Solar Warden, Jakob Waechter [book club suggestions .TXT] 📗

a safe retreat if needed?” Fisher asked.

“Good question. We have a good fortification, but not too much cover. They might at least get in the line of fire. However, they would be as far away as it is possible in this hall. With the bikes it should be no problem to get away in time. With the lower doors we don’t expect another machine. When we open the other door in about one hour I may send them out. This means they have only less than 30 minutes to get something done. Then it is unknown how the situation evolves.” Ryan replied.

“Depends what behind the door. They can sure continue if there is no resistance. I cannot say what the aliens do with this tactic. But somehow it seems they do not want to engage us further,” Fisher added.

“Or they still preparing. Nevertheless, our mission is to get intel. Tell Watkins this will be no picnic. She has no real combat experience and the other none at all. Well, I have time to talk to her when she is here. At least I want to know what they do with the humans. I send SW-2 to pick them up at the landing site.”

“Ok. But send them back as soon it gets dangerous.” Fisher also wanted the intel. He informed Watkins and let prepared a shuttle for them. It was a risky attempt. But maybe having no confirmed losses did encourage his decision or the progress they made. Still the intel about the aliens was there and to get another chance very unlikely. Sooner or later reinforcements will arrive. Then they had to be away. Was there estimation correct? Three days, maybe five, but not more. To gain intel they needed time. First to secure the area if this was possible at all. What will they do if they get the others back? Retreat at once? Or continue on the intel gathering? The Captain was thinking. They had now a lot of stuff to analyze. But still do not know what the aliens were doing exactly on this planet. A secret outpost? A research facility for what? And now these humans. He went back to the table, which was displaying the pictures of them.

“Has the analysis here brought us some data?” he asked his communication officer, which immediately checked the status.

“Yes, sir. The data is now transferring to the table.”

Then the leader of the analysis team spoke, “Captain, we checked our database as ordered and found some similarities to some abduction cases in the past. But there is something strange. They seem to be younger or have similar age to cases that were decades ago. Sadly, we have in most of the fits no DNA data to compare. But on we could.”

“Good work. I inform Watkins to check this out.” Fisher looked at the archive data and compared the pictures. What did the aliens? Now he had a riddle to solve and more reasons to pursue an investigation.

 

12 The others

Knight woke up in a white room. It was different to the one in the facility. He checked around and was in some kind of seat that was moved back. His helm was still on his head. Thinking about what Ryan happened was different. He could stand up what he did. The others were also in this room. They were two more. Did all the others escape? There were five seats in here. Knight went to one and shock him slightly.

“What?” came the response.

“It’s me Knight.”

“Oh, where are we, I’m Riley.” That the electronic was down he figured out fast.

“I don’t know. I check the other.” Knight went to the last.

“Wakeup. This is Commander Knight.” He shook the soldier slightly, too.

“Knight, what? Oh, I’m Pearce.” Pearce looked around. “Seems they got us.”

“Yes, but I expected something like what Ryan and Caine happened,” Knight wondered.

“Do you feel also that something is odd?” Riley asked.

“Maybe a bit dizzy and moving feels a bit different. But I cannot specify it,” replied Pearce.

The door opened and a Gray was standing there. “So you are awake. You can remove your helms if you want. There is no danger.”

“What do you want?” Knight asked.

“Nothing. I will just show you around. You can have it in your suits or more comfortable with this one here.” He pointed to the wall. It was opening and there some white closes were in sight. “You can also stay here and do nothing.”

Knight thought a bit. The suit electronics was not working any more. The using of the air filter was a nice to have thing. But then the suit had not much advantages except in combat situations. He removed his helm and put it to the side. “I think without helm it is comfortable enough.”

The others made the same decision.

“What are we, now? Prisoners? Lab rats?” Knight asked.

“You will see what options you will have. But don’t worry there will be no harm.” The Gray stepped back and waited for the them.

Knight took the lead and stepped out of the door. On the left there was one of those heavy doors like from the generator room of the facility. It was closed. To the right there was also such door, but open. Behind was a shorter hall part followed by a corridor with a bigger door left and right. At the end it was going down. The Gray walked to the open door. “Just follows me.”

“We could easily overcome him,” Riley whispered.

“Then what? We have no weapons and no clue how to open the heavy door. So we have to wait and watch,” Knight whispered back.

They followed the Gray to the end where a stairway appeared.

“We could take the lift, but walking around will show you a bit more.” The Gray stepped down.

They went around a corner to the right. Then there was another one to the left. It was approximately going down five meters. The stairs were wide, about six meters. Now there was an opening to see. The bottom was flat. They reached the end of the stairs and saw it.

A whole city was there. Mushroom shaped buildings in a gray, green color. Lights were coming out of the windows. These mushrooms were big. Some had a height of about 20 meters other over the double. The area of the cave could have a size of over one kilometer. They were on a higher point. Some kind of bridge leading to the buildings.

“A whole City. Why have you built this underground? Don’t you like the sun?” Knight asked.

“We don’t depend on it. This is only a small research outpost as probably you already assumed. There were some needs to build it underground first, because of our research.” The Gray led the way to the next building on the bridge path. There were three bridges which led to the middle, the left and right. The center path was directly leading to one of the smaller mushroom to which they walked now.

“This means because of your terraforming?” Knight asked.

“If you call it that. We do a lot of biological research to improve our knowledge. There is some need for a secure environment close to our research.”

“So why did you attack us? You could just talk to us and negotiate something?” Knight tried to get the answer they did not have.

“There is nothing to negotiate. The decisions are already made. You can adapt or not. It is your choice.”

“What does that mean?” Knight had no clue.

“We will speak with you directly. As you already assumed the Gray are only organic machines, clones who do their purpose.”

They went into the building with a big entrance hall. There was something written in front of them, but no one could read it. They went up and also over wide stairs and then to the right into a conference room with a big table and chairs around it. It was an oval one. At the end were a new kind of aliens.

 

They looked a bit similar in the face as the Gray, but more insectoid, like a mantis. They had four arms and two legs. The finger count was the same as the Gray and quite similar. Like humans they seem to walk upright and had closes. The black uniform looked like military, but could be just a uniform for whatever system.

“Welcome Commander Knight, Major Pearce and Lieutenant Riley. Please sit down,” the middle one in a female voice said. The Gray was standing on the side doing nothing.

They sat down.

“Greeting. So who are you?” Knight asked.

“You can call me Tibia. Your new master,” she replied.

“So we are what, prisoners?” Knight wants to know.

“Slaves as first. You will do what we want and can advance in our society to be a servant, get free and finally your own spaceship. It is of your little mistake that you think you could get away with the information you gained here. Indeed, you have found out mostly nothing. But we don’t like it to let you fly back and analyze our stuff and report what you think you have found here. So your ship will be destroyed soon and what is left will have the chance to serve us,” she said.

“Then others will come and look what happened,” Knight replied.

“By then they can’t even get close to the planet. We will have similar defenses like in your system. But a bit more advanced. It’s just you surprised us with your visit here.”

“So you wasted your soldiers just to lure us into your base and try to force us to stay till your reinforcements are here?” Knight was pissed that they went into the trap. He tried to stay calm and show not much emotion. Now he had to find a way to warn the Icarus if it was not too late. But how?

“Soldiers, no. They are just like the Gray. Workers which got a rifle to buy time. It did not matter much. At the ground you cannot win anything. The stuff you damaged, will be repaired. But you can do some contribution to our combat programs. You can train with our workers and then later with our soldiers to optimize their efficiency. Sure the workers are strong. But lack some genetics that soldiers should have. However, there are some improvements which can be made. Also by cooperating you can also receive if you want improved abilities. This will mean longer lifespan, better regeneration and some other genetic optimization your bodies lack. We are far more advanced in genetics than you are on Earth. This can be a profit for you. Not cooperating will just lead to a boring life not worth living for. So by cooperating you will learn we are the better and far more advanced society than yours.”

“And by cooperating we get free and a ship to fly home, bringing the wisdom to our world. That seems you try to trick us,” Knight tried to argue.

“Well, by that time let’s say 100 years. You will have the improved lifespan and whatever ability improvements you chosen. The Earth will have somewhat advanced, but not much. With the quarrels they have between themselves they just slow down their progress. Sure you can fly home and see what a pity life there is and try