Ancient Astronauts

Attack

"This is becoming a thing," Aly murmured to Hans.

The big man got up and went to answer the knock at the door.

"Lt. Harrison! Sgt. Batts send a medic at once!"

"Yes, sir!"

Aly rushed to clear the table.

Hans helped Lt. Maley Harrison across the room and sat her down on the table. Blood flowed slowly from her arm, and her head was crusted with blood.

"What happened, Maley? It's been weeks since your final report."

"Sir," Maley replied, dazed, and opened her mouth to speak.

"Hans, back away from her. Can't you see she's hurt?" Alyonna shooed Hans out of the way, and offered Maley some water.

The grateful operative accepted it with her good arm and drank slowly. Sheila, who'd been visiting that morning and was a nurse herself, came in with her large first aid bag and pressed gauze into the bleeding wound in Maley's shoulder.

Hans waited impatiently for the women to finish up. Just then the staff medic attached to the Skyhawk Platoon came through the door.

Hans held up a hand for her to stop. The soldier did so and stood at attention. Sgt. Batts appeared in the doorway, also at attention.

"Answers first, then surgery, lest someone else be on this table before the day is out."

Maley cleared her throat and seemed to struggle for a moment to collect her thoughts. Finally she decided to start at the beginning, "Sir, the lab results were inconclusive. I couldn't tell you much more than I did at the ship because there wasn't anything in the database remotely similar to what we found. But I remained vigilant, instructing the guys on your team, including Laptop and Lt. Smith to keep an eye out for any other strange markings."

Maley stopped there and took another sip of water. Alyonna grimaced at the mention of Lt. Smith's name. Hans waited impatiently for her to continue. He wasn't tapping his foot like an ornery school teacher, but he was pretty darn close.

"I got a radio call from Lt. Smith last night. He said more scouring marks were found near the oil refinery. I went out there with my team to investigate, and his intelligence turned up correct. The marks were on some of the oil barrels and they were empty. We tested the ground and found limited traces of the oil, as well as tracks belonging to a large, clawed, quadruped."

"Quadruped," Hans repeated, "I thought you told me at the Astral Ark that the creatures were bipedal?"

"I still believe they are, sir," Maley looked at the floor then took another sip of water. Her arm had stopped bleeding.

Hans waited, his face unreadable.

"I took samples back to the lab and performed the same diagnostic procedures as I did on the ship, and then ran them against each other. There are no similarities between the molecular or atomic makeup in the organic samples collected at the two sites. We're dealing with two completely different varmints, sir."

Hans turned to Sgt. Batts, "Radio James Martin and Shooby. Tell them I want to see them in my office this afternoon. If there were any other incidents like this with the oil supplies, they would know. Do not mention details, Sergeant."

"I never do, sir," Batts snapped a salute and went out the door. Hans heard him barking an order at someone. Then he came back inside and stood by the door.

"Maley," Hans' eyes softened a little, "Tell me about your injuries."

Emotion seeped through Maley's ingrained military decorum and tears formed at the corners of her eyes, "There were four of us," Maley said softly, "After running the diagnostics, we headed directly out here to report the incident to you personally, sir. We didn't want to run the risk of an intelligence breach by radio per your orders to maintain operational security."

Aly gasped, "What time was that?"

"About 3am, ma'am. We didn't make it more than three klicks before we noticed that private Hancock wasn't with us. We circled back to look for him. Whatever it was was on us before we even heard it. It appeared on night vision as a large quadruped, big as one of the Bradley's, sir. I didn't get a great look before I was flung down the hill into a tree, but I'm sure the thing was covered in some kind of bony, spiked armor."

"Great," Hans muttered, "We're up against a space dinosaur. Sgt. Batts, radio the fort, get Commander Mobert out here with humvees and that Kentucky commando unit."

"Yes, sir."

Hans turned back to Aly, who was visibly terrified, "Don't worry, baby. We're just gonna go out and see if this thing likes to play chicken."

Aly wrapped her arms around him, "I don't want you to go. You don't have to, right?"

"No," Hans said, "but I need to see this thing for myself, and I can't let my men go up against an unknown threat alone." Cupping her face in his hands, he said gently, "You know that."

Aly turned away and busied herself with cleaning Maley's head. She did know.

"Anything else, Lieutenant?"

Maley appeared to think for a long moment. Then hastily pulled out a large bundle of paper, "The complete results from the Astral Ark, sir. I thought you might want to look them over yourself. There is one thing that seemed strange."

"What's that?"

"The scour marks, sir. They were inflicted on the interior wall from the opposite side."

"You're referring to the articulation void with nothing in it all according to the engineer?"

"Yes, sir. That side."

"Goddammit," Hans sighed, "how am I supposed to be in three places at once?"

"Do them in order," Aly said.

"And do them quickly," Hans finished.

"Without dying," Aly had turned around and was leveling an imperious look at him through verdant eyes.

Hans chuckled softly, "Yes, ma'am."