On Mars Pathfinder (The Mike Lane Stories Book 1) (41 page)

Mike just nodded his head each time she made a particular point. He seemed nonplussed by anything she was saying.
Okay, a cool customer for sure then
.

The True-Bloods made contact at a time that coincided with the Bsirutaeben ramping up their own genetic experiments on humans. Theirs were not voluntary subjects where the Eben test partners all volunteered.”

Mike furrowed his eyebrows, “The Seer-ROO-Tay-Ben?”

“Yes,” she continued, “they are the Voiya and the Vesh-na and the Tree-la and their drones. I believe my Mother briefed you on them?” Mike changed his face to an expression of understanding and nodded his head.

“They are collectively referred to as the Bsirutaeben.”

“Fraking Tantaloids,” her sister chimed in sotto voce.

“Yes, technically the Voiya are physically Tantaloids. The Bsirutaeben had a relationship with the American government for a number of years. There were problems, it wasn’t smooth. The relationship abruptly ended after a bloody massacre at an underground base in the New Mexico desert.”

“At Dulce?” He asked.

She was surprised he knew this. The Dossier was right. She nodded and continued. “Thirty years ago we, the Hybrid base and the American government representing Earth, reached a détente with the Bsirutaeben after that incident. We signed a détente agreement. The highpoints of this agreement were that the Bsirutaeben would no longer involve themselves in human abductions or animal mutilations. Instead, every two Earth weeks we provide them with 20 kg of living organic material to experiment on.”

Mike almost spit out the tea in his mouth, “YOU WHAT??” he almost came out of this chair. Both women were instantly on their feet. Hlef’s right hand suddenly held her sidearm, and she didn’t even spill a drop of the tea in her cup, which was still in her left hand. Achael, diplomatically, did not reach for her sidearm.

“Mike, we are against human testing without consent. We do not support it and would never engage in it. It’s not the Eben way. The Bsirutaeben are provided with organic, biological material by the American government. I know only that it is sourced humanely, but not what those sources are. I can assure you that there are never any living creatures provided, human or otherwise. I know that because I am one of the couriers.”

“Me too,” chimed in Hlef, re-holstering her weapon and sitting down again, sipping at her tea.

Mike sat as well, but he looked pissed. All he said was, “Go on.”

Achael sat down and continued, “There are some concerns at present that the Voiya are sourcing living subjects from other parts of the world. We can’t prove it yet, but there are some indications of this.” This was all a lie fed to them by Gilda, but Achael didn’t know that. She continued, “As well, they are an ever-present threat here on Mars. We don’t like them having their base here, we don’t like them in this solar system, and we certainly don’t like them interacting with those on Earth. There is always the risk one of your tribal governments will strike some kind of deal with them. Would you really want a new Cold War to start, with space aliens?” Her eyes crinkled with a brief smile.

Mike visibly shivered at that thought, “Certainly not. I had my own encounter with these bastards as a child.”

Achael and Hlef nodded their heads, they had been made aware of this by Lt. Gen. Rosewood as well.

“So that’s the Reader’s Digest version of who and what we are. That brings us to the here and now,” said Achael.

Hlef

As she sat there and watched him, she didn’t have her usual train of thoughts about how cute someone was, about how frakable they were, or about how athletic they seemed. This guy was obviously older than you would expect, but he was ruggedly handsome, even if he was a bit dumpy. He wasn’t very GQ, but he did have a boyish charm about him. She lingered over the thought that he looked very manly, very capable.

As she watched him, she had at first a fluttering, then a stirring in her chest. The surprising thoughts that came to her mind were: ‘I could rely on this guy’;‘he would be a stand-up guy’; ‘this guy can be trusted’; and ‘This guy could be …’

Khlam

Khlam was on guard but was bored. The sisters had been inside twenty minutes. The Eridani drones were still at the 100 km mark; and Khlam was trying to get a piece of duct tape off his fingers. Pull it off with one hand then shake, pull it off the first hand with the other hand, then shake. This went on for a couple minutes before the solution dawned on him. He stuck it to the corner of the console in front of him. Khlam was liked by everyone, but he was never considered the brightest of the sibs.

Khlam sighed deeply and drummed his long fingers on his knee. He also bored easily.

He heard the radio break squelch twice over the Bluetooth headset he had on. That was Hlef giving the “OK” signal. He wanted this to go quickly. He was hungry. Dad was in town.
Let’s get this show on the road
.

Achael

She continued, “Mike, your mission was assisted for a very specific reason.”

“Ahhh,” he said. “Now we get to it.”

She smiled. “We needed to get the weapons on board the Platform here without anyone knowing. There is too much oversight and prying eyes on everything that goes on in orbit around Earth.” The platform and its weapons had been a surprise to Achael and Helf when Gilda told them. Being Eben and military, they liked it. Anything that would pound the Eridani was okay with them.

“That was rather obvious,” he replied.

“Mom wants you to use the weapons to provoke the Eridani.”

Mike

“WHAT?? SHE WANTS ME TO … WHAT??”

The gorgeous Ah-ooh-cchhale continued, “Mike, we need to rid this solar system of the Eridani. They are a threat to Earth and to humanity. They will aggressively stop any off world expansion so that you don’t challenge their dominion in this arm of the galaxy.”

This arm of the galaxy? They were worried that those freakish things were going to be worried about humans? Wow.

She continued, “Mike, we are in a precarious position with the Eridani, the Bsirutaeben. If we just go in and pound them to oblivion, something we can easily do, then we will risk the retaliation of the entire Eridani Dominion, as well as the Ousoon.”

“The out who?” I was confused.

“The Ousoon are another race that are aligned with the Eridani. They are just as bad as the Eridani.”

Too many names, “The Eridani, they are the Seer-ROO-Tay-Ben?”?”

“Yes.”

“So you want rid of the Eridani, but you are afraid of the Ousoons?”

Hlef came out of her chair planting fists on the table, “We’re afraid of NO ONE!”

“Yes, we are afraid of no one,” Achael agreed. “However, we aren’t in the mood for an all-out battle on multiple fronts at this point in time. If we go to war here, they may also attack our homeworld, and other outposts. While we can defeat them in the end, it will cost us heavily in lives and resources. We prefer not to go that route when there is another way.”

I was even more confused than before they arrived. “So where does that bring me in?”

Achael and Hlef relaxed in their chairs and looked at each other. Achael turned towards me and continued, “As I said, Mom wants you to provoke them.”

Hlef

She watched his face as Achael dropped that little bomb on him a second time. She felt something new, something she hadn’t felt before.
This must be pity
. She had never felt pity before. She recognized the position this man was in. By the look on his face, this little bit of news had obviously affected him. A very strange feeling came over her with the new sense of pity.

She wanted to comfort him.

She had never wanted to comfort anyone except her sibs before. She realized she was changing and becoming someone new. That little meltdown on Earth had been the start. She finally understood
fiat familias supremus.

Achael

She felt bad for him. She could see his face running through some complex thoughts, and she had a good idea what they were.

“If I provoke them, they will kill me. Do you not remember what happened last night?”

“There is some … risk …” Achael began.

“
Some
risk?” he snorted.

“We aren’t going to hang you out to dry Mike. Mom wants us to work out a plan with you. We are going to support you and be there to defend you when necessary. We have claimed you for protection, but luckily under the terms of the détente, it’s a one-way relationship. What they do to you, they do to us; but what you do to them, you do on your own. It’s complex, but the treaty was written by the Ousoons, who are to legalism, what oxygen is to life.”

The human stared at her. Finally, he spoke, “So what is it you want me to do?”

Khlam

He knew better than to break radio silence, but he was getting more agitated. The Eridani scout ships had moved in closer, they were at 80 km range. He was about to raise the alarm, when they stopped moving and held position at that distance.

Khlam decided to move the Dart around to the north side of the human’s growing complex of equipment, and pointed it right at them. He didn’t do anything provocative, but he let them know they were being watched.

A few minutes later they withdrew to the 100 km mark. “Hmpph, that’s strange” he said out loud. He keyed the transmit button on his COM unit. “Hey, Giggles,” that was Hlef’s nickname, “something’s up with the drones. Shake a leg will ya?”

Hlef

She didn’t react visibly to the radio message which only she and Achael could hear in their one-ear headsets. They did glance at each other, but left it at that. Hlef reached to the COM unit on her wrist, and broke squelch one time, the acknowledgement signal.

If the drones were acting up, they were acting up because of the hybrids’ presence. The last thing they wanted from this visit was a shooting war, but a shooting war the drones would indeed get if they wanted one. Hlef stood up and walked to the North side portal, looking towards the distant ice field. She leaned close to the window and looked one way, then the other.

She heard Mike ask her, “Everything okay?”

“Nothing we can’t handle, Sweetie.”

Mike

Nice. I don’t like being kept in the dark. I was about to go look out the window as well, but then realized these were the Pros from Dover. There was absolutely nothing I had to offer at the moment, so I just sat there.

The hot one’s hot sister continued, “Mike, Mom needs you to provoke them into attacking your colony site. If you can do that, then they will have broken the terms of the détente. If that happens, then the Ousoons will not join in the retaliation, and there is a slight chance that the Eridani Dominion may not come to their aid.”

“A very slight chance,” confirmed the hot one with the curly brown hair.

“Use your handheld laser rifle to fire at them, which should get them to fire on you. Then rain hell down on them. We will plan this so that we are nearby. If we get the timing right, then we can come in and pick you up before they kill you.”

“That’s a mighty big
‘IF
’” I said to her. I thought about it for a minute. The one called Achael kept silent while I went through it in my mind. Finally, I looked up at her and asked, “What if I refuse?”

The two women looked at each other. The sister came back and sat down at the table, and both of them looked very serious. Achael then put all the cards on the table, “If you refuse then your corporation will suddenly find it extremely difficult to get a paper clip off the ground, let alone any future missions to Mars.”

The shoe dropped.

Khlam

A few minutes after returning to their original 100 km position, the Eridani scout ships, all piloted by the grotesque little drones, did something very unexpected. They all left.

Khlam stared at the monitor and ran a diagnostic to make sure there was nothing wrong with the equipment. They didn’t cloak, they didn’t suddenly disappear. They all rose up about 1,500 metres, and headed bearing 252 towards the Eridani base: all five of them.

This couldn’t be good. But then again, this wasn’t a known Eridani battle tactic either. They never let their drones retreat. They would destroy them in place along with the target rather than let them withdraw.

He keyed up the Hybrid base on the COM unit to confirm they were seeing what he was seeing. They confirmed it. Strange, very strange.

Khlam keyed the COM channel for his sisters, “Oy! Enough with the poodles already! Shit’s happening out here.”

Hlef

Both women looked startled at the same time. Hlef touched her forearm controller and said, as Mike looked quizzically at her, “‘Sup Khlam?” She smiled and pulled back the hair over her right ear, revealing the Bluetooth headset.

“The drones just cleared out of Dodge.”