The New Frontier Page 17

  There were no doors on the space dock. It looked like the whole dock was exposed to space. But Zebs still walked around on the deck without getting sucked out into the vacuum. When the ship crossed the bay threshold, a purple electric haze encircled the ship.

  “Why aren’t there any doors on the dock?” Julia asked, leaning forward.

  “You see that electric field?” Raja pointed to the haze.

  “Yes,” Julia answered.

  “It keeps the air in and space out.”

  She sat back, satisfied with the answer.

  The control center station didn’t rotate like one of the human-built space stations, and as soon as they landed, gravity took hold. Lauren peered out the window.

  “Why isn’t everything floating?” she asked.

  “Ah … we have much more advanced technology. On our stations, we employ gravity balancers that generate their own gravity pull on each deck,” Ankit said, smiling. “Now, you won’t be used to this. Our gravity is a little stronger than yours and our atmosphere a little wetter, so it will take some time to get used to.”

  The ship sailed into the dock and came to a stop. The door to the ship split in half, with the top section shifting up and the bottom section settling down on the dock’s floor. As it touched, the smooth surface of the door expanded into steps.

  The four stood. Just as Ankit had warned, Lauren and Julia felt the stronger gravity immediately. Julia shook her legs, getting used to the new tug, then the two followed Ankit and Raja down the steps. The humid air seeped into their lungs, making them feel like they were in a swamp.

  A couple of Zebs in uniforms came to greet them. As they approached, they lost their smiles of greeting and looked shocked.

  The older of the pair approached, asking Ankit, “Uh, what are these human children doing here?”

  Ankit put his hand on Lauren’s shoulder. “I am Ankit. They are with me.”

  “Ankit!” the Zeb said, surprised. Immediately, something invisible pulled at the Zeb. He strained, resisting, but something forced him to grab his weapon and point it at Ankit.

  The younger Zeb tapped his shoulder. “Control, we have Captain Ankit and he’s brought two human children with him.”

  The Zeb listened to something, holding his hand over his ear.

  “Understood, I will bring them to you right away.”

  The muscles in his neck clinched as he said, “Come … with me.”

  “It is OK. Do not resist, my friend,” Ankit said to the Zeb guard.

  The other guard took out a baton-like device and moved it up and down in front of Ankit. He then looked at it, nodded to the other Zeb, and did the same to Raja.

  “That must be a scanner,” Lauren whispered to Julia.

  Julia held her breath as he scanned her, but just like with Ankit and Raja, he looked at the screen and nodded to the other guard.

  He scanned Lauren, then extended his arm, pointing toward the bay exit. The guard in front guided Ankit, Raja, and the girls toward the door.

  Inside, the walls were bare and grey, giving the whole station a military feel. The ceilings were lower than on human stations, but otherwise, it looked remarkably similar to the new construction section of New Cielo.

  Their entourage marched through the halls, winding through the lower floor and arriving at an elevator that took them up a couple more floors to an open gallery. Zebs they passed stopped to stare, not sure what to think about two human girls being paraded around the star gate as prisoners.

  In the larger gallery, Zebs scurried about, moving equipment or themselves from one part of the gate to the other.

  One of the Zebs pointed to a corner hall. They started walking in that direction when Ankit grabbed his chest, stumbled, and fell to one leg. The two Zeb guards went to help him up, the older one saying, “Come on, get up. Let’s get to detention.”

  Lauren stopped, putting her hand on his shoulder. Ankit looked up at her, whispering, “Now.”

  Lauren looked back at Julia, who immediately knew what to do. She turned slightly so neither guard could see her. She opened her fanny pack and pulled the treatment canister out. She flipped the lid, pressed the button on the side, then rolled it on the floor into the middle of the room.

  The familiar foul stench permeated the room. Each and every Zeb clutched their mouths and noses, trying to avoid the smell. Even the girls, who were used to the smell, had trouble given the amount of treatment spilling out of the canister. The two guards held their noses, pulling Ankit to his feet.

  “What is that smell?” the younger guard screamed. He pushed the group along. “Let’s go, move it. Keep going.” He pointed toward the other side of the room, grimacing and trying to cover his nose.

  Raja lingered back next to Julia in the group. “Good job. Now we wait.”

  On the other side of the gallery, there was a detention area where the guards deposited them. “I don’t know what you were trying to pull with that foul smell, but it didn’t work. Stay here until we figure out what to do with you.”

  The young guard stayed in the room while the older one left. He came back a few minutes later.

  “Is that smell gone?” the young guard asked.

  “Yes, it’s gone. Somebody picked up that canister the little human girl dropped and disposed of it,” the older guard said.

  “Good, that was terrible.” The young one waved his hands around his nose.

  “The General said we should leave them here in detention until he figures out what to do with them,” the older Zeb said, fiddling with his fingers, looking at their prisoners.

  The room was small, but functional. A small table with chairs lined one wall and a couple of bed-like benches lined the other walls.

  At the door, there was a panel with buttons and a strange language inscribed on the keypad, symbols similar to the ones on Ankit’s ship. One of the Zeb guards punched some of the buttons, making beeping noises. They left, with the door sliding shut.

  “Like I said, now we wait,” Raja said, lying down on one of the benches. He folded his arms on his chest and closed his eyes.

  “How is he so calm?” Lauren asked Ankit. “We’re in a prison cell on a star gate that’s about to flood our solar system with a ton of those squid monsters, and we’re trapped here!”

  “You see, shortly after we were affected by the treatment, we blacked out. We both woke a day later with the bond broken. Much quicker than what happened with you,” Ankit assured Lauren.

  “A whole day? I’m starving! If they black out, they won’t feed us!” Julia protested.

  Ankit smiled, looking at Julia. “I don’t think you’d like what we eat.”

  “Oh, man!” Julia complained sitting down on the other bench.

  Lauren sat down at the table, taking her phone out of her pocket. She started tapping on the screen.

  “What are you doing?” Julia asked her.

  “Playing a game … what else am I going to do?” Lauren responded.

  “Does the phone work?” Julia asked.

  Lauren tapped a few more buttons and held it up to her head. “No, nothing.”

  “You wouldn’t be able to get any signal out here anyway,” Ankit said.

  Julia pulled out her phone and started to play a game, too. Hours passed. Mostly Lauren and Julia played games on their phones. Ankit would pace around, then sit. Raja drifted in and out of sleep on one of the daybeds.

  “I’m bored,” Julia said.

  “We’re prisoners. You’re supposed to be bored,” Ankit said.

  Julia nodded in acknowledgement to Ankit, sighed, and went over to the other daybed to lie down.

  Julia flipped and flopped on the daybed, then propped herself up on her arm. “So why don’t you use your Zeb name?” she asked.

  “Oh, we’ve been using our human names for so long, we’ve almost forgotten our Zeb names,” Ankit replied.

  Julia looked up at him. “What is your Zeb name?”

  “Ah …” Ankit sighe
d, “My name was Tosh-ka.”

  Julia tried to pronounce it the way Ankit did, but mangled the second syllable.

  Ankit laughed, “Almost.”

  Shortly thereafter, Julia drifted off to sleep.

  An hour later, Lauren slumped over in her chair, asleep.

  *

  Julia stirred, blinking her eyes. She lay on the daybed, trying to decide if she should get up or just lie there staring at the ceiling. She looked over at her sister, who was sitting asleep in a chair. She looked for Ankit and Raja, but she didn’t see them in the room.

  “That’s strange. Where are they?” she said aloud. She sat up and said, “Lauren, are you awake?”

  Lauren snorted and rubbed her face but didn’t wake up.

  Julia walked over to her and shook her. “Lauren?”

  This time, Lauren blinked her eyes, then rubbed them. “What?”

  “Ankit and Raja aren’t here,” she said, then walked over to the door and looked out the window. Everything was brighter and whiter than she remembered it, looking very sterile. She put her hand on the door and it slid opened.

  “Lauren, look, the door’s open.”

  Lauren got up, walking over to look out the door.

  “That’s strange,” she said.

  The two ventured out into the hall. The makeshift prison cell was right off the main hall, but no Zebs seemed to be around. The room was empty.

  “This is really strange,” they both said at the same time.

  “Jinx,” Lauren said.

  Julia just glared at her sister.

  “Well, let’s look around,” Lauren said.

  They walked across the room to the other side to what looked like a cafeteria. Food preparation machines littered the space, all of them were completely clean and abandoned. The girls walked further in.

  Julia absently picked up a whisk, examining it.

  Boom! Screech!

  The noise from their last dream pierced their ears.

  “Oh, God, it’s another dream! It must be the Gr-awl-toltz coming after us again!” Lauren said.

  “What do we do?” Julia asked.

  “How should I know? It’s a dream! But that thing can still hurt us,” Lauren shot back.

  They both peeked out the kitchen door. The brightness that had persisted before was eclipsed by a dark presence.

  “Come on, let’s go this way,” Lauren said, running to the back of the kitchen. There were supply closets lining the walls.

  The screeching noise rang in their ears again, this time closer. They sensed it was in the kitchen.

  “Quick, in here,” Julia said, opening one of the doors. They ducked into an empty room and closed the door. They both slid to the ground, huddling in fear. The light shone through the door cracks.

  Julia buried her head in her hands. “Wake up, wake up, this isn’t happening.”

  Lauren simply hugged her knees.

  The noise got closer, hurting them again. Both girls closed their eyes, trying to ward off the sound. The light shining through the cracks dimmed. The noise stopped.

  Julia looked at her sister, whispering, “Is it gone?”

  As Julia spoke, Lauren saw the faint outline of what she thought was a tentacle creep toward her sister. Before she could say anything, a tentacle wrapped itself around her neck, coming from the other side of the door.

  Julia’s eyes widened. Before she could move, the other tentacle wrapped itself around Julia’s neck, then her body. Like a python squeezing the life out of its prey, with each breath the girls took, the tentacle compressed more. Their breaths got shallower and shallower as the grip from the tentacle slowly killed them. Lauren reached out to grab Julia’s hand on the floor. Julia squeezed her fingers, then they both blacked out.

  *

  “Julia! Julia, wake up.” Lauren shook her sister.

  “What, what?” Julia jumped up, startled. She patted herself, making sure all her parts were there, then reached up to feel her neck.

  “We’re alive. I’m not sure why, but we are,” Lauren said.

  Julia took a deep breath.

  Ankit walked over to them. “What happened? Are you two OK?”

  “Another dream … I thought we were going to die this time,” Lauren said.

  “What kind of dream?” Ankit asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it or think about it,” Lauren said.

  “It must have been the Gr-awl-toltz,” Raja said sitting up.

  “How long has it been?” Julia asked.

  “It’s been about 24 hrs since you dropped the treatment,” Ankit said.

  The girls sat, regaining their composure until the door suddenly opened. The older of the two guards who had apprehended them came in. “I don’t know how you did it, but the bond is broken with some of us.” A smile appeared as he spoke.

  “I am Ramesh.” He walked forward, patting Ankit on his shoulder.

  “It was only a matter of time, my friend,” Ankit said smiling back.

  “How?” Ramesh asked.

  Ankit turned and pointed at both Lauren and Julia. “You have these two to thank. They are the ones who discovered the treatment.”

  Ramesh stepped forward, outstretching his hand. “You two have no idea what this means for us.”

  Lauren reached to shake Ramesh’s hand. “Uh, you’re welcome?”

  “Well, you can explain it to me later.” Ramesh’s smile melted to a longer face. “The treatment only worked on half of our people. There are a number still under its control. We have to expose them, too.”

  “That’s impossible! We used all the treatment yesterday,” Julia said, joining the conversation.

  “They’re trying to open the gate,” Ramesh said, looking at Ankit. “They have barricaded themselves in the control room.”

  “Hurry, we have to destroy the neuro-repeater,” Ankit said.

  “We did that for this section, but it’s too strong on the other side of the station,” Ramesh said. “Come, we must go.”

  The four Zebs rushed out of the room.

  Raja turned when he got to the door and said to the girls, “You two stay here. It could get dangerous.”

  Lauren and Julia looked at him with wide eyes. He left the door open, so they weren’t prisoners, but they stayed put like he told them to—at least initially.

  “That must have been what saved us, when they blocked the neuro-transmitter,” Lauren said.

  “We got lucky,” Julia said.

  Lauren paced around the room not saying anything. Julia sat back down on the bench.

  After ten minutes or so, Lauren couldn’t stand it anymore, “We can’t just stay here. If they open that gate, that’s the end of the station. Maybe even Earth!”

  Julia shook her head. “They said to stay right here! I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Well, you can stay here. I’m going to go out there to see how I can help,” Lauren said, stomping out the door.

  “Ugh! She always does this!” Julia muttered to herself, then adjusted her fanny pack and ran toward the door.

  Out of the detention cell, they found themselves back in the large gallery filled with Zebs. There was so much commotion that the two girls went unnoticed. Zebs were running in all directions.

  Then an older Zeb saw the girls and stopped what he was doing. “You two are the human girls who were with Ankit?”

  Lauren looked up at him. He was only a little bit taller than she was. “I guess so.”

  “I want to shake your hand! That’s what you humans do, isn’t it?” he said, extending his hand smiling.

  Lauren reached out, grabbing his hand, and then Julia did the same.

  “You girls have no idea what this means for us,” he said.

  “We’ve heard,” Lauren said.

  “Our people back home. This is the first step to freeing our people back home! All because of you! You’re going to be famous in our world one day,” he said, walking off to continue what he was doing.

&
nbsp; Lauren looked at Julia, shaking her head, “What is he talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” Julia shrugged.

  In the big hall, the back wall was a large window. They could see the star gate ring hovering in the distance. All of a sudden, giant sparks of electricity crackled around the perimeter of the ring, just as it had done when they arrived. But this time, the intensity increased.

  All the Zebs in the hall stopped what they were doing and looked at it. Most of them were completely speechless, staring with gaping mouths.

  Lauren stopped one of the Zebs rushing by, grabbing him by his elbow. He looked over at her, surprised at first.

  Lauren said, “Yes, we’re the two human girls you’ve heard about …”

  His eyebrow cocked up while he looked at them, then he grinned. “Yes, I assumed.”

  “What is going on here?” Lauren asked.

  “The Zebs that didn’t get your treatment … they’re trying to open the gate,” he said.

  “Can’t we stop them?” she asked.

  “The General and Ankit are trying to stop them,” he answered.

  “You know Ankit, too?” Julia asked.

  “Of course. He’s our one of our most revered Captains! It caused quite a stir when he broke his bond!” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go help them.” He ran off into the crowd.

  The other Zebs stood for a few moments longer, then broke into chaos again, running around like ants that just had their mound destroyed.

  The girls kept staring at the gate. In the center, a black ball appeared. It got bigger and bigger, almost reaching the edge of the ring.

  The girls looked into the blackness expecting to see a void. Instead it was one of the most horrifying visions they could have imagined.

  Julia gasped, then reached into her fanny pack and pulled out her microscope. Her trusted device could magnify anything, not just microscopic organisms. She pushed a few buttons, then held it up in between her and the window. She motioned with her fingers in a flicking motion. The view on the screen zoomed in.

  Lauren looked at the screen, terrified. Julia’s hand shook. In the view, they could clearly see thousands of Gr-awl-toltz creatures waiting on the other side of the star gate, their squid-like tentacles flailing in space, flashing lights parading over their exoskeletons in a brilliant display. Mesmerized, the girls just stared.