Tevun-Krus #1 - First Contact Page 7

Phoenix Rising by @Arizona_Red tells the tale of a world divided, defined by an ultimatum decision whether you are deemed worthy enough to live within society. If not you are ostracised to what is named as the slums, plagued by poverty and crime.

  The story first turns to the point of view of a character Phoenix, a rebel teen with an attitude that could knock out a truck driver. As a female myself it’s nice to see some female action within the Science-Fiction genre which I feel it is severely lacking, mostly writers tell the tales of male main characters and damsels in distress. However Phoenix and her intrepid ways shine a refreshing light, where in fact she presents the strong gutsy character demonstrated in every Science-Fiction story and her Male companion ironically named Ghost is slightly more tame and less of a threat.

  Ghost the chilled out, illusive boy and Phoenix’s partner in crime, proposes a suitable contrast to her character. Not only does it bring out Phoenix’s free-spirit it also provides a suitable light and shade within the book, showing off Arizona_Red’s clever characterization skills. It makes the book more relatable and gives everyone someone to root for.

  Another thing that makes this story so captivating and shocking is the realism within the book, a lot of Science-Fiction I find to be much too far-fetched, and although entertaining it isn’t enough to get your blood pumping. Especially within in the dystopian theme, too many ideas and plot twists with not enough lateral thinking behind it. Dystopian should be basically a stab at something within our society now a days, so a reader can have the all -important “What if?” question, tampering with their brain.

  Phoenix rising is what seems to be an attempt at criticising out arrogance and superficiality as humans, demonstrating a world in which it has gone too far. This infects one’s mind with the possibility of us living in a world that has such rules and situations, demonstrating something that could actually and has already happened within our society.

  That is the reason I give it a verdict of Four out of Five, which is a high rating as I am very picky when it comes to reading. So if I loved it so much I guarantee you will be enslaved by its brilliance.

  Favourite Quote ~ “It’s every smoker for themselves!”

  What Came First? - A Short Story By @DavidGibbs6

  An unnatural breeze swept the room, causing the middle aged science officer to look up from his sandwich. The controlled mixture of nitrogen and oxygen, that the company called Air+, was being sucked out the side of the station through a hole smaller than a pencil. Benjamin crossed the spacious floor to a cabinet, removing a piece of clay from the shelf. Throughout his mandatory annual training, he had been drilled repeatedly on such a situation, although he had never thought one day he would need to use any of it. Calmly he followed the breeze to the wall looking closely trying to find the gap he knew was there. An alarm sounded in the background as the atmospheric pressure dropped a bar, if he didn't find the hole soon his lab would go into automatic lock-down sealing him inside. If that happened the situation would be much more serious, possibly even fatal for him. Walking back to his desk, he removed a sheet of paper from his draw. Moving quickly he returned to the wall holding it out flat, waving it across the wall until the rushing air caught it and pulled it in. The paper tore instantly, exposing the hole which was only a couple of millimetres wide, quickly he forced the tennis ball sized piece of clay over the hole as the doors behind him clicked, sealing him into the room. Sighing he turned knowing the red light would be on before he even laid eyes on it. To the left were two emergency suits prepped and ready for just an occasion, striding over he began suiting up. In fifteen years he had never had to use the hull breach training but it had been drummed into every employee so hard that it came almost naturally, his mind going through the motions, following each step through with precision.

  A screen on the wall flicked into life, a serious looking face peered out and the intercom beeped twice before a voice spoke.

  "Are you alright in there Jensen?"

  Ignoring the man on the monitor, Ben continued to don his space suit and check the seals, when he was sure it was sealed, he pulled the cord which dangled above his head, causing the suit to inflate.

  "I think so." He replied through the suits intercom to the man who was waiting patiently. "What happened?"

  "We were hoping you could tell us, we have nothing on the radar and the early warning system showed zilch. All we know is the low pressure alarm for your lab was triggered."

  "Yeah there was a hole in the wall. It was small and I've plugged it with the clay, I tell you though it was tiny, maybe only a couple of millimetres across."

  "Do you know what caused it?" The man questioned.

  "I was sitting at my desk when I noticed a draft, I didn't hear or see anything." Ben replied.

  "Sit tight. We have engineering looking at it now. In the mean time you will have to stay isolated in the lab until we can work out exactly what happened. Try to stay calm and I would stay in the suit if I were you, at least until we fix the hole... Just to be safe." He added before the screen blinked back into darkness.

  Ben looked around the room waiting for something to happen, when nothing did, he lent back against the wall. Now that the adrenaline was subsiding and being that he was immobilized, his mind started the search for the answers to his current situation. A hole did not appear out of nothing and being a lab scientist he did not believe it appeared without cause. Looking around the room, it seemed to be completely untouched, his eyes lingering on details as he scanned every item, tracing his memories of how it came to be there. Nothing seemed out of place. Leaning back, he did the only thing left he could do, which was to wait.

  It was hours before authorization for the spacewalk to repair the hull was rubber stamped and then five hours more for the work to be carried out. By the time it was safe to leave the suit, Ben was more than a little hungry.

  The lock-down was a bureaucratic nightmare, the quicker it was discovered what made the hole the sooner they could review safety and release it. He sat eating the remainder of morning tea, a meagre couple of biscuits with the other half of a meat paste sandwich. It was enough to satisfy his hunger for now, allowing him to focus his attention on the task of looking for whatever had made the hole. It was most likely that whatever had collided with the ship had been vaporized on impact, leaving nothing more than a residue to be found. The computer system monitored the air supply constantly and any change in air quality, even a miniscule one would have been picked up by now. The residue was likely not airborne, causing Ben to reach for clean lab cloths. Carefully he wiped the wall surrounding the blob of clay, before removing the clay from the repaired hole and wiping across the hole itself. The white cloth showed a distinct dark smear of something resembling dust. Carefully using tongs he tucked the sample into a testing cell, stain down ready for analysis. It was lucky the strike hit this part of the ship, the working labs had a well-stocked range of equipment used for just this purpose. Loading the canister into the analyser he started the machine before hurrying back to the hole and swabbing the surface again for a backup in case the first test failed.

  The burst of activity was helpful in keeping his mind off what were steadily becoming fresh hunger pains, the sandwich having done little to satisfy his body's demands for food. Now that he was forced to wait again, the feeling that had been crawling in the pit

  of his stomach was starting to claw at the sides. Pushing the desktop intercom he spoke into the empty room, addressing whoever might be listening on the other end.

  "Would there be any chance of getting some food in here?" Pausing he waited for a reply patiently.

  "Hold on." Reported a shaky insecure voice.

  "Jensen?" Boomed the familiar voice of his area manager. "How are you holding up in there?"

  "Yeah, I'm okay. I was just wondering what the chances were of getting some food in here sometime soon?" The intercom had been surprisingly silent since the incident and the pause in his bosses reply was giving him a bad vibe.
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  "We are still trying to determine the risk factors Ben, at the moment there is too many unknowns to release the lock-down." The manager paused.

  "The only thing we could do ... is rig up a decontamination chamber ... but it's a tricky business. We are hoping that we can get confirmation on the strike and release the lock-down before we have to do that. The analysis you took is underway and that should be in soon enough. Hopefully that will remove some of the unknowns."

  "Thanks Ray." Ben tried not to let the exasperation show in his voice. There were still bitter feelings over issues that he had previously with his manager but this was bigger than petty arguments about methodology. He was sure that there were things management hid from him and it was Ray's job to keep a handle on the situation. He wasn't very good at hiding the severity of it, for all his positive wording it was easy to detect the underlying strain underneath. The company would do everything they could to keep their safety record intact, still there was a very real chance he could end up as collateral damage.

  Sitting at his desk he pulled another page from his draw, taking a pen he began to list the people who he wanted to address if this was to come to a sticky end. It was a sad list with only a few names, thinking about it was getting him down. Had his life really amounted to this? A job working off planet with only a handful of long distance friends to his name. He had always imagined his retirement as some glamorous picturesque affair, not the lonely outlook he was staring down at now. It was during this quiet contemplation that he noticed it. A small grain of sand sized object on the desk, it stuck to his hand with just enough force to be noticeable. Jensen's job involved testing various samples from the asteroid belt but that didn't explain the tiny grain that lay in the palm of his hand. Samples were carefully controlled, weighed and sealed. Most were ground to powder form and sterilized for use in the analysis machine. This was different to any sample he had handled recently, it was symmetrical, yet it still had a complexity to it. Under the microscope it was even more interesting, reminding him of a crystalline

  structure but none that he recognized. Buzzing the intercom he waited patiently for the screen to light up.

  "What's up?" Rays face appeared his balding hair highlighting lines in his forehead that seemed to have gotten deeper in the last twelve hours.

  "I've found something... It might be what punctured the hull." Ben replied. "It's small enough and has a structure that could survive impact."

  "Can you analyse it?" Ray questioned his voice full of hope. "If we can say for sure, that this thing was what came through the hull and quantify it... Well we have a really good chance of releasing lock-down."

  Ben sighed heavily, he knew there was no way to crush something this hard, not in his lab.

  "I don't have anything in here capable of reducing it." He squashed Ray's hopes along with his own. "I'll upload the micro scans of it into the system and maybe you can match it to something in the database."

  "That will take some time, I'll get people on it right away, in the meantime make yourself comfortable and get some rest."

  "Alright." He signed off.

  Ben had been dreaming of food when an alarm roused him from his slumber. He sat up from the floor where he had made a makeshift bed from lab coats and hand towels. The lights responded to his movement, at first only dimly before ramping up to full wattage as he stood. Ignoring his stiff back he began to make his way to the emergency suit when he stopped dead. The bench where he had left the sample was a stark contrast to the rest of the pristine lab. A grey fuzz had enveloped the bench, creeping up the wall and encrusting the side of one of the emergency suits. The lights still hadn't reached full capacity, he rubbed his eyes thinking it was an artifact of sleep and low lighting. The alarm shut down and the intercom crackled before a nervous voice filled the room.

  "Are you okay?"

  "Yeah, I think so." Jensen replied looking at the scared face on the monitor. "Am I losing pressure?"

  "Huh? Oh... Um... No. That alarm is for the air monitoring machine." He stammered in reply.

  "Okay." But Ben was not okay at all, air monitoring was bad, how bad he didn't know but he was sure that the metallic mould wasn't a good sign. "Where is Ray?"

  "Someone has gone to wake him up. Sir what the hell is that?"

  "I don't know." Jensen said looking up at the camera in the corner of the room.

  The fuzz was thickest at the analysing machine and spread out in a circular pattern from there. It changed colours as the surfaces it covered changed materials and the edge covering the space suit was a brilliant white like frost in a freezer. Something had happened to the air, whatever it was, he was inhaling it at this very moment. There would be no way they would release the lock-down now, Ben almost wished that the hull had blown out. The few minutes in space before you succumbed to death would be better than the long wait he was facing now. As if on cue his stomach growled and resumed its clawing at his inside.

  "Ben!" Rays voice came across the intercom forcefully. "What is it?"

  "I don't know. It looks like a bacterial growth... Maybe even fungal." He replied.

  "Have you touched it Ben?"

  "What kind of idiot do you take me for?" He shot back glaring at the camera before looking to the screen to judge the reaction on Rays face. "Not that it matters anyway. What happened to the air in here?"

  "It seems to be changing the ratios, acclimatizing the room to something else." Ray said, toning his voice down. It was clear that it had occurred to him just what this meant for Ben trapped inside.

  "I guess it doesn't matter now if I touch it or not."

  "Don't!" Ray scolded quickly.

  Ignoring him, Ben took a pen from the desk, walking to the edge of the large circle of fuzz and marked the wall roughly one centimetre from the edge of the organism. Standing back, he made sure it was visible from a distance before returning to his desk writing the time under the list of names and sitting down. The letters he wrote sat atop the desk, annoyed he swiped them into a draw and out of sight. Not only was he going to die but it was looking like being a drawn out affair. The machinery he needed to test any sample he took was already beyond recovering, how long before it reached across the room and he was forced to touch the stuff.

  Five minutes of skimming the science reports, while unsuccessfully trying not the think of food or his predicament and he felt like he was going insane. Getting up he inspected the mark on the wall, the Metallic looking fuzz had almost consumed the pen line already. Using a ruler he marked thirty centimeters from his original mark, as he did, the first line disappeared. Going back to the desk, he wrote the time under the first recording. A centimetre in seven minutes, after some quick calculations, he worked out

  that it would be less than three days before the whole room was covered. Getting up he went over to the mass poking at it with the end of his pen. The intercom crackled into life immediately.

  "Sir, please don't do that." The man appeared on the monitor swiftly.

  "Or what? You will bust in here and stop me?" Ben was in no mood to deal with the company's bull shit.

  "We are doing our best to get you out, please don't touch it." The man was doing his best to be reassuring but it was pointless. Ben kept poking at the structure observing how it responded to touch, taking a ruler he scraped at it. It was structured similar to a sponge, with a rigidness to it, crumbling when touched, the surface of the bench underneath was rough with corrosion. Whatever it was, it seemed to be consuming anything it came into contact with.

  "Ben, Please." Vibrated Ray's voice out of the speaker. "We have been looking into it and we can't find anything on it. We think its alien."

  "So what's the company policy on aliens Ray?" Ben stopped his scraping to look at the screen.

  "Well... I'm not up to date on it but I would assume it would be approach with caution. I wouldn't think taking to it with a ruler would fit that description."

  "Well then Ray, tell me what you're doing to get me out o
f here alive?" Ben practically spat the words at his superior.

  "All we can, that's all we can do." Ray spoke softly.

  "I'm a dead man and we both know it. In three days this room will be a tomb for me, a zoo exhibit for the company and there is nothing any of us can do about it."

  "You don't know that!" Ray spoke in desperation.

  "Oh but I do know Ray and I know, you know too, so why don't you use me while I'm still around?"

  "You know I don't have the authority to make that call Ben."

  "Well today's your lucky day Ray, because I'm doing it and you can't stop me. Today you get to witness the first alien autopsy and with a plastic ruler no less." Ben found a reserve of courage in the revelation of impending death.

  When he turned back to the alien mould it had developed more. Where he had made a clear patch, it had already begun to regrow, little fibres joining together to make more of the structure. That was not all that had changed. A larger more solid looking thing was

  emerging from the bench where he had left the small grain of alien meteor. It was forming what could only be described as a stem, it was rising up out of the furry mess. Taking the ruler Ben used it to dig at the base of the plant where white tendrils wormed their way into the mossy growth at the base. As he broke apart the growth it became apparent that this had been going on under the surface for some time. Under the surface was a vast network of white root like strands, they filled in the gaps making the whole thing more solid. Ben recoiled, backing up to sit at the desk, his plan to contain the growth by physical means was looking much harder than anticipated. His head swum as dizzy spells overcome him, standing he swayed over to the intercom button.

  "Ray... Something's happening." He called out as he was forced to sit for fear of falling, Ray's face appearing on the screen.

  "You didn't want to listen to reason Ben, so we have stopped the oxygen supply. That thing is sucking up oxygen and we were pumping more in to keep you conscious. We have been venting precious gasses into space to keep you alive."

  "So that's it then, you're going to let me die now to save on oxygen?" Ben heaved struggling to stay awake as the lack of oxygen took its toll. He didn't get a reply before the darkness overtook him and he collapsed.

  Hours later he came to, slowly becoming aware that he was lying on the floor. His mouth was dry and his body ached, taking it slow he raised himself to his feet. More than half the room was alien now, he could just make out the shape of the bench and other things under the growth. The plant like growth was much larger now, looking more vine like, as it twisted about the room.

  "Ben you're awake, good." Rays familiar voice muffled slightly by the now absorbent qualities the room had taken on. "We need you to take a look at something for us. Can you do that?"

  Ben's brain was too impaired to piece together his feelings, instead he sat against the wall taking in his surroundings.

  "Ben, snap out of it!" Rays voice seemed to have a sense of urgency or was it panic.

  "What do you want Ray?" Ben heaved trying to suck as much of the precious gas as he could. "I thought you wanted me dead."

  "We let the levels drop enough to knock you out. We never wanted to kill you." Ray pleaded.

  "So I spend my last moment's unconscious, what is the difference?"

  "We don't have time to argue the ethics of this now! Whatever propelled that seed through the hull, I think it's happening again, inside that room."

  "What?" Ben's head reeled as he stood.

  A large pod hung from a spiked twisting branch, looking like a menacing beehive but without the activity one would expect.

  "That pod thing has been growing in size for the last hour or so, we think it's getting ready to seed. Scans show it's full of little round seeds much like the one you found."

  "So what!" Ben spat, the fog clearing enough for his anger to rise. "I'm a dead man... Remember! You knock me out and leave me to die and now you're telling me I have to play hero. What then? You're going to save me?"

  "If that thing is as explosive as we think it is and it goes off, well it won't just be my life that is forfeit. You want the lives of everyone on board hanging over your head?" Ray sounded desperate now.

  "So what would you have me do then?" Ben dislike of Ray was one thing but he was right about the lives of everyone on board.

  "Remove the pod from the stem, if it's anything like a plant,that should stop it developing."

  Getting closer to the thing Ben looked it over, the stem was thick and fibrous looking, attaching at the base of the bulbous growth. The pod was a porous, misshapen sphere with a series of small holes covering its surface. He had to stand on the mould to reach it, as he did so his entire vision was taken up with the alien growth. For a second he thought 'this would be what it felt like to look at an extra-terrestrial environment.' That's what this thing was doing, it was biologically terraforming the environment to best suit itself. Even now his breath was short forcing him to labour just to stay upright. Grabbing the pod with both hands he was surprised at how hard it was, instantly he wondered if the stem would break or if he would need a knife to cut it. It was the last thing he thought as an ear ringing blast erupted in his hands, disintegrating his arms and ripping his torso to bits.

  Mankind's first contact was a brutal slaughter, every person on board being killed in an instant by the alien organism. Their space station blown open, perforated with thousands of tiny holes representing the thousands of tiny seeds, sent forth to terraform and conquer worlds. The wreck becoming a floating alien garden, a memorial and reminder of the harshness of any space venture. All the hopes we had for cultural exchange and higher learning, none of them came to fruition. The invaders came to consume our precious resources but no great war started. The humans who made first contact remained in the station that would go on to serve as their tomb, while around them, the alien ecosystem thrived. Survival of the fittest holding true across solar systems and galaxies alike.

  Closing Time

  So it's fair to say that Tevun-Krus has come a long-ass way since these humble, First Contact beginnings. The crew over at @Ooorah, @Wattpad's premiere stop for all things sci-fi (yes it's bloody true, ya cheeky bastards!) sincerely hope that you take this e-zine and enjoy it for what it is; a group of like-minded individuals doing what they do best... Rocking SF and sharing it with anyone and everyone who'll listen!

  Oooorah!