The young man’s face filled the monitor in the Colonial Administration briefing room. At the end of the table nearest the monitor sat Liana Allen, the Executive Aide of the colony, a young woman with shiny black hair much like Tia’s, pulled back into a single braid. Merrill Swift, the head of the colony, sat at the far end of the table, and between him and Liana were the Administrative heads of the Colonial districts, as well as Nigel Patel, the Physician General, head of the Colonial Medical Corps. Merrill had taken a liking to Liana because she reminded him of Tia’s mother, who’d died some years ago from an outbreak of an exotic fever while exploring new planets.
“Everyone,” said Merrill, “this young man is the subject of this briefing. Last night, during my daughter’s birthday party, Liana and I were called away when this young man appeared—simply appeared, without a spaceship—in the Transit Bay. And that’s when our troubles started.”
Referring to the face on the monitor, Liana said, “His name is Lieutenant Jay Goodwill. His background checks out; he’s a member of Stellarforce, though some of his records are redacted, and others are classified. He was in some sort of traumatic panic when he arrived, similar to a violent psychotic break brought on by a triggered memory. It’s subsided now. He’s lucid, and he’s cooperating.”
The Physician General, a man of partially Indian descent with gray hair, added, “We compare his condition on arrival to the kind of post-traumatic stress that soldiers used to experience in the pre-Spacer wars on Earth.”
Merrill addressed Dr. Patel: “And he still has no memory of what brought him here? Or how his unusual suit, which had a Stellarforce insignia on it, came to be covered with that…slimy substance?”
“No,” replied the Doctor. “He’s suffering from retrograde amnesia about everything preceding his appearance in the Transit Bay.”
“Liana, play that back, would you?” asked Merrill.
“To recap,” said Liana, “he appeared in the Transit Bay with no advance hailing. He accessed the system with official Stellarforce codes that the system couldn't override or block.” She pressed a surface on the conference table, and the image on the monitor changed to a recorded view of the orbital Transit Bay. The Bay consisted of a low orbital platform attached to a series of metallic and luminous rings, a conduit for incoming and outgoing spacecraft, probes, and drones. There were several of them arrayed about the planet and coordinated with each other and from the ground. As the group in the briefing room watched the playback, there was a flash of light within the rings, and when it subsided, a small object floated there. The view zoomed in to reveal that it was a male human figure—the same one who had crashed Tia’s party.
Liana went on, “The Transit Bay drones took the body to Quarantine when they found that it was covered with an unknown substance. This was also when we found the Stellarforce insignia on the suit—under the material covering it.” She touched the surface on the table again, and the screen showed the figure lying on a table in a glassed-in enclosure where three members of Colonial Security in full-body hazard suits examined it with instruments. The garb of the mysterious figure was the most sleekly sophisticated spacesuit—or was it a suit of armor?—they had ever seen, and moreover a suit of a completely unfamiliar design. The suit was ribbed and piped in a way that looked organic and electronic at the same time. It reminded them at once of an array of circuits and a nervous system. But even that was not the most curious thing about it. The suit seemed to be covered with something, an unfamiliar substance that Merrill and Liana could tell even from here was not at all pleasant. It was viscous and slimy, all green and gray and brown, and seemed almost like unprocessed waste matter.
“Doctor,” asked Merrill, “what did you make of that…substance covering the spacesuit?”
Dr. Patel answered, “The gelatinous material was organic but inert. We suspect it wasn’t always inert. Before Lt. Goodwill somehow appeared without a spacecraft in the Transit Bay, we think the substance was alive and active. Perhaps it couldn’t withstand the hyperjump the way the suit seems to have allowed the Lieutenant to do. Whatever the case, the material contained DNA. We ran the sequence and found no match to any known life form, sentient or otherwise. It’s definitely alien, definitely unknown. And judging by the context of this event, there’s every reason to think that the source of this material was not friendly.”
With a hard frown and a shake of his head, Merrill said grimly, “Hostile aliens we’ve never met before. Out here on the Frontier. We knew there was a chance of this, but space has been quiet, and colonization has been uneventful for so long… Damn.”
Liana chimed in, “You’re now about to see why Dr. Patel diagnosed his condition the way he did, the post-traumatic stress. Watch.”
On the screen, the figure on the table suddenly lurched and bolted upright. Those gathered in the briefing room watched him leap from the table, hold up his hands, and issue a bolt of light that knocked one Security team member against a wall and left him crumpled on the floor. When the remaining officers fired on him, their beams splashed off the stranger’s suit like water—or, more accurately, sparkled against the suit and then disappeared into it as if absorbed by a sponge. Moving as fast as a striking snake, the mystery man took down the other two Security personnel the same as the first one, then wheeled about and faced the hatch to the quarantine room—and pointed both of his arms directly at it. From the body-suited man’s arms erupted a blinding, screaming discharge of energy that bombarded the hatch and blew it wide open. A second later, he leaped through the sparks and smokes that remained in place of the hatch and was gone.
“From there,” continued Liana, “Lt. Goodwill made his way to the Transit Bay Shuttle Deck.” Another touch of the surface on the table changed the tableau on the monitor again. “Here, he engaged more Security personnel—and took them all down.” On the screen, the man in the suit ran, leaped, ducked, and rolled down the main passage of the deck, dodging the beams of Security personnel who had poured into the place. The Security officers were perched atop and between ships and on and around fixtures in the deck, firing away at a target that proved either impossible to hit or impossible to stop when it was hit. Wherever a beam struck him, the strange suit covering the mystery man simply drank the energy as it did in the quarantine chamber. More often the fire of the Colonial personnel missed him completely and flared and sparked off pavements, walls, and the sides of parked crafts. Finally, the intruder stopped at one ship and paused in front of its hatch.
At once the Colonial forces came rushing in at him, weapons aimed. The mystery figure stood his ground and put his hand on the hatch of the ship where he had stopped. Incredibly, at his touch, the exterior and interior lights of the ship came on, signaling that the ship was powering up. The Security people rained fire at man and ship alike. Every beam fired from a Security member’s weapon struck only the space surrounding their target and his intended escape vessel and disappeared into a rippling of light as if the air were a pond and the beams were pebbles dropped into it. Not one beam connected.
The Security forces aimed and prepared to fire again, but their quarry did nothing but hold up the hand that was not touching the ship. The hand issued another, greater, rippling of light that spread out across the Shuttle Deck. Wherever the shimmering ripples swept a Security member, that person was sent flying, weapon and all, from wherever he or she was standing or perched, until everyone lay sprawled on the pavement or crumpled or draped over a fixture or a ship, and a dreadful stillness settled over the Deck.
The mystery man lowered his one hand and turned back to the hatch of the ship, and the hatch came open. The figure climbed into the ship, and the ship at once took off towards the port of the Shuttle Deck letting out into open space.
As the monitor showed the shuttle moving out from the Transit Bay and towards the arc of the planet, Liana said, “There was a Security aircycle aboard the shuttle. Once Lt. Goodwill reached the planet, he landed the shuttle and headed out on the cycle—directly towards the pavilion in Swansdown Park where Administrator Swift’s daughter’s birthday party was taking place. The rest of the story, you know.”
As the recording ended, Merrill once again addressed the physician. “Doctor, to repeat your analysis of the contamination hazard, you’re certain that there’s no danger from Lt. Goodwill bringing the unknown substance onto the surface of the planet?”
Patel responded, “We’ve done a thorough decontamination on the shuttle. We’ve sealed off the area of the pavilion in Swansdown Park, and we’re doing a decontamination on that as well. Since the material was inert, we believe the risk is minimal. The alien DNA wasn’t viral in nature and wasn’t replicating. No one is being allowed into the park for the time being, but we think there’ll be no danger.”
“Well, that’s something,” Merrill sighed. “That only leaves our ‘guest.’ He’s not presenting any further hostile behavior, but…”
“But he’s in a very restless state,” said the doctor. “Per your instructions we’ve given him gymnasium privileges. And he’s being watched carefully by Security and Medical personnel.”
Merrill said, “Liana, display the spacesuit he was wearing, if that’s what it was. Let’s have a look at it.”
Liana brought up Security footage of the Lieutenant’s empty garb, spread out on a laboratory table with the “slime” cleaned from it. She said, “The suit is made of a membrane composed of unfamiliar carbon compounds that are able to assimilate, store, and process energy, and contains a neural-net technology that creates a seamless interface between the suit and the brain and nervous system of the wearer.”
Patel added, “My examination of Lt. Goodwill himself turned up some other interesting things. His cognitive processes, senses, and reflexes have all been enhanced, possibly to make him compatible with the suit. It’s likely we hadn’t seen everything he’s capable of doing, in or out of what he was wearing when he arrived.”
“All of which seems to make him some sort of enhanced soldier,” said Merrill. “A soldier enhanced by Stellarforce technology more advanced than anything that anyone has ever heard of—in other words, secret technology. The question is, was that technology created to combat this alien force which no one has ever heard of either? I’ve put out an inquiry to Interstellar Command and the Terran Union and put a Top Priority on it. I hope the general directive to support and protect all Colonies gets us some answers. Or let me rephrase, it had better get us some answers, or I’ll take this to every channel I have access to as the head of this colony. Any outside force striking at the Union will come through us, so Earth knows what’s at stake here. And I’ll make sure they’re reminded, regardless. That will be all for now, everyone. I’ll keep you apprised.”
The other Administrators and the doctor filed out, leaving Merrill and Liana alone. Liana came from her end of the table to where Merrill now stood, watching the others leave. Once they were gone, Merrill faced Liana. “My daughter’s birthday party,” he said gravely. “This Lieutenant Goodwill came careening right into my daughter’s birthday party with his contaminated suit and his unknown weapons and…” He trailed off, then continued. “What if something had happened to Tia? Losing her mother was bad enough. What if my daughter had been…?”
“She wasn’t,” Liana said reassuringly. “She’s fine.”
Merrill shook his head, seeming weary. “This wasn’t the eighteenth birthday I wanted to give her. Now I have to keep her safe, and I don’t even know what I’m trying to keep her safe from.”
Liana put an arm on his shoulder. “We’ll get some answers. Then you’ll know better how to protect her.”
“I’d better,” said Merrill, his mind now turning to the last time he saw his little girl, happily watching the concert with her friends. She was eighteen years old now, facing a galaxy full of wonderful things—and things unknown for which no one including her father could prepare for.