The Terran Escape Read online

  The magnitude of her decision fell upon Merafuentes like a great weight on her chest. They couldn’t leave the system even if they knew where exactly the system was. It’d take a generation ship to get anywhere else.

  “And there’s no advanced life on the planet,” said Merafuentes. Initial scans had shown as much. “We can hide there. I know other ships haven’t come back. Maybe Kaur will give up and won’t search for us.”

  “Assuming we can survive on the planet,” said Crosby. There were a few murmurs of agreement.

  “Captain,” said Ensign Das. She sounded nervous and spoke too loud for the situation. Her voice cracked. “We’re being hailed.”

  Merafuentes’ heart leapt into her throat. She gulped and croaked out, “Who is it?”

  Das shook her head and furrowed her brow. She bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know, but it keeps repeating.”

  Merafuentes flicked a switch on her console, piping in the feed over the comm system. It was nothing but a series of clicks and hisses. Their systems could be damaged, and it might be another one of the colonial fleet trying to contact them. She turned on the external cameras.

  The image took the air out of the room. There was a collective gasp. It wasn’t Kaur.

  It was a ship design that was not of human origin.

  Part Four

  Merafuentes sat at a table made from a composite material she couldn’t place. The tabletop came up to her chest. She tried to move it, but found that it was bolted to the ground, as was her uncomfortable chair. It was molded to a rear that was much narrower than her own. She tried to calm her pounding heart and shaking hands but the harsh, white light and sterile surroundings she found herself in didn’t provide much reassurance.

  Those who’d captured them had disabled Merafuentes’ ship and boarded without a struggle. Merafuentes wouldn’t have put up a fight anyway, but it was the ease with which they overrode the defenses that impressed the captain.

  The captors were a good two feet taller and looked rail-thin in their matte black suits. Helmets with elongated fronts and mirrored visors had only added to the mystery of who they were. The weapons were of a make she had never seen before. That Merafuentes found herself in what looked like an interrogation room proved to her it wasn’t Kaur who’d captured them. She knew the Admiral would have taken them back to the other dimension by now.

  The lone door of the room slid open almost faster than a blink of the eye. Merafuentes sat up straight and placed her hands on the table in front of her. She concentrated as hard as she could on stopping their shaking. It was little consolation to her that she wasn’t strapped into the chair.

  A tall thin creature wearing the same suit as the boarding party walked into the room. Its helmet was off, and Merafuentes wasn’t able to stop herself from gasping. Yellow tinted eyes that looked too small for its head stared at her. Small ears sat atop its head. Its cheeks puffed out from its jowls like pouches. A large, black nose protruded from the middle of its face. Merafuentes now understood why the helmets were so elongated. A small box hung from around its next and bounced against its chest as it walked over to the table and sat down.

  “Hello,” said the creature. Its words came from the box and sounded flat and robotic.

  Merafuentes tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry. Even if she had some saliva her throat felt like it constricted. Her whole body shook. She felt her eyes start to sting from drying out because she didn’t blink. If she blinked it might disappear, and the whole episode may prove to have never happened.

  An alien sat in front of her and offered a greeting in English. Her training had covered what to do if intelligent life was found on a planet but not in space. If she hadn’t been so in awe of what sat in front of her she would have questioned how it spoke to her in her own language. Her mouth hung agape, but she managed to blink at last. The alien didn’t disappear.

  It cleared its throat. “I am Captain Fonzatain,” it said and then looked at Merafuentes sideways.

  She shook her head, realizing that it expected her to respond. “I’m Captain Dawn Merafuentes,” she said. Her voice came out thick and dry.

  Fonzatain nodded and said, “It’s interesting meeting you out here as your shuttle doesn’t have interstellar capabilities.”

  “We’re escaping,” said Merafuentes. She didn’t mean to say it, and she didn’t know why she had. For all she knew they were infringing on some law that she had no knowledge about.

  “Escaping?” said Fonzatain. “From where? You couldn’t have come from your home system.”

  “We’re deserting,” said Merafuentes. Even though she knew she’d made the decision to do so for good reason it still shamed her to say it out loud because it went against all of her military training.

  “From your commanding officer?” said Fonzatain.

  “How do you know where we’re from?” said Merafuentes. “I don’t even know who you are. We’ve never had contact with any other culture before.” Her voice came out strained and upset with an overarching nervousness to it. It seemed Fonzatain knew about her. She wished she knew why.

  “My biologist recognized you when he saw you and your people come aboard,” said Fonzatain. “We thought all humans had gone extinct after your system was destroyed” It tapped the box around its neck, and its eyes closed as it spoke. “Good thing we had our portable translators. Our implants don’t have the capabilities to translate dead languages.” Fonzatain’s eyes opened when it finished speaking.

  “Dead language?” said Merafuentes. She looked down at her hands and all but ignored the creature across the table from her. Fonzatain’s words washed over her without their meaning fully sinking in. Her head spun, and her brain felt thick. Full comprehension of everything that was happening was just out of reach.

  “We detected specific particles around your ship when we entered the system,” continued Fonzatain. “They’re the hallmark of someone who travels between dimensions. It’s a primitive form of Faster than Light Travel.” Fonzatain paused then tried to catch Merafuentes’ eye. “They were the same particles detected in your system.”

  Merafuentes didn’t have anything to say.

  “We thought you might know something about it.”

  She didn’t know what to say.

  Fonzatain didn’t speak for a little bit as Merafuentes tried to process what she’d been told. Tears started to leak out and run down her cheeks. If Fonzatain was telling the truth, which Merafuentes couldn’t tell since she couldn’t read its facial expressions which seemed to be few and far between, then there was no home to go back to now.

  At the thought of there being nothing she let her head sink onto the table. It felt cool to the touch but that didn’t sooth her. Neither did the fact that Fonzatain could be outright lying. She ran her hands through her hair and started to sob. She had no reason to believe the creature, but yet she couldn’t help herself. Grief forced out the tears and caused her body to shake with great heavy breaths that made it sound like she might not be able to breath. Snot ran from her nose and dripped onto the floor. Tears soaked her collar and the occasional wail escaped her lips.

  Fonzatain looked back towards the door then again towards Merafuentes before standing. It cleared its throat and puffed out its cheeks. Merafuentes’ grief didn’t stop.

  “We’re going to hold you until we’ve left the system,” said Fonzatain. “We can’t risk someone else finding you, and in all good conscience we can’t leave you here with your under developed craft. After our work is complete we will drop you and your crew off at the nearest resettlement facility. They’ll know how to help.”

  Merafuentes continued to cry as Fonzatain left the room. She heard its words, but they didn’t register except for the part about leaving the system. Her sobs quieted and slowed. She wiped some of the snot away with the back of hand and lifted her head to watch as the door opened and two more of the aliens came into the room. They motioned for her to get up.

  She slid off the
chair and stood on wobbling legs. The guards motioned with their weapons for her to walk in front of them. She took in a deep breath and brushed back hair from her face. If nothing else they might be getting out of the system. She could figure out the finer details of where to go after that.

  Part Five

  The attack happened a day after Merafuentes had been interrogated.

  All of her crew sat in their cell, sprawled out and bored. The initial shock and intrigue of meeting an alien race had worn off and was replaced with hushed speculation about what would happen to them next. All talk ceased when one of Fonzatain’s crew walked by. Whether it was from a renewed awe at seeing an alien in the flesh or an abundance of precaution due to the subject of their conversation Merafuentes didn’t know.

  She didn’t engage in the idle chitchat though. Instead she concentrated on their cell. Where there should have been bars there was only a shimmering, yellow haze. If she unfocused her eyes she could almost see moving particles in it. One would get a painful zap if they touched it.

  It was the haze she focused on when the first shout broke her concentration. An alarm sounded and warning lights started to flash. Merafuentes’ crew stopped talking and moved closer together. They watched down the hallway as Fonzatain’s crew poured forth into the corridor and ran towards whatever was happening.

  Merafuentes stood. The haze that held them in their cell prevented her from focusing well enough to get a clear view of what happened. Shouting and what sounded like small weapons fire echoed down to her. Something hit the haze, causing it to spark and snap. Merafuentes stumbled backwards as the feeling of electricity crackled through the air.

  Gunfire continued. The lights flickered and a shudder ran through the ship. The air recyclers whined and the smell of burning wafted through their area. Smoke obscured what little they could make out of the hallway. Merafuentes felt like she tipped to one side. A glance back at her crew showed her that they too moved in the same direction she did. Something had happened to the gravity and the process gave her inner ear fits.

  The shouting and gunfire became quieter. It sounded like it moved away from them. Merafuentes crew started to separate from each other and drift towards the haze. They squinted and peered through it. Merafuentes could only make out vague shapes in the smoke. There were lumps on the ground and figures moving but beyond that she couldn’t tell what was going on.

  “What just happened?” said Spanos who had moved to stand next to Merafuentes.

  Merafuentes didn’t answer. A small group moved through the now clearing smoke. When they were no more than twenty feet away she could make out who it was: Fonzatain, two of its crew and two humans.

  Fonzatain pointed towards the empty cell next to Merafuentes’ group and the two humans were thrown in. They lay on the ground and moaned. Their skin was sallow. It looked like markings had been cut into their skin. Weeping sores covered the areas that weren’t marked. Their hair had fallen out, and they were so emaciated it was hard for Merafuentes to tell if they men or women.

  “Why were we attacked?” said Fonzatain. It stood and glared at Merafuentes. The translator box spoke in flat, monotone words not conveying any emotion, but Merafuentes could almost feel the anger emanating off the captain.

  “I don’t know,” said Merafuentes. She motioned to the two new prisoners. “I don’t know who they are, but I can guess Admiral Kaur sent them.”

  The possibility that the Admiral came for them made Merafuentes shake. The poor souls next to them were the result of being loyal. She didn’t want to think about the consequences of being caught and deemed disobedient.

  “Your commanding officer that you’re escaping from?” said Fonzatain.

  Merafuentes nodded. “Look at them. They’re sick. Something is wrong,” she said. “This is what we’re trying to escape.”

  Fonzatain looked at the two new prisoners then back to Merafuentes. It blinked slowly and puffed out its cheeks then sucked them back in before saying something that Merafuentes didn’t catch. Its two crew members turned and moved away.

  “I’ll have to think about how to proceed,” said Fonzatain before following the other two.

  Merafuentes let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. She moved over to her bed and collapsed onto it. Her head hurt and her whole body felt drained. Some of her crew shuffled to their beds and lay down. Other moved nearer to Merafuentes.

  No one made a noise until Spanos said, “Does anyone know who they are?”

  There was no reply.

  “What are we going to do?” said Spanos, turning to Merafuentes.

  She rubbed her temples and closed her eyes. The two new prisoners continued their moaning but didn’t get off the floor. They spoke, but she couldn’t understand their words.

  Fonzatain seemed competent to Merafuentes. If she was in charge she’d get out of the system. As far as she knew if they left Kaur couldn’t follow them, and it didn’t look like they were going to escape their cell unless something catastrophic happened, but she wasn’t in charge, and right now she had to put her faith in Fonzatain.

  “Wait,” said Merafuentes. “We wait.” As much as she didn’t want to be there it didn’t seem like there was anything else they could do.

  Part Six

  Merafuentes wasn’t sure how long it had been before Fonzatain came back, maybe hours. She knew that since the lights hadn’t been turned off that “night” hadn’t descended, but at the same time she didn’t know how long Fonzatain’s people’s day was.

  “We need to speak,” said Fonzatain. It was flanked by two armed crewmembers. They each gave shifty glances towards one another. Their gaze would slip from Merafuentes to the new prisoners; dart to Fonzatain then back to Merafuentes.

  She stood from her seat and walked towards the barrier. A gap large enough for Merafuentes opened and she moved through it at the beckoning of Fonzatain. Its crewmembers gripped their weapons a little tighter.

  “Follow me,” said Fonzatain. It moved down the hall without waiting to see if Merafuentes came along.

  “Have you made a decision?” said Merafuentes. She cast a quick look back at her crew who stood in the cell, watching her go. Fonzatain hadn’t given her any reason to be concerned so far, so she wouldn’t dwell on the numerous things it could do to her since they were on its ship at its mercy. If she went down that road she wouldn’t be able to move forward.

  They walked without seeing anyone else in the corridors. Panels lay on the ground. Tubing hung from the ceiling. Scorch marks charred the walls. What Merafuentes recognized as dried blood stained some of the surfaces. It perplexed Merafuentes why what she saw wasn’t being repaired, but as a ship’s captain she knew high priority items like life support and defenses were worked on first.

  “You don’t know who it was that attacked us?” said Fonzatain.

  “Not personally,” said Merafuentes. “There were thousands of us in the Colonial Fleet.”

  “Do you have a way to contact your Admiral?”

  Merafuentes opened her mouth to answer then realized that she didn’t have one. There had been the expectation, the guarantee, that she would return, even in her own mind, so much so that she had never thought about it. It had always seemed like Kaur knew what she was thinking, like the admiral had been in her brain. When they’d finished placing a beacon and returned to space a portal to the other dimension would open. They never called back or sent a message ahead. Kaur had somehow known.

  In the other dimension there was no real physical-ness for Merafuentes. Everything had been mental. Perhaps Kaur had a connection. Perhaps she had been inside Merafuentes mind. Perhaps they were linked somehow. It had certainly felt like it.

  She concentrated and looked inside herself. For the first time she realized there wasn’t that little tickle in the back of her mind. It had been there every other trip. The little tickle that at first felt like an itch in her thoughts and had been eventually ignored was now gone. Merafuentes thought tha
t maybe her link with Kaur had been severed somehow. If it had been cut then maybe Kaur really couldn’t follow them.

  “No,” said Merafuentes. “Not anymore.” She paused. “I don’t think so.”

  Fonzatain puffed its cheeks before speaking. “You don’t think so?”

  “There was something there. Something mental, but I can’t feel it anymore,” said Merafuentes, struggling to describe it to Fonzatain. “Something cut it.”

  They stopped and Fonzatain turned to face Merafuentes. It bent over, forcing Merafuentes to lean back.

  “I don’t have time to play games,” it said. “We made an emergency jump, but it burned out our system. Right now we’re stuck, and I don’t have the crew numbers to repair my ship in a reasonable amount of time.

  “I need to know that your people aren’t going to try and contact your commanding officer if they get a chance because the only way we’re getting out of this is if we work together,” said Fonzatain. It stood up straight, closed its eyes and puffed out its cheeks. It held that for a few beats then exhaled and opened its eyes.

  “You seem genuine,” said Fonzatain, “but I don’t know about your crew. If you vouch for them I’ll take your word.”

  Merafuentes thought about it. None of her crew looked like the attackers. If there had been a mental link, some kind of connection then wouldn’t they have used it to contact Kaur to let the admiral know what was happening? Had one of them been the one to call in the attack? If it was, why hadn’t it occurred as soon as she had made her speech about deserting?

  Maybe it was because the connection had been cut. Kaur sent exploration parties to find out what happened. Merafuentes didn’t know how big Fonzatain’s crew was, but it hadn’t seemed too substantial.

  Her crew had been with her almost the entire time. It must have been something on Fonzatain’s ship that cut the connection. The only thing that might explain it was the field around their jail cell. When they had been put in the cell Fonzatain had said it would block all signals. That could mean telepathic. Merafuentes didn’t know what kind of races were in the galaxy. Telepathy wasn’t the strangest thing she could think of in terms of communication.