Parker Interstellar Travels 4: The Trilisk Hunt Read online

  “If someone was in there, we’d already be dead. They left us some traps. No point in rushing in there.”

  “Good job. Your robots stayed behind to cover your escape, just what they’re for. Next one is harder. Siobhan, you take the lead on this one.”

  Caden smiled. Of course Magnus would make it challenging before the day was over, but Caden felt back on track.

  Good results. I can do this. Just like everything else. I’m going to excel at it.

  Chapter 12

  “Arrival at destination, endpoint, terminus imminent.”

  The buzzing voice of Shiny interrupted Imanol’s study of the robots PIT used for expeditions. Their machine intelligence seemed very mainstream for Terran robots, but some of the raw physical specifications were impressive due to the integration of Vovokan technology. It struck him as an odd combination of tame civilian robotics with an infusion of amazing alien capabilities. However, Imanol felt Terran military robots were more impressive. The weapons hardware carried by the PIT machines had relatively low firepower, and they had no armor. A real space force assault machine could put a man-sized hole in an armored bunker from ten thousand meters. And that was the unclassified kind.

  “What’s the planet like?” he asked. Imanol rose from the comfortable chair in a near-empty room of the Clacker. A faux view of space was anchored on one wall, making it look like a giant window out onto the void.

  “No planet located. Approaching artificial environ, shell, habitat.”

  Shiny forwarded a pointer to incoming scanner data. It was all too raw, and Imanol had to struggle with it to understand.

  “Is there going to be a fight, Shiny? Do they have weapons?”

  “Probable, likely, possible,” the alien buzzed in his link.

  Its odd speech patterns certainly help identify the speaker as nonhuman, as well as the buzzing voice, he thought.

  “Why the buzz in your voice? Was that your idea?”

  “Historical accretion, convention, tradition.”

  “And the use of multiple words with similar meaning?”

  “Compensating for, mitigating, amortizing inaccurate, fuzzy, approximate translation mechanisms.”

  “Why don’t you just speak like us?” Imanol complained.

  He could probably just pick one of the choices at each juncture and speak normally. But I guess it helps to remind me he isn’t human.

  “Compensating for, mitigating, amortizing inaccurate, fuzzy, approximate translation mechanisms.”

  “You broken there, bud? You said the same thing twice.”

  “Function is within acceptable—”

  “Yeah, got it,” Imanol grumbled. It just was not any fun needling this one.

  The scan of the space habitat came up in Imanol’s link. He saw the habitat, though the amount of information was still overload. He got a message from Magnus.

  “Everyone, prepare your gear and come to this bay. Unless the habitat starts shooting at our ships, we’ll be investigating soon.”

  “Magnus is calling for the team,” Imanol said. Funny, I’m chatting with this alien. Treating it like a human. Does it think anything like us?

  “Do you work with Telisa, Cilreth, and Magnus because… you’re lonely?” asked Imanol. “I remember you said your race is scattered now, from a war.”

  “Mutually beneficial relationship,” Shiny replied.

  With a Terran, a terse reply means he’s reluctant to share. With an alien, who knows?

  Imanol abandoned the room and went to his personal equipment cache. He felt excitement mixed with a healthy dose of fear. Like in his previous life when he was hired to spy on a dangerous person. Now, though, he felt more like a marine hitting the breach. At least they had the machines to go first.

  He arrived at the cache room. It was a personal vault he had asked Magnus for. He grabbed backpacks of gear. He was already wearing his Veer suit. He grabbed a twenty-round projectile pistol, a ten-shot laser pistol, and a five-shot stunner. Then he grabbed two knives and sheathed them in receptacles on the outside of his thighs.

  Imanol had been training hard. He could not shake a feeling of unease with his new abilities. He kept picturing the real Imanol sitting asleep in some Trilisk tube somewhere, unaware that his life had been stolen. Imanol felt glad he was the superior copy, but with that secret sliver of relief came a heaping of guilt.

  I’ll give him a fair shake, Imanol promised himself. I’ll trade back and forth with him, or maybe even fix him up when we figure it out. By the tentacle! It’s so easy to forget the original me because it feels as if I were the original. I remember everything that has ever happened to me.

  Imanol knew in real life, things seldom worked out cleanly. He was just glad to be the one out and around, and at the same time knowing his real self would be equally unhappy to be the one entombed indefinitely.

  He arrived at the common room and found his teammates were there except Telisa and Arakaki.

  Magnus waved at him. Imanol nodded and sat down. Imanol respected Magnus and Arakaki. They were the only ones smart enough to ignore his trolling.

  “Here you go,” Magnus said. Two grenades rolled over to Imanol, so he grabbed them and put them into a convenient pocket in his pack.

  “As you know, we’ve arrived at the site of our next endeavor. Naturally the question is, what the hell are we doing here?” Magnus said.

  Imanol nodded, as did Maxsym. Siobhan and Caden just watched intently.

  “On our last expedition, we were exploring Trilisk ruins. We found the supersedure devices there. We were also shocked to discover that a Trilisk had lived there for a long time, in the body of one of the natives.”

  Magnus paused to let that sink in. Everyone was so amazed they did not say anything for fear of delaying more information from Magnus.

  “The Trilisk had been hunting Terrans on the planet in its native body. One by one, over the course of weeks. And it killed several more people exiting the scene. Then it eluded us by means unknown. We’re here to track it down. Failing that, I’m curious why it came here. Even if we don’t catch the thing or grab any of its toys, wherever in the galaxy a Trilisk wants to go… I’d like to check it out.”

  Imanol looked at his companions. Maxsym looked concerned. Siobhan and Caden were simply excited.

  Two sappy kids ready to go camp out, Imanol thought.

  “Trilisks are way beyond us in technology, or at least they were when they were around. Isn’t it folly to chase one?” Imanol asked.

  “Maybe,” Magnus admitted. “What are your thoughts? If the Trilisk came here, don’t you want to see what this is?”

  “We’ll be like mice chasing a cat in a running factory,” Imanol said. He saw no reason for optimism.

  Caden’s eyebrows went up. Siobhan looked happy.

  “Why sugarcoat it? This is crazy,” Imanol said.

  “The habitat may not be Trilisk,” Cilreth said. “The planet it came from was deserted by Trilisks long ago. This may just be another… ‘host’ site. If the Trilisk is alone, with limited supplies, it may be catchable.”

  “Shiny, any comments? Does the habitat look Trilisk in origin?” asked Magnus.

  “Negative,” Shiny answered in the link channel. “Building materials different, inconsistent, distinct from known Trilisk construction.”

  “Have Vovokans encountered the like before?”

  “Negative.”

  “Did you retrieve any samples from the Trilisk?” asked Maxsym.

  “No. It switched from a native body into a human one, then escaped mysteriously.”

  It switches bodies. Of course. Like we did using its technology.

  “It switches bodies?” asked Caden.

  “Yes. I don’t know if it was a tourist or a scientist or what, but it has changed bodies. I don’t know what an original Trilisk looked like exactly, but they were trilaterally symmetrical, of course—three legs, three arms, three… faces.”

  Three faces? Sounds ev
en creepier than Shiny.

  Imanol’s link received a picture of a man.

  “That’s the Trilisk’s last known appearance. By this time, who knows?”

  “Then how can we find it?”

  “Shiny, again,” Telisa said. Imanol looked around. His link told him Telisa had joined the conversation as she approached the periphery of their meeting. “He says the Trilisk has some signature cues he can pick up with the Clacker and our scouts. Unless it has learned to mask itself.”

  “Learned to mask itself, or bothered to? It’s a Trilisk, after all,” Maxsym said.

  Magnus shrugged. “It’s dangerous. We’re taking risks here.” Telisa walked into the room and picked up her grenades from Magnus.

  “So how do we get into this habitat?” asked Siobhan. She had not lost any enthusiasm. If anything, the prospect of danger simply fueled her on.

  “Cilreth and Shiny are looking at that now,” Telisa said. “We’ll head over and get ourselves in through a door or portal of some kind. Failing that, we can try to cut our way in.”

  Imanol realized sheepishly that Cilreth was not present. She had not shown up much, in person or in training. Magnus had told him she was their half-pilot, half-cybernetic expert, studying the alien technology they had found.

  “The Clacker has some smaller ships that can take us over,” Telisa said. “They have the ability to protect a pocket of atmosphere in a small space between ships. If there’s an airlock, we can access it that way.”

  “Why do you say if there’s an airlock?” Caden asked.

  “This is an alien place. Maybe the inside isn’t even pressurized. Maybe it’s just a giant robot. Maybe they teleport themselves inside instantly. We just don’t know. I’m just hoping for an airlock,” Telisa said.

  Imanol nodded.

  That just serves to bring the point home: so much we don’t know. The thing we do know is that Trilisk is dangerous. And we’re going in after it.

  Chapter 13

  Maxsym carried two ridiculously heavy packs to the bay. His new body was amazing. He had taken some samples of himself to study, but it would take more time than he had before the expedition. He could tell from a coarse examination of the tissue there were significant cell membrane and mitochondrial modifications. He had almost dared to ask if he could skip the trip and stay back to analyze the changes that had been made to them. In the end, it did not seem like a request the PIT leaders were likely to grant.

  Maybe after I’ve proven myself to them, I can take a role as researcher. Surely they need someone to analyze and understand some of the biological treasures they’ve come across.

  He had lugged one extra pack just for collecting samples and specimens. The prospect of examining random alien life excited him more than the idea of hunting a Trilisk. In fact, given any opportunity, Maxsym planned on staying back and studying local fauna rather than going after the advanced alien. They had told him bad things about it, but it seemed a distant threat. And if it was running, that meant it posed even less of a danger.

  At least he had his brand-new portable analyzer. He found its appearance in his gift box very mysterious but still intended to utilize the device to its fullest extent. Sadly, the alien Shiny had declined to allow Maxsym a sample of its body tissue. He did not blame it—but felt acute disappointment at the lost opportunity. The creature was more than amazing. After coming out of the boring simulation test, seeing the alien had been a high point of Maxsym’s life.

  Maybe I could ask Shiny for some primitive life-forms from his planet to study?

  But Maxsym was headed into alien territory right now. He wished it were a planet and not a space environ. Still, he figured there had to be odd new life-forms inside, even if he only had a few domestic creatures to choose from. He could even settle for an alien corpse or two.

  Their shuttle sat inside the bay when he arrived. It looked alien. Vovokan, he corrected himself. Unlike the rest of the Clacker, it had apparently been made by Shiny. It resembled a fat beetle with two long protrusions extending from the sides and two more at angles toward the front. He could not guess their purpose. Magnus, Caden, and Siobhan waited out on the open floor. Maxsym headed for them.

  “Finally,” Caden breathed. Maxsym assumed this meant he had taken too long. But Siobhan only smiled.

  “Have everything?” she asked.

  “We’ll find out,” Maxsym said.

  “I don’t think this station is Trilisk in design,” Cilreth said, walking into the bay. Maxsym turned his head to look. Telisa walked beside her. Maxsym saw something odd. He blinked.

  There is a… there are several things floating around her. Telisa too.

  “Shiny agrees with you,” Telisa said. “But as we’ve found out, the Trilisks come to many places inhabited by non-Trilisks. Apparently sometimes in secret. Whoever lives here may not even be aware of its presence.”

  “Okay, I have to ask, what are those things circling around you?” Maxsym asked. “We have flying grenades now, too?”

  “More presents,” Magnus said. “We’ll pick ours up soon enough,” he said. On cue, a squad of flying spheres entered the room and headed toward them. Jamie Arakaki walked up to the group from another direction. She looked packed and ready to roll. The spheres paired off and started to orbit each of them.

  “Should I be nervous about this?” Caden said, looking put off.

  “These are Vovokan attendant spheres,” Magnus said. “Trust me, you want these things around. They’re very useful toys. Think of them first just like the flying eyes we used in virtual training. You can send one ahead and integrate its sight with yours in combat.”

  “And then?” Siobhan asked.

  “And then, know that they’re much nicer than the flying eyes,” Arakaki said. “They serve as bodyguards. Each one can intercept incoming rounds and defeat them. They can ward off hostile animal attacks, administer basic first aid should you be rendered unconscious, and a list of other useful things. You can thank Shiny for them when they save your ass.”

  “Can we trust these things?” Siobhan said.

  “That is a matter of some debate,” Arakaki told Maxsym on a private link channel. Siobhan and Caden looked at Arakaki, but Arakaki was not looking back. Maxsym surmised Arakaki had only sent the message to the new recruits.

  “Yes, you can trust them,” Telisa said aloud. “Shiny has had opportunities to save or kill us all, and he’s saved us many times.”

  Interesting that not everyone sees eye to eye on the Vovokan stuff, Maxsym thought. But in a way that’s good. If everyone were all sunshine about it, I’d become paranoid they were under alien mind control. But that makes no sense because if they were, I’d soon be the same.

  “He wants to hunt this Trilisk as well?” Maxsym asked.

  Can’t we just study Shiny?

  “Yes,” Telisa said, though it looked as if she held something back. The group walked to the shuttle. Magnus led the way around back. For some reason, Telisa and Cilreth broke off and went toward the front.

  Maxsym saw an opening in the back. He walked up a very Terran-looking ramp and stepped into the alien craft. The inside was smooth, devoid of many features, and spacious. He flopped heavily onto a low chair that was nothing more than a metal pedestal. He noticed the others were perched awkwardly onto similar pedestals, which were arranged in pairs.

  Vovokan, I suppose… at least they have chairs at all. I bet many aliens don’t.

  “Is this the cargo bay?” he asked.

  Siobhan only shrugged in reply. She looked a bit stiff. Maybe nervous? She clutched a long rod of metal with a thick end like a mace. Maxsym recognized it from some of their training VRs as a shock baton.

  Siobhan is ready to fight. Maybe I should be thinking more about the alien we’re hunting and less about my studies.

  He glanced at his own weapon, a ten-shot projectile pistol with a one-shot stunner under the barrel. He didn’t even know where his extra magazines were.

  Cad
en sat across the wide space, about five meters away. He looked eager, thrilled. He smiled at Maxsym. Maxsym smiled back, though he did not feel there was much to smile about just yet.

  “Action at last,” Caden transmitted. Maxsym saw the message had been sent only to him, Siobhan, and Imanol.

  Imanol and Magnus piled into the cargo space.

  “The gang’s all here,” Telisa’s voice sounded through Maxsym’s link.

  “Then we’re ready to hit it,” said Magnus.

  They sound like it’s a wartime invasion.

  “There are still no signs of… resistance?” asked Maxsym.

  “Nope. We can’t see anyone or anything on the surface or near it,” Magnus said.

  Maxsym expected some kind of door to close behind him, but instead the shuttle simply lifted off the surface of the bay silently, except for the clang of the discarded ramp. He looked questioningly at Magnus. The man shrugged.

  “The ramp was makeshift, just for us,” he explained. “Some Vovokan tech keeps the air in here. The same thing we will use to connect to the habitat.”

  Magnus sounded calm. Maxsym resolved to simply not look out the back of the shuttle. He felt his heart rate increase uncomfortably.

  The shuttle lurched up and then accelerated in a direction parallel to the bay outside. The door remained open. Maxsym accepted a video feed from the shuttle and watched as they left the Clacker. An enormous gray sphere started to grow in his view.

  Amazing. And I thought the Clacker was huge. This has a diameter over thirty kilometers!

  “Shiny found us a door. We’ll be there soon,” Cilreth transmitted. Maxsym just sat tight and ignored the gaping hole that felt as if it would suck them all out of the shuttle any second.

  They kept approaching the huge space habitat. It dwarfed the shuttle. Maxsym felt as if they were landing on the planet from some of the views being piped in. Finally, some surface features started to resolve into details: small domes and dimples in the surface. They approached a dimple, and it grew into a depression in the surface the size of a coliseum.

  The shuttle settled into the dark hollow of the station. He saw the gray material obscure the open doorway, making him feel safer for a moment. Then Maxsym heard a sound like escaping air. His heart accelerated as he felt a slight wind go by, but the pressure remained normal. A large square formed by breaks in the surface lay outside the shuttle.