Chapter 3

“You okay?” Sarah asks, clearly genuinely concerned. Tobias, the blond-haired soldier, walks along with them, silently half-listening to their conversation and half-listening to the radio chatter in his earpiece.

Jeff looks up and lowers his hands from his forehead, where he had been gingerly feeling for more of the surprise bruises that were breaking out across his recently shaved scalp. He understands her question, and responds by waving it off. “Nah, the headache’s going down. It’s . . . I’m kinda in shock. I mean, I wake up in a space carrier on the edge of the known galaxy, in the middle of a war with aliens. And not guys-painted-blue aliens like Star Trek, but real . . . aliens.”

The amnesiac glances at a passing soldier in scarred body armor and redirects his attention to the doctor. “I’m on a ship that can basically go hundreds of times the speed of light, zillions of miles away from my home planet, wearing a neck brace for an injury I don’t remember getting, waiting for medical treatment that sounds like science fiction. One guy’s shooting bullets from his rifle and the other guy’s got a ray gun. Some of these people have ‘shields’ that should violate the laws of physics, and some have a ‘cloak’ that makes their ships invisible, but they can still shoot.”

Tobias now joins the conversation, sending a glance at Jeff, wondering if he’s remembering more than he’s been told. “The Bentuse.”

Jefferson is a little confused by the soldier’s interjection. “Don’t the Halpar . . . Snairab . . . whatever have cloaks?”

Sarah shrugs and since the radio is relatively calm, Tobias takes the time to explain. “They do, but they can’t fire while cloaked. Their computers and power can’t handle it. Bentuse were the ones who invented cloaking, according to all accounts I’ve heard.”

“So you think the Halpar stole it from them, too?”

Tobias glances at Sarah, who shrugs. “They’ve never stood up to deny it, which I think is the strongest evidence that they did. They also don’t seem to fully understand the technology, right?”

The soldier nods and gestures for her to continue, so she does. “They haven’t made any significant developments with it since they started using it. The Bentuse, on the other hand, refined it until they can fire while cloaked, then stabilized it until you damn near have to blow open the ship before they go into a cloak bleed.”

Jeff makes a laugh that sounds like ‘snirk’ before he manages to get control of his breathing to ask, “A . . . what bleed?”

The doctor looks to Tobias to answer this question, and after rolling his head on his shoulders to stretch a tense muscle, he launches into his explanation. “Cloak bleed, we call it that because it’s like the cloaking device is injured, bleeding. It’s tied into the ship’s system grid – it has to, or it won’t cloak the whole energy signature. When you damage the ship’s system grid enough, the cloak malfunctions and starts to go into an uncontrolled state of shifting somewhere between cloaked and uncloaked. Not enough to hide it, but enough to raise ‘cloaked vessel’ sirens.”

Jefferson scratches the back of his head, remembering the last time the soldier tried to explain his beloved ‘hypervelocity particle rifle’ an hour ago. “Uh, wow. That was a long explanation with a minimum of technobabble.”

Tobias and Sarah simultaneously break into chortled laughter

Confused, he asks, “What? What’d I say that was so funny?”

Tobias grins widely. “That’s just . . . so like you. I mean, you’re a techie, but you’ve probably never used a word of ‘technobabble’ in your life.”

Jeff shoots a confused look at both of them. “I’m a techie?”

Tobias shifts in his armor, obviously not uncomfortable with talking to Jeff. “Yep. I don’t remember exactly what your title is, but you’re a technician of some kind. You were attached to my assault party to see if we could nab Tos-Loven technology whenever we boarded an enemy ship, and even when we were here, you’d hang around us a lot. Whenever you wanted to get some time alone, you’d say you were checking the fiber optics and crawl around the jeftuns.”

Jefferson nods. So that’s tunnel nickname probably came from boarding defense drills, if I’m as fast as doctor Sarah says. “You seem to know a lot about the Bentuse.” Jeff leaves the statement open and waits for the soldier to pick up.

Tobias scratches at his helmet and looks over his rifle. “I’d say I know a little about a lot. Remember, I’m with the marines on team one, we’ve ended up on allied ships all the time, and we like using Bentuse ships all the time for recovery because the Tos-Loven can’t see ‘em coming. Sometimes when they see the extraction ship coming to get us, their . . . uh, crews go on overdrive to kill us.”

Despite being told he’d go along with the marines, he doesn’t have the faintest recollection. “Don’t they have regular crews like us?”

The soldier looks mildly surprised at the question, or that Jeff asked it. “Well, no, but they don’t have ships like us, either. Their individual soldiers are stronger than us. They can withstand the vacuum of space, for a while anyway. Their ships . . .”

He pauses for a while and screws up his face in concentration, so Jeff supplies, “Are living, you already said that.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean they’re like a big version of this . . .” He states, pinching an unarmored portion of his sleeve to draw attention to his flesh and bone. “They’re . . . well, they’re all different, but most of their ships aren’t enclosed. Ours are small and basically surrounded by a shell, theirs are open, very minimalist. Kind of like Dalasian termite mounds. They’re really skeletal, especially ships like the Shrin’ga or their carrier like the one we just destroyed, an Aproon.”

Jeff decides not to mention that he doesn’t know what a ‘Dalasian termite mound’ looks like. “Are you sure I went with you on their ships? You kept on asking if I remembered when you were talking about the inside of their ships, but . . .” He throws his hand up in the air in frustration.

“Well, at least you’re sharp now. Yeah, you’re a technician, but you’re what we call a ‘tunnel rat’. You came with us plenty of times, even helped pull our butts out of the fire a few times. You’d crawl where we couldn’t, and rip off little goodies if it looked valuable.” His headset radio clicks and Tobias’ eyes unfocus as he listens. The headset clicks faintly again and he points down a right at the next hallway intersection. “This way, there’s a flood of Tos-Loven coming the other way and engineering’s going to try to flood the corridors with plasma.”

Tobias tenses and swings his rifle up into a ready position a moment before Jeff hears the pitter-patter sound of quick, patterned footsteps, more and more, coming from the left branch. His left hand reaches to his waist before he recalls that he doesn’t have a weapon. Tobias stops and the amnesiac is suddenly glad because orange bolts leap down the hallway.

What surprises him is the strange pale green fire coming in response from the right. The powerful green blasts smash into the advancing Tos-Loven, drawing insectile cries. The surprised Tos-Loven fall back, disappointing the memory-robbed technician who was hoping to get a glimpse of one whole.

He doesn’t have the time to voice any displeasure. Tobias bursts forward and ducks to the right, spinning around to cover the corridor the Tos-Loven were coming from. Jeff follows, Sarah and the other two crewman with them. He glances down the left as he makes his turn, seeing only dark insectile blood and one metal arm.

A smooth, low voice asks in an accent that drags out the wrong syllables, “You lackeh wehpon.”

Jefferson turns around to look at the originator of the voice, and instantly forgets the letdown from not seeing a Tos-Loven. Standing before him, larger than life and with black and green scales that seem slightly fake and eyes even moreso, is . . . well, some new alien. The eyes, whites set with blue like plastic, interrupted by horizontal pupils like a goat. Calling them serpentine would certainly have been appropriate, the first animal Jeff thought of when he saw them was a king cobra, hood behind the head and all.

Unfortunately, his staring is interrupted by Tobias, who doesn’t seem fazed by the quite alien Bentuse at all. “Move! Fall back to section four!”

Tobias rushes ahead and the Bentuse follow him through the hall to whichever area the blond marine mentioned. Jeff takes advantage of the opportunity to examine the Bentuse in motion. Perhaps ‘snake’ isn’t the perfect descriptor. They have four legs – or arms, since they’re walking on three limbs with the weapon held in one arm, though they were standing upright before. Their bellies also bulge like large lizards, shaking slightly as they move in a side-to-side undulation like other reptiles.

Still, despite their generally reptilian appearance, there is something undeniably plastic . . . fake about them. The scales are too smooth, color too uniform and the changes too sharp, but their eyes . . . if there is anything fake about them, it’s those orbs.

The group takes another right turn at the next hallway and slows down. Tobias reaches up to his headset and reports, “Sergeant Tobias of team one reporting, area clear.” A low ‘whirr’ sounds from the corridors behind them and the blonde soldier finally relaxes. “That’s it, boys. Breather time.”

Jeff resumes openly looking over the Bentuse, whispering, “So that’s what Bentuse look like.”

One of them smiles and states with perfect English, “It is today.”

Tobias starts laughing, and it takes Jefferson to realize that it’s because of the surprised expression on his own face. Fortunately, the soldier is kind enough to explain, “They’re shape-shifters. Not perfect, as you can see, but their agents are pretty good at mimicking other species.”

Jeff resists the urge to scratch the back of his head. The Bentuse are absorbed in a rapid conversation with somebody on their radio, so Tobias elaborates, “That’s their typical form, though I have no idea where they got it. I say they look like snakes, what with the scales and fangs and all. No idea why they have fangs when they can’t eat solid food.”

The amnesiac notices that the plastic-snake-like aliens have completed their conversation and now seem much more amiable and open. Deciding to go out on a limb, he waves greeting to get the attention of the English-speaker, hoping that the gesture isn’t an insult to Bentuse. “Pardon me, but since we’ve got a few minutes, could I ask you a few questions?”

His question is received warmly by the expression on the reptilian-looking creature. “I would welcome the chance to practice my English. I am Natasan.”

Jefferson lightly brushes his hand over his shaved scalp, noting a few tender spots remaining. “I guess my first question is why you guys are here.”

“Ahh, that is such a question. I have lain awake many nights wondering that, but I think The Designer has made us incomplete, so we would be compelled to reach out and struggle, to be like polished diamonds instead of uncut gemstones.”

Jeff’s mouth hangs open slightly and he raises a finger but doesn’t have a chance to speak before Natasan begins laughing in a remarkably familiar human manner, though it seems a little practiced. “I am part of an intelligence team, we boarded your ship when ours was destroyed in the battle a few hours ago. My team has been aiding your soldiers since the Shrin’ga connected.”

The technician’s head buzzes with questions, and for some reason none of them seem to make enough sense in the current situation to say anything. Moments tick by and the Bentuse laughs. “You seem to be lost, Terran,” he states respectfully.

The amnesiac rubs his hand along the side of his neck, trying to decide how to explain himself. “It’s . . . I don’t know where to begin. How do you ask for someone else’s history when you don’t even know your own?”

Natasan smiles in what is probably supposed to be a reassuring look, though it is slightly unsettling with his faintly predatory reptilian body. Fortunately, the mirthful look in his eyes is genuine. “If your history is toppled, you must build it anew.”