The Xtra- Volume One Read online

  The Xtra

  Oliver Willis

  © 2019 Oliver Willis

  For Paulette Rosemarie Lowe-Willis

  My beloved mother. You taught me, loved me, and made me whole. In heaven, as on Earth, you are always with me.

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  25 Years Ago

  Chapter 1

  Just a few miles above the Earth's surface there is the ultimate darkness and airless blackness of space. Up here, nothing moves, nothing breathes. There is no life. Earth's satellites orbit, transmitting information across the planet's surface.

  But they do not see what is about to happen.

  Light appears in the darkness.

  At first it is just a pinprick, smaller than the eye of a needle. But in seconds it is larger, a few inches, then a few feet.

  Then in a blinding flash the white light rips the fabric of space and time itself. The very building blocks of reality are being kicked aside and rewritten by technology more advanced than any of the billions of minds below on the blue-green planet could possibly conceive of.

  Through the rip, a silver spaceship emerges.

  The ship slides through the break in space-time and the opening closes behind it, as if it were never there. The pieces of reality go right back into place, operating just as it was supposed to.

  She made it.

  Unlike the primitive design of Earth's rockets and space shuttles and other such vehicles, this ship is designed vertically, not horizontally. It is only about six feet wide, but it is eighteen feet tall.

  It slides through the darkness of space above Earth like a knife.

  A battered and damaged knife.

  On board the being piloting the silver ship is trying to get her bearings. She is still in shock from the trauma of her journey, the billions of miles she has traveled and the chaos and carnage she is leaving behind.

  She has to remember she is doing what she's doing for the greater good, for a goal more important than herself and her family.

  My family, she thinks. She will never see them again. She is further away from them than anyone on her home world has ever been from another being. When she left them, they were in the middle of a battle she is certain they will not survive.

  She has to take her pain and emotion and shove it all down below, somewhere deep inside. Because if she doesn't act now, do what needs to be done, it will all be for nothing.

  I didn't travel across the universe to die.

  She looks like a human being, but she is nearly eight feet tall with green skin and long fingers.

  She reaches out and presses a series of buttons on the display in front of her. She has been trained on this ship, gone through a million scenarios on the simulator, learned how to deal with emergencies and landings and the problems that can arise.

  But nothing like this before. She's never done anything like this.

  The ship is the peak of technology on her home world, but it wasn't designed to travel this far, with this much damage from enemy fire. It survives, but only just barely.

  Nyala takes a deep breath and exhales, trying to clear her mind, to do what has to be done.

  Her hands shake in fear.

  I don't want to die.

  Chapter 2

  Nyala looks through the viewing window in front of her and for the first time sees the planet she traveled so far to get to. It is a sight to behold.

  It is green and blue and even from this distance, far above its surface, she can see that it is bursting at the seams with life. Such a contrast to her home world of Tevrem and its cold, grey surface. Back there, life was the exception to the norm. She and her people lived when almost everything else on the planet died.

  Yet there were some who wanted more death. More lives snuffed out. More loss.

  They were the reason she had taken the plunge and embarked on this impossible journey. They were the ones who had to be stopped. She has already paid such a price.

  Pray to Ev'ran that I see this beautiful planet, she thinks. She hopes the ship will hold.

  As if on cue, the vehicle violently shakes. It pitches forward and slides out of orbit.

  Nyala grips her controls tightly and pulls back on them, hoping to correct it.

  Going down.

  Earth's gravity begins to pull on the ship from below. Nyala hears soft crunching noises and the floor of the ship shudders under her feet.

  Now it's inevitable. This is happening, no matter what she wants or desires. This is going to happen. Her ship has made its last trip through the stars and Earth is its final destination.

  Now it's all about living and making it through.

  She has to.

  There are too many lives at stake to mess this up.

  The ship shakes again and the battle against the planet's gravity has been completely lost. She is headed down, all the way down.

  Nyala continues to look through the viewing window and she can see Earth rushing to her. She is terrified but also her heart is full.

  Look at it. Even with her adrenaline pumping, with her fear at its highest level, with her life on the line, the beauty is stunning.

  Blue. So much blue. She wonders what kind of creatures live here, how they thrive, what they eat and drink and how they live and love. Surely they live in the blue, she thinks, considering how much it clearly dominates the surface of Earth.

  They must live in the blue.

  But the green is everywhere too. It covers everything that isn't blue, along with some patches of brown she can start to make out.

  She thinks about what it would be like, in another time, another set of consequences, to put her eyes on this whole new world with her family at her side.

  Mother. Father.

  They showed her the infinite universe, encouraged her to reach out to the stars, backed her fully when she went to the Academy and always told her she would join the rest of their people as they sailed through the universe.

  Now as she tumbles into the surface of an unknown planet, toward an uncertain future, her family is behind her. They won't ever see Earth. They probably won't see the end of this day, if they're even still alive.

  I have to live.

  She presses a button.

  "Salvage status acknowledged," replies the tinny robotic voice of the ship. Engineers have worked for years and years on all manner of advanced technology for the ships, but they still never managed to get a voice that didn't sound like an awkward piece of electronics.

  It was never a priority for them and as the ship continues to rattle and roll, significantly increasing its vibrations, Nyala allows herself to smile at the goofy technology.

  Just for a second.

  The protocol has been enabled. No going back.

  Outside the ship a small sliver in the surface opens up. Just briefly. A silver disc a few inches wide shoots out and the hole seals right back up as if it was never there.

  The silver disc breaks off from the ship's path on its own.

  Within seconds, it has grown and expanded into something about the size of a basketball. Immediately several small sensors poke out from its surface and do what the drone was always designed to: Scan.

  It scans everything and anything. The atmosphere. The life forms. The communications signals. Every bit of data that crosses its path.

  The satellite is the pinnacle of Tevremian technology, the most advanced – with one or two significant exceptions – piece of engineering ever achieved on Nyala's home world.

  It's usage in this situation is a clear sign of how dire things are.

  If the probe has been deployed, if the ship is in salvage mode, it means that all hope of a no
rmal, safe landing is gone. It means that whoever was piloting the ship understood that they were at the end and that emergency measures had to be taken.

  On Tevrem, pilots were trained to trigger the procedure only as a last hope.

  Nyala's hope is almost all gone.

  The satellite fires its tiny engine and it shoots toward Earth, still ingesting information, processing it all. It was designed for this doomsday task. It was created for one goal and one goal only: preserving the life of the pilot who deployed it. The information it takes in is crucial.

  Inside the satellite advanced circuitry and computer chips store and sort through all the data coming in, generating digital pathways and connections on the fly.

  Survive. That is its one mission. Find a way to survive.

  On board the ship Nyala can see the satellite fly ahead of her as she tumbles to Earth. She knows what it is doing and that for her to live it must succeed.

  She closes her eyes and prays.

  This has to work.

  Chapter 3

  Wallace Logan can't keep his eyes open. He is trying. Desperately. The young black man grips the wheel of his Jeep in a futile attempt to wake up. He hopes the tension of the car's steering wheel will be uncomfortable enough to jolt him.

  It works for a second, but then the feeling is gone. He's been up for hours now and would like nothing more than to pull off the road, lean back his seat and sleep a few hours.

  He passes his hand through his close-cropped hair and feels his scalp. He sighs.

  He is driving eastward, back across the state of Florida, on the losing end of another useless trip. He is still hours from his destination of Fort Lauderdale, but it might as well be a million miles away.

  The job interview he is driving back from was a disaster. There is no other way to describe it.

  He goes through it in his head one more time.

  There was the smile plastered on his face through the whole process, something he did so the interviewer wouldn't think he was just some "angry" black man. Be passive, placid, pleasing he had thought. But not too laid back either. Be positive, confident. But not too "aggressive".

  It could be like dodging landmines. Actually, as Wallace thinks about his time in the Gulf and heading through Kuwait in Desert Storm, navigating the course of the interview and how to come across was much harder than an actual field of landmines.

  What a waste, he thinks.

  Despite all his preparation and performance, trying to make the interviewer feel comfortable and reassured, it had been another strikeout.

  "We'll keep in touch," the interviewer had said, offering him a weak handshake that felt like a wet bag of oatmeal.

  "Keep in touch," Wallace mutters out loud, mocking the tone of the man. Now here he is, in the middle of the night, driving back home for another "opportunity" to embarrass himself. When he had scheduled the interview, he had done so assuming things would have gone better on the west coast of Florida.

  Now he is in a time crunch.

  The warning strips in the middle of the road shake the vehicle a bit as the car drifts to the left and he runs over them.

  If I'm dead I can't make the interview.

  Wallace shakes his head, trying to clear the cobwebs out.

  I can sleep later, when I'm done. It's pathetic, but he thinks about his tiny, dumpy studio apartment. The cheap foam mattress on the floor, covered by a sheet that's so thin and uncomfortable he might as well be sleeping on top of sandpaper.

  Right now, that sad excuse for a bed seems like the most expensive bed in the presidential suite at a five-star hotel. Wallace thinks about closing his eyes and letting his mind drift off and rest.

  Then it happens.

  At first it feels like the early onset of a headache. Just a little pain at the back of his head. Maybe at his temples.

  I'm tired. This happens. I need rest. Just get to this interview. Then home. And sleep.

  Wallace is used to giving himself these kinds of pep talks. Breaking tasks down into smaller, achievable steps. It was how he made it through the Army, breaking down even the most complex series of actions into little goals.

  This was like that. Even better: Nobody shooting at him.

  Then a blinding pain shoots through Wallace Logan's brain.

  Chapter 4

  It’s a buzz. It doesn't make sense but that's what Wallace feels. A buzz, coming from the inside. From inside his brain. It's a noise but not really a noise. More like a sensation.

  A buzzing sensation emanating from inside his brain.

  This is a man who has been shot at several times, repeatedly faced possible death in the middle of a desert, who just survived a disastrous job interview and is on his way to another encounter he presumes will be a failure.

  But the buzzing scares him.

  Then it slides away and his head is back to normal. He begins to think about his situation.

  Then it's back.

  It rolls in and out like that for a few seconds, hitting him like waves against the shoreline of a beach. Waves in, tide out. Tide in, waves in.

  Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

  Now the wave comes back and washes over him, and Wallace can feel it. It's all over him and it is right there in a way he doesn't have the words to describe.

  STOP.

  Wallace doesn't know if that is him or the buzzing or a combination of the two, but he responds. He slams down the brake, mashing the pedal to the ground.

  It is as if someone is yelling at him from inside and outside at the same time.

  The tires slide against asphalt and the Jeep squeals to a stop. Wallace is holding the wheel tight enough to choke the life out of it. He is breathing heavily.

  What the hell, he thinks.

  A few hundred feet above him the satellite hovers above Wallace. All that analysis and it has found the ideal receptor for its important mission.

  Wallace's brain is now just a playground, a primitive receptor for alien technology beyond anything Earth has ever seen.

  Chapter 5

  Nyala's ship continues to shake. Anything not as strongly constructed as the Tevrem craft, going through all that trauma, and it would have been ripped into a million pieces. Between the space jump to Earth, the pull of gravity, and the blasts in the ship's hull from her pursuers, it is a miracle that it's still (mostly) in one piece.

  Nyala knows this, but she doesn't have time to give thanks to any deity or the technician who may have put her ship together. There's too much to do and a really short time to do it in.

  Outside the ship the silver of the hull is glowing from the heat of reentry. It would melt most other materials. It is one of the advantages Tevrem has had among the other worlds crisscrossing the known universe. They were among the first to the stars and figured out how to master the dark voids between the planets.

  Tevrem ships can handle nearly anything that's thrown at them.

  "Genetic assessment complete," the ship announces, and despite the momentous occasion of the statement, it is delivered in the same flat monotone as any of the other mundane ship functions.

  Tevrem engineers never factored in excitement or danger. Such emotions are not their thing, and never have been.

  Nyala feels her hearts skip. This is something she hasn't been able to train for. Back home, they run you through all the scenarios to make sure that out here, in space, you don't seize up.

  Tevrem pilots are supposed to be the best of the best. The most elite. They know how to anticipate the moment at which pilots from other planets have failed and slammed into a wall, reducing themselves into paste. Tevrem's fliers have the edge.

  But they can't teach this. They can't simulate this. They can try. They can tell you until you're sick of hearing about it what this experience is like and what is expected of you, what it will do to you and how it will alter everything you know about the world.

  But that is completely different from going through it.

  Nyala's seat leans back, pullin
g her away from the controls as if to say: This is it, you're not in command anymore.

  For all intents and purposes, the ship is clearly saying: This isn't on you and whatever illusions you had about being able to control events are just a weak fantasy now.

  She lets go, relinquishing control. Her fingers slip on the rubbery surface of the controls and then they are just suspended in the air. Holding on to nothing.

  Soon Nyala is in a fully reclining position. The ship is still bouncing along, making its descent to Earth's surface, but she can no longer see through the viewing portal.

  That makes the experience much more frightening and even though it's just the same, like it was before, the loss of control adds another level of anxiety to her. The pace of her breath quickens.

  It's happening.

  Small holes open up in the walls of the ship next to her and small nozzles jut out. They are silver, like the rest of the ship. Uniformity. Tevrem likes that too.

  Nyala doesn't go along with the flow as much as her peers. She doesn't conform like others her age. That is probably what saved her. Why she has lived up until this moment and may just live to see another day.

  Maybe.

  She hears the nozzles start humming and seconds later she hears the liquid sliding through the tubes. It survived the jump. Survived entering Earth's surface (for now), and is on the verge of its final, most important step.

  A gelatinous liquid shoots out from the ends of the nozzle, spraying a warm goop against her skin. The nozzles move back and forth, spraying one layer after another on top of the last.

  Nyala has never felt this before. This material is too unique, too precious, too powerful to simulate. She has seen it stored in clear cannisters on the training grounds, behind powerful security locks and armed guards.

  But now the spray is covering her skin, every inch of her body. The spray methodically moves back and forth, up and down. A red light shoots out of another porthole and slides up and down her body, looking for sections that are not covered by the fluid.