The Mothership (6 page)

Beckman took a step toward the gangplank,
but the navy lieutenant barred his way.”Wait!”

From the bridge deck, a sailor yelled out,
“Over on the right, about six meters.”

“Scare it off,” the lieutenant ordered.

Beckman stared in the direction indicated
by the lookout, seeing only mud and mangrove roots. He thought the lookout was
hallucinating, then another sailor fired three slow shots that struck the mud
with a hollow thud. The river bank came alive in a blur of reptilian fury. The
five-meter, mud-coated crocodile was invisible until it moved, then with
astonishing speed and an awkward twisting gait, it raced into the water and
vanished. The troops behind Beckman gasped. Not one of them had seen it, even
when they had been staring straight at it.

“Son of a bitch!” Timer exclaimed. The
former ranger and graduate of the US Army Engineer School at Fort Leonard Wood
leaned over the side, peering into the water in search of the crocodile. “Did
you see that thing?”

“That’s a freaking big lizard!” Nuke
declared anxiously.

One of the navy hands laughed, shaking his
head, “Mate, they get a lot bigger than that!”

“Is it safe to go ashore now?” Beckman
asked.

“Nope, but you’ve got your orders,” the
lieutenant said with an amused grin. He turned to the sailors along the sides.
“See any more?” No one responded, so the lieutenant moved aside. “Good luck,
Major.”

They shook hands, then Beckman walked down
the gangplank, splashed once in the water and jumped up onto the bank, pulling
himself up through mangrove roots. Hooper went next, followed by the rest of
the team, straining under the weight of their packs. Dr McInness stumbled, but
was saved from falling into the water by Tucker, who hauled him up onto dry
land.

Hooper whispered to Beckman, “For a guy
with no weapon and no ammo, he’s carrying a lot of gear.”

“I know. He’ll be flat on his face in two
hours, then we’ll strip him.”

The patrol boat’s crew retrieved the
gangplank, then the boat’s engines revved, pulling the bow free of the mud.

“Make sure you cut across country,” the
lieutenant yelled from the bow. “The river banks will be crawling with crocs,
especially at night.”

One of the ratings added from the deck,
“Then you’ve only got the bloody snakes and spiders to worry about.”

The rest of the crew broke into fits of
laughter. Marooning the Americans in the middle of nowhere was a great joke to
them.

“Why do I feel like a greenhorn?” Hooper
said under his breath as he watched the patrol boat back away.

“Because out here,” Beckman replied in an
equally low voice, “You are!”

The laughing sailors gave them a hearty
wave for good luck as the high tech patrol boat spun slowly on its length, then
headed back down the river toward the Gulf. The thrum of its big engines slowly
faded as it disappeared around the bend, leaving them with the feeling that
they were now truly alone.

Beckman took a compass bearing, studied the
luxuriant rain forest a moment, then turned to the team. “From here on, we’re
advancing to contact. We’ve got eighty clicks of this stuff ahead of us,” he
said indicating the prehistoric forest around them, “So pace yourselves.” He
turned to Orlando Cougar Sanchez, the sniper in Hooper’s force protection
squad. “Cougar, you’re on point.”

Cougar nodded, expecting the order. He was
always on point. A man of few words, he had ice water in his veins and eyes
like an eagle. Beckman had picked the swarthy sniper from east LA because he
could hit a dime at a thousand meters with monotonous regularity, and had the
rare ability to move through any terrain without being seen. Top of his class
at Kaneohe Bay, veteran of multiple combat tours in the middle east, then a
scout sniper instructor, his patience and calm were impenetrable no matter what
chaos was erupting around him.

“Hooper, will cover our rear,” Beckman
continued. “Dr McInness, Mr Markus, you’re with me. If there’s any combat,
you’re to hit the deck and stay there until I give the all clear. Understood?”

Markus nodded while Dr McInness adjusted
his glasses and continued fishing through his pack, searching for something.

“Dr McInness? Did you hear what I said?”

The young scientist looked up, “Ah yes, I
did. Thank you, Major. It’s good to know you’re prepared, but I’m sure we won’t
be fighting anyone.”

Beckman looked surprised. “Are you?”

Dr McInness looked distracted. “No advanced
civilization is going to attack the Earth. What would be the point? They don’t
need our resources, they have the entire galaxy for that. Our atmosphere is
probably poison to them and, well let’s face it, we’re just too primitive to be
of much interest to them.”

“Maybe they want to eat us,” Nuke taunted.

“Unlikely,” Dr McInness said. “That ship is
down for repairs. It’s the only rational explanation. Unfortunately, it will be
gone long before we get there.”

“Nevertheless, if any shooting starts,”
Beckman said, “I want to see your face in the dirt. Clear?”

Dr McInness nodded absently, “Certainly
Major, if it makes you feel better.” He finally retrieved what he’d been
searching for, a can of insect repellent, which he proceeded to spray all over
himself, much to the amusement of the troops.

Steamer whispered to Tucker, “Fifty bucks! Looking
good.”

“You should have given me four to one.”

Hooper wrinkled his nose at the sweet
smelling insecticide. “With that shit on, they’ll smell us coming.”

Dr McInness stuffed the insect repellent
back in his pack and turned towards Hooper. “I doubt that, Sergeant.
Considering they won’t be breathing our atmosphere, it will be impossible for
them to smell us.” He paused as a thought struck him, “Unless of course they’re
analyzing air samples. Hmm! I hadn’t thought of that! You might be right,
Sergeant.”

Beckman exchanged looks with Hooper then
turned to Cougar. “Move out. Due west. Nice and quiet.”

Cougar nodded, then climbed the small rise
to flat land, and started west. The rest of the team fanned out behind him,
while Hooper moved to the rear. The sergeant stopped, his eyes narrowing on the
river.

“Hold it!” he yelled, as he clambered down
to the bank and peered through the trees. “Smoke, Major!”

Beckman hurried down to where Hooper stood,
following his gaze down river. Rising beyond the mangroves separating them from
the Gulf waters was a column of thick black smoke.

“It’s near the river mouth,” Beckman said.

Markus raised his binoculars, studying the
acrid black smoke. “It’s a diesel fire. Got to be the patrol boat.”

Beckman saw Dr McInness watching the column
of smoke uncertainly. “Still think there’s no threat, Doctor?”

“I’m sure there’s a rational explanation,”
Dr McInness replied uncomfortably. “A fire in the engine room? A fuel problem?
Who knows?”

“Should we hike to the coast, Major?” Timer
asked. “See if we can help?”

“No,” Markus said flatly. “We can’t afford
the time.”

Beckman glanced irritably at Markus. A
lifetime in the military demanded he help the crew, but the mission ruled out
any such luxury. “Markus is right. We can’t help them,” he said, hating himself
for saying it.

“Want me to try to contact them with the
short wave, sir?” Sergeant Michael Virus Kirovsky asked. He was the team’s
communications specialist, carrying both their long range radio and a small
recovered communications device that could pick up signals conventional radios
could not.

Beckman shook his head. “No. The signal
would give away our position. Tactical radios only until further notice.” The
tactical radios were designed to emit weak signals that faded into background
noise within five kilometers, limiting the risk of detection.

 Solemnly, they climbed the hill, then
headed into a vast steaming landscape that had changed little in sixty million
years. Roland Markus scarcely noticed his surrounds, as he wondered if his
burst transmission had caused the destruction of the patrol boat. Even though
the signal had lasted only a fraction of a second, it may have been enough to
invite an attack. He realized he would have to be careful using the burst
transmitter in the future.

A few paces ahead, Beckman was plagued by
ominous thoughts. How had the patrol boat been destroyed? And why?

* * * *

Slab slipped out
of his backpack and reached inside for the gray insulation bag, feeling for a
cold beer. The ex-AFL football player flicked ice from the can, careful not to
waste even a single precious cube, then slid the can out and meticulously
resealed the thermal bag.

Bill McKenna, a pub owner from Darwin,
watched the big man tear off the ring pull and take a long swig of beer. “Jeez
mate, you’re knocking them back fast!”

Slab swallowed, then exhaled with pleasure.
“They’re the only things keeping me going.” He wiped sweat from his forehead,
rejuvenated by the cool amber liquid.

Slab’s three friends exchanged amused
looks, then Wal Roberts chimed in, “When they’re all gone, don’t come begging
for mine.” Wal, half the size of Slab, had spent the past twenty years shearing
on every station from Katherine to Broken Hill. He was tough as boot leather
and half as bright.

“I’m saving mine for later,” Cracker, a
miner from the Pilbara, declared. “We won’t get back to camp for hours.”

Slab’s face fell. “Hours!” He shook his
head miserably. “We should have stayed on the river.” He adjusted his
sweat-soaked akubra hat, trying to squeeze a little extra shade from its
positioning. He’d expected the heat, but not the bush bashing. Slab had assumed
they’d be cruising around in Bill’s fishing boat, never going out of sight of
the river. It came as a great surprise to him that his mates actually wanted to
hunt, as he’d assumed the hunting was just an excuse to get away from the
wives. Three days ago, they’d driven Bill’s four-by-four down the Central
Arnhem Road, towing his boat on a trailer along the treacherous gravel track.
After several hundred kilometers, they had turned south onto an even worse
track. It took them west of Bath Range, down to the Ngilipitji Community, where
they slid Bill’s half cabin fishing boat into the Walker River. Once afloat,
they motored upstream twenty kilometers before making camp. Next day, to Slab’s
disgust, the hiking began.

Bill shook his head, dismayed at Slab’s
lack of enthusiasm. “Mate, do you know how hard it is to get a license to get
in here?” They were hunting Asian water buffalo, an introduced species that had
to be culled from time to time, providing hunters could be found to go after
them.

“Can’t believe we paid money for this,”
Slab growled, irritated that they hadn’t yet seen a single buffalo.

“Well,” Wal said, “If we don’t find any
buffalo, we can shoot Slab and nick his beer! He’s as big as a buffalo, and he
smells like one too!”

Cracker shook his head in mock seriousness.
“I say we shoot him now, before it’s too late. If we wait, he’ll have drunk it
all.”

Slab belched, unconcerned by their threats.
“If you bastards don’t shut up, I’ll drink all of mine now, and help you with
yours later,” he said with a wicked grin.

Wal scratched his head with a worried look.
“Hmm, we better get stuck into ours, before he’s finished his!”

Slab drained the can, then crushed it in
one hand and stuffed the remains back in his pack. They might have been out for
a week away, but they hated people who left trash in the bush. “My pack’s
lighter now,” Slab said with satisfaction.

Wal was about to offer a response when the
bushes off to the left rustled. Bill had his rifle up first, sighting toward
the sound, while the others unslung their guns.

“Is it a buffalo?” Cracker whispered.

“Probably another bloody kangaroo,” Slab
said.

Some distance away, thick green plants were
pushed aside as an unseen creature forced its way through the undergrowth. They
strained to hear heavy hoof falls and snorting breathes, but heard only the
plants being disturbed.

“If it’s a buffalo,” Slab said, realizing
they should have seen the animal’s broad shoulders above the foliage, “It’s a
baby.”

“Go forward,” Bill whispered, “Quietly.”

The four of them crept toward the
underbrush, working their way through the trees as the creature moved to the
south.

“It’s getting away,” Wal whispered.

“This is bullshit,” Slab growled. “Get
ready fellas.” He picked up a large rock and took aim at the movement now about
twenty meters away.

“What are you doing?” Bill demanded.

“We can’t shoot it, unless we know it’s a
buffalo.” Slab hurled the rock into the bushes, then they all heard a dull
metallic thud.

“That’s not a buffalo!” Bill said confused.

A long, black, oval shape floated up out of
the bushes and turned toward them. A glowing white strip ran the length of its
underside, while four tubular, jointed arms protruded from either side, giving
the machine a spider-like appearance. At the end of its arms were slender
knife-shaped probes, each slightly different in length and thickness signaling
they served different purposes. Rising twenty centimeters from the machine’s
spine was a thin cylinder topped by a glassy black disk housing the surveying
machine’s sensor package. The
surveyor
floated over the bushes, scanning
them as it approached. Its primary interest was geology and metallurgy,
although it could gather information outside its specialty when the opportunity
arose. It already knew from its initial spectral analysis that the four bipedal
life forms nearby carried steel objects, indicating they had access to basic
industrial technology, although it did not recognize the rifles were primitive
weapons.