Author: Johannes "Jergen[K]" Cruz			Viewing: Chapter 5

“Oh you know this is going to be good,” Johannes said as he longingly looked at the porterhouse steak laid bloodily before him. Ban simply nodded, his mouth already to full from his own slice of beef as he struggled to swallow as much of it as he could with each bite. “How long has it been since we had real food?” Johannes asked, stuffing his rather large chunk of steak into his mouth with an approving moan. Ban swallowed and took a long drink of water. “Real beef?” He considered the question for a while before answering, “it’s been at least a year I think.” Johannes only smiled as he continued to work over the plate in front of him. The two men finished their meal with scarcely more than a dozen words between them; the food was just to good to be soured with needless conversation. After he was done eating Johannes stood from the table and walked to the back of the large restaurant. Where the dining room was filled with circular tables draped in red tablecloths and circled with plush chairs of real wood from the distant earth, the rear patio was left bare. The interior of the bistro was floored in highly polished white marble while the veranda was floored with gray marble lined with patterns done in granite. Green ivy, growing thick on the stone banister encircling the entire deck, bloomed, filling the night air with the cloying scent of exotic jungle flowers. The place was named Elizabeth’s Cove, after the owner’s long dead wife, and overlooked the large river the city of New Memphis sat upon. Like the mighty Mississippi her namesake rested near, New Memphis was a port town, and the Blue River was the vein of prosperity she depended upon. Johannes watched in silence as large river barges slipped past under the light of the planet’s five moons. All around the city was lush jungle, and the sounds of the indigenous life cut through the air at random intervals, but instead of disturbing the atmosphere of peace, they enhanced it. Ban moved up behind his friend, taking a moment to let his eyes sweep over the scene of the sleeping city and sparkling river below him. He too leaned against the leafy banister and watched in silence. Jergen lighted a cigar and exhaled its aroma into the slight night breeze. “How long do we have until we leave again?” He asked the silent figure of Ban. “Three days, maybe four,” Ban said, his deep voice a rich complement to the restful evening. Johannes nodded, taking another pull off of his cigar. The burning end of the thing brightened, lighting his face in a strange orange glow for a moment. “This is a good place,” Jergen said softly. “I think this is what earth must have been like a long time ago.” Ban nodded silently. “Sometimes I wonder what happened to those people,” Jergen went on. “Those few from so long ago that lived in the old America with no thoughts of corporations or wars to fight for money and political influence.” “They had their wars to fight too,” Ban said. Jergen nodded, “but what they fought for was more real, it was more pure.” Johannes stood away from the railing and paced the length of it, his eyes shining with the lighted cigar and the shimmering light of the moons. “They fought for what they believed in, for their homes and families.” His voice trailed off for a long time before he spoke again. The sound of the river barges drifted up to them as they churned their way up the river. “We fight for whatever politician has the most pull, or whatever corporation has the most money to bring to the congress.” “Killing is killing brother,” Ban said. “Why we kill doesn’t much matter, the targets are just as cold and buried.” “Yea,” Johannes said. “I don’t know why I care as much as I do, it’s not like it matters what I think anyway.” “It’s not mine to wonder why,” Ban said, letting his voice trail off. “It’s mine to do and die,” Jergen finished. Neither man said anything for a long time, they simply stared out over the shadowy river and watched the traffic pass lazily by in the night. After he finished pulling on his cigar he waved one of the servers over to him, “any real whisky in this place?” “Yes sir,” the young woman said, looking the marine over in his rented suit. “We have just about every earthbound label.” “Something aged please,” Johannes said, handing the girl his credit stick. “The bottle.” The girl nodded and hurried off. “Plans for a long night Johannes?” Ban asked, looking at his friend. “Thinking about all of this begs for a bottle,” Jergen replied, pulling chairs from an empty table in the dining room for both of them. “I figured we could sit out here for a while, listen to the strings from inside and shoot the breeze.” Ban nodded, “sounds good to me, its not like we get to relax.” Johannes only smiled. The girl returned with the bottle and Johannes gave her a healthy tip, smiling to her he asked: “when do you get off?” The girl had the temerity to blush, but she didn’t seem all that embarrassed, “in about an hour.” Johannes opened the bottle and filled the two rocks glasses that had been delivered with the serving tray, “would you mind spending a little time with we two old men?” “Sure,” she replied, “I’ll round up a friend or two and we can show you around.” “Sounds good,” Jergen replied. Ban just shook his head as he took a pull from his drink. “I will never understand what they see in you,” was all he had to say about it. Johannes laughed, draining his glass and refilling it, “neither will I.” The bottle disappeared quickly between the two of them. Although Jergen was more used to it, Ban was nearly twice his size and handled the unfamiliar liquor well. With their drinking behind them Johannes leaned back in his chair and lit another cigar. “Where are you from Ban?” He asked, replacing his lighter in his suit pocket. “New Orleans,” Ban said. “Grew up there, left after school for the marines,” Ban replied, “I haven’t been back much since.” He shrugged his shoulders almost convulsively. “No family left?” Johannes queried. “None worth going back to see,” Ban said, pausing for a long time to watch the night before continuing. “My father was pretty mean, he used to work my mother and I over when he got drunk. The problem was that I don’t ever remember him sober. The only thing I could do to make sure my mother made it okay was get work and keep money coming in, because then my pop wouldn’t be so hard on her, he could get enough alcohol to keep himself in a coma,” Ban swallowed, leaning forward onto his elbows. “He killed her two months after I got out of boot camp,” he finished the last in an almost synthetic sounding monotone. Johannes sighed, “People are pretty worthless sometimes.” “Yea,” was all Ban could say, his emotions had found their way into his voice. “You deal with him after you got home?” Johannes asked. “I guess you could call it that,” Ban replied, standing up and walking to the railing to lean on it. “I took him out on the bayou and got him piss drunk. After about two bottles of hard grain hooch I put a round in his head and burned his house down around him. I guess it was a fitting pyre for the old bastard, and my mother.” Ban’s voice trailed off as he listened to a pair of barges talking in the night with their low whistles. “This place reminds me of home,” he took a deep breath and looked at his hands to make sure they were still. “The air is the same,” he returned to his seat and leaned back, almost casually. “What about you Jergen?” Johannes just stared up at the patches of stars and the many moons high above them. Ban thought he wasn’t going to answer when he finally did, “I don’t know.” “What do you mean you don’t know?” Ban asked incredulous. “I mean I don’t have memories of childhood,” Jergen replied looking at him soberly. “Not a single one.” “That’s crazy man, you get hit in the head or something?” Ban said almost laughing. Johannes just shook his head, “No, I just remember waking up in a hospital one day and being told to report to a doctor who put me through rehabilitation, and then I got orders to report to an officer and here I am.” “You mean to tell me you have some kind of amnesia and they let you come back out here with no memory of yourself at all?” Ban was clearly skeptical. Johannes just nodded. “I know it’s out there Ban, but that’s how it works. They sent me out here, and that’s that. The strange thing is that I don’t remember training, or anything of the sort, but I can do it. I can do everything any marine can, but I don’t remember learning a damn thing.” Ban just shook his head, “you some kind of synthetic freak show or something?” “I bleed red and feel pain just like you do, I just don’t remember a anything. It’s almost instinctive in a way, it’s like I was born to it or something, its deeper than memory and drives me to do what I have to when we are on missions,” Johannes took a long pull off of his cigar and then stood to stretch his legs. Just as he was about to sit back down his pager went off. Whenever the team left ship they were always given a means to keep contact with command in case of an emergency. Johannes looked at the display of his unit at the same time Ban was pulling his out of his pocket. “Recall,” was all Ban said as both men put the devices away and began running out of the place. As Johannes passed the girl from earlier he called out, “sorry, but our ship just came in!” The young waitress pouted prettily, but smiled in a moment and waved to the two of them as they sprinted out towards the nearest taxi they could find. The dream faded to wakefulness, leaving Ban staring at the interior of an infirmary aboard Preacher’s ship. He sighed, still remembering the fantasy of the dream and longing for the reality of the lost memory. At least, he mused to himself, he wasn’t fighting another loosing battle against the xenomorphs. At least his mind had managed a few hours of real rest, this time. *** “Doctor Stewart,” a young man called as he approached up one of the long hallways. He was dressed much the same as all of the other lab interns, but he was sweating heavily with exertion from the run between the pods. It was summer on Eden, and dreadfully hot at this latitude. Evelyn turned, facing the boy. “Yes Scott?” She asked, slapping a clipboard against her open palm as she waited for him to catch his breath. “Shadow Dragon has just landed, and the crew is in the infirmary,” the boy said in a rush, leaning against the wall and wiping sweat from his forehead. Evelyn started running back the way the boy had just came, “give this to Doctor Brinks and tell him I am in the infirmary!” She called out as she ran past the boy, thrusting the clipboard roughly into his hands before disappearing down the hallway. By the time she reached the medical compound she too was bathed in a light sheen of sweat and breathing heavily. Although she had taken great pains to stay in shape after their arrival at Eden, the summer heat was still enough to sap her energy, and she was feeling every one of the ninety-seven degrees outside. Not only was it very warm at this latitude, it was also humid because of several large rivers joining less than twenty miles away, spilling into a huge inland sea that permeated the air with moisture. As a result, thick foliage was spread out over the entire valley floor, but if the wind was not moving the tepid air around, it was a stifling sauna. Entering the compound in a rush she barely paused to don the appropriate medical garb before entering the infirmary. She could see Mekhazzio and Dachande sitting on their beds while a doctor looked them over, but Aegis was lying down and covered in a plastic quarantine shroud. “How is he,” Evelyn asked the doctor on duty as she entered the room through the airlock. “His signs are stable, but we haven’t had a chance to get him under the equipment for a full scan,” the young man paused to jot down a note on the charts he was holding. “It will be a few hours before the devices are set up properly.” The survivors of the exodus to Eden were primarily doctors and scientists, and because of that there was no shortage of trained medical staff on the planet, but simple labor and maintenance crews were hard to come by. For once mankind had need of simple strong backs and was hard pressed to find any, the result was an exceedingly well-staffed hospital ward filled with people that had nothing to do with their time. Evelyn nodded at the man’s report as she stripped Aegis’ chart from his bed and walked over to the other two, “hey guys, I’m glad you made it back okay.” “Oh sure,” Mekhazzio said sarcastically, “we are just fine.” “Thanks Doc,” Dachande said, trying to stand up from the bed and receiving a menacing look from the on call Doctor. He thought better of getting up and laid back on the cot. “Looks like I get to take a nap.” Mekhazzio threw the doctor a look before turning to face Evelyn, “I don’t know what happened to Aegis Doctor, that ship did something to him up there.” “What exactly did you see it do?” Evelyn asked, finding a notepad to record the incident upon. Mekhazzio just shook his head as he ran his fingers through his mop of dark hair; “it was the craziest thing I have ever seen Doc, I mean it was impossible the way I remember it.” Mekhazzio looked down at the floor as he began his report. The synthetic mind excelled at the storage and recollection of events, and when he was done not a word had been missed or an event confused. Evelyn took a seat and tapped her pen on her bottom lip as she thought. “This has to be some level of living construct, a perfect biomechanical synthetic device.” Mekhazzio looked away from her as she spoke, clearly disturbed by the thought. Evelyn noted Mekhazzio’s reaction, but said nothing about it. This wasn’t the right time, but she did intend to bring it up with him later. “Whatever created that ship had to have such a grasp of genetic engineering as to be able to create living matter,” she paused in her thought as more ideas tumbled through her mind. “More than that, they created something that could instantly adapt itself genetically to any situation,” she wrote several lines onto her small pad before she stood up to pace the room. Every time she passed Aegis’ bed she paused to look down at him. “So you think that thing just figured out that it needed to attach itself to my ship and just made itself capable of doing just that?” Mekhazzio asked with a puzzled expression on his face. “That’s exactly what I think it did Mekh,” she turned to face the pirate before continuing. “Then it adapted to utilize Aegis for the trip home.” Dachande sat up on his elbows and looked over at the two of them, “you think that thing is going to kill Aegis?” He asked lamely, lines of worry etched across his face. Evelyn thought for a moment before she answered, “I think if it just wanted to kill him it already would have done so. It doesn’t need a body to communicate. It could have created its own form if it had wanted to do that. I think it’s trying to use Aegis so that it can work amongst us without causing more hysteria. Whatever these beings are, they understand us much better than we give them credit for.” Dachande just shook his head and laid back down, “whatever you say Doc, but whatever it is it had better let Aegis go.” Evelyn just nodded and walked back to where Aegis was lying unconscious. “How long has he been out like this?” She asked Mekhazzio. “After he spoke to us he just collapsed,” he shrugged, “he hasn’t moved since then.” Evelyn continued to take notes from the charts at Aegis’ bed as she walked slowly around him. Other than the nasty bruise he had gotten from falling to the metal deck of Shadow Dragon when he had been knocked out, he seemed fine. Evelyn was very anxious to get better readings from the scans they were going to do within the hour. She walked back over to Dachande and Mekhazzio when she was finished with her notes. “I think you gentlemen can go,” she said as she leaned against one of their beds. “I’ll call you if anything changes okay?” Dachande slid off his bed and started to leave, looking over his shoulder at his sleeping friend one last time before he slipped out of the infirmary and headed to his quarters on the other side of the compound. Mekhazzio paused and touched Evelyn on the shoulder, “I don’t think these are the same as the others that attacked us. Don’t look so worried,” he stepped away and stood in the hatch to the infirmary for a few moments looking at the doctor. “I know Mekh,” she said, “I just keep asking myself when this is all going to stop. We keep fighting, and every day friends keep disappearing, it’s the worst string of luck in history.” “I don’t doubt it,” Mekh replied, “but he’s going to be fine. Like you said, if it had wanted Aegis dead it would have already killed him, and the rest of us along with him.” Evelyn nodded, “thanks Mekh.” “Just protecting my investment,” he said with a wry smile. “You’re are still worth more to me alive than dead.” “Its nice to be wanted,” she said to him, slapping him in the arm with her clipboard as she moved to Aegis again.