‘I’m perfectly fine,’ objected Drago.
‘Captain Weldon doesn’t seem to agree with you, Major,’ said the Colonel. ‘Military Command has finally found you a deputy capable of calling a halt when you push yourself too far, and I intend to pay attention when she does it.’
‘Yes, I know all the jokes.’ Drago sounded distinctly annoyed. ‘Members of my clan are capable of getting into life and death situations while buying ice-cream, and we shouldn’t be let out alone, but in this case Captain Weldon is wrong. I’m not suffering from strain, and I’m not irrational.’
‘Captain?’ asked the Colonel.
‘He’s just proposed marriage to me, and suggested we elope to Epsilon,’ said Marlise. ‘I think that’s a bad sign.’
I giggled, looked at Fian, and found he was lying on the floor, clutching his stomach and turning purple. ‘Are you all right?’
Fian gasped for breath, and I realized he was having a fit of laughter rather than dying. ‘Military Command thinks members of your clan shouldn’t be let out alone. They’re quite right too!’
I threw a cushion at him. ‘Poor Drago. His whole team listening in and Marlise still doesn’t believe him.’
Fian threw the cushion back at me. ‘It serves him right for being the finest liar in the Military.’
The Colonel ordered shift 2 to move at minimum speed towards the portals, while shift 3 approached the new guard positions. Fian and I changed into skintights, the minimal clothing you wore under impact suits, and then started putting our suits on.
Getting into an impact suit is never easy, and either these were different from civilian ones, or more likely I was overconfident and rushing things, because I triggered the material while I was smoothing it up my arms and it went solid. I had to wait for the fabric to relax before I could move my arms again, which meant I had the suit on in ten seconds over the Military standard time of two minutes. Fian took only a few seconds longer than me. We both left our hoods down of course, since we weren’t in a hostile environment.
‘Do you think Drago’s serious about that proposal?’ Fian asked as we headed out of our quarters. ‘He hardly seems the marrying type.’
‘I think he’s serious. Marlise has been his deputy for a year or two, so …’
‘But why was he trying to make her jealous? Wouldn’t it have made far more sense to tell her he cared?’ Fian shook his head. ‘Perhaps Drago’s as bad as you at discussing emotions.’
‘If there was a cushion in this corridor, I’d throw it at you!’
We arrived at the Attack shift 2 takeoff and landing area, and watched as the four giant portals came to life and the fighters came through. I counted the fifteen of them home, noting the silver flashes marking Marlise’s ship. They usually parked in a neat formation of four by each portal, but this time they kept moving on hovers to the side of the area. Once they were out of the way, several red hover sleds moved in, and people in impact suits ran out to grab hoses. Fian and I sprinted over to join them, and were each handed the end of a hose. Several people were already spraying white foam. I pulled up my suit hood and joined in.
‘Amaz!’ I yelled to Fian, as I tested the foam with my foot. ‘It’s already going solid.’
‘How big an area do we foam?’ he called back.
‘The big red semi-circle by this portal must be the crash zone. If Drago comes through on minimum power he should land well inside that.’
We kept spraying until the foam layer was waist high, and then the red hover sleds moved back to where a medical sled was waiting. Foaming up had been fun, but now I abruptly sobered up. A whole crowd of fighter pilots had gathered, but one group was standing slightly in front of the rest, with their impact suit hoods up and sealed.
I didn’t need to read the names on their suits. I knew who they were. That was shift 2, with Marlise in the centre. A couple of them were carrying laser cutting equipment similar to the laser guns I’d used myself on dig sites. If Drago crashed hard, his team were ready to get him out of the wreck fast, before anything exploded.
Fian and I waited among the crowd, while a siren sounded and an amplified voice made a completely unnecessary announcement. ‘Stand clear. Incoming emergency landing. Stand clear.’
The portal activated, and a battered black fighter with gold flashes came through, appeared to stall in midair, and plummeted downwards on to the foam. It bounced once, the dented cockpit creaked slowly open, and a figure stepped out.
‘Perfect crash, Drago!’ yelled a male voice, and everyone applauded as the medical team hurried to capture their prisoner.
13
It was Day Twenty-two and our part in the Alien Contact programme was almost over. Fian and I only had to sit through one last meeting, change out of our uniforms into civilian clothes, pack our things and head for the portal and normal life.
I had mixed feelings about that. Part of me wanted to stay here at the heart of events, living the Military life of my dreams, but most of me remembered those terrifying moments when the base was at war status and was pathetically eager to return to being an insignificant history student. I could stop spending my days play-acting the competent Military officer. I could stop spending my nights trapped in nightmares, where I was running through endless corridors littered with bodies, with the sound of explosions and screams around me, unable to find Fian.
Yes, it was cowardly of me, but I was glad to be running away. I wanted to forget all about the alien sphere, and leave the real Military professionals to safeguard the future of Earth and the whole of humanity.
Nia Stone was giving the Attack team report. ‘The meteor defence system triggered again today. This time we’d tracked the incoming piece of junk, so we were ready. The sphere scored a perfect hit, and our fighters were well outside the danger area. I think we can relax now.’
Colonel Torrek nodded. ‘We’ll continue to let the sphere deal with any random debris. It adds to our data on its weapons systems and targeting abilities.’
‘Medical team has just cleared Drago as fit for duty,’ continued Nia Stone. ‘I’d like to deal with the promotions difficulty, so I’ve got Drago and Marlise waiting outside.’
Colonel Torrek tapped the table display in front of him. ‘Major Tell Dramis, Captain Weldon, please join us.’
The two of them came into the room and saluted.
‘Captain Weldon, I’m happy to say your promotion has been confirmed.’ He handed her a set of insignia. ‘Congratulations, Major.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Marlise, obviously delighted.
Colonel Torrek turned to look at Drago. ‘Major Tell Dramis, Commander Stone recommended you for promotion. Unfortunately, Commander Leveque has put you on report since then for conduct unbecoming an officer.’
He glanced at Leveque. ‘Do I wish to know the details on that?’
Leveque shook his head. ‘I’m confident you don’t, sir. It was quite regrettable.’
Colonel Torrek seemed to be struggling to keep a straight face, so I was sure he knew perfectly well what had happened. The entire base did. I hadn’t been in the dining hall when Drago wandered in wearing only a smile, but I’d heard all about it afterwards.
Colonel Torrek turned his attention back to Drago. ‘According to your record, this is the third time you’ve missed out on your promotion due to being on report.’
Drago nodded cheerfully. ‘I’ve been a little unlucky, sir.’
‘If I may interrupt, Colonel?’ said Mason Leveque.
‘Please do.’
‘I’ve consulted with the Medical team leader, and apparently the unfortunate behaviour of Major Tell Dramis may have been due to his injuries when his fighter was damaged by the sphere. In a small proportion of cases, when an impact suit triggers to protect the wearer, the resulting blackout can cause periods of confusion and disorientation as much as a week later. Major Tell Dramis may have believed a hazard alarm had sounded, and was quite correctly ignoring nudity issues to change into a
skintight and impact suit as fast as possible. I therefore wish to withdraw my complaint.’
Drago looked indignantly at Leveque. ‘You can’t do that!’
Leveque gave him a lazy smile. ‘It is my duty to reconsider a complaint in the light of new evidence.’
Colonel Torrek beamed at Drago and held out another set of insignia. ‘In that case, congratulations Commander. I recommend you don’t try playing games with a Threat team leader again.’
The look on Drago’s face as he accepted the insignia was too much. A quite unmilitary giggle escaped me.
‘Don’t take it so hard, Commander,’ continued Colonel Torrek. ‘Speaking from bitter personal experience of your clan, I’m sure that whatever rank you achieve, it will be impossible to keep you away from any action happening in the universe.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Drago gloomily.
Drago and Marlise left, and Mason Leveque gave the Threat team report.
‘We’ve now finished analysing the images provided by the History team. Feeding that data into our main statistical model, brings our current threat assessment down from 61 to 53 per cent.’
Colonel Torrek was obviously pleased to hear this, but I was just bewildered. ‘Really? I don’t see how it did that.’
Mason Leveque laughed. ‘The threat assessment is the product of combining multiple weighted probability zonal nets, Jarra. One of those probability zones relates to the possibility the aliens have visited Earth before, and the image analysis has lowered the probability of them being hostile in that scenario. That brings the overall threat assessment down to 53 per cent.’
He paused. ‘It’s now going to stay at that figure until one of three things happens. We find a way to communicate with the sphere, it does something unexpected, or we get a solar storm. If we get through a significant solar storm with no reaction from the sphere, threat assessment goes down to 38 per cent.’
‘I like the sound of 38,’ said Colonel Torrek, ‘but I’d prefer a way to communicate with the sphere.’
He turned to me and Fian. ‘Since the History team has completed its work, you’re now officially on civilian sabbatical status and can return to your class. We’ll send you regular status updates, and if you have any more ideas then contact me immediately. We’re running desperately short of things to try, and I want to hear any suggestions anyone has, however silly they seem.’
‘Yes, sir.’ I nodded at Fian, and we both stood and saluted. ‘Goodbye, sirs.’
‘We’ll meet again whatever happens,’ said Colonel Torrek. ‘I remain your commanding officer, and once the Alien Contact programme stands down I’ll discuss your future with you. I’ve created an administrative problem by promoting you when you haven’t been through the Military Academy, but we can fix that with an accelerated course.’
I pulled a face. ‘That hardly matters in my case, sir. I’m Handicapped and can’t have an active Military career.’
‘I understand Hospital Earth Research are working on a cure.’
I felt instant anger, the way I always did when people mentioned the research that would never do anything but torment me with false hopes, but I kept my reply calm and polite. ‘They won’t find one, sir. People have been researching this for centuries and getting nowhere.’
‘Well, we’ll discuss this properly at a later date. Good luck to both of you.’
Fian and I turned and marched out of the door. That was it. I’d had a brief glimpse of the Military life I could have had if the genetic dice had landed differently, if I’d been normal instead of the one in a thousand.
An odd thought occurred to me. If I’d been that other Jarra, gone to Military school and the Academy, I would never have been here. That other Jarra would still be studying at the Military Academy, still be a cadet, blissfully ignorant of the Alien Contact programme being active. Colonel Torrek had called me in precisely because of my Handicap.
Fian and I headed back to our quarters, went inside, and started changing into civilian clothes.
‘We can’t tell the class anything about the Alien Contact programme, or us being Military,’ said Fian. ‘We’ll obviously need to take the Military lookups with us, so we can get the status updates, but what about the impact suits and uniforms?’
I thought of Arrack San Domex, shook off my strange introspective mood and grinned. ‘We’d better leave the impact suits here, but we’ll take the uniforms with us. The Military won’t miss them, and I have plans!’
14
When we arrived back at our class dig site dome, everything felt oddly small. We dutifully put our palms on the portal room check-in plate to sign in, and headed for our room with our trail of hover luggage following us. The walls of the corridor seemed to close in around me.
‘Has this place shrunk in the last few weeks?’ I asked.
Fian laughed. ‘I was thinking the same thing. The domes at Zulu base were much larger.’ He opened the door to his half of our room, and looked warily inside. ‘They haven’t put the wall back yet. Zan!’
Even with our two rooms opened up into one, this was nothing like the size of our accommodation back at the base. It had no private bathroom, no food dispenser, and there’d be no cheese fluffle for breakfast now. I allowed myself a single sigh of regret for past luxuries.
‘Shall we go and say hello before unpacking?’ I asked. ‘It’s 20:00 hours here, so everyone will be in the dining hall.’
Fian nodded.
I nervously checked my reflection in the mirror, which was, of course, a mere fraction of the size of the one back in our joint officer accommodation.
‘It’s all right,’ said Fian, watching me with amusement. ‘You haven’t got the word “Major” tattooed on your forehead. Do you have any advice for me?’
I looked at him in bewilderment. ‘What about?’
‘Well, you’ve got previous experience of this sort of thing. A few months ago, you were a civilian and pretending you had a Military background. Now you’ve just swapped around to being Military and pretending you’re a civilian.’
I giggled, and the strangeness of being back suddenly vanished. Major Jarra Tell Morrath had just been a dream. I was back in the real world, the sensible world, where I was just a student on the University Asgard Pre-history Foundation course. ‘Let’s go and find everyone.’
We headed to the hall and found the old familiar evening scene. A few of the class were still sitting at tables and eating. Others were lounging on cushions, backs leaning against the grey flexiplas walls, chattering away while half listening to Dalmora singing and playing her reproduction of a twentieth-century guitar. As we entered the room, there were yells from all around, and everyone leapt up to greet us.
‘You’ve been away ages,’ complained Krath. ‘Where have you been? You couldn’t have left Earth so …’
‘No, Krath!’ said Amalie. ‘Remember what Playdon told you. No being nosy!’
She turned to me and Fian. ‘Krath kept coming up with more and more incredible theories about where you’d gone and why, until Playdon gave him a lecture on his fellow students’ right to privacy.’
I wondered if any of Krath’s theories had included aliens, and bit my lip to stop myself laughing. Fian and I had been prepared for questions from the class of course, and had agreed what to say. Fian said it.
‘I don’t really want to explain a lot of personal details about a family problem.’
Krath sighed but seemed to accept that, at least for now. ‘It hasn’t been the same without Jarra knowing absolutely everything about everything. We’ve had to answer all the difficult questions ourselves!’
At the start of the year, I’d been busily parading my knowledge at everyone, desperate to show my hated exo classmates that I was better at everything than they were. I suddenly realized that desperation had been more about proving things to myself than to them, and I’d felt it all my life, but I didn’t any longer. I’d never been good at understanding the emotional stuff inside my own hea
d, so I wasn’t sure what had changed or why, but it felt a huge relief to be free of that pressure.
‘I knew a lot about New York and excavation work because of all the trips with my school history club,’ I said. ‘You’ll know more about Eden than I do, because you’ve been working on the ruins for the last few weeks. My history club never came here because it’s too dangerous for school parties and amateurs, and I only had a couple of lessons about Eden at school as part of the preparations for when we went to visit Ark.’
‘If you’ve already been to Ark, Jarra, you’ll be able to tell us what it’s like there,’ said Dalmora. ‘Will Fian be coming to Ark with us as well?’
‘Of course I’m going to Ark,’ said Fian, ‘but you aren’t. You’ll all be going home for a few days.’
Lecturer Playdon appeared and the class made way to let him through. ‘I was expecting Lolia and Lolmack to evacuate to Ark to be with their daughter, but I was surprised to find the whole of team 1 is coming as well.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘I’ve been unable to talk them out of it.’
I was confused. ‘But why?’
‘I don’t want to go home,’ said Krath. ‘My dumb dad did a programme for his nardle conspiracy vid channel, Truth Against Oppression, claiming the Solar 5 crash was a fake to generate publicity for the Military.’
He waved his arms in frustration. ‘How could he do that? I was there myself! Well, nearly there. I was there soon afterwards anyway, and I saw the crash site and know it was genuine. I told him how you nearly got killed, Jarra, and he actually said we could do with a few less apes to feed. Well, when he said that, I told him he could …’
He glanced at Playdon and decided not to risk the next few words. I think we could all fill them in for ourselves.
‘So, anyway,’ he continued more calmly. ‘I’m going to Ark instead.’
I was strongly in favour of Krath thinking for himself and standing up to his idiot father, but I wished he wasn’t doing it by going to Ark. I thought of that sphere in geostationary orbit, somewhere uncomfortably close to being right over our heads, and turned to look at Amalie and Dalmora.