Hear Us Come
Five of us entered the asteroid-sized craft as a trillion stars wink in space. Within the craft, it’s big, beautiful, multicolored, while it glides effortlessly through the void. We walk briskly forward on a mission. The huge, multileveled, inhuman design is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Metallic alloys and transparent walls. There are founts sleek and uncluttered, manned by fantastical androids and hard-to-describe aliens. Not any aliens we’d recognize, other than an occasional Gray or non-humanoid life-form in our movie fantasies. We stepped onto a platform that looks out over the whole place. I lead my team deeper into the belly of the beast. First, we walk past a sort of storage center. To our left, four corridors trail into the distance. Hydraulic lifts cart away cargo in that direction.
We look up to see the primary archway frame the skeleton ribs of the ship. Tables upon tables lie on the floor. On top, there are piles of sophisticated-looking devices that make human’s greatest minds appear primitive. As we move along the main floor, we walk briskly across the room, reaching a giant screen on the far wall.
The screen displays a multi-dimensional map of the galaxy, on which thousands of lights blink in all parts of the system, log lines of data flashing next to them.
I glare at the opulence and compliancy around us. I’m getting annoyed.
“Susan. Take Ching with you. Head to the bins.” I say as we walk.
She nods and takes Ching with her. The two ladies move fast and are determined not to be stopped.
A hum quietly starts. I look up and spot what I knew would occur. A Gray with a squad of enforcers degravitating and coming to us.
“We do not recognize you.” Gray states as his three-fingered hands' motion at us.
“We’re human,” I say impatiently.
“Not possible.”
“Well, here we stand and breathe. I need to speak to your Admiral or Fleet Commander, whoever is aboard.” I say crossing my arms.
“You speak without a translator? How--?”
“We can play a hundred questions, or you can guide us, escort us, or get out of our way.”
The Gray shifts a device, and an awesome power kicks in to create an umbrella of lights around us.
I stare at the idiot, hard. We don’t have time for this bullshit.
“Terms of--” the Gray says before all hell erupts. An INFECTION whipped out, grabbing hold of several bystanders, grabbing hold. Something lands at Gray’s feet. The fleshy popping sound grabs Gray’s attention at the same moment tendrils and glittering ash seize Gray’s lower limbs. As the infection overtakes him, the device falls and the umbrella prison dissolves.
“Markie, I believe hell has arrived on this ship. Start herding the cattle.” Markie peels away, and using the weapons dropped from Gray’s former guards, he makes his way through the fast-spreading shit storm and guides the ignorant crowd down the corridors that Ching and Susan went.
“Barth, you’re with me.” I jog past the writhing malignant tendrils writhing forth from our faces, intertwining. I had a sense that the Enemy had infiltrated one of the SAVIOR ships. I anticipated that our presence would trigger an involuntary revelation for the damn viral nightmare.
Imagine John Carpenter’s The Thing mated with the Halo game Flood SuperCell. The Infection is a species of highly virulent parasitic organisms that reproduce and grow by consuming sentient lifeforms of sufficient biomass and cognitive capability. It’s an extremely hostile shape-shifting extraterrestrial organism that can assimilate other life forms to survive and spread.
To our knowledge, the Infection possesses no inherent standard anatomy. It may well be that it is a colonial organism whose assimilation instructions are carried on the genetic level. The cells of this alien interface with and analyze the cells of its victim, and simultaneously consume them, shaping the resulting biomass to be a perfect replica of the victim. It’s quasi-hive-minded, so that at a certain threshold of biomass they absorb intelligence, memories, and co-opt the technology and knowledge of other alien species. Coated with the perverted gestalt group, the Infection motive and tactics become unpredictable, save for one factor.
It never counted on the last of us humans to be immune to it, be capable of seeking cosmic vengeance, and rally far-retching civilizations to ally them.
When the Infection appeared on Earth, our population went from several billion humans to the global population, currently less than 20,000. The Infection took away everything in less than two months. We were confused why it hesitated at the final blow. We thought it needed us to repopulate and start the genocide again. If you know human beings, we don’t cower into submission easily, nor would we willingly raise our children to become more meat for consumption.
“You know where the command node is?” Barth inquired as we dodged and fought our way through the melee.
“Yeah. We need to run like a thief though.” We darted and battled the percolating invasion. In a short time, we made it to the deck.
Eyes peeled back from screens and data streams to see who the intruders were. “Barth, keep the door.” He nodded as I stepped forward.
“Where is the Admiral or Fleet Commander?” I demanded. No one stirred.
“Hey! We don’t have fucking time to play this game. Where the fuck is your damn leader?” I shouted. My raised voice started to start one of the flight crew to maneuver a screen to the primary viewport. Yep, as I suspected. Their “leader” was now cannon fodder where we came from.
“Well, shit.” I thought for a moment. “Okay. Listen up. I want to see the local fleet group.”
No one budged, neither droid nor alien. “We don’t have fucking time! Show me the goddamn group!” The same humanoid jumped to action, and the screen projected the four-dimensional sphere of space around this vessel.
Fleas leaping from a roasting animal. “Fuck.”
I squinted my eyes and found what I was looking for. “Okay. Now get me shipwide comms.”
Another smaller Gray moved and flipped the communication for broadcast.
“Attention. Move your asses down to cargo. I don’t give a fuck who is in your way, run! Run! If you or someone doesn’t want to go, that’s their suicide. The Infection is on the ship. We will endeavor with a rescue craft. You have less than two minutes.” I spoke with commanding authority.
“Now, for those who don’t believe or need motivation, broadcast video, and sound with what’s going on in your mess hall.” I spot a confused look. “Show them the motherfucking Infection going on! Now, dammit!”
Quickly nodding, the Gray does as told. The horrific sound and live stream have the intended effect. The exodus has begun.
“Human? Why push past the Infection?” An alien with lime green eyes and a non-humanoid figure says.
“Yes. My species is not dead. We like to keep it quiet though. I have two of my people at the umbilical portal. One of them is enough to trigger the infection’s appearance and the other to destroy it. The damn Infection wants us so fucking bad it can’t help itself. If by some small chance it does restrain popping its head, both of my crew can sense its presence. Susan and Ching are more than capable of handling it.”
“What does it want?” the alien says as I keep an eye on the orbital ships making their way to distance themselves from this ship.
I point at an android, or one I think is a droid. “Point our nose to the Oort cloud. Make sure the port is aimed to this craft,” I point at a straggler spacecraft.
Time to shake up the universal status quo.
