Red Survivor Mission Chronicles Box Set 2 Read online

  Marchant directed the ship over and we got in, just as the top of the greenhouse flooded with the rodents.

  13

  As we surveyed the scene from up above it was difficult for me to think that all the creatures milling down below us were sentient beings, so we continued to look through the videos and documentation that Marchant had found on the crazy man’s tablet.

  We had been up in the air surveying the ground for almost an hour and would soon need to either land or return to the ship, but I didn’t want to go back to Captain Marchant empty-handed. I wanted proof one way or another.

  “Anything else?” I asked Ensign Marchant.

  “No.”

  I went over to the man and tried to engage him in conversation, but it was a waste of time. We had strapped him into a seatbelt to keep him from moving and he didn’t seem aware of what we had done.

  I had held back on reporting to Captain Marchant because I didn’t want to go to him with a suspicion that the rodents had become sentient, not without proof.

  “Take us over to the greenhouse,” I said to Ensign Johnson, who was flying the ship since Marchant was still looking through the crazy man’s tablet, “the one we just left.”

  A moment later we were over the greenhouse. The rodents had dispersed far faster than I had expected.

  “Send out another communication on all channels, I want to see if we can find anybody else besides this crazy guy.”

  Johnson responded to my order as I continued to pace.

  Watts looked at me. “Don’t you think it’s about time we reach out to the captain?”

  I shook my head. “I’m going down again before we do.”

  They all looked at me as if I were crazy, and perhaps I was. It certainly was not the brightest idea to go back down amongst all those rodents, but that was better than going to Captain Marchant and claiming that colony may have been overtaken by rodents that had become self-aware.

  “Put me down on top of the greenhouse.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Watts said.

  I hesitated, and was about to tell him to stay, but then shook my head.

  “It’s your funeral.”

  14

  Once we were on top of the greenhouse, I hesitated as I watched the ship pull back to a safe distance, continuing to hover in the air as it waited for us.

  “Call me the moment you guys get some sanity,” Ensign Marchant said from the still open hatch.

  I waved at her with a big smile.

  “What’s the plan,” Watts asked.

  “Let’s find some sane people. We have to know what’s going on. This whole thing is just one big mess and I’m not going back to the captain unless we have some answers.”

  We were careful as we descended through the greenhouse to make sure to check every level but the rodents were all gone.

  Even the dead ones we had killed.

  Watts and I exchanged a glance but said nothing. I assumed the others had just carried them off.

  When we got to the bottom, I checked my rifle to make sure I had a round in the chamber and then walked out the door with Watts right behind me.

  I turned in the middle of the street, looking for something we might have missed or some other thing we could do. Nothing came to mind and just as I was about to suggest we go knock on doors, I noticed that the entrance to one of the dwellings was ajar.

  I took a step towards it and Watts grabbed my arm. “That seems like a trap.”

  “Or maybe somebody forgot to lock the door. Regardless, I’m going in.”

  Watts muttered something I didn’t catch as he followed after me.

  15

  I pushed the door open with the tip of my rifle, and held my breath when there was a silent squeak. There were no signs of the rodents anywhere, something I found surprising and disturbing.

  How had they disappeared so quickly?

  It seemed like they had multiplied out of thin air when we had been down here before. The best explanation I could come up with was that they had come out of holes in the ground, yet I did not see anything like that.

  As I took a step inside, a floorboard squeaked.

  I waited, wondering if I might draw anybody out.

  Once I was inside, I stopped to spin in a circle to make sure that it was clear before I ushered Watts in with a wave.

  The room had a couch and sitting chairs. There were several photos on the wall, I pulled out my tablet and took pictures to be analyzed back up on the spaceship.

  We cleared the next three rooms of the house, a kitchen, several bedrooms, and a bathroom. There was no sign of the former occupants and it did not appear that the rodents had bothered anybody here.

  When we came to a set of basement stairs, I hesitated when I saw dried blood.

  “Are you sure about this?” Watts asked.

  In response, I went down, switching on the light at the end of my rifle so I that could see when I got down to the bottom.

  The basement was unfinished and was full of stuff. I was surprised that the colonists had been able to bring so much with them, until I got a closer look and saw that it was lab equipment.

  “Perhaps this was that crazy man’s house,” I said thinking back to the pictures that hung on the wall. “I didn’t see any adults on the wall up there, did you?”

  Watts shook his head.

  A table in the middle of the room was covered with a sheet, I pulled it off.

  There was a cage underneath and it had one of the creatures we’d been dealing with outside, only this was a much smaller version. It did not appear to be a baby, it looked like a miniature version of an adult.

  “I recognize that man now,” Watts said. “I knew that I remembered him from somewhere. You’re right, this is his house.”

  “How do you know?”

  Watts gestured at the animal. “I believe we’re in the home Jackson Rubert, I saw something about him recently in a FEDE report. He has developed technology to shrink full-size animals to a tenth of their size, they are thinking of transporting whole herds.

  “Look around for anything that might be useful, if this is the guy who created that, we should take a prototype back with us so it doesn’t get lost.”

  While I was doing my own search I thought I heard the door shut above us.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  I tiptoed back upstairs. When I got to the landing, I had a clear shot of the entry, and it was indeed shut.

  16

  It felt like something was crawling up my back, it was quiet as I waited to see if anything or anybody had come inside.

  “I found it,” Watts called up, “at least I think I did.”

  “Great, take it.” I hesitated. I had been on the verge of telling him to bring the animal as well, but I didn’t want one of these rodents on board, regardless of size.

  “Commander,” Ensign Marchant said through the communicator. “We just received a response from our all channels broadcast. There are still survivors. That’s strange.” She hesitated. “They gave us their location and it looks like you’re in the same house as them.”

  “Thanks, Ensign.” I frowned as I disconnected and raised my voice. “Is anybody here?”

  There was no response. I went back downstairs and found Watts holding an object that looked like a small grenade launcher. “I’m pretty sure this is it.” He looked like a kid with a new toy.

  “Marchant says there are survivors. Apparently, they’re here in this home.”

  “That’s impossible, we’ve been through this whole place, there’s nobody.”

  “So it would seem,” I looked at the tool Watts held. “Think you can figure that out?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe they’re all here, but maybe they are all tiny.”

  “I don’t see how he could’ve done that. I think there’s a limit to how far he can shrink something. The only way he could have done something like that—”

  “Was send them through a portal,”
a man’s voice said.

  I looked back into a corner of the room where I was positive there had not been somebody before, only this time I was looking at an older man. “I apologize for appearing like this, but it was difficult for us to know if you were really here. There have been other—” he hesitated as if searching for the right word “— apparitions that have been used to deceive us.”

  “Apparitions?” I asked, trying to keep the incredulity from my voice.

  “I’m sorry, I misspoke. It appears that these rodents have unique properties. They can provoke mental delusions, hallucinations if you will.”

  I thought back to how the rodents had appeared to fill the greenhouse, but then how they had all disappeared. And the bullet hole in the door that had disappeared. And the missing dead rodents I had just assumed had been carried off.

  “We picked up one of your guys who said that these rodents are sentient.”

  “That is a matter of debate. Perhaps they are, perhaps not. I take it you have Jackson?”

  “A tall guy who is crazy out of his mind?”

  “Yes, the delusions have driven him mad. They have made us all a little nuts.”

  “You look sane enough.”

  “Do I?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, it’s still just hard to believe that you’re actually here.”

  I studied the rodent on the table. “Is that really there?”

  “Are any of us really here?” The man asked in an odd tone.

  “Watts,” I said looking at the object he held. “Put that thing down.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t think Jackson discovered what he thinks he thought he discovered.”

  When I looked back at the man he was holding a rifle at me.

  “What did you say your name was again?” I asked the man.

  “I didn’t.” He licked his lips. “When you guys first came, we were excited about you and the opportunities you represented, we even worked with your colonists until we read your history.”

  “How about you shoot me?” I suggested.

  Watts opened his mouth but I cut him off with a glare.

  I walked right up to the man until the barrel of his rifle was right against my chest.

  “You are a delusion. That isn’t real, is it?”

  The man gave me a grim smile and a small nod. “Not all creatures communicate with their voices, Commander.”

  “Are there any colonists left alive?”

  “No, you have picked up the last one. It was our intention that he tell your people the message but his mind got addled.”

  “And what is that message?”

  “You should leave and never come back. We will never tolerate your kind again.”

  “If you give us a chance, we would like to establish—”

  “Leave. Never return.”

  I nodded towards the rodent in the cage. “Do we need to release you before we go?”

  The man smiled and the rat disappeared. “That was one of our cleverer illusions, it was a test. We wanted to see what Jackson would do with it. When we realized that he would use something like that to bring even more of you guys here, with your cattle and all of the industrialization, we realized it would be a mistake to communicate further.”

  “Are you telling me that technology doesn’t exist?” Watts asked, his head staring at where the rodent had been, when he looked at the prototype he had set down on the table, this too had disappeared.

  “Yes, this race of... people is sentient,” I said to Watts. I had been on the verge of calling them rodents again, but decided it was best if I didn’t. If the man had read our history, he might think that was an insult.

  “This colony has been here for over a decade.”

  “Now it comes to an end,” said the man.

  “Could you answer a few questions before we go?” I asked him.

  “Whoever said that you are both going to leave?”

  17

  I stared at the man as he stared back at me. I already had a sense of what he was going to say next.

  “Only one of you need to take the message back.”

  “That would be shortsighted,” I said. “You need two witnesses. There must be two people who will deliver your message, particularly since your people are gifted with something our people do not understand. Additionally, the last thing you want to do insult one of the major races—”

  “I think that is debatable, but go on.”

  “Whether or not you want to establish relations with us, one day you will reach for the stars.”

  “We won’t. We are happy here.”

  “It would be best if you maintained a line of communication with all of us.”

  “No, it would not, but I tire of this conversation. I will give you this, if you both leave right now and agree never to come back, I’ll let you both leave. If you want to keep asking questions, I will insist upon my terms. The choice is yours.”

  I spotted movement in the back of the room, it was faint, and barely there, but I was sure it was not my imagination. The shadow made me think of the giant rodents we had seen outside, but I suspected that if much of what we had seen here was an illusion, the actual size of the rodents could be as well.

  There is a reason the initial colonists called them rodents.

  I unslung my rifle from my shoulder and shot through the illusion of the man.

  Something squealed.

  The man in front of me disappeared.

  The room changed, growing lighter, and showing a large cage in the back that had not been there before. There were people inside.

  “Watts, get them out.”

  I walked back to the corner where I had shot the rodent and saw that it was no bigger than a beaver.

  It looked like a rat.

  The rodents we had fought looked nothing like what I saw on the floor in front of me. Remarkably, my bullet had just grazed the top of its head. It was still breathing but unconscious.

  In addition to the cage were the humans were held, I found a smaller one that was intended for collecting the beaver sized rodents. Hoping I would not regret the decision, I shoved the rodent inside, picked up the cage, and looked at Watts.

  “Anybody wounded?”

  “Not from what I can tell.”

  “Excellent, let’s get out of here.”

  18

  Once we were all safely back on the transport shuttle, I spoke with Jackson who was now quite lucid and able to hold down a proper conversation. We didn’t have an explanation, but our working theory was that the rodents had somehow affected his sanity.

  “How long have you known?” I asked him.

  “About the illusions?” Jackson shook his head. “I think these creatures slowly infiltrated us, changing things about us, turning us against each other, and causing problems.”

  “Did you know about the illusions when you published your report about your discovery?”

  The man gave a small shake of his head. “Would I have done that if I had thought a sentient alien race was trying to dominate us by creating a false world?”

  I nodded, but I could see the hesitation in the back of his eyes. He might not have known the whole truth, but he had known part of it. It had been a risk for him to publish his findings, I could see it in his eyes.

  That was not my problem, now that they were rescued, my only concern was to get them back to safety.

  “Ensign Marchant, please reach out to the captain and provide him with a brief summary of what we discovered, and what we are coming back with.” I looked at the caged rodent. His eyes were still glazed over, but it twitched. “Also, we’re gonna need something to keep this little guy sedated.”

  THE PHANTOM TORPEDOES

  1

  Captain Marchant met us in the shuttle bay with several members of security. I had reported back to him as we had approached the Red Survivor, detailing our exploration of the McClellan Colony, and what we had found there.

  When the captain had sent
me on this mission, he’d probably hoped that something would happen to me or that I might make a mistake so he could get rid of me. He had been visibly disappointed when I reported on the success of the mission.

  His face was grim as we disembarked from the shuttle with the McClellan Colony survivors and the caged rodent.

  I had kept a careful watch on the rodent during our trip and had also requested the presence of Doctor Cara Cleverly so that she could examine this alien and keep it appropriately sedated.

  When my eyes met with those of Captain Marchant, I couldn’t help but hide a smile as I saw the look of consternation on his face.

  Looks like things didn’t work out as you’d hoped, I thought to myself, remembering how he had waited until the last minute to tell us about the vicious rodents.

  Security Officer Charles Watts escorted Jackson and the other survivors down the ramp and into the care of Doctor Cleverly, who scanned all of them for infectious disease.

  I brought the caged rodent myself and set it down on the floor while I waited for Doctor Cleverly to be available.

  “Looks like everybody is clear,” she said a moment later before looking at a man and woman she had brought with her who I knew by face but not by name. “Escort these people down to the infirmary for more comprehensive examinations.” Doctor Cleverly looked at me. “What do we have here?”

  “A rodent that creates mental delusions.”

  Doctor Cleverly’s face could not hide her skepticism. I was about to say something more to convince her, but then thought better of it. “Regardless of what you might think, we need to keep this little guy sedated.”

  Ensign Tonya Marchant exchanged glances with Captain Marchant in a way that further reaffirmed my suspicion that there was a familial relationship between the two.

  I wish I could find proof.

  Captain Marchant had looked relieved when he saw her but had covered it up.