Jacob Nyles:
((We should remain in the fighter)) Esplin warned.
I stared at the atmospheric reading, "This atmosphere is breathable though."
((Barely)) Esplin muttered darkly.
((Our best chance of leaving this planet is to stay with the fighter)) Esplin argued.
"You mean, recapture," I snarled.
Esplin subsided into angry thoughts shot in my direction, but said nothing else.
I popped the seals on the hatch, and grayish vapors slowly seeped into the cockpit. At first, my lungs felt like they were on fire, but after the first hour, the feeling began to dissipate.
"See? All better now," I said smugly. Esplin ignored me.
I held the dracon beam, and climbed out of the crashed fighter. This planet was… misty. I felt like I was walking through a cloud. The ground was covered in some sort of gray lichen… except, it moved, without a breeze. For some reason, that put me on edge… and I began to remember a Star Trek episode I'd seen, which seemed eerily similar to my circumstances, except I didn't have any red shirts for the giant alien yeti to throw spears at. Just me.
Esplin 1894:
We should not have left the ship. We had water. We had food. We had air. Without the fighter's sensors, we didn't know what was here. The presence of the organic growth indicated an ecosystem of some kind. Without knowing more about that system, how could we exploit it?
((You really don't let up, do you?)) Jacob thought snidely.
I ignored the monkey.
((I mean, five minutes on a new planet, and already you're figuring out how to conquer it)) Jacob continued bitterly.
((At least be reasonable. Our survival is the top priority)) I said forcefully.
"Well, yeah," Jacob said, rolling our eyes. Our ears perceived the trickle of water nearby, though in this thick mist, sound was distorted strangely.
The attack came from the left.
Jacob Nyles:
Pain. On my face. Mother fuc—!
I staggered away from the claws, and raised the dracon beam, blood getting in my eyes, fouling my aim. I saw movement, and fired at it. Something screamed like Godzilla, and now there was pain, in my belly. I fired some more, leaving red after-images on my retinas…
Then it was gone.
((The fighter. Now!)) Esplin demanded, terrified.
I didn't argue. Where was the fighter? I retraced my steps, trying to see through the mist, and the blood.
((Farther left, I think)) Esplin said frantically.
Really? My head felt sluggish, and my limbs kept getting heavier. What was wrong with me—
((Jacob hurry)) Esplin pleaded, ((Concentrate! Left foot. Right foot))
Bossy… there were noises behind me, I thought.
((Ignore that. See the fighter? It's a little to our left. Focus!)) Esplin snarled.
Shut up. I could still see… I saw the wreck, and the open hatch.
I climbed up the ship.
((Where is the dracon beam? Did you drop it?)) Esplin demanded.
I frowned, trying to remember.
((The hatch. Get inside)) Esplin interrupted.
I misjudged the distance, and fell through the hatch. My face hurt… and the deck was cold.
((CLOSE THE DOOR!)) Esplin screamed. Something bit my leg. I kicked, and the teeth vanished. I blindly found the handle of the hatch, and pulled it shut, with a reassuring click. Then I slept for a really long time.
Esplin 1894:
Less than ten minutes on an alien world, and Jacob almost killed us. I could feel the toxin pumping through the human's body, but the enhancements to his immune system should be enough to counteract the damage… eventually. Until then, I'll have to put up with his coma. He was a blank wall to me right now. I reviewed the fleeting memories I had, through Jacob, of the attack, but most of it had occurred out of sight, frustrating my efforts. Eventually, I gave up on it, and tried to find other things to do... it was a very long thirty-nine hours.
Jacob Nyles:
I woke up, just enough, to know that I hurt. A lot. I explored my injuries, although that made me black out a couple times when I touched something I should not have. I also ignored Esplin's complaints and nagging. Something had clawed my face to the bone. (And yes, I did feel bone).
Another thing, (or maybe the same thing), had left a few teeth marks in my right leg. Those weren't as deep, but they hurt.
The worst injury though, was the damned puncture in my belly… or the poison.
Mostly, I slept. I ate ration pellets when I was awake, and drank water too. This worked for about a week. Then the water ran out. By then, I was awake almost as much as I was asleep though.
"Thirsty…" I mumbled.
((You drank it all)) Esplin said sullenly.
"Not, all," I argued.
((Yes. All of it is gone)) Esplin snapped.
"Damn," I realized.
There was silence in my head for a while.
((We have to repair the waste recycling system)) Esplin nagged again.
((I'm not nagging. You're being stupid)) Esplin growled.
That meant sitting up… and moving… and work.
((No work, no water)) Esplin said condescendingly.
Bitch.
Esplin 1894:
Jacob complained the entire time I walked him through the repairs, and took long breaks just to annoy me… but eventually, after 18 hours without water, Jacob stopped being petty, and actually began to seriously apply himself to the situation. Motivated by the increasing thirst, and not by any newfound maturity.
((You know I can hear you, right?)) Jacob complained, trying to realign the interface between the emergency generator and the purification filters, as I had shown him.
((This would be easier if you let me do it)) I pointed out again.
"And what's to keep you from making a damned transmitter?" Jacob growled.
((The long range beacon is part of the Z-space drive. Without the drive, we have no long-range communication)) I repeated, again.
He was actually worried I might regain control, if he let me do too much. Without any better ideas, it was the only action I could think of to save myself.
"You're not very bright," Jacob grunted, "Even if you do get us recaptured, I doubt your superiors will be happy to see you… I mean, I did cripple a pool ship…"
Jacob's words made me uneasy, but I refused to accept them. What else was there? Be a prisoner to a monkey? No, my superiors would realize that the project still had merit, it just had some… flaws… to fix. I was still valuable, I could make the project work.
"You kept meticulous records. You were never innovating anything. You just connected the dots with Esplin 469's memories… and the research data wasn't destroyed, like last time," Jacob pointed out, in a peculiarly perceptive mood.
((What are you saying?)) I hissed, knowing full well what he was getting at.
"You're expendable. They can get someone else to do this work. Someone older, and more experienced."
It was true, by Jacobs reckoning of time, he was older than me by several years, but unlike humans, Yeerks have no "infancy." We are fully formed young adults upon our births. We also have no true life span. Until we choose to reproduce, and die, we could conceivably live a very long time, with the Kandrona regenerating our cells every three days…
"Besides, they'll want a scapegoat… and for all the merits of the Kandrona implant, something you did, among all these modifications strengthened my control, as well as my body… which unless they want to wade through seven or eight years of further testing, they'll probably just scrap the project, and try cloning hork-bajir again…" Jacob muttered.
The precursor to the kandrona project had been the cloning of Hork-bajir… but the creators of the Hork-bajir, a race of winged humanoids, had been masters of genetic engineering. They had modified their own bodies, to make it impossible for us to enslave them without killing them… so we simply killed them. More to the point, since none of the Arn still lived, we didn't have any knowledge of how to counteract the safeguards implanted in the Hork-bajir's genetic structure. Every attempt to clone them had met in failure, with twisted, broken creatures that were beyond useless. The Arn had not wanted anyone to interfere or duplicate their art.
We could clone Gedds, Taxxons, and even humans… but such a process was long, and it was far quicker to simply seize the host bodies. Besides, we had no use for more Gedds or Taxons, and humans grew too slowly, taking almost eighteen years to become useful. No one wanted more Taxxons either, which bred extremely rapidly… because they were fairly useless.
"I think I got it," Jacob said, distracting me from my thoughts. To my surprise, he had indeed succeeded, following my instructions almost precisely. With a muted whirr, something came to life beneath the deck plates of the cockpit.
"How long before we get drinkable water?" Jacob asked, the back of our throat dry.
((About an hour)) I said reluctantly.
So we waited.
Jacob Nyles:
((What are you doing?)) Esplin asked. I ignored it, sharpening the long piece of metal I'd snapped off the ruined rear of the ship yesterday (after considerable leverage and effort was applied). It was about half a meter long, three or four centimeters wide, and a centimeter thick. I wrapped one end in strips of cloth, taken from my flight suit.
((A sword. That is your solution?)) Esplin sneered.
I continued to ignore the parasite, and sharpen the metal against the harder material of the reactor shielding. The sound grated on my hearing, but I was seeing visible results with every tenth pass. The blade was crooked, since this metal had once contoured, as part of the hull… but crooked or not, I was sure having something sharp could not be a bad thing, when hell-monsters in the mist were concerned. Especially because I hadn't seen the Dracon beam during my quick excursion. Underneath Esplin's derision, I did sense it's fear. It wanted the Dracon too… and the only way to find it, was to go look for it… but without a weapon of some kind, that would be suicide.
((It's been almost a month since we lost the weapon. It might not even be operational after all this time)) Esplin said, worried. I felt a twinge in my belly, and ignored the old wound. It had mostly healed… but the repaired muscles were still a bit weak and twitchy sometimes, prone to cramping.
((There's no point to even leave the fighter, we have everything we need here)) Esplin continued, with increasing fear as it caught the drift of my thoughts.
"I'm not going to just sit here, and cower for the rest of my life. Besides, we only have enough rations for another month. Going to have to find some sort of food in Jurassic Park, out there," I said.
((Without the sensors though—!)) Esplin started to protest, before I tuned it out. When it came down to it, Yeerks were cowards. Opportunistic, aggressive… but ultimately unwilling to risk anything without a fairly strong certainty of success.
((Practicality is not cowardice)) Esplin said sullenly.
"Making a weapon to look for food, that is practicality. Sitting in this prison, hoping to be rescued before the food runs out… that is cowardice," I said forcefully, giving the emerging blade another pass.
Esplin 1894:
Jacob was an idiot. How did he think that a piece of sharp metal was going to be effective against these unknown monsters? We didn't even know what they looked like. The modifications made Jacob stronger than a human, but we were not "Superman" as Jacob liked to think. At most, we were 50% percent stronger than a human of similar size and build. No more. Jacob swung the clumsy blade in our hand, testing its balance, before scrambling out of the hatch, and into the mist. Cautiously, Jacob advanced, along the path we had first wandered. Visibility was only three meters. Something snorted in the mist, and Jacob crouched, holding the blade in his right hand, cocked over our left shoulder, ready for a cross-body diagonal downward slash. It would capitalize on our strength, and speed… the snorting continued, and a creature shuffled into view.
Jacob thought it looked like a sea urchin and a lizard had "got it on."
The creature's body was round, with half-meter spines protruding in every direction. Six thin lizard-like legs emerged from underneath the spines at equal intervals, and propelled the strange two-meter long creature along. From beneath the body, a lizard head was busy eating the mobile lichen, oblivious to its surroundings… no doubt trusting to the serrated spines to protect it.
The creature froze, and hunkered down, drawing its legs in like a turtle. Jacob warily looked around, in case the creature had not been reacting to our presence. There was the faint brush of flesh on stone, to our right, before a creature jumped at us, from its hidden perch. Jacob yelled, and swung the blade. Serrated mandibles flashed inches from our face, and then there was hot liquid on our flightsuit. The creature looked like a cross between a crab and a spider, with six thick, armored legs, and a mouth of serrated teeth that opened and closed sideways. Two spider-like mandibles curled over the inner teeth, and glistened with fluid. It was only a meter long, and Jacob had nearly cut it in half.
((Look out!)) I screamed, but Jacob was already turning, slapping another of the crab spiders from the air behind him, and stabbed the blade through the pinned creature's body, before whipping the sword through the air, which tore the creature free, and sent it flying at the immobile lizard-urchin. The urchin's spines neatly impaled the creature, spitting it like a bug.
More of the predators appeared from the mist, shooting at us with mindless abandon. Jacob was calling them Hell-spiders, and he refused to run. What frightened me though, was that these were not the creatures that had harmed us. They were too small, too weak… and we had been poisoned by a sting similar to a scorpion, not bitten.
A Hell spider suddenly froze in midair, writhing… on the point of a stinger. We had found our attacker. The creature ambled into view. It was easily twice the length of the bug fighter, shaped like a massive caterpillar, with tentacles emerging every half meter… and the ends of those six meter tentacles carried a wicked hooked stinger. The lizard-urchin immediately rose, and scooted closer to the caterpillar. The hell-spiders retreated. We also retreated, having experienced the venom once… and Jacob caught sight of more urchins trailing behind the caterpillar, before we were too far to see anything in the mist.
We were turned around in the mist, but eventually, after my initial panic eased somewhat, I did recognize a rock formation we had passed earlier, and we found safety.
Jacob Nyles:
"We know more now than we did," I pointed out. Esplin was still hyperventilating in the back of my head. It was a control thing, I think. It was forced to sit and watch, and hope I didn't kill us. If it had been with me, in a second body, and we had been forced to cooperate, I doubt it would be quite so fearful.
((Because I would stay with the ship)) Esplin muttered darkly.
"Okay. Urchins stick close to caterpillars," I observed.
((And are defensive, not aggressive)) Esplin added.
"Right, so I guess the caterpillar is also defensively aggressive, dealing with threats to the herd?" I guessed.
Esplin shrugged in my head. She was a xeno-geneticist, not a xeno-biologist or zoologist.
I didn't like that the tentacles were longer than our range of vision. It could hit us before we knew to back away.
"So long as we steer clear of urchins, we should be fine," I summarized.
((And hope the Hell-spiders don't ambush us)) Esplin grumbled.
((()))
Upon closer inspection, the lichen proved to not be plant based at all. It was actually some sort of worm colony… and even after getting cooked, gave me the runny shits for nearly a week, as well as muscle cramping, and dizziness.
With only three weeks of rations left, Esplin and I turned to riskier venue. Fortunately, Hell-spiders were edible… but tasted like burnt rubber.
((You've never eaten burnt rubber)) Esplin pointed out.
"But I've smelled it before, and that taste gets stuck in the back of your throat," I argued, carefully dissecting the Hell-spider carcass, avoiding the poisonous bits.
((()))
((How long do you reckon we've been here?)) I wondered, ripping up a handful of lichen ever three steps, as trail markers.
((Does it matter?)) Esplin asked, focused intently on my senses, on edge, as always, whenever we left the ship.
((I mean, it's been at least three months, do you think the Yeerks are still looking for us?)) I wondered. This Robinson Crusoe bit was better than execution, or enslavement, but I was considering more… radical… plans for our future… most of which involved bogus signals, and hijacking any ship that investigated… but most of those were simply fantasies, since our Z-space drive was somewhere in orbit. Naturally, this was when I stepped on something, and a blinding red flash burned at my eyes.
I couldn't believe it. After a month of searching, we hadn't been able to find the lost Dracon beam… but now, long after giving up the search, I found it by accident? And almost vaporized our foot?
((Just lucky, I guess)) I observed shakily, staring at the missing rock formation, which could have easily been our foot.
((Luck… another of your superstitions… as if certain individuals had a nebulous ability to affect probability around them… which is absurd)) Esplin sneered, but I could tell how shaken it was. I checked the charge on the weapon… it was nearly depleted.
((We should retreat. The energy discharge has no doubt attracted things to the area)) Esplin urged. For once, I didn't argue… but we could feel the ponderous vibrations of something large approaching. I broke into a dead sprint, following our trail markers back to the ship… I could take on raptors, but a T-Rex? Nope, not happening. Unfortunately, upon reaching the fighter, it became apparent it wasn't a T-rex following us…
Esplin 1894:
((Skrit Na. They probably detected the bug fighter)) I told Jacob.
The saucer shaped craft easily dwarfed our wrecked bug fighter, the downdraft from the engines forcing the mist away, creating nearly fifty meters of clear visibility, which we crouched at the edge of, and Jacob's thoughts were turned to images of alien movies he'd seen as a child.
"Suggestions?" Jacob asked tensely, as a tractor beam activated, and the main cargo-hold opened up like a… mouth.
((Skrit Na are compulsive hoarders. If they see you, they'll try to capture you, to take you to some zoo on their homeworld)) I told him quickly.
"So stay out of sight," Jacob answered.
((No. Let them see you, and we'll escape once we're onboard. We're out of time for anything complicated)) I said, worried.
Jacob hesitated for a moment, but he trusted my judgment, "Alright… but if this doesn't work, it's all your fault," Jacob half joked, tight with tension.
((Now or never)) I prompted.
"Shit," Jacob sighed, then raised the dracon beam in his hand, and fired, the low powered weapon barely singed the gray paint on the wildly blinking ship's hull. A high powered flood-light snapped on, illuminating Jacob. He tossed his weapon aside, it was empty anyway, and raised his hands.
One of the three underpowered weapons ports glowed green, but did not fire. The tractor beam finished drawing up the bug fighter, and the giant saucer coasted towards us, until it was overhead. The tractor beam covered us a moment later, and drew us up into the hold.
One of the Na was standing nearby, with an old model dracon beam in one grey hand. It looked exactly like "Grays" from Jacob's alien movies. Short, big heads with big black eyes, small mouths, long arms and legs… I was inclined to agree with Jacob, comparing his mental image to the Na, that the similarities were rather startling. I'd never seen one in person before. The Na gibbered in badly accented galard, and raised its weapon, shooting us without preamble.
((Oww….)) Jacob complained.
((Go limp. Pretend you're stunned)) I hissed to him. Jacob complied. We were still trapped in the tractor beam. Until they deactivated it, we were helpless.
((When the tractor beam deactivates, we need to move quickly, you'll have three seconds before they can power it back up. Get the Na's dracon beam, and get out of the room, there should be a door to your left)) I quickly advised, thinking furiously. We would need to get to the bridge…
I felt the tingles of the beam fade, and Jacob slumped to the ground, boneless. Jacob used his hearing as the Na approached, and kicked us lightly, apparently satisfied that we were unconscious.
Jacob was coiled though, like a spring. As soon as the Na began to turn, Jacob's eyes flashed open, and he surged up, snatching the Dracon beam, and backhanded the diminutive alien across the hold.
He scrambled across the hold, littered with junk, and around our crashed bug fighter, blasting through the small hatch into the next compartment, ignoring the drips of molten metal that landed on our clothing. I tried to remember the layout of a Skrit Na raider, but I… hadn't paid much attention to those lessons.
"You were daydreaming?" Jacob asked incredulously. I ignored the human in embarrassment.
((There, the ladder, take it to the first deck, which has the living quarters, and the bridge)) I interrupted, distracting Jacob's train of thought.
"Got it."
A large, insect-like Skrit (the "immature" version of the Na) bustled towards us. Jacob panicked, and snapped his weapon up to fire.
((Stop, they're harmless, and we need them to run the ship!)) I said quickly. Jacob lowered the weapon, reluctantly. Jacob was afraid of insects?
((Spiders)) he corrected me, ((or anything with way too many legs and an exoskeleton)) Jacob squeezed against the opposite wall of the small corridor, until the Skrit passed us. Jacob fought down a shudder, and kept moving. He tapped the access pad that would open the hatch to the ladder, but it flashed at him, and blipped in denial.
"Did they lock the hatch?" Jacob asked.
((Yes, I need your hands for a minute)) I said.
"Do it," Jacob said. And for a minute, I had control of his arms, and he obligingly looked wherever I told him to. I wallowed in that sensation; ordering bundles of muscles to move, and feeling them do so. I had the panel off the lock, and the entire node rewired in forty seconds. From there I isolated the lock and had it open in less than fifteen seconds.
"Thanks," Jacob said, and I was simply an observer once more.
We reached the bridge, and found the hatch was once again locked.
Jacob let me fiddle with the lock, but the Na had already isolated the command pathway, rerouting the commands deeper, were I couldn't get at them without actual tools.
((We're going to have to cut through)) I said grimly.
"They've busted the lock, huh. Time for the door opener," Jacob agreed, raising the old dracon beam.
((Change the weapon power setting from level 3 to level 8, and adjust the beam width from one point four centimeters to seven millimeters. An inverted triangle pattern would be best)) I instructed, and my reluctant accomplice listened raptly.
"Knock-knock," he said viciously, and squinted his eyes from the intense red light.
((Knock-knock indeed, more like boom-boom)) I said, snidely. Jacob finished his triangle, returned the weapon to its original settings, and kicked the metal triangle out. I had expected the Na to open fire, and I wasn't disappointed. Their aim left something to be desired though. Jacob snap fired, hitting one of the Na, leaving only one still standing in the cockpit. "This is on stun, right?" he belatedly asked.
((Why? Having second thoughts?)) I sneered.
"No, but how familiar are your with this type of craft?" Jacob pointed out.
((Point taken. Yes, the weapon is set to "heavy" stun, unless you hit their head. Then they will most likely be brain dead)) I answered.
"Okay." Jacob replied, and popped up again, shooting the last Na in the chest.
((Let me access the bridge controls)) I said anxiously.
"Access away," Jacob said, letting go of his arms. He still couldn't let me control his head, but letting me use his arms had grown common place to him.
I quickly hacked into the ancient computer system the Skrit Na were using on this relic. It was at least thirty years old, from a scrapped Ongachic freight tug. Within minutes, I had all of the command functions rerouted, and keyed to Jacob's voice and biometrics. The Skrit Na were essentially locked out of their own computer.
"What have you done, human?!" a Na stood in the compromised hatch, a large welt rising on his head, and a dracon beam in his trembling hand.
((Let me speak for you)) I hissed. Jacob hesitated, but then I felt him relax the barriers around his speech centers.
"No, what have you done, Skrit Na? Do you have any idea who I am?" I let the cold steel of a Visser creep into Jacob's voice.
"I am Visser 43. If you do not cooperate, I will seize this ship, and you will be… entertained… by the Yeerk Empire." Best not claim too high a rank…
If possible, the Na's face grew even paler.
"My, my apologies, Yeerk-friend, the captain did not know, the fighter was so damaged… it could not be identified," the Na stammered.
((Na are also compulsive liars, and quick to shift blame to others)) I told Jacob. He mentally nodded.
"What is your rank on this ship?" I demanded through Jacob's mouth.
"I am third of three," the Na answered.
"Your captain has wronged me. I hold him responsible, as well as his second in command. I am captain now, and you are my first officer," I proclaimed.
"I… I am second of three?" the obviously young Na questioned, stunned.
"No. You are second of four," I answered.
"What are your orders… captain?" the Na asked. I gestured imperiously at the two unconscious Na at my feet, "Secure them in the cage they would have put me in, first officer."
"Yes sir," the Na bobbed, bowing profusely.
I turned my back on him, confident that he was still too awed by his promotion to think of attacking me.
The shot hit Jacob right between the shoulder blades, pitching us forward into the controls. "Yeerk-friend is foolish. I was not third of three, I was first of three. I am captain."
The Na fired again, hitting Jacob in the kidney, before he could recover from the first, higher level setting blast.
Skrit Na always lie… I thought, chagrined. Jacob was past such things, even his improved resistance to energy weapons had their limits, which we had just reached.
