We've Seen the Enemy Read online

  Timothy watched as, over a period of 23 years, the Deep Space Project took shape and came to fruition. A total of 242 deep space primary vessels, each carrying a complement of over one thousand humans each, were built, assembled in Low Earth Orbit and launched. Along with these were hundreds of smaller support, attack, defense and reconnoiter ships divided among the group. They launched as a group under the agreement to never return unless called for. The survivability of the human race was too important to sacrifice for homesickness.

  In 2065, the brutally cold night that was December 21st introduced an event that would burn itself into Timothy’s psyche, one that had done the same to the two billion other humans on Earth over 700 years before. Reports came in from the recently built Pluto Deep Space Station that multiple objects had been detected from just within the Kuiper belt. They soon confirmed that it was the same alien species that had sent the scout, and after sending out greetings on all frequencies, they locked down the station and retreated to deep underground tunnels well below the frozen methane. The last automated report was that the external part of the station was under attack, but Timothy saw the surface station appear to get completely destroyed.

  The aliens bypassed China Lunar Base, either because they didn’t know it was there or because they didn’t bother, and attacked Earth. Timothy saw the devastation they caused, but he also saw humanity fight back. This base where Timothy was had caused serious harm to a large part of their fleet, as had a number of other Earth bases. The battle was obviously edited by the instruction unit, but it was clearly evident that the aliens had encountered unexpected resistance and had underestimated the ability of the Earth to fight back. The base shields had completely surprised the aliens. Perhaps they weren’t aware of the crashed alien ship and the technological advancements it gave humans, or perhaps Jonathan Diaz’s brilliance gave humanity exactly what it needed to survive, but whatever the case it soon became clear that the attack, although lethal to two thirds of those on Earth, would not be successful. The only exception to the whole event was China Lunar. It had its offensive weapon offline due to a serious radiation breach and so could offer no support.

  Out of apparent desperation, the aliens launched a biological attack on humanity, poisoning the ground and waters and led to the situation they were in now. Timothy saw that almost all of the habitable land had been poisoned except for some remote islands that had missed the brunt of the attack. Human resistance was the reason why there were humans at all, and the aliens left in somewhat of a stalemate once the poison spread.

  The teaching unit went on to describe the last 700 years of history, and ended by telling them that a small number of humans had become resistant to the poisons.

  Timothy’s senses slowly came to inform him that he was hungry and needed to go to the bathroom. A total of sixteen hours had now passed, and HAL notified him that he had one more day to go.

  “HAL, the machine mentioned that a few humans were resistant to the poisons. How many?” Timothy asked.

  “Impossible to ascertain.”

  “Can you guess?” Timothy asked.

  “Or lie,” Ruth added, and they both laughed again.

  “An estimate would be greater then forty, and less then fifty seven in this tribe, based on previous observations of members exposed to the toxins and their survival rate, whether they mated with a human that had a similar resistance to the toxins, and the number of offspring they had.”

  “Do we have a genetic resistance?” Asked Ruth.

  “Yes, both of you.”

  “How do you know?” Timothy asked.

  “If you didn’t, you would be dead by now. The levels of toxins in this part of the base are still high because of the waterfall. But earlier on the Medi-bot scanned you both as it administered the transponder, and then analyzed the pinprick of blood left on the transponder syringe just to make sure. You are immune. In any case, a vaccine has been developed that can be administered to all if you wish.”

  They ate in quiet, mulling over what they had seen. Once they were done eating, HAL informed them that for this part of the lesson, they would be hooked up while they slept. The information they would be receiving would be technical and would allow them to work on any machine in the base inventory, plus any alien machinery outside in the local area of the base that had been inventoried and codified. The information they received would be imprinted in their sub-conscious, and would appear like second nature.

  Ruth and Timothy awoke almost at the same time, and for the first time in three days, they felt completely refreshed. They didn’t dream as far as they knew, and neither did they feel like they knew anything more then the day before. They talked a bit about the events they ‘saw’ in the past few days and asked HAL: “So what do we do now? There are five other bases that you haven’t heard back from, not to mention Pluto Deep Space and China Lunar. And there’s our tribe too.”

  “Your tribe is of immediate concern,” HAL replied. “They are at a crossroads, and events are unfurling that will lead to a negative path. It must not be allowed to come to pass. I have downloaded all the relevant files into this viewer. View the most recent events, and then we can consider possible courses of action.”

  They sat down once again and started seeing the events of the last few weeks. They were surprised to see that Rat had followed Timothy and Ruth and they drew a sharp breath when they saw Naomi’s murder. Their anger reached a peak as they realized the degree to which the tribe had been manipulated and fooled by some in the Tribal council. Once the files had been shown, they looked at each other, and Ruth determinately said, “HAL, I think I know exactly what we should do.”

  Timothy added: “And we have to do it fast.”

  “And what is that?” HAL said.

  “You’ll see,” was their only reply, but HAL could clearly see the resolve in their eyes.

  CHAPTER 11

  Full Circle

  Jack and Scratch retreated further down the cave until they could talk in a whisper without the chance of being heard.

  “Those humans! That explains why the ants didn’t worry about us being around! But Scratch, they’re so different, and they act all wrong…”

  “I know, they act more like ants than humans,” Scratch said.

  “And all the equipment. Do you recognize any of it? It’s obviously man made, and I can guess at a lot of the individual pieces, but other then that…”

  “Well, it’s obvious that the large pipe going through the room is part of a particle accelerator, but I could hardly believe it,” Scratch said.

  “How do you know? I know they’re circular...”

  “Jack, I think it is. Look, that chamber must have been…what, sixty, seventy meters long?” Jack nodded. “And the tube was straight as near as we could tell. Yet look at the magnets every two meters or so. And all the cooling lines wrapped around the pipe. I had to do an essay in quantum physics, and I’m sure this is it.”

  “How do you know they were magnets?” Jack asked.

  Scratch smiled and said, “It’s all circumstantial, but did you see any ants around the tube or the magnets?”

  “No, and you’re right! Strong magnetic fields fry their brains,” Jack said.

  “We’ve known for a long time that they use planetary magnetic fields for ship guidance, but we didn’t know they use it biologically. Anything stronger then a planet’s magnetic field affects them in weird ways… That must be why they need humans! Otherwise, why waste resources converting humans to drones? They believe in extermination unless they can adapt a life to serve them in ways they can’t do themselves. What I can’t understand is how they got the humans to cooperate.”

  “And, what they would be doing with an accelerator, too,” Jack added.

  His last comment brought to her mind a troubling segment of the vision she had seen earlier, but she decided not to comment on it. “So, what’s it all for? Why the collider? They’re obviously doing something big.”

  “I
don’t know! I don’t know enough about this all to even venture a guess. Seems like a lot of work just to experiment, but it’s obvious they have something big up their sleeves, so to speak.”

  “Well, we’re here, might as well do something. Any ideas?”

  “Haven’t thought of anything yet. I’ve tried going in there, but the other humans somehow knew I was different and I had to run out of there.”

  “I wonder why they’re helping the aliens. Whatever the reason, we have to find out more. Where does this tunnel lead?” Jack asked.

  “It seems to go deeper into the Hive. If this is the alien’s version of a ventilation shaft, I would imagine it would hook up into every part of their hive.”

  “Then let’s keep looking. And hopefully we’ll be able to find out where we can get some water and food too, now that there are humans here. I’m so hungry I could eat an alien right now.”

  Scratch was very conscious of her naked body sitting there next to his as they leaned against the ventilation shaft wall, and as hungry as he was, he wished they could continue to sit together. Their arms and thighs touched, and he sensed she enjoyed the touch as much as he did. Not wanting to break the moment, he just sat silently, thinking of his next move.

  As he sat there, Jack turned to him and tenderly kissed him, which caught Scratch completely off guard. Once the kiss lingered to nothing, she said somewhat self-consciously, “We’ll be dead before long. I just figured…well…I felt that needed to get done,” she stammered. “Now let’s go!”

  They crawled down the ventilation shaft deeper into the Hive system, until they eventually came up to a wall diffuser that opened up to a dormitory of sorts. They looked in and saw what appeared to be human built tables, chairs, a washroom area off to the side and a number of openings further in the back, but no humans in sight.

  “Let’s go in and snoop around,” Scratch said.

  They jumped in and silently slid to the ground, which was made of a hard, stone like surface. Both the room and the floor appeared very old, but clean and maintained.

  They walked over to the lockers and looked inside. None had locks. Inside one of them was a clean set of dust proof coveralls, a hood with a plastic visor, three pairs of gloves and a pair of rubber type shoes neatly stored. They looked in a second locker which was empty except for two pairs of gloves, and a third which was a duplicate of the first. The fourth one was empty again, and then Jack silently whispered to Scratch, “Something’s not right. It’s too perfect, too organized. I think that these humans are working in shifts, one group out now and the other here… somewhere. We have to be careful.”

  Scratch nodded in agreement. They were both naked, but the temperature was very comfortable and the air was moist.

  “I have to go to the bathroom. Maybe there’s water there,” Jack said.

  They both carefully went in, and although a stall was occupied, they avoided being near it and quietly took a separate stall near the other end. Before Jack went in, she spied the faucets and took a long drink after first smelling the water. Once they were done, they waited until the first stall became empty, and then got up and quickly left.

  Carefully walking out, they passed a large room off the main hallway. Inside was a group of humans sitting and eating quietly, organized in perfect rows with no spaces in between and staring blankly at their food as they ate. It was all so odd that Jack and Scratch had to stop themselves from gawking.

  “They act like ants, Jack! What could do that?” he whispered.

  Jack got spooked and couldn’t look any longer. Scratch was looking at the food they were eating and watched one human get up, walk over to the wall, open a tap and fill a cup with a thick gray liquid. He then sat down again and started drinking it straight from the cup.

  They continued walking and came across a second room, a duplicate of the first, except that this room was empty and dark.

  “We need food. I don’t know what they were eating, but it’s obviously keeping them alive,” Scratch whispered.

  “If you could call that being alive,” Jack added.

  “Any idea on what’s wrong with them?”

  “I saw something in a dream while I was in the tunnel, but I don’t know if it’s true or not. I’ll tell you about it once we leave this area.”

  Entering the empty room, they grabbed mugs sitting neatly on a tray, though they didn’t turn on the lights. After going to the dispenser, they loaded their mugs up with the same liquid they had seen earlier. It had the consistency of honey, but was dark gray. As soon as the dispenser started pouring, the lights came on, surprising Jack and Scratch. They both smelled the liquid, and it didn’t smell unpleasant, so they took a sip and before drinking the rest. They went and refilled twice more and figured it was time to leave before they got caught.

  “Equipment room. Let’s go take a look around.”

  “Main generator, power stabilization modules, and pumps. This must keep this part of the base operating.”

  Scratch looked at Jack and smiled, before saying, “I think I have something in mind.”

  “Obviously,” Jack said, shaking her head at the silly comment.

  He rolled his eyes and then looked over the power generator, a small, compact unit with a subatomic drive.

  “We used to have these at school! I used to jury rig them all the time so that they would shut down at the beginning of an exam. The teachers guessed it was me but they couldn’t prove it and they never did find out how I did it.”

  Well, that’s all great Scratch,” Jack said, “But can you make it do something more interesting?”

  “It’s a relic, but it still has safety precautions built in. I can’t get it to explode, but I can make it malfunction in an interesting way. This unit is big enough to power this whole sector including the lights in the manufacturing center, judging from where those cables lead.”

  “But why make it stop working? All they’ll do is come in and repair it.”

  “Sure they will. Actually, I’m hoping that they all will. We need the diversion. The room where they were building things was impossible to get into. Apparently, it’s only accessible to certain ones of those here in this base.”

  “You’re hoping to get off this planet and leave a little surprise present for our alien friends, aren’t you?”

  Scratch smiled and said: “Everything we need should be here, even if we have to borrow one of their craft.”

  At this point Jack suddenly remembered her dream of the Klinger, rebuilt but alien looking. “We may not have to steal anything, if what I saw in my dream is right. But before we do anything, we have to find WF221’s crew, or what’s left of them before anything big happens.”

  “Sure. Let’s go. Can’t wait to see this place go up in flames – we’ll be heroes!”

  ‘Maybe dead heroes,’ Jack thought, but she kept from saying it out loud.

  Scratch finished what he was doing and then said, “Ok, it’s programmed to shut all power down for ‘maintenance’ in one day. When it does, I added a little Scratch special. That’s when the lights go out.”

  Scratch synched his sub-coetaneous watch to the power generator’s countdown timer and they turned to leave.

  They were both quiet as they walked out of the room, and just as they left Jack bumped into a human walking naked along the main hallway. They both fell to the ground. Jack was too startled to say anything, and Scratch was too surprised to know what to do. The human calmly got up, looked at her body for damage, helped Jack up and looked at Jack’s body for damage also, and apparently satisfied, walked off without saying a word. She then stopped as they watched her and turned to them both with an inquisitive look on her face. She stood still, and Jack and Scratch both felt uneasy, not sure what to do. Slowly, a mental picture started forming in their heads, a query coming from the human prompting for a reply. Jack suddenly understood what was happening and concentrated as hard as possible to project a sense of well being. The human was still puzzled but see
med somewhat satisfied with the answer and moved on.

  Scratch ‘felt’ the query but he was still wondering what happened. Jack gave him a quick ‘not now’ look and whispered, “Clear your mind. Think nothing at all!” Scratch searched her face to see if she was joking, but saw she was serious. He concentrated on his breathing, trying to clear everything else out.

  They were about to pass the first cafeteria again when a yellow light came on, and they hurriedly snuck into the now dark room. Worried that perhaps the woman had sounded an alarm, they were relieved when they saw a group of people come in through a set of double doors near the opposite end of the vent they crawled through. They were carrying an older human that had on a pair of dust coveralls, but the lower half was soaked in blood. Once they got closer, Jack could see the bone protruding from his leg and the mangled remains of what was left hanging and dripping blood.

  As gruesome as this was, no one was reacting to it. Aside from the injured, unconscious person, there was no panic, no yelling or crying. The weird scene raised the hair on the back of their necks as they watched.

  They continued to watch as the group that carried the person in brought him into the shower and laid him on the floor. They huddled around him and looked at each other, with no visible signs of communication or reaction on their faces.

  After a few moments, they broke their huddle and one went to a locker in the main area, opened it, and pulled out a weapon. Going up to the person, he calmly shot him in the head, while the others went and got knives. Jack turned away in shock as they went about the task of cutting up the body. Scratch turned and vomited, sick to his stomach.

  They slowed down on what they were doing and started looking around, appearing somewhat confused, and Jack realized what had happened. She quickly whispered to Scratch, “Clear your mind! Concentrate! It’s either that or die!”