Red Survivor Mission Chronicles Box Set 2 Page 2

  “Will do,” Watts said taking Johnson with them.

  Marchant and I went up the stairs in silence, as we did, I tried hard not to hold it against her that her name was the same as our captain. It was difficult not to see a resemblance because they both had the same color of hair and the same square jaw.

  At the top of the stairs, I knocked on the door. “Anybody here?”

  There was no answer.

  I tried the doorknob and found that it turned, but when I pushed, there was something in the way keeping us from getting in.

  “Seems like somebody’s on the other side, what are your thoughts?”

  “Better try again.”

  I banged on the door, shouting as loud as I could, but still nobody came.

  “See if you can raise anybody on the radio,” I said.

  She arched an eyebrow. “And why didn’t they respond before?”

  “Humor me.”

  I was turning back to the door, when something exploded out of it and went whizzing by my head.

  I fell down the stairs and looked up at the hole. A few inches over and I would’ve been a dead man.

  8

  Ensign Marchant was right beside me.

  “I think they’re home,” she said in the chipper voice, making me wonder if the thought of me dying had cheered her.

  Maybe she is related to Marchant after all. I shook my head, and made a mental note to check the personnel records to see if I could figure out if there was any relation between the two. It was Marchant who had told me she was of no relation, but I was starting to think that was a lie.

  “We are from the Red Survivor,” I called out, “we have come to check on you. We received your distress call.”

  There was no response and just as I was about to stand up again, another shot came through the door.

  “Sheesh! Stop it, will you? We are on your side.”

  I stayed down on the ground, hoping that whatever was blocking the door would keep them from being able to shoot me. There were windows in the structure, but only on the second story, and they were heavily reinforced. It did not look like they were able to open. Short of ripping apart a wall, our only way in was through that door.

  “Maybe they are deaf,” Marchant said to me.

  “Sure seems that way.”

  “Should we try another door?”

  I let her go first, following after her, when we got to the street, I called out to Watts. “Any luck?”

  “No. You?”

  “I wouldn’t try that one if I were you,” I said pointing at the one we had come from, “whoever’s inside likes to shoot.”

  “So we have found a survivor.”

  “Apparently.” I went up the steps of the next dwelling, knocked on the door, but didn’t receive a response. Marchant waited for me at the bottom of the stairs, crouching, as if expecting more gunshots to come through the door.

  I was coming down the stairs, when something caught my eye. When I turned I saw one of the rodents disappearing behind a dwelling on the other side of the street. It was followed by three more.

  “Look alive guys, we have some live rodents about.”

  9

  I brought up my rifle and pulled back the slide, making sure that I had a round in the chamber. Halfway through the routine I remembered that I had already fired my weapon on this trip which meant that I was good to go.

  I brought it up to my shoulder so I was ready the moment any trouble appeared.

  Ensign Marchant followed my lead and did the same thing. Watts and Johnson, already had their rifles up.

  “Instead of splitting up like we did before, I will go up to each door and check it out while you guys cover me.”

  “Sounds like a great plan,” Watts said, turning at a movement, but the rodent was already gone.

  “What do we know about these things?” Ensign Marchant asked as we went to the next dwelling.

  “Precious little,” I said.

  When I heard scuffling on a roof behind me, I turned, my rifle coming with me.

  I had a clear shot and fired; the rodent scampered off as if I had not hit it. I could have sworn my aim was true, but I did not see any sign of blood, so perhaps I had overshot it.

  Nobody commented on my poor marksmanship as I went up to the dwelling of the next house, banged on the door, and heard nothing.

  I pulled out my tablet, set it to broadcast on all frequencies, and held it up to my mouth. “This is Commander Nick of the Red Survivor, if there are any survivors here, I urge you to come out and meet us in the town square. We will not stay long if we cannot find anybody to help.”

  There was no response as I slipped the tablet back into my pocket.

  Before we left the street, we went back to the house where they had tried to shoot us. The door was shut and there was no hole in it.

  “What do you guys make of that?” I asked looking back at Marchant who paled like she had just seen a ghost.

  “Something’s not right in this town,” Ensign Marchant said.

  10

  A statue of a man had been erected on a pedestal in the middle of the colony that I did not recognize. Just as I was about to read the inscription, I saw running rodents out of the corner of my eyes, I turned and fired five shots, but did not hit anything.

  “These things are everywhere,” I muttered.

  “Maybe it is a good idea for us to go,” Marchant said. I looked at her with a raised eyebrow, but said nothing more. Our mission was to find out what had happened to the survivors and we were not going to leave until we did.

  Marchant should have known better. I was beginning to wonder if maybe I should have insisted on somebody else.

  Marchant was reminding me too much of the captain.

  I turned back to the statue and saw that the inscription was for a man named Mace Swanston, apparently, he had discovered this world. There was more, but it was written in a language I did not recognize.

  I turned to see more scuffling rodents from the corner of my eyes, this time I refrained from firing because I did not want to gain a reputation for being trigger-happy.

  I wanted to take down another one of these rodents, but I could not start shooting and everything that moved.

  As we started down the next street, electing to go to the right as we had not seen any movement down there, I heard clicking on my communicator.

  I pulled it out.

  “Anybody there?”

  There was no response and just as I was about to slip it back into my pocket, I heard the clicking again.

  “Who’s there? If you can only communicate through clicks, send three clicks. I will ask a follow-up question afterward.”

  I waited, there was another clicking sound, but it was not followed by two more. Whatever the cause, it did not appear to be somebody trying to communicate.

  As we continue to walk, the clicking continued, making me wish that it would either go away or turn into somebody trying to communicate.

  As we had not had any luck at any of the other dwellings, I decided to just walk down the street without stopping to knock. I saw more of the furry creatures all around me, as did the others. They were starting to get uncomfortable with our situation.

  “Commander,” Marchant started to say, but then she shook her head when I turned to face her.

  “If we were the ones trapped on this planet,” I said, “we would not want the response team to leave until we had been found. Keep that in mind, what we do here today may very well come back around later.”

  “I was going to say something else, actually.”

  I hesitated, not quite believing her, but deciding to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  “Sorry.”

  A lot of leaders hated to apologize, but I had learned the hard way from a father who refused to ever apologize. Apologies could sometimes make quick work of problems.

  Marchant’s feathers still looked a little bit ruffled, but she gave a nod as if to say that she was ok
ay.

  When we got to the end of the street and turned, there were more moving rodents all around us, both on the roofs, as well as on the ground, but I still had not seen a clear look since the first one we had killed.

  “Fast little guys, aren’t they?” Watts said.

  I nodded, taking us down the side street, and then back up the next road where there were more dwellings and another greenhouse as well, this one was five stories tall.

  “I think it’s time we poke around one of these greenhouses.”

  Nobody else said anything when I stopped in front of it, but I heard a distinct groan from behind me. I thought it was Marchant. Instead of calling it out like I had before, I let it slide.

  “Maybe the colonists are hiding in there.”

  There was no response as I approached, opened the door, brought up my rifle, and made sure it was clear before entering.

  11

  The temperature outside had been chilly but comfortable. The greenhouse was scorching hot. From what I could tell on the ground level, none of the windows were broken, so it might be safe to assume there weren’t any of the rodents around.

  If they break in, I thought, we should hear them.

  After we were all inside, Watts carefully shut the door, wiping sweat off his brow and giving me a dubious look that I chose to ignore.

  I walked forward among the row of waist-high plants, aware that any rodents in here could easily hide. I made sure to point my rifle wherever I looked, though I kept my finger on the trigger guard just in case another human popped up so I didn’t accidentally kill them.

  We were walking down a row of tomatoes, when I heard a sound above us. I looked up, and saw that the floor was not solid. The boards were crisscrossed, but light came through them and I could see something moving up there. I hesitated for a long moment before calling out.

  “Hello! We are a team from the Red Survivor, sent here to rescue you.”

  There was no response, so I headed towards the stairs, and went up two a time, trusting the others to stay behind me.

  Watts yelled before I got to the second floor, his words were indistinguishable.

  I turned, just in time to see a rodent break through a window on the ground level. I brought my rifle around, but Watts had already taken it down.

  “They’re coming, a dozen of them!” Ensign Marchant said, as she ran up the stairs. Watts stayed at the bottom, Johnson stopped halfway up, rodents came through and we all opened fire. I fired, hitting one in the head, and sending it down into a tray full of tomato plants, knocking the nearly ripe fruit over onto the floor.

  I was saddened by the loss of the fresh food, having not had something fresh in a long time myself, but brought my rifle around and shot two more rodents.

  In a matter of minutes they were all dead.

  I frowned. “You would think that there would be a lot more dead rodents out there, wouldn’t you?”

  Nobody responded.

  I went up to the second floor of the greenhouse, looked around, but didn’t find the source of the movement. The windows gave me a clear view of our surroundings and I could see that the colony was quickly filling up with a lot of other rodents.

  Maybe the rodents ate their dead.

  I rushed forward to the spot where I had seen the person, but they had disappeared.

  “More inbound rodents!” Watts cried out. I heard gunfire coming from the stairs, but I ran up the next flight, trusting that the others would be able to handle it for a moment about me.

  The next floor was potatoes and green beans, and I saw nobody there as well. I went down on my hands and knees just to make sure that they had not ducked down on the floor to hide behind something, but I didn’t see anything.

  “Get everybody up here now!” I yelled down at them.

  It occurred to me that we might be stranding ourselves in the middle of the building that offered little for refuge and protection, but at the same time I wanted to find that person I had seen.

  We could remotely summon the ship to the top of the greenhouse if necessary.

  In moments, the gunfire stopped. Watts, Marchant, and Johnson climbed up the stairs after me. “We must’ve killed two dozen more down there,” Ensign Johnson said in between gasps for breath.

  “You all saw the other person, didn’t you?” I asked, doubting myself and wanted to make sure it had not been my imagination.

  “There was definitely somebody up here,” Marchant said.

  I spun in place. “Is anybody here?”

  There was no response.

  “Let’s get up to the next floor. After that, I want to get to the top.”

  I’d seen this type of greenhouse before on other colonies, and knew that the roof would have a pathway.

  Once we were up top, I looked out on the colony and could see that it was now crawling with rodents everywhere I looked, still moving so fast that I could not focus on any one of them.

  “It’s like they’re coming out of the ground,” Marchant said from beside me.

  “I just can’t believe that the environment supports this many.”

  Watts nodded. “There is not enough food to support this population.”

  I brought up my rifle and aimed it at several of the nearby rodents down on the ground but refrained from pulling the trigger. We had brought plenty of ammo, but not enough to deal with an army of rodents.

  “Did you notice if there were climbing up after us?”

  “No, but I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t.”

  “Marchant,” I started saying, but broke off when I saw a person huddled behind a couple of barrels.

  I crossed over while bringing up my rifle. “Identify yourself.”

  It was a thin man, who looked on the edge of starvation. He stood and shook his head.

  “They are here. They are here. They are here.”

  “Can you understand what I am asking you?”

  “They’re here. They are here. They are here.” He didn’t say anything else.

  “Marchant, see if you can identify this man, and then summon our ship to pick us up.”

  “They’re coming,” Watts said, “half a dozen of them are several flights below and more are right behind.” He pointed his rifle down, which would have had him shooting through the glass roof. I was on the verge of telling him to hold his fire, when I decided that this place was probably a lost cause anyway. The only survivor we had found was out of his mind.

  I took the man by the shoulders. “Is there anybody else here? Can you explain what happened here?”

  “They are here. They are here. They are here.”

  “He is the leader of the colony,” Marchant said while giving him a searching look. “Or at least he was.”

  “What you think is wrong with him?” I asked, as an ever-increasing number of rodents converged on the greenhouse, coming from every direction.

  “I have no idea.” Marchant entered some information on her tablet and the ship headed towards us. It would not be long before we got out.

  “I don’t like leaving here,” I said, taking the man by the shoulders again and looking at him straight in the eye, “not like this. What is going on here? What happened?”

  “They are here. They are here. They are here.”

  As I was releasing my hold of him, I noticed a bulge in his pocket. I snatched out his tablet.

  “Marchant, look through this to see if there’s any photos or videos or logs or anything that can explain what happened here.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “Sir,” Watts said, “do you want us to open fire, or wait till the whole place has filled with them?”

  “Bring down as many as you can.”

  Our ship now hovered at the edge of the greenhouse.

  I studied the horizon, wishing I could get the other survivors to come out of their dwellings, I was confident this crazy man was not the only one left.

  Ensign Redding had detected lifeforms. Those readings can someti
mes be wrong, but I didn’t think that was the case here.

  “Sir,” Marchant said. “I have something.” She held out the device and showed me a video. It was a picture of the man talking, he was far more coherent in the video.

  “Something has happened to the rodents,” he said, looking around as if expecting something to come out of the dark to bite him. “When we got here, they were docile enough.”

  He looked over his shoulder again and then leaned forward. “Somebody’s done something to them. They’ve gotten smarter, and meaner.” He swallowed, glancing back again. “Even though I am recording this from my own home, I fear for my own safety. I am concerned that they are going to rip me to shreds. The first time we were attacked I thought it was just a fluke, but it turned out that they were changing.”

  He looked at the camera and hesitated, as if thinking about what he was going to say and wondering whether or not he should. Finally, he looked at the camera again as if reluctant to say what he was thinking.

  “I think they’re sentient.”

  12

  I regretted having Marchant examine the device before we got out of here. If these creatures were sentient as this crazy man claimed, then we were under obligation to not destroy them.

  “Watts, Johnson,” I licked my lips in thought as the two looked at me, while they were zeroing their rifles in on the approaching rodents below. “Change of plans. Don’t harm them.”

  “What?” Johnson said. Watts just stared at me, knowing there was going to be an explanation.

  “We have evidence they might be sentient.”

  Watts and Johnson exchanged a glance, Marchant shuddered, looking at the creatures that were now packed around the greenhouse. “If they’re sentient then my monkey has rights.

  “We have to act as if they are until we know better.” I handed the device back to Marchant. “See if there’s anything else in there—” I stopped myself short. “Nevermind, we’ll figure this out from the safety of our ship.”