Sector 64: First Contact: A Sector 64 Prequel Novella Read online

  Then the last detail returned.

  "That … thing. What the hell was it?" Tony paused and looked around. "And where in the hell did it go?"

  Then he realized he had more immediate issues. He was descending toward one of the region's flat-topped hills, a mesa. He'd be lucky not to tumble off the cliff at its edge. Even if he managed to stick the landing, he'd likely roll onto a damned cactus.

  Orange sunlight glinted off of something atop the mesa. Then Tony saw the light reflecting off of hundreds of shiny objects.

  "The Mustang?"

  He shook his head. No, that can't be from his plane, the pieces were flapping in the breeze. They looked more like foil than the sheet metal skin of an airplane.

  Then he saw skid marks scrawled across the hill. Tony followed the lines visually. They ran off the top of the mesa and picked up again about a half mile west, ending at the base of the next hill.

  Tony froze, staring open-mouthed at the craft that sat at the end of those scars.

  "Son of a bitch …" he whispered.

  That wasn't his plane. It was the fat saucer he'd encountered in the storm.

  The thing had crashed!

  The sight of the ground rushing up toward Tony's feet snapped him out of his trance. Fortunately, the chute was turned into the wind, so he landed with little lateral drift. He tumbled awkwardly. The rolling impact knocked the breath out of him. As he struggled to draw air, he managed to collapse the chute before it could drag him through a cactus. A moment later, the wheezing man rolled up the chute and pinned it down with his removed harness and a small boulder.

  Standing, Tony surveyed his surroundings. He walked over to one of the pieces of foil and picked it up. The small, jagged sheet seemed too light. He could barely feel it. The metallic material rested on his palm like a feather.

  Tony flipped it over. The other side of the foil looked black. He held it up. He could see a reflection of the surrounding desert and the sun on its dark surface, but the image looked like a photo negative. Instead of a bright orange orb, the sun looked like a black spot in the center of the image.

  Shaking his head, Tony whispered, "How can that be?"

  He looked around. Thousands of pieces of the stuff cluttered the ground.

  Tony wadded up the foil fragment and dropped it. Before it had fallen an inch from his hand, the piece unfurled and then floated down, zigzagging like a falling feather. Tony picked up another piece and did the same thing, crumpling the sheet until it was a small clump in his fist. Then he opened his hand and the wad unfurled like a flower blooming in fast motion. In less than a second, it flattened out, leaving no wrinkles.

  "Jeez!"

  He tried it with a few more pieces, always with the same result. Then he saw a crushed cactus. Beyond it, a deep gouge in the sand pointed toward the hilltop's western precipice.

  Tony dropped the jagged piece of foil and trotted toward the edge.

  The wide draw between the hills scrolled into view. He slid to a stop at the edge of the cliff.

  Heart pounding, breathing heavily, Tony stood on the precipice, staring at the black disc wedged into the nape of the next mesa.

  "Holy shit …"

  He shook his head.

  "What are you?"

  Tony finally stopped shivering.

  "Good thing it's July," he muttered between breaths.

  The desert's dry air had already sucked most of the moisture from his flight suit and leather jacket, and the trek down the mesa's steep slope had warmed him.

  Tony stepped over another piece of debris and then did a double take. Something that looked like a portion of a structural member protruded from beneath a foil fragment. He picked up the piece. The small I-beam was about a foot long and an inch wide. The thing was so light it felt as if it might float out of his hand. Tony thought it must be some kind of foam insulation, but when he tried to bend it, the beam wouldn't give. It felt like solid steel cast from thin air.

  He tossed it up, and it floated back toward his hand with the celerity of a falling balloon. As the piece slowly somersaulted, Tony glimpsed writing on its side. When it finally landed on his palm, he held the white piece up so that shadows outlined the embossed figures. They looked like a mix of Egyptian hieroglyphs and Asian characters.

  "Oh, shit! Russians?"

  Then Tony looked closer and shook his head. The Russians used some weird letters, but he didn't recall them looking this odd.

  But…

  He looked uneasily from the piece to the large disc lying ahead at the base of the hill.

  "What the hell are you?" he asked again.

  Tony gave the small I-beam another look and then stuffed it into a leg pocket. He continued walking toward the crashed ship.

  He wondered if this might be the craft the United Airlines crew had spotted a few days ago.

  "A flying saucer?" Tony said, trying out the words.

  He'd been thinking it ever since he'd first glimpsed the craft's shape, but spoken aloud, the words sounded ludicrous.

  But there one was, a flying saucer right in front of him!

  Tony ignored the rest of the debris. Jogging again, he zigzagged between cactuses and crumpled chunks of wreckage. None of it looked like it had come from his Mustang. The airplane was nowhere to be seen. It must've crashed farther west, likely under the now dissipating thunderstorm.

  As Tony approached within a hundred yards of the crashed ship, the early morning sun rose from behind the eastern mesa to his rear. He felt its warmth on his back. His shadow stretched toward the strange black object. While the cliff wall behind the saucer glowed in the sun's orange radiance, the dark skin of the disc soaked up the light, just like the foil pieces had.

  Tony slowed to a hesitant walk, studying the saucer through slitted eyes. It looked as if the crash had sheared off a significant chunk of its bottom, leaving a large hole. He stopped twenty yards from the disc, reluctant to step any closer.

  Tony craned his neck, trying to peer through the hole in the ship. However, the shiny inner surface of the upturned skin that ringed the edge of the gaping maw glistened with the reflected yellow fire of the rising sun. Squinting against its blinding glare, Tony couldn't make out the ship's dark interior.

  Stepping hesitantly, he eased closer, a hand held up to shield his eyes from the reflected sunrise. The odor of burned insulation or wiring filled the air, although he didn't see any smoke.

  As he stepped within a few feet of the opening, he finally glimpsed something through the hull breach. Tony froze, and his eyes widened as faint gray lines resolved as a complex web that seemed to fill the ship's interior.

  "Holy mackerel!" he said through a constricting throat. "Looks like a damned spider's web!"

  As if responding to the sound of his voice, the interior of the saucer lit up.

  Then Tony saw it.

  A silvery being sat suspended at the center of the web!

  Suddenly, it began to descend!

  "Oh, shit!"

  Tony snapped out of his trance and backed away.

  He had no interest in being breakfast for some alien spider.

  Huh-uh! No way!

  He tripped over something and fell hard on his ass.

  Two of the spider's silvery legs slid into view.

  Tony scurried backward like a fleeing crab. Then he stopped and tilted his head.

  "What the hell?"

  The body, arms, and head of an ordinary human followed the silver-clad legs. Emerging from the hole in the ship, the limp figure crumpled onto the floor of the desert.

  Tony stood and hesitantly walked toward the apparently unconscious … woman? Yeah, a woman. The webbing had deposited her on the sand just outside of the ship's breached hull. Red blood trickled from the corner of her mouth and one of her ears.

  As Tony closed to within five feet, the woman's eyes opened. She looked confused.

  He stopped. After a moment, Tony found his voice. "What are you? Russian?"

  The
woman said something in a language that he didn't recognize. Then she swiped a silvery sleeve across the blood on her chin. The skintight metallic material didn't look absorbent, but it soaked up all of the blood, leaving no trace of the red liquid. Then, before his eyes, the stain disappeared from the sleeve as well.

  Tony blinked. Speaking louder, he asked, "Are you okay?"

  The look of confusion fell from the woman's face. Her eyes widened, and then she spoke again. This time her words sounded more assertive.

  Tony still didn't recognize the language, but he was pretty sure it wasn't Russian.

  The webbing detached from her and began to retract into the ship. Then her silver suit started flickering.

  Tony's eyes widened. "What the …?"

  Suddenly, her suit changed shape and color. Now it looked identical to Tony's flight suit and leather jacket.

  "How the hell did you do that?!" Tony blurted as he stepped backward again.

  The woman didn't answer. She looked at a torn strand of silver webbing that protruded from the black leather elbow of her new jacket. She pulled the web off and wadded it up and then held the clump in an open palm, showing it to Tony.

  Had he imagined the silver suit? Had it been an illusion generated by the contrasting light and a panicked mind?

  He stopped backing away. Then the strand moved. Transfixed, Tony stared at it, watching the metallic webbing dissolve in her hand like lead melting in a pot. He saw his startled expression reflected in the mirrored surface of the mercurial material.

  Shocked into silence, he looked from the woman's palm to the name tag on her flight jacket. He tried to read her name but couldn't make out the letters. They looked … wrong but somehow familiar.

  Tony shook his head. "Who are you?"

  The stranger said something as she stepped closer.

  Tilting his head, Tony tried to read the odd-looking letters on the tag. Then he recognized them. He'd seen those characters almost every morning of his military career.

  It was a mirror image of his own name tag. The backward letters ran from right to left, spelling out Spinelli in reverse.

  Tony's eyes widened. "You're a copy!"

  He started to step back, but the woman's hand shot out lightning quick and slapped the mercurial goo onto the nape of Tony's neck, behind his left ear.

  Fiery pain erupted at the base of his skull. As he stumbled backward, Tony swiped at the silvery mass, but it had turned hard and unyielding. He tripped over something and fell on his ass again. He swiped at the blob a second time, but it had shrunk in size. Using the tips of his fingers, Tony dug, desperately trying to gain purchase, trying to wedge them under an edge of the shrinking mass.

  Then it was gone!

  The strange woman now stood over Tony, looking down on him with an odd expression. It almost looked like sympathy.

  Tony suddenly felt consciousness slipping away.

  "What did you do to me? What did you …?"

  Then the dark took him.

  Chapter 3

  Tony opened his eyes and blinked against the harsh blue light that filled his vision. His head felt as if it would split. Squinting, he tried to find something to focus on.

  A firm surface supported his prone body. Rolling his head right, Tony saw that he was lying on his back on a tilted floor. About twenty feet away, the gray deck merged with a curved, glowing wall. About ten feet above that point, it joined a ceiling that also glowed with the same blue light.

  His headache eased a notch, and the brilliance of the walls and ceiling no longer seemed quite as harsh. He looked left and saw a thick column running floor to ceiling in the center of the room that he now realized was circular.

  Tony tried to look toward his feet, but the back of his head stuck to the floor as if he had laid it on a large wad of chewing gum. It gave enough that he saw raw daylight shining through a hole in the wall about twenty feet away.

  He was in the ship!

  Tony tried to sit, to bolt upright and run for it, but the gum beneath his head pulled him back down. He tried to raise his arms and discovered they were stuck as well.

  "Let me go!"

  "Cannot."

  Tony froze. It hadn't been the word 'cannot,' more like hearing the meaning behind it. But even more disturbing, he hadn't actually heard it at all. The word's intention had echoed in his head, not off of the glowing walls.

  He broke from his trance and fought mightily with his restraints.

  "Let me go, goddammit!"

  "Cannot," the maddeningly calm non-voice repeated.

  Tony stopped struggling. He tried to look around the room, seeking the source, but this time the gum held fast. He couldn't move his head. Then the woman in the Air Force uniform with its backward name tag stood from behind him. She had been squatting above him on the tilted floor.

  Looking up, Tony regarded her through furrowed eyebrows.

  "Let me go!"

  She shook her head. Her lips didn't move, but the thought rang out clearly: "Cannot."

  "Why the hell not?"

  A barely perceptible smile curled the corners of her closed lips. The non-voice and its intentions returned, but her mouth didn't move. "Good. You understand."

  Tony only understood one thing. This woman wasn't Russian. Hell, she probably wasn't even from Earth.

  "You are correct. Not from your world."

  Tony blinked in surprise. "What? I didn't say anything."

  "Thoughts I hear, as do you."

  Tony felt his heart racing. He fought against the bindings but couldn't break free.

  He screamed with frustration. Through a growl, he yelled, "Let me go!"

  The woman's Mona Lisa smile faded. Now she looked sorrowful. "Cannot."

  Tony felt a twinge at the back of his neck, just below the base of the skull. Then he remembered the gray goo, the pain and losing consciousness. His eyes widened. What did she do to me?

  "Sorry. We usually sedate for that."

  "For what? What did you do?"

  "Machines. Tiny. In brain."

  "What?! You put a machine in my head?" Tony felt his heart rate redouble, as did his breathing.

  She shook her head. "Machines. Not one, millions."

  Seeing Tony's widening eyes, the woman held up a hand.

  "Calm. No hurt. Machines tiny, like virus but good. Facilitate communication." Her Mona Lisa smile returned. "Facilitate understanding."

  Suddenly, Tony felt his blood pressure dropping. His need for air reduced as well.

  Her smile broadened, and she nodded. "Machines facilitate calm."

  Tony wanted to scream, wanted to yell at the woman, but he could no longer muster the energy or the anger.

  "What are you doing to me?" he said in words that seemed to lose import mid-sentence.

  The woman didn't answer. She just stared at Tony expectantly.

  Unbidden, a stream of images, thoughts, and emotions flowed through his mind. Each elicited the associated word, heard but not spoken aloud. They ran through his mind like cars of a freight train driven through an intersection at top speed. In spite of the calming effect apparently imparted by the little viral machines, Tony's hands clenched into fists, and he ground his teeth together. The sensations threatened to overwhelm him.

  Then the stream disappeared, leaving Tony in a welcome sensory void.

  "What was that?"

  The woman stepped up to Tony's side and dropped to a knee. She cocked her head.

  "The machines learned your language," she said, speaking audibly for the first time. She had a strange accent. "Now they teach me …" She paused and cocked her head sideways. "English?"

  The odd accent sounded like that of a South African Army captain whom Tony had served with in the war, but the woman's speech sounded mechanical, her sing-song cadence emphasizing the wrong parts of the sentence.

  Tony tried to shake his head. He had to quit thinking of this thing as a woman. It was alien. He now knew he hadn't imagined the silver suit. F
or all he knew, the alien could change its skin as easily as it had its clothes.

  Longingly, Tony gazed down his nose at the hole in the ship. He struggled against the bindings.

  Relenting, he pulled his eyes away from the sight of the opening and the beckoning desert beyond. He looked back up to the being.

  The alien suddenly looked sad.

  "Who are you?" Tony said. "What are you?" He struggled against the bindings. The gum attached to the back of his head constricted, drawing him tight to the floor. Looking through his eyebrows again, he glared at the being. "Why are you here?"

  Frowning, she … No, it looked across the interior of the ship, appearing to consider his questions for a long moment. Then it nodded and looked at him intently.

  The mental image of a nuclear mushroom cloud blossomed in his mind's eye. It came to him as had the previous impressions but with a visual component this time. He realized that the machines had birthed the vision. Then the image faded, and the being's face again filled his field of view.

  Tony blinked. His suddenly dry mouth fell open. "Oh my God! You're here to invade! You're going to nuke us!"

  A confused look crossed her … the being's face. Then its eyes cleared, and its head shook. "No. That was you. You … exploded …" It paused again, searching for the word.

  Tony felt the machines probe his mind again. Then the alien nodded.

  "You exploded atomic weapon." It pointed west. "Near here."

  Tony nodded. "Yes, the Trinity test. But that was two years ago."

  It nodded again. "Our sensor far away. Light and nuclear signal take two of your years to cross distance."

  "Sensor?" His eyes widened. "You had something in space … watching us? Something two light years away?"

  The being shook its head. "Not watching you. We not know you. Millions of sensors across …"

  Tony felt the questing machines again.

  It nodded. "Across the galaxy … the Milky Way. The sensors wait, listen for intelligent life."

  He considered her words. They came because they detected our nuclear tests? Shouldn't they have detected our radio waves long before that?

  Apparently, the machines in his brain transmitted his thoughts because the being shook its head and raised an eyebrow in a very human-like manner, giving Tony a meaningful look. "Sensors only report life capable of creating trouble." It paused and then pointed east. "Much trouble there."