walked
resolutely forward, dragging him along with her, not waiting for
the American captain.

She hiked doggedly, every muscle
in Wolfgang’s body aching as he tried to keep up, until they
crested a ridge.

“I know this place,” she said
surprised, stopping at the top. They could see two lakes below
them, one small, one large. She pointed to a distinctive peak.
“That’s Pizzo del Sole. My father took me hiking here when I was
younger. The village below must have been Osco.”

Wolfgang didn’t think that the
name the American told him, Oscar, made sense. It just hadn’t sound
Swiss. Osco did.

“Is there a trail down the other
side?” Wolfgang asked.

“Most people hike from Osco or
Predelp. But I think we’ll be able to get down the other side.
There is a road that leads down the valley. My parents live in
Ludiano.”

“How far?”

“Thirty kilometers.”

“I can hike that far,” Wolfgang
said, “if I can get some rest.” He wasn’t sure if he told the
truth, but he could try. Thirty kilometers, especially down the
mountain, would have been nothing before a piece of shrapnel hit
his forehead. He hoped he could make it.