Caught Somewhere In Time

The commander and a few other members of the Mars Colony Militia were gathered around sensor equipment. Most were at ease, leisurely doing their jobs scanning for rogue asteroids and communicating with freighters in the area. The Militia didn’t have a very difficult job; mostly they acted as the local police and military for the small outpost. There were about forty-thousand humans at the outpost, who functioned similarly to an isolated desert town; with the exception of course that the air was unbreathable outside the compound. The Militia had been established to fulfill a need in the community, and was mostly made up of volunteers. The few leaders had permanent posts, but the rest of the group was mostly local merchants and farmers providing their daily community service.

Community service was required of everyone, no matter where you went. It was something that many countries on Earth had begun adopting in the 21^st century, when the taxes needed to pay public servants had just become too high. Hours spent doing some approved form of community service had become tax deductible at first, and later became required. Some professions, like the military, emergency service, and teaching, had changed to become almost entirely staffed by volunteers, with only the people in command actually drawing pay while the rest had regular jobs outside of their service enlistments.

It was no surprise then that the alien craft nearly clipped a weather satellite before anyone saw it coming. Not only was there relatively little in the way of merchant trade in the area of Mars, but those folks looking at the scanners were thinking about their families, their regular jobs, and what they were going to do once their shift ended. Like a stranger knocking on the door for an unannounced visit, the ship caught everybody off guard. Who or what is that? Where did it come from? Members of the Militia hopped out of their seats and jogged to the nearby dock where their patrol ships were settled. A few stayed behind to call in other community members to temporarily fill in the posts being vacated. Once they were geared up, six Militia-men launched from Mars Colony to intercept the rogue vessel, whatever it was, before it could do any damage beyond the solar panel on the satellite it had already cracked.

As they ascended into the air, the Militia Commander on duty began to hail the craft in a series of the most common languages, and on any and every radio frequency they could. There was no response from the ship whatsoever though, so the Commander began the sequence again. After gaining altitude for several minutes, the airborne team leveled off into a V-formation in the rusty atmosphere, something this group had practiced several times but had never done as an actual show of force. Everyone became nervous when the alien craft slowed down as the patrol approached however, an unclear indication of whether the pilot was hostile or simply cautious.

It was impossible to tell who or what was inside the ship, and there appeared to be no windows or portholes of any kind. The commander radioed the patrol ships to surround the ship in order to force it bodily to the ground. The commander blocked the ship from moving forward as the rest of the team took up positions above and below and to the left, right and presumably aft of the strange machine. The vessel appeared to larger than a personal craft, silvery in color and vaguely disc-shaped. It was clearly not intended to carry freight, and there was no obvious means of propulsion. When the Commander began leading it, the unanswering ship followed as if it understood that there was no way of getting through the formation without damage.

With the Militia’s spacecraft surrounding it, weapons ready but hopeful that they could guide this ship down safely without incident, they carefully descended back toward the rocky red surface. Until they knew what was aboard this strange ship, they didn’t want to risk starting any interplanetary conflict. As they came close to the barren landscape, the ship in the underneath position slid back behind the craft, joining his partner in tailing the silvery disk. For all intents and purposes, the Militia members were all confused by what they were looking at. Clearly this was exactly the kind of shining “flying saucer” that people had been sighting for over two hundred years! There were no lights, no windows or obvious doors. No sections where metal had been fused to other metal, and it was not even clear what kind of metal they were even looking at. If it didn’t appear so solid, they might have considered it to be made of liquid mercury.

The group headed toward the landing approach between the two largest green-spaces. These were actually forests planted by some of the farmers that lived in the Colony. The original colonists had tried planting in the Martian soil, but almost nothing grew. The few things that were resistant to the hostile environment and did not die still did not grow at first however. They had worked diligently creating hybrids of plants able to survive and were eventually able to create a variety of things that were able to thrive. After a decade of trial and error, the first trees capable of growing in the dry climate were planted. Each year, as they went to seed, all of the seeds were collected in order to plant more. It took a very long time, but the forests had been established. Once trees were in place, other plants were able to survive in the forest among the soil that had been enriched by the existing plants. Although they were still called forests, they appeared more like dimly lit jungles, and they would increase oxygen levels on the planet as long as they continued to grow. The hope was that someday, though it might be many centuries later, the air might become breathable for humans on this planet.

As the corridor between the two forests grew taller, the trees grew older, with the oldest being nearest the Colony’s dock. Militia-men escorted the alien vessel to the dock where they slowed as the bay doors opened to accept them. The Commander entered first and landed backward, weapons now pointed at the ship. The silver spacecraft lowered itself until it was only a few feet from the floor, and then three small bars, extending from seemingly invisible openings under the ship, reached down and held the ground to the ship; that was how it appeared at least. Rather than extending the landing gear and touching down onto it, the ship remained fixed in the air and the landing gear reached out to hold the ship where it already was. The other ships landed in a circle around it and the Militia still inside the complex closed the bay doors and scanned for harmful radiation as the room steamed full of oxygen. When the steam cleared, the pilots all opened their hatches and approached the craft, drawing weapons.

“Open up!” the Commander yelled at the ship as he banged on the hull with his fist. At first, nothing happened. He spoke into a wristband communicator and said, “What kind of readings are you getting on this thing?”

The voice issuing from the communicator seemed perplexed. “Nothing at all,” came the reply. “There are no thermal or radiation readings at all. That thing might as well be made of solid… well whatever material it is made of. It is not even registering as a known element!”

The Commander walked around the ship, now able to clearly see how large the thing was. It was about the size of a family vacation craft, smaller than a home but much larger than a car. Even up close he could not see any lines where the metal was joined, as if it were made of a single piece of shiny metal. He looked at his clear reflection in it, and tried to scratch the surface with the butt of his gun. He thought he could see a mark left behind as he scratched the surface, but it cleared itself neatly a few inches behind with a rippling effect, as if he were drawing a line through a smooth pool of water with his fingertip. He approached one of the three pieces of landing gear, noting that the pole, no thicker than his arm, seemed joined permanently to the surface in a smooth curve, like it had been poured into a mold in this exact shape. He might of thought it was if he hadn’t seen the tripod extend from the ship himself.

There was a slight hissing noise issuing from under the saucer that made the Commander take a few steps back. As he watched, the smooth surface rippled again like it had when he tried to scratch it, only this time it was from the craft’s underbelly. A rectangle appeared to be cut from the center out to one side of the ship, between two of the legs holding it up. It seemed to hinge under the ship and lower like an exit ramp toward what the Militia had assumed was the front of the ship (the side facing the Commander’s ship) although the ship actually looked the same no matter what angle you viewed it from. The hissing stopped as the ramp touched the ground and the hinge stopped rippling, again appearing as if it had always been bent at that angle.

The patrol all aimed their handheld weapons toward the opening, waiting for whatever alien species they had just captured to descend, but at first no one emerged. The guards gathered closer in a semicircle around the ramp, and the Commander took one step onto it, hesitantly. He called into the ship, “Come out of there so we can see you!” No one came out though. No voice came for almost a minute during which the Commander took a breath to reassure himself and cautiously took another step up the ramp.

“Are you human?” called a voice inside the ship suddenly. Although it seemed male, it also sounded very unsure, and slightly cracked as if scared.

“Yes,” replied the Commander, calling up into the dark opening “you are in a human outpost called Mars Colony.” He waited a moment to see what response that would get, but there was nothing but silence, so he continued. “Please come out of the ship where we can see you, and we can talk about it face to face.” He suddenly had the realization that humans had never met an alien race, and therefore he wasn’t sure if these things even had faces.

“Human?! Really? Fantastic!” Although the alien was obviously excited about finding humans, he seemed to sound very young, almost boy-like. He did seem to have a good grasp on the English language however. “Wait, did you say Mars? Don’t you mean Earth? Humans live on Earth, right?”

“Well,” the commander called back becoming increasingly curious, “yes, I suppose. This is only a colony one of several in the Sol system. Why don’t you come out and talk to us?”

“You aren’t going to hurt me, are you? I don’t want to fight you.” The alien had a tone of reluctance in his voice.

The Commander put his gun away, but waved at the rest of the team to move a little closer, and to keep their guns pointed into the dark interior of the ship. “No, we won’t hurt you.” The Commander took another step up the ramp, crouching now under the edge of the opening. Another step and he could stand up with his head in the ship. “Just come out so we can see who we are talking to.”

The alien moved toward the opening, and the commander saw it first. It had human-looking feet and wore some sort of sandals at the top of the ramp. The darkness shrouded the rest of him from view however. As the alien came lower down the ramp and more of him became visible, it appeared that the alien was in fact mostly humanoid, wearing a sort of light cream colored fabric pants and a long-sleeved smock. The Commander backed off the ramp, giving the alien room to fully descend. Only when he was in full view did the remainder of the Militia team lower their weapons.

“Well son,” the Commander smiled, “you certainly don’t look like any alien I’d expect to find in a ship like this.” The young man was probably fifteen or sixteen years old, and very obviously human. He retained a bit of his boyish appearance, but his broad shoulders and height made him carry himself more like a man. “Where are you from, exactly?”

The boy ignored the question. “Are those guns? I have read about those. Are you an army? I think I need an army.” He looked around at the Militia curiously, noticing all the gear they carried.

“An army?” the Commander asked, intensely curious about this situation. “What would a boy like yourself need an army for?”

“I escaped to find more humans to help me. Will you help me rescue my friends?”

“What kind of trouble are your friends in? And what do you mean ‘find more humans’? Where did you get this ship?”

“Um…” the boy started, but he was suddenly fearful as he looked around and saw all the guns rising to point at him once again. “I, uh, I think I need to talk to your leader. Are they here? Your leader I-I mean.”

The Commander held out his hand to the boy. “I am the leader here. Tell me where you got this ship.”

The boy was shaking slightly. He had never seen weapons before, not in person anyway. He knew of them and what they could do however. He sat down on the ramp and took a few deep breaths to try and calm down. When he started talking again, the words just started gushing out. “My name is Adam. I stole this ship from the Protectors. They were lying to us all along. We thought we were the last humans alive. I learned the truth though, and I escaped to find you, the other humans. There are others being held captive by the Protectors. I told them I would come back and save them, to help them escape too.”

The Commander was dumbfounded. On the one hand, there was a clearly alien vessel right in front of him. He had been around the solar system a fair share, but had never seen any ship like this. On the other hand though, here was this scared adolescent boy, sitting on the ship’s ramp in front of him, shaking like a leaf, and blurting out what sounds like a cover story to keep from being in trouble. “Do you mind if I scan you, Adam?”

“What? Scan me how?”

The Commander reached into the holster on his left and pulled from it a small black box. He put his finger to the smoothest part of the box and held it out in front of him toward the boy. Confusion creased his forehead as the commander ran the scan a second time. “Son, did you have your chip removed?” The boy just looked back at him, silently, just as confused as the commander. “How long did you live with these ‘protectors’?”

“M-my whole l-l-life,” he stuttered. Clearing his throat, the boy continued more softly than before. “They weren’t human you know, the Protectors. They were, I don’t know, something else. Another kind of people. They have always been there, as long as I can remember.” He sniffed, feeling like he might start to cry, but trying to be brave. “I need to go back and save them, the other humans, but I don’t know how. I don’t know where they are. I need help. Will you help me, please?”

The boy was more scared than anyone the Commander had ever seen. He put the scanner away, awestruck. “Adam, I think we need to get someone from Earth to help you out.” Then to the other Militia members, “Boys, put those guns away. Can’t you see this boy is scared?” He knelt down and leaned forward to reach out to the boy. “Come with me son. I want to ask you some more questions. Somewhere more comfortable.”

Adam looked at the commander and saw a sort of kindness in his face. He stood up slowly, and followed the commander into Mars Colony’s main complex. Just as they entered the complex, the commander touched a panel on the wall and spoke into it. “I need a communication with Admiral Chan. Tell him we have captured an unidentified craft, and that there was a human aboard.” As he removed his finger from the communication panel, he heard Adam fall to the ground. The boy began shaking violently on the ground, as if having a seizure. A few of the militia dropped to the floor to restrain his limbs, and one held his head, but the convulsions were very strong, and he nearly shook free of the men. After a few moments, it was finally over, and the boy laid still and unconscious, still lightly restrained by the group. There was a trickle of blood coming from the boy’s nose and the corner of his mouth.

Continued on November 21, 2009