//------------------------------// // Chapter VI // Story: What I Am // by Knight Breeze //------------------------------// Chapter VI Private Qu’zzil rubbed one of his legs against the metal deck plating, his eyes darting back and forth as the shuttle rumbled ominously. “Relax, kid, it’s just a simple grab-and-bag. We’ll be out before the primitives even know we’re there,” Sergeant Callousi said, clapping one of his hands against the nervous newbie’s back. The private twitched his antenna nervously.  “I… don’t know, sergeant.  We weren't really given much briefing on this…  And the things we do know makes me very nervous.  Aren’t these things supposed to have nukes already?  Makes me wonder what else a species as crazy as that has at their disposal…” The corporal on his right shrugged, one of his antenna raising in a cocky fashion.  “Qu, you worry too much.  At most, we’ll probably encounter some primitive, chemical-based projectile weapons, maybe a primitive explosive. To be honest, though, this is a civilian, so you shouldn't even expect that much.” “Kal, ballistic weapons can still kill.” “Relax, Qu, their weapons are not going to be nearly as effective as ours.  They're going to be inaccurate, bulky, awkward, and unimpressive.  Not only that, but at most they’ll be able to fire one shot at a time, and they’ll take a bit of time to reload,” the corporal said, waving off the private’s fears with a flippant twitch of his hand.  “Besides, we've got a huge advantage over these primitives, the likes of which they’ve never even dreamed of.” Qu’zzil looked at his friend curiously, his antenna raised.  “What’s that?” He asked as the shuttle came to a complete stop. “Active Camouflage,” the corporal said as he disappeared from view. “Quit yapping, you two.  We’re here,” the sergeant said as he turned on his own stealth system.  The private heard some shuffling, then watched with a steadily increasing pulse as the door to the shuttle slowly lowered, revealing the lush, green trees of the alien planet. “Well, here we go…” the private said as he turned on his own Active Camouflage. Despite how much of an advantage it gave him, though, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling of impending doom that followed him out the shuttle. * * * Jill Spivak hummed to herself as she put on her blouse.  Forecast tonight is clear, John is already at the bar, everything is in place to get Val to forget about that louse that abandoned her, she thought to herself. As she checked herself in the mirror, making sure that her seams were straight, the sound of something glass breaking downstairs pulled her from her thoughts.  Without missing a beat, the former resident of Montana bent down, reached under her bed, and pulled out her twelve-gauge shotgun. Whoever had broken into her house was about to learn why that was a mistake. * * * “What were you thinking, Corporal? Do you want to alert the target?” Sergeant Callousi silently shouted at his subordinate, the implants they all shared easily transmitting his mental scolding. “I’m sorry, sir.  The entryway was a lot more narrow than I was expecting,” the flustered soldier said, gently prodding one of the shards of pottery with the tip of his leg.  The piece skittered away a little, hitting other shards, and filling the air with the faint tinkling of glass. The glass stopped moving, quickly plunging the three soldiers into an eerie quiet.  They couldn’t even hear the sounds of the distant vehicles, but that wasn’t too surprising.  After all, they wanted this op to go off without attracting any unwanted attention, so they had set up a sonic dampening field around the house; the only thing anyone outside would hear would have been a faint, faint hum. “For a second there, I thought you might have-” Private Qu’zzil started to say, but was interrupted when a sound ripped through the otherwise quiet building. It was unlike anything any of them had heard before.  It was loud, obvious, and mechanical in nature, but it was hard to describe what could have caused it.  The closest any of them could think to describe it would have been the loud cha-chunk sound of a personal missile system loading itself, but even then, it wasn’t quite right. Right or not, it still set off something primeval in all of their brains.  Something that told them all that if they didn’t get out of the way right now, they’d be dead. All three soldiers immediately turned towards the sound, but they were all just a little too slow.  There was a loud, ear-shattering bang, and instantly Corporal Kal flickered back into view.  Slowly, he looked down, then keeled over backwards as the pain and shock of whatever hit him finally registered in his brain. “Shul of all Battleborn!” Private Qu’zzil shouted into the night, dropping his rifle out of pure shock. His sergeant, however, kept his head, pointed his plasma rifle up into the stairwell, and fired a quick burst of stun blasts up at the shadowy figure in the stairwell.  The first one struck the wooden railing running next to the stairs, but the other four were on target, dropping the shadow before it was able to fire another one of those devastating shots. Private Qu’zzil’s back hit the wall, and with a whimper, his legs curled up underneath him, his gasps sounding noisy in his ears.  Before he could catch his breath though, a pair of rough hands grabbed him, pulled him to his feet, and shoved something into his arms. “Listen, private, and listen good,” the sergeant said, his voice deadly quiet and his eyes two burning embers of contempt. Private Qu'zzil faintly realized that the sergeant must have dropped his camouflage to berate him properly, but that was a secondary thought to the terror he was currently feeling..  “You drop your gun in the heat of battle again, and I will personally shoot you myself. Are we clear?” “C-Crystal, Sir!” Qu’zzil said, though inside he only felt sick to his stomach. “I’d shoot you now, you worthless piece of trash, but I can’t finish this mission alone,” The sergeant said as he moved over to Corporal Kal.  “Now, get your trash-hole over here and help me. We don’t have much time.” The private moved to follow his superior, his antenna turned down in shame as he looked down at his comrade.  As he stared, though, he couldn’t help but feel as if something were off.  That… shouldn’t have dropped the corporal… he thought as he studied the body. The entry wound was small, hardly worth noting.  In fact, the more he studied it, the more he couldn’t believe that something so small could hurt anyone.  Sure, if whatever had hit the corporal passed all the way through, it might have come close to the spinal structure in the corporal’s back.  But even if it had nicked it, it wouldn’t have dropped the corporal so quickly. “Is he…?” “He’s stone dead, private.  Go secure the package, I’ll take care of the corporal,” the sergeant said gruffly. Private Qu’zzil nodded, his heart still hammering in his chest.  He awkwardly mounted the steps, acutely aware that they were far too small for his bulky frame, and took his first look at one of the natives in the flesh. It was… smaller, than he expected.  It was probably female, based on the reports, and was wearing some sort of weird, long, bottomless cloth around its lower torso and upper legs.  Its upper body was wearing a colorful, flowing cloth that was somewhat marred by the ugly burn holes from the sergeant’s stun blasts. The private sighed, holstered his weapon, knelt down, and picked up the creature.  As he moved her limp form into his arms, he noticed the thing’s weapon off to the side, shrugged, and decided to take it with him.  Perhaps the brighteyes at the ship will be able to do something with it… he thought as he stood up.  He was about to turn around and head back downstairs, but froze as he heard the ominous banging sound from the building’s front door... * * * Valerie pulled the headphones out of her ears as she stepped up to the doorway, and quickly put them away, taking a second to check her phone.  The glowing screen told her it was about seven in the evening, right on time for her and Jill’s ‘girl’s night out’ as she called it.  She hoped Jill didn’t have anything crazy in mind; she still had that toxicology report to finish, and Detective Callister had been riding her hard to get it done quickly. She quickly unplugged her headphones from her phone, and neatly wrapped them up before she put them and her phone back into her purse.  She wasn’t certain why she kept insisting on doing that; it’s not like it made any difference, and if anything, the headphones always ended up more tangled than if she just shoved them in.  She shrugged a bit at her own folly, then reached out to knock on the door in front of her. Her relaxed, carefree attitude was immediately replaced by worry, though, when her knuckles pushed the door open. Her first thought was that Jill had forgotten to close the door all the way, but that was quickly dashed to pieces when she saw the puddles of some sort of gray liquid, and the broken vase in the entryway. Without even thinking about it, she pulled her SIG and phone out of her bag and dropped into a readied stance, her bag left forgotten as her shoulder slammed into the outside mantle next to the open doorway.  She wasn’t a cop by any means, but she did work for them.  This wasn't her first rodeo; she had seen many crime scenes. She knew that there was a very good chance that the perpetrator was still around somewhere.  Using her peripheral vision, she quickly called 911 while keeping her focus on the dark hallway in front of her, her shoulder flush against the wall, using it as cover. “This is Nine-One-One, what is the nature of your emergency?” a woman’s voice picked up on the other line. “I’m at my friend’s house, 13 Tremont Street, and it looks like it was broken into.  Her lights are off, the front door is open, there’s some broken things in the foyer, and she was supposed to be home at this time,” Valerie whispered into the receiver. There was a slight pause.  “Okay, we’re sending someone over right now,” the lady said in a cool, calm voice.  “What’s your name?” “My name is Valerie, I work in forensics with the police, and you better get down here now.  This really doesn’t look good,” Valerie said, taking a second to glance around the neighborhood. It was a pretty nice neighborhood.  Very rural, plenty of trees, nice neighbors, safe.  It was a place where you could raise your kids without fear. The irony of the current situation was not lost on her. “Whatever you do, don’t go inside.  Wait until the police arrive,” Valerie heard over her phone’s speaker. Valerie didn’t answer, her attention riveted on a dark shape lurking inside the building.  She couldn’t quite make it out, but it must have been a piece of furniture, or something.  It couldn’t have been something alive; nothing she knew of had that many limbs! Except, of course, for the fact that it was moving. She heard a low, ominous hum, and she only had a second to react before something bright, green, and angry flashed out of the darkness towards her.  There was no possible way for her to dodge the angry green light, but luckily for her, she didn’t have to. Valerie screamed as the wall she was hiding behind exploded, showering her in bits of flaming plaster and wood.  She sunk to her butt, not sure what just happened, but determined to use as much of the remaining wall as she could as cover. She could hear the lady on the other end of the phone shout out, trying to get her attention from where Valerie had dropped the device, but she ignored it in favor of glancing over the wall, pointing her pistol, and squeezing the trigger.  A round barked out from her gun, but she didn't wait long enough to see if she hit her mark.  Instead, she dropped back behind the slightly burning wall, rolled to her left, got back up, and vaulted the railing around Jill’s front porch. Adrenaline poured into her brain as more of those weird, green lights tore apart the ruined wall that she had vacated.  Her lungs were burning as she started to hyperventilate, and she had an overwhelming desire to turn and run. One thing held her back, though. Jill was still probably in there. Valerie gulped uncomfortably as she peeked over the edge of the porch.  All she could see was the burning hole where she had crouched moments ago.  There was a slight warping of the air around the door, which she chalked up to the smoke from the fire.  At least, that’s what she thought it was at first. Before she could blink, the warped air in front of her straightened up.  There was a flash of green light, and for a brief second, a nightmare appeared on the porch. It was tall, probably seven feet, and covered in some sort of shimmering light. Before she was fully able to examine the thing, it disappeared, leaving behind the shimmer on the porch, and an angry green bolt of light that sailed over her head and beyond faster than her eye could track.  Valerie ignored it though, preferring to take aim at the shimmer and unload her weapon at it. Her pistol barked again and again as the shimmer hiding the monster flickered, then vanished entirely, revealing it in all its horrifying glory. It was massive.  Standing at an impressive eight feet, its featureless helmet revealed nothing about its facial features or expression.  It was completely covered in a dull, red suit, and in one of its four, four fingered hands it gripped something that looked a lot like a rifle, except sleeker, and more futuristic. The gun wasn't pointed at her, though.  Instead, it was pointed downward as the beast’s unoccupied hands reached up, and gently touched one of the many, many holes that covered its front.  Its hand came away, covered in a grey viscous substance, and with a gurgling sigh, it collapsed, its four legs splayed out in all directions. Quick as lightning, Valerie's back hit the side of the house, her eyes wide with fright as she tried to process what she had seen.  What in the name of all that is holy is that!?  She thought as she tried to get her breathing under control. As she stood there, quietly gasping for breath, she slowly became aware of the headless, smoking body of Jill's next door neighbor that was lying on his porch, the acrid smell of burnt flesh coming off of it making her want to gag.  Yet despite the sight in front of her, the area around her was oddly silent.  Even though she could see the flashing lights of the distant sirens, the only thing she could hear was the sound of her own, laborious breathing. Slowly, she sank to her rear, trying to make sense of the world around her. As she tried to puzzle out the conundrum in front of her, the sounds of the sirens suddenly came crashing in, their loud, obnoxious blare a welcome sound in her panicked state, despite the fact that their sudden appearance nearly made her jump out of her skin. Given the circumstances, she felt she was quite within her rights to void the contents of her stomach. * * * Detective Callister slammed the door of his cruiser, his heart hammering in his chest as he approached the crowd that had gathered at the police line.  Just over their heads, he could see the white, two story building that Doctor Spivak called home.  The lights of the emergency vehicles were casting an eerie light across the once sleepy neighborhood, and he could barely  make out the other officers policing the area, looking for clues, keeping back the crowd, and taking statements. With a little bit of effort, and a whole lot of shouting, he finally was able to work his way through the crowd and see the havoc that had happened at Jill Spivak’s house. The door to Jill’s house was completely gone, as was much of the wall next to it.  In its place, Detective Callister could see smoldering wood and splinters, as if some sort of explosion had taken the whole thing out.  Directly in front of the hole, the detective could see something large and misshapen, though whatever it was was hidden beneath a large, white sheet. “What on earth happened here?” Callister asked as Officer Miles held up the ribbon for him to walk under. “We… well, this is something you’re going to need to see for yourself, sir,” Miles said, motioning towards the sheet. Callister followed Miles in silence.  He had known the cop for years, and knew better than to ask questions before he was ready to give answers. The two walked up to the white sheet in front of the door, Officer Miles stopping a little shy of the stairs, gesturing for Callister to continue without him. The detective, unsure at what he was dealing with, but still apprehensive at what he might find, climbed the short set of stairs and crouched down in front of the sheet. What he found underneath set off all the alarm bells in his head, as well as several that he didn’t know he had. “Miles… what am I looking at here?” he asked as he attempted to make heads or tails of the strange corpse. Officer Miles shook his head.  “I don’t rightly know, sir.  It looks like something my kid brother might shoot on his Xbox, but… well…” “It’s real,” Callister finished for him. “Yeah, that,”  Miles said, scratching the back of his head nervously. Detective Callister dropped the sheet, then stood back up.  “Miles, what the heck is a dead alien doing on Doctor Spivak’s front porch?” His voice was oddly calm, but Miles could tell that the detective was about a hair's breath away from exploding. So Officer Miles told him.  If anything, this freaked the detective out even more. “Nick, if Doctor Stone was visiting her friend, and she’s currently down at the station, then where’s Jill Spivak!?” * * * Private Qu’zzil was hyperventilating, his arms ached, and his legs felt weak, but he didn't dare stop. He'd seen what happened to his squad. He knew what would happen to him if he were caught. More importantly, he knew what would happen if he didn't get his dangerous cargo back to the shuttle. “You’re doing fine, private. A little further, and you’re home free,” his superior said in his ear. “Weren’t these things supposed to be primitives?  Not to mention civilians!?” he asked as he adjusted the load in his arms.  “Why does not one, but two of these things have high accuracy, high powered kinetic weapons on them? Civilians are supposed to be non-combatants!  Not only that, but that one savage’s weapon was semiautomatic!  How the shul is there a semiautomatic ballistic weapon?” “Calm yourself, private.  You’ll be properly debriefed once you get back on board. Still hyperventilating, Qu’zzil came to a break in the woods.  It was a seemingly empty clearing, but one command from his implants changed that.  The air in front of him warped and shimmered, finally resolving itself into his landing craft, its ramp quickly extending to allow him entrance. With a relieved sigh, he came on board, put down his comatose load, picked up a nearby syringe, and injected the native with a sedative.  “Okay, target is secure and sedated.  Gali, get me out of here!” “With pleasure,” the craft’s on-board A.I. said, revving up the shuttle’s engines.  Qu’zzil sighed in relief as he sat down, glad for a chance to rest, and thankful that his task was complete. As he leaned his head back, he gave a silent prayer to the Battlewatcher, a prayer for mercy, one which he was certain wouldn’t be answered. “Gazuul above, please, whatever you do with me, please make it so that I do not have to fight one of those quick little monkeys again…” he whispered to himself.