“Proceed to docking we’ll have to figure this as we go, Auger. At worst we will recharge your batteries and try to contact the ground party.” Tug spoke anxiously into his mike.
In the landing craft Stanly “Auger” Band reached forward through the hatch to turn the co-pilot’s mike from “internal” to the “broadcast” position and barked to Tipton, to shake her out of her trance “We need to raise the landing party…” He could see her knuckles were white as she gripped the hatch handle, “Let’s go, Marine!”
Sheila Tipton gulped and fell into the drill.
In the command craft Tyrone “Tug” Blest the commander of the Ibn Batuta snapped, “Ribbons, I need your confirmation on this.”
A long pause followed. It was broken by Tipton’s alarmed voice from the landing craft headed back to dock with the mother ship, “Come on, Lea!”
“Roger! For the record…” The second in command on the mission control craft spoke loudly so the internal recording devices could hear her clearly before sending out a distress message back to earth. “This is First Lieutenant Lea Rybinski, I concur with the mission commander, but add that the docking should be conducted without breaking the seal between the two craft, over.”
“Good call, Lea. Proceed with a primary docking, landing craft. Primary is all we can give you.” Tugs barked with military efficiency.
“Roger, command.” Auger echoed then as an aside he spoke to the rookie pilot with him in the landing craft. “Sheila, keep trying to raise the landing party.”
Tipton, began transmitting on the ground frequency, “Landing party this is the Ibn Batuta, standing by for your coordinates, over.”
“Tug, go to interior channel 12, over,” Lea’s, as the second in command let her voice betrayed some reticence at the decisions to this point.
“Auger, proceed to docking… we’ll monitor. Um… give us a minute.” Tug was not comfortable communicating on a discreet channel with the other command craft pilot while the lives of two fellow mission members hung in the balance and the remainder of the landing party was still in the grip of some unknown triple digit entity.
In his headset Tug heard Stan’s uneasy voice, “Tug, I’ve got that five spot I borrowed from you, so don’t forget us, babe.”
“What about the interest?”
“…is landing craft, standing…” Tipton droned on attempting to raise the landing party.
Auger replied quickly, “You’re coming in broken, Tug. I couldn’t make out that last transmission. Say, again.”
“…your coordinates, over.”
“Sit tight, buddy,” Tug chuckled nervously. “Make it quick, Ribbons,” Tug spoke with a sense of urgency on the internal and unmonitored channel 12.
“Tug, I want you to know, I’m not keen on isolating the landing craft or our pilots and I would do anything I can to avoid that, okay. I’m suspect of an av-tronics breach and lastly… I want the landing party back, too. I’m more concerned about them than I am about a possible contamination.”
The journey between a support station and planet required a rotating staff to maintain real time observation while the remainder was in static state. To trust a flight computer for an extended journey was unwise. Computers still needed routine maintenance and if any sensor was damaged the faulty return of data could create an avalanche of misinformation that could cause the computer to breakdown completely. A computer might go five years without a problem or it could have two problems in five minutes, so the human element was still needed
This mission’s round trip was 20 years by the ship’s clock. A commander who lost his landing crew knew he would have a lonely trip back to the support station.
Normally, between the target and the support station personnel would stay out of static state for one month’s time per shift. The duty roster was staggered so that two people would spend no more than 14 days together. This reduced the possibility of people getting on each other’s nerves. One person would always answer the computer’s queries, which were accompanied by numerous alarms that couldn’t be ignored, and the second person would keep the first sane. The second person would then take over answering the computer queries after the first person went back to static state and the replacement came on duty. A full crew would pull four shifts each way. With only four on board it would be a long and boring trip home.
“Are you more concerned about the landing party or yourself?” Tug asked pointedly.
“Fuck off, Tug! Has the Corps been that good to you? We can get everybody on board and let the support station know our status inbound…”
After a long pause Tug responded, “Okay, but what if we can’t get the landing party back with the target?”
“Target!? Forget the fucking target. I would rather die out here trying to get the crew back than dying of boredom in transit. Let’s get the crew back and take our chances with this electrical… thing. We don’t even know it is a ‘triple digit.’ Um… the reg states ‘If an intelligent alien life form, that is not a threat, is returned to a support station the action shall be considered a target and paid appropriately.’ So maybe we’ll be paid even without our primary target.”
“Yeah, but if we bring back a bug…”
“Without the crew it doesn’t really matter, does it? 10 years is a long time, Tug. We need the whole crew back here, regardless.”
“Okay… so we bring back the landing craft and crew at all costs. Is that your opinion?”
Lea snapped, “Yes, it is. Out.”
Switching back to the landing craft’s frequency, Tug spoke to the landing craft commander Stanley Band, “Yo, Auger… the good news news is you’re docking, the bad news is the interest on that loan just went up… way up.”
“… party, do you copy?” Tipton could still heard over all channels trying to raise the landing party.
Auger chuckled as he replied, “Okay, can you loan me a couple of..?”
With her voice cracking Tipton broke off her calls to the stranded landing party and started docking prceedures tersely, “Roger, starting docking procedure, from a 115 degree azimuth, mark niner three…”
Onboard the Ibn Batuta Lea a female voice snapped, “Wait the landing party needs…”
“Relax, Lea. We’ll recover the landing party. Do you copy that, Stan?” Tug was back in control now and spoke with authority.
Auger looked at the instrument panel and replied. “Yeah, Tug. We’re ninety seconds from docking. Do we go back now or after the dock?”
“Stay on track for docking. Let me take look at what we’ve got.”
“Um… I’ll continue commo to landing party,” Tipton was showing signs of stress.
Tipton was the greenest member of the crew and had preformed responsibly up to this point. The daughter of a high ranking official in the European Union Space Agency Tipton was smart and pretty beyond the norms of the agency and she could have taken any accepted any slot she wished on earth or within its gravity well. But as a well-connected citizen she felt an imperative to sit in the co-pilot’s seat in the most dangerous and far-flung mission to date, if for nor other reason that to prove the to veterans of the agency that she would not be shielded from the dangers, able to dodge the risks by calling in the “daddy” marker.
Her great-great grandfather had been the command craft second in command on the Alpha two-three mission. She was expected to fill the void of her elders, risk never a concern.
There were a lot of procedures to remember and being the most recent graduate of the academy Tipton probably knew the procedures better than the rest of the crew but the pressure of the events had put great pressures on all hands.
In their headsets Tug and Ribbons heard Tipton start in once again, “Landing party this is landing craft, on all frequencies standing by for…”
“Stan can you isolate the… thing?” Tug asked.
“Negative, Tug. It, or they, seem to be all over the place. I have intermittent control in manual but I can’t figure out where these things are.” Band was struggling with the stick now.
“How long will a recharge take?” Tug managed to ask before Tipton transmitted again.
“…any station, do you copy, over?” Tipton was in tears as she yelled at Band through the open hatch, “Give me backup power, damn it.”
“Um… standby, command…” Scanning the controls Auger replied, “Tug, we can’t even raise the landing party. We may have low batteries.”
Tug covered his mike and yelled over his shoulder, “Lea..?”
She yelled back, “Yeah?”
“Where is the landing craft on charge?” he shouted.
Tipton ’s voice came over the headset, “Unknown. We have docking position in 60 seconds… It’s now or they go back, Tug.”
“Roger, understand. Auger are you okay on fuel?”
“Unknown, command. None of the readings look right and I don’t know if we can trust the docking program…”
“Well, we can’t risk a purge. We gotta dock, ya.”
“Okay,” Band’s voice was beginning to sound strained. “Sheila give it one more try.”
“Increasing gain and reception area,” Tipton voice was a plea now. “Landing party this is Ibn Batuta Landing Craft 2a, on all frequencies standing by for your coordinates, over.”
Static blared through the headsets causing both pilots of the landing craft to jerk their headsets away from their ears. “Switching to response corrected radio, ‘Landing party this is landing craft, on all frequencies standing by for your coordinates, over.’” Static blared through the headsets. “Any station, any station, please respond, over.” There was no answer.
Band said mechanically, “Command, landing craft dock in 45 seconds.”
“Roger.”
“Landing party this is landing craft, on all frequencies standing by for your coordinates, over.”
Silence.
“Docking series, now,” Tug said tersely. “Sheila, forget it.”
Band continued, “Thirty… twenty… ten… complete and locking… We have green lights and.. standby, command… command?” A pause followed. “Tug, I don’t know what’s good data anymore. I show a good docking can you give me visual?”
Reaching up to the port camera’s switch Tug clicked it until the screen showed the landing craft in the correct position.
“Looks good… wait, your egress ramp is damaged and in the “down” position. Confirm.”
“Roger, egress ramp down. I have a ‘closed’ lamp lit. I say again, I show closed.”
Tipton broke in, “Damn it. I can’t get an override function with the ‘closed’ light on. Is there any way we can still park this thing with the ramp down?”
“Negative, we can’t close the outer…” Tug was distracted by the lights on his console and a gentle shudder throughout the mission control ship as the landing craft docked.
Suddenly Lea screamed into her mike, “Tug, we’ve got unusual activity in the higher function banks, we’re infected!”
“Shut down higher function, now!”
“It’s already done. Going to back ups…”
“Command, we’re reloaded!” Auger yelled. “I say again, we have complete control…”
“Yeah, it’s got us, now!” Lea yelled.
“… no, it’s back, command…” Auger said staring at his console.
“God damn it, Band, if it’s got you purge and reload!” Lea yelled.
“Do it, Band!” Tug snapped.
“Uh… right. First safety off second neutral, purging…in three, two, one, purge.” Band hit the “purge” button in the landing craft at the same time as Tipton .
Tug shouted over his shoulder, “Lea, was that a drop in power on the landing craft?”
“Affirmative, the bastard can be hurt…” she responded with pride in her voice.
“How did we do it?” Tug was all ready searching the higher functions of the computer by this time trying to locate the electronic intruder.
“I saw a… Tug? Are you sending a message?” Lea’s voice betrayed her shock.
“Negative, negative. Is it the landing party?” Tug was confused.
Band replied, “No. No, we’ve got a type message…”
Four sets of eyes watched the printed command line on their screens’ at the same time, “no hurt no hurt no hurt,” was blinking over and over.
After several seconds Tug asked his second in command, “Lea, can that be coming from the landing party?”
“Uh… unknown, Tug. No wait, it’s internal.”
Sheila Tipton blurted out, “Command, what part of the higher function was accessed?”
Lea glanced at her screen and replied incredulously, “Language functions…”
“Well,” Tipton was crying now, “Say ‘hello’ to our guests.”
“Hey, Tug,” Auger asked, “is it possible this thing jumped over with metal to metal contact? If they’re electron based it’s…”
“Standby!” Covering his mike Tug shouted towards the Lea. “Is it possible that they are monitoring our internal communications?”
Tipton looked through the open hatch at the pilot. “Stan, what are they doing?”
“I don’t know, but if language functions were accessed they might be…” Auger’s eye grew wide. Pointing to her mike he put his finger over his boom mike’s receiver and nodded to her. She put her finger over the mike and looked towards the landing craft commander with a confused expression.
Whispering, Auger continued, “They might be able to listen in to our conversations so we…”
“Damn it,” Tipton had already taken her finger off the mike. “Command, shut down the ‘interpret function’ now!”
The command staff knew the Second Lieutenant was right.
“Killing interpret functions and hitting breakers!” Lea yelled. “Damn, Tug. They beat us in there.”
“Lea, have they got into the life functions?” asked the Mission Commander.
Slowly and calmly Lea responded, “I don’t think they’ve found it, yet.” She was working hard to control her emotions.
“Bull shit!” Tipton was angry now. “If they wanted to hurt us they would have killed all functions by now. I think they want to talk to us. I’m going to try a command line…”
“Negative!” Tug broke in, “Stand down, Tipton…”
“Or what? You’re going to leave us 10 ‘clock years’ from the nearest support station with no crew and no chance of getting home before we die of boredom or…”
“All right, Second Lieutenant, that’s enough!”
Tug scanned the console and sighed heavily. “Okay, I’m out of options. Ribbons, Auger do you agree with Sheila?”
“Aye”
“Sounds okay to me,” Auger looked towards Tipton and shrugged.
“For the record, this is Mission Comm…” Tug was interrupted by Tipton.
“Relax, Tug. They may not be the enemy.”
“Tell that to the landing party, damn it! We don’t know anything about these bastards and they’re in our…”
“We killed a whole bunch of them when we purged the system,” Lea stated matter-of-factly. “The energy pulse caught them between… uh… capacitance, I think. Power dropped significantly when did it.”
Tug’s hand moved quickly towards the “Purge” button. An electronic purge under ideal conditions was a risky operation. An electronic pulse was sent through the entire avtronics system in an attempt to reset all connectors and option gates but sometimes the power coursing through the system would change option settings and cause a complete failure. A “Purge” button always had a safety release plus a second requiring the second in command to release an additional set of safeties and engage the “Purge” buttons at the same time as the commander. The purge operation in the landing craft had hurt the intruders but it had been a calculator risk. A purge of the command ship and system could destroy every program on board.
Tug flicked the first release to the off position and waited.
Tipton typed quickly on the small keyboard used as a backup when language and interept functions were out.
“Um… they say,” Tipton spoke, “‘re-engage the first safety on the Purge command.’”
Snapping his eyes towards his screen, Tug began to speak.
Lea spoke, “I didn’t release…”
“I did,” Tug said flatly. “They can see what we’re doing.” He sighed and snpped the swith back to the locked position. “All right, Tipton what do they want?” Tug asked in resignation.
Tipton replied quizically, “Us, it seems.”
“What for? Tug snapped.
*****
Sergeant First Class William Harris struggled but was able to steady himself on his hands and knees. The sound of his own ragged breathing was all he could hear in his headset.
“Stri… ” He paused to catch his breath before he continued. “Strike team… answer up.” The effort of speaking was exhausting but also strangely exhilarating.
“S, O…” Harris heard the unmistakable voice of the SO team leader Candide “Candy” Rivera whisper into her microphone.
“S, O team… leader, here…”
Craning his neck Harris scanned the area. Pheno the recently promoted sargeant stood seemingly unaffected amid the body-littered red soil.
“Pheno, help me,” Harris managed.
Several purple clouds swirled around the big man sparkling and flashing and spirling away into the darkening sky. With his hand out in front of the clear shield that protected his face and contained the ox duece mix he seemed to be fascinated by the clouds that clung to his gloved hand.
“They’re so hungry.”
“Pheno, get over here,” Harris panted.
The Strike Team Leader walked straight to Harris and pulled him to his feet.
“We’re feeding them,” Pheno said cryptically.
“What?”
Pheno turned to look directly into Harris’s eyes. “We… are… feeding them.” The words were spoken with deliberate care. The placid expression on Pheno’s face confused Harris.
“All right, Pheno. Tell me what’s goin’ on?” Harris sagged against Pheno momentarily and the big man pulled him erect again.
“Don’t fight ‘em, sarge. They don’t want to hurt us. They need us.” With that Harris relaxed and felt an immediate rush of intense pleasure like he had never before experienced. The joys he felt watching his teams react in unison to a threat, the joy of fatherhood and the accumulated pleasure of his life seemed to rush him at once. Harris then knew what Pheno meant. These purple creatures were feasting on the emotions they found within his mind. He was awestruck.
“Riviera,” he whispered. When he got no response he turned to look for her. She stood no more than three meters away. Tears rolled down the woman’s face, visable inside her face mask. The toughest marine Harris had ever met was moved to tears by the pure physical joy these creatures brought out in her.
“It’s wonderful, Willy.” Her eyes were glassy and her stare was fixed on the horizon.
“We need ox duece.” A portion of the landing team leader’s mind was still engaged. The team was on a planet without a breathable atmosphere and Harris diodn’t know how long they had lay there unconscious using the mix they carried on their back.
“Of course we do.” There was an enigmatic smile on her face. “I’ll take care of it.” The woman wandered lightly towards the ATS and set about getting the unit ready.
Pheno had already started to move from soldier to soldier rousing them. One striker began to thrash about and snapped open his helmut to the piercing plea of the automatic alarm in each soldier’s gear.
“Atmosphere compromised! Soldier Bennetts! Replace face mask!” The shrill voice was almost unbearable to the individuals in the throes of the creatures search for emotional stimulus. A human voice yelled out in pain and torment.
Then another cried out, “They’re killing us!” in some attack of paranoia. Harris grabbed at his helmut to get the computer voice and accompanying alarm out of his head.
“…compromised! Soldier Bennetts! Replace…” Harris fell to the ground and blacked out.
*****
Harris awoke to the soft “putt-putt” of the ATS producing oxygen from the planet’s iron oxide soil. Taking a quick mental inventory he found himself without pain and without helmet. He sat up slowly to survey the situation inside the ATS. Candy Riveria knelt next to the sergeant a look of supreme calm on her face.
“Willy, you’re okay. The alarm in Bennetts’ suit sent a couple of people into a tailspin. Three S-Os and two Strikers, casualties.” Her voice showed no sign of emotion.
“Casualities? How?”
“Bennetts suffocated. Grant, Shrop and Theison had heart attacks and Phillips just…died.”
Scanning the interior of the ATS Willy saw the rest of the landing team. Some still lay unconscious but the majority were busy doing minor tasks within the lightly opaque bubble.
“Candy, what are these things?” The exhilaration Harris had experienced earlier was returning.
“Near as we can tell they’re some kind of tech…” Her voice drifted off as she searched for some kind of description to fit the creatures that now inhabited the landing team. “Tech toys, I guess.”
“Toys?”
“Yeah. Our emotions feed ‘em, I think. So, they must’ve been… toys.”
Harris was no longer listening to her but feeling the surge of emotional stimulation that made his chest tingle and his body feel light as ether.
Harris turned back towards to the SO leader and placed his open palm against her cheek.
“Candy,” he whispered. She fell forward onto the man in a passionate embrace.
Few in the ATS took notice as the two satified their physical hunger for the other in the dirt amid the rest of the team.
By the second day, with the creatures inside their bodies, most of the crew were easing themselves into a comfortable coexistence. Several still lay without stirring. Harris found his desire to see these soldiers—his soldiers—back from their sleep. He hovered near the indigent troops searching for some clue to rouse them.
“Sargeant Harris, we need H2.” Private First Class Simms’ voice brought Harris back to reality with the request for hydrogen to feed the “water mixer.”
“Okay. Call the command and have them…”
“They don’t answer,” the young soldier answered plainly.
“What?” Harris stood now and looked for the SO leader.
“Candy, where’s the landing craft?” Harris had not thought about anything outside the thin bubble that protected them from the unbreathable atmosphere since he woke.
Candy smiled at him and then walked forward until her body pressed against his. Her arms snaked around his neck and she kissed him deeply. Harris pushed her back gently.
“Candy, listen.” She smiled and leaned forward again but Harris put his finger on her lips to stop her. “Where’s the landing craft?”
“They’re gone.” A landing team on a planet without extra food, water, batteries, and only one backup ATS could survive for no more than six months. But this planet showed no sign of water or plant life and had an unusual atmosphere. Batteries for an ATS lasted about 350 hours. Without support they would die in about two weeks
“Wait… have you called the Ibn Batuta?” Harris narrowed his eyes on Candy’s loving gaze.
“What for, Willie? They’re not coming back.” Nothing in her tone betrayed any fear or sense of abandonment. Now the landing team leader’s head began to spin.
“Candy, we’re in trouble.”
She nodded slightly and leaned in to kiss him again. This time he did not resist.
“Well, what are we gonna do?” Willy Harris pondered the question for a moment as he surveyed the members of the landing team. A couple squirmed in the dirt making love but Willy did not want to interrupt them. The rest, minus five still in a coma and the five that died the first day, looked towards Willy as their leader and they held him a high regard. He could not bear the idea of letting them down.
“We only have a little while to set up something…”
“Too bad we can’t eat energy like they do,” Pheno spoke up.
“Who eats energy?”
“Them.” The big man pointed outside at the swarm of purple clouds that gathered outside the ATS. “Those things.”
“What are? Or what do they call themselves?” Harris was confused.
“Don’t know,” the big man shrugged
“Okay,” Harris found a surge of emotion clouded his thoughts making it difficult to concetrate on the discussion.
“How do they eat energy?”
“Over there at the tower.” Pheno pointed to the graceful spire in ther distance. The reason the team had arrived here in the first place. The technology they had been sent to recover.
The tower beconed to Harris and he stepped close to one of the clear view panels in the ATS wall to examine the structure.
“What is it?” Harris asked over his shoulder.
“It’s got a solar collector and gives off a trickle charge so they could eat when nobody was here I quess. But it’s not enough for all of “em.”
Harris turned slowly. “Are we enough?”
“Oh yeah, Willy. They get plenty from us.” Pheno’s face was serene.
Harris found himself growing giddy at his revelation but then he forced himself to calm down and focus again.
“Let’s set up the backup ATS over there by the tower and see if we can’t power it with the tower.” Several people giggled in relief at their leader’s plan and one even wept.
“Okay, let’s see if we can make it work.” Harris beamed as he spoke.
The tower provided the backup ATS with plenty of power and left enough to charge the batteries—in case they wanted to move to a new location—and feed some of the creatures who now hung near the ATS bubble waiting their turn to feast on the humans. The clouds of protoplasm could not linger in the oxygen atmosphere inside the bubble like they did in the noble gases outside but once inside their human host they could travel anywhere on their host’s two legs.
Pheno explained to Harris, as well as he could, about the different patterns the clouds contained, as he was only learning about them now. Some were designed to exploit sexual centers of the brain, some joy, some visual, and some infused a stimulation encountered by high-risk or dangerous activities. Pheno had tried a dozen different “flavors” as he called them and speculated that maybe the five soldiers who died may have encountered one of the “danger” flavors without any idea of what was happening.
“They may’ve been scared to death.”
Harris swallowed. “Are there any others that could hurt us?”
“No, Willy. If we die those things die with us.” There was saddness in Pheno’s voice with his statement. It was beginning to make sense to Harris now. The creatures fed on the electrical stimulous from the human emotions and once the electrical energy stopped the cloud-like beings would essentially suffocate.
“They told me that the ones in the dead marines were gone now.” Pheno shrugged off his obtuse explanation. “I guess that means dead.”
“Why don’t they just go somewhere else, if they’re so hungry?” Harris needed to know everything Pheno did about these creatures.
“They can go into the electronics… and the outside atmosphere and between two people… And that’s… that’s it.”
“So there’s got to be a path for electrical contact.” Harris finished trying to keep his mind on task. He was still responsible for these people.
Pheno nodded.
Harris was beginning to understand. “That must be why they sent us in with antique equipment instead of flux gear.”
“I guess.” Pheno shrugged.
Now Harris turned deadly serious. “Only one of these things can um… be in a person at a time, right?”
“Uh huh.”
“You said they got into the electronics. How many could get in there?”
“Lots, I guess. There’s big wires and lots of places to go…”
“Those fuckers!” Harris set his jaw.
“What is it, Willie?”
Harris took a deep breath and then let it out slowly to control his emotional state and the feeding creature within.
“They knew something was here and they didn’t care what happened to us. They just wanted as many of these things as we could carry away.”
“How did they…”
“Probably caught some in the probes and saw some of the equip held more of the things than others. So they gave us old junk so we could bring back a lot of “em.”
“What about the tech?”
“Didn’t you say it was just a solar collector?”
“Yeah,”
“They didn’t want that. They wanted the ‘things.’ They must have set the landing craft to automatically launch if anything happened.”
Pheno furrowed his brow. “But they didn’t get any of ‘em.”
Harris said plainly, “Sure, they did. They got a whole landing craft full of ‘em. They weren’t worried about us.”
“Why didn’t they just use drones?”
Harris shook his head, “Can’t get drones back. Too far.” Solving this puzzle the sergeant felt a shudder of satisfaction that took his breath away. Harris put his hand out to steady himself touching the metal band on the door’s seal. With a jolt he felt one creature dart out through the metal conduit. Several others swirled around the first and one cloud launched itself directly to the metal and entered the man’s body.
Smacking his lips Harris realized this creature was attenuated towards taste.
Pheno’ spoke again. “If they left us behind won’t they try to get rid of the pilots to cover their tracks?”
That thought hit Harris hard.
“Candy?” Despite what felt like a heavy weight on his chest Harris continued.
The woman padded to Harris’ side and twined herself around his body.
“Candy, please. I need you to try to reach the Ibn Batuta,” Harris panted with the awaked fears for his fellow marines.
She inhaled his scent and shuddered slightly.
In a husky voice she replied, “Whatever you want, Willie.”
****
“What do they want with us?” Tug asked Tipton . He was careful to keep emotion out of his voice since he knew the intruders might be monitoring their internal communications. The aliens had come aboard the command ship when the landing craft docked. These creatures seemed to be electronic impulses and had jumped to the command vessel through metal to metal contact. Now the creatures were in all the electronic functions of both ships and had accessed all program functions including life support, language and interpretation areas.
Tipton began to key in the message but stopped as the answers to her question scrolled across all screens.
<ReturnLine> electronic energy = fuel <Stop>
<ReturnLine> fuel = food <Stop>
<ReturnLine> human emotion = electronic energy <Stop>
<ReturnLine> no hurt human <Stop>
<ReturnLine> human no hurt mine <Stop>
The last line blinked as if the intruders were waiting for an answer. Tipton grabbed the handle of the hatch to pull herself forward to talk to Auger face to face.
Auger turned to meet her stare and saw something change in the pilot’s expression. A vacant look in her eyes told him that Tipton was experiencing something beyond her explanation. A tear rolled down her cheek.
“Tug… something’s wrong with Tipton! Sheila talk to me…” Auger’s voice was almost a whisper.
Staring blankly into space Tipton’s face was a white and her lips moved slightly but no sound came out.
“Auger, what’s going on?” Tug sounded calm but inside he was fast approaching panic.
As the creature searched throughout Tipton’s body for an appropriate signal it stimulated every synapse connector it came to causing her body to tremble and then jerk around violently at first.
“Jesus, Tug she’s having a fit!” Auger screamed.
“Get away from her! Do it, Stan!” Tug had gone over the edge and was in a full blown panic attack. “Get out of there!”
“How! Tell me how to get out…” Auger was climbing up and over the back of his seat even though there was no place to go beyond his small cabin.
Lea keyed her mike and yelled, “Stop it, Stan! Stop it! It’s not hurting her. Look at your screen…” Tug and Auger looked down to see the messages scrolling again.
<ReturnLine>no hurt human<Stop>
<ReturnLine>no hurt human<Stop>
<ReturnLine>no hurt human<Stop>
<ReturnLine>no hurt mine<Stop>
<ReturnLine>no hurt mine<Stop>
The creatures were listening to the intercom system, and were able to understand the speech between the crew members
“Jesus, Tug, she’s foaming at the mouth! Tug!”
As suddenly as it started, Tipton’s shaking stopped. Slowly and carefully she wiped the drool from her chin. Her breathing was measured and calm. Turning slowly she looked at Auger and smiled broadly.
“They don’t want to hurt us… They need us.” The voice that came out was clear controlled and definitely Tipton’s. Auger was still atop the back of his seat looking at her with wide eyes.
“Sheila? Are you okay?” Tug was still terrified. “Answer, me!”
“Yes, Tug. I’ve never been better.”
“Lea, why aren’t they sending any more text messages?” Tug asked his second in command.
“I don’t know.”
Tipton interrupted, “I’ll tell you what they want. It seems that electrical impulses is what they feed on. And they give a stimulus to the emotional in our brain and that feeds ‘em. It feels better than anything I’ve ever…” The youngest member of the crew could only sigh.
“Sheila, listen carefully to me,” Lea began to speak slowly. “I want you to ask the thing to let you go.”
“Why, Lea? It feels wonderful and it feeds him, no her, no… I don’t know which it is. But I know I like it.” Tipton’s voice was almost a pant
“Is this ‘thing’ one of those ‘wisp’ looking clouds we saw on the planet?” Auger asked.
In a calm voice Tipton spoke like a guru sharing the wisdom of the ages. “Yes. Yes it is.”
“Do they have a name?” Auger continued still on the back of seat.
“No… Wisp, will do.” Tipton continued.
Tug broke in, “What has happened to the landing party, damn it?”
“Nothing. They’re fine. The wisps could not find the right stimulus center, at first, so they tried everything until they found the right spot. They’re all fine. We should call them,” Tipton finished almost as an aside.
“Auger, what’s she look like? Is she okay?” Tug was still unsettled.
From his perch she looked complacent. “She looks okay.” Auger now directed his query at his co-pilot. “How did they get inside you?”
“I touched the metal handle and it came inside then.”
Auger looked around for more exposed metal in order to avoid contact. “Really, Stan, they won’t hurt you. Touch the handle.”
“Bull shit!” came his reply. “How do we know you’re really okay?”
“Stan, I really like you. Remember when we first met at the support station? I said I was going to like working with you. I do like working with you. I like you, Stan. I wanted to say something when we were pulling our watch shift together on the way here. But I was afraid. I am not afraid, anymore.”
She was telling the truth. Tipton had said those exact words and in transit Auger had noticed she was overly attentive to him when they were on watch together. This attention caused him to request another watch partner for his second shift. Many times a watch shift between two crew members had led to a more intimate relationship. But many of the relationships ended badly, because a watch duty shift forced two people to live in a space barely large enough for one person much less two. The surest way to kill a relationship was to live in close proximity to another person every moment for 14 days. Stan was hoping after the mission he might be able to see her.
“Auger, what’s going on?” Tug asked.
“I’m not sure, but what she said is true,” he said as climbed down into his seat.
“Sheila, this is Lea, can you hear me?”
Giggling, Tipton answered, “Of course. I am doing quite well.”
“Okay, then let Sheila go so we can talk to her.”
“You are talking to me and I do not want to let this feeling go,” was her reply
“Okay, then let Auger try it out.”
“Hey, hey! I’m not your guinea pig. I don’t want that thing…” Auger burst in.
“Please, Stan. Touch my hand and you will see they mean us no harm. They want to protect and help us. They need us more than we need them.”
“That’s what bother’s me how do I know that they won’t… melt my brain or something?”
There was another giggle as Tipton looked directly into Auger’s eye. “Trust me, Stan. I care deeply about you and would not let anything bad happen.”
“Famous last words, huh?” Auger put out his hand with some trepidation. Snatching it quickly back he asked, “I’m not gonna jerk around and slobber am I?”
“Band, do not touch her that’s an order!” Tug barked.
“What choice do I have? I’m stuck in this can with her and these… wisp things. Eventually, I’m gonna get it, so why not now?”
Stand down, Band! Do… not… touch her is that clear?” Tug was livid.
“Stop it, Tug. He doesn’t have a choice,” Lea jumped in. “Try it, Stan.”
As their hands met Auger’s eyes rolled back in his head slightly and Tipton’s came back into focus.
When Auger opened his eyes wide now he looked at the back of his hand and turned it over to see his naked palm. A smile drifted across his lips as he spoke.
“Sheila is right they mean no harm. This is wonderful.”
Tug’s voice was hard, “Tipton, talk to me.”
“Give it back. Please,” she whimpered softly to Auger
“Jesus, these things must be addictive, Lea can you get a medical read out?” Tug yelled across the open computer bank.
Lea put on a condescending tone as she asked, “Sheila, honey, can you put your hand on the med reader?” Medical readers were a palm sized screen that allowed the computer to take readings on two dozen different bodily functions with a simple touch.
“Of course I can. But I wanna get another wisp…” Lea whined.
“Give her a med read, Tipton. That’s an order,” Tug barked.
Letting out a sigh she placed her palm on the screen and the computer went to work checking her body.
Meanwhile, Tug was concerned about Auger. “How are you feeling, Stan? Talk to me.”
“It really is okay, Tug. Someone created them a long time ago… for recreation it seems. But no one has been back for so long. They are so hungry and we can feed them.”
Lea broke in, “Tug, everything looks right on the med read out.”
“Is it possible that these… wisp things are altering the readout?”
“I don’t know how, but anything’s possible.”
“I am letting this wisp go back into the system so he can show the others where to go and what to look for,” Auger’s voice had a quality like syrup flowing out of his mouth. As he touched the handle between the two cabins Tipton put her hand on his and the wisp darted into her body momentarily causing her head to loll back and her eyes to close for a moment. When her eyes opened and she focused again she found herself gazing into Stan’s eyes and she felt her face flush. The two had shared the wisp, briefly.
Several seconds passed with the two eying each other until both of them, again felt the narcotic rush of a wisp’s return. Both members of the landing craft felt the high of the beings that thrived on an excited emotional state within their human host. Auger leaned forward through the open hatch and kissed Tipton deeply. The emotional response to the kiss, though brief, caused Tipton to cry genuine tears of joy. The sound of their kiss came through, clearly, on the mikes in the command craft.
“What is going on?” Tug voice was a high pitched whine.
Tipton leaned forward this time, and kissed Auger while Lea and Tug could only listen. At last Tipton broke it off and declared, “We can’t explain it. Just touch the metal and you will see.”
