Parasites Love Earth! Read online

  "What have we got, sir?" she said, walking through the hallway at a brisk pace to match the Colonel's own.

  "An alien spaceship has crashed on the Earth."

  "Another one?" said Sam, as they entered General Henderson's office.

  After their experience with the alien virus, the population of the Earth had been quick to panic at every alleged sighting of an alien ship. But every so called alert of another alien incursion had proven to be a false alarm. After 50 years, the number of such reports had reduced in number, but they still happened, from time to time.

  General Henderson, a big, balding, man, was on loan from the British territorial army.

  "It seems like it's real this time, Major," said Henderson.

  While Jack had been totally supportive when Sam joined HomePlanet Security, General Henderson had been more measured in his approval, perhaps worried about her high ESPer rating. But over the three years she had been here, Sam felt that she had earned the General's respect.

  "Comsat has tracked an alien ship that crashed into Alberta, Canada."

  "Are we sure about that, that it's an alien ship?" Jack asked.

  "It's not one of ours," said Henderson. "Here's an image a pursuit fighter took of it going down."

  He activated a holo. They saw what looked like a spinning top. Definitely alien in design.

  "Note the blast marks on the side," said Henderson. "That thing has been in a battle."

  "Against good guys, or bad guys?" Jack asked. "And are they the good guys or the bad guys?"

  "That's what you have to find out, Colonel," said Henderson. "Your flight is waiting for you at Dulles. Gather your team."

  "Yes sir. Major?" said Jack.

  Henderson said, "Major Arden, you might want to sit this one out."

  "Sit it out? Sir, why?" Sam asked.

  Jack looked embarrassed. "The General's worried that if it really is space aliens, and if they do have telepathic powers, that they will take over your mind and make you... you know... kiss all of us." But Jack didn't mean kiss, of course.

  Sam looked from Jack to the General. "Sir... Sirs... this is exactly why I joined HomePlanet Security. If you're not going to let me go on missions like this, why am I attached to this organization?"

  Henderson looked at Jack. "Colonel?"

  "I want her along, sir," said Jack.

  Sam felt a chill down her spine, as she listened to the first three words.

  "All right," said Henderson.

  When they left his office, Sam let off some steam. "He still doesn't trust me! After three years, he still-"

  Jack grabbed her arm and pulled her into an empty room. Her heart started to race.

  "Listen, Arden. Your freaky mind powers still put some people on edge."

  "Do they put you on edge, sir?" Sam asked, looking into his blue eyes.

  "No," said Jack. "I've... I've gotten used to them."

  "Really?" she said, giving him a small smile.

  Her smile made him look away, embarrassed, as it always did, especially since she had married Gavin. "Let's go," said Jack, gesturing with his head.

  ********

  They had an entire platoon under their command. Some were active or reserve duty Survey Service officers; others were soldiers on loan from national armies or the World Government.

  They landed at Lexford Air Force Base in Alberta, some sixty miles from the crash site. A separate cargo plane started to disgorge their GEV's, their gravitational effect vehicles. Big and cumbersome, like trucks, they didn't look like military vehicles, buy they were filled with military and scientific equipment and floated on the air like hover craft.

  Jack went into GEV One, and Sam went into GEV Two, and the troops were divided roughly equally among the four GEV's. Their GEV's rapidly maneuvered through the forests of Alberta. All the greenery was simply gorgeous. It was summertime, and if Sam hadn't been focused on her mission, she would have been thinking about a vacation here. A vacation with Gavin. It had been too long since they had gone on vacation together. In fact, she could barely remember the last time-

  "Coming up on target," came Jack's voice, from GEV 1. They had just passed a small village, Anderson, and now were in relatively open countryside. In the distance, on an open prairie, they could see the spaceship.

  It had indeed made a crash landing, making rough lines in the earth before it skidded to a stop, at the edge of foothills. It looked like an upside down top, a child's toy.

  "Orders, sir?" Sam asked.

  "Have GEV's Three and Four dismount and approach."

  Three and Four. That meant Jack was purposefully keeping her out of the action. Was he trying to protect her, or something else? Sam bit her lip, but relayed the orders.

  GEV's Three and Four approached within a few hundred feet of the alien spaceship, and then halted. The troops dismounted.

  "No sign of life," said Captain Gerry, from GEV Three.

  "Move in, with extreme caution," said Jack.

  The troops moved in. From GEV Two, Sam could see them start to enter the alien spaceship, one by one. What would happen? What would they find? Would there be some alien inside who would take over their minds?

  She stretched out with her ESPer powers. She sensed nothing. But that was far from conclusive.

  Several minutes passed and there was no update. Jack must have noticed because he said, "Gerry... report."

  "All clear," said Captain Gerry. "Just a moment."

  "All clear." He repeated again, a few second later. "We can bring the science team in. You have to see this."

  ********

  Several hours later, tech teams were pouring over the alien ship. One of them was led by Doctor Janice Whistler.

  Sam and Janice had a history together. They had both attended the University of Santa Barbara at the same time. When they first met they hit it off, but Sam didn't know that Janice was a lesbian.

  One night Sam had pined for some guy at a party who had spurned her, and she drank a little too much to drown her sorrows, and Janice had helped her back to her dorm room. Sam had been crying, saying that no one loved her.

  But Janice insisted that she was beautiful.

  "Really?" Sam had asked, with tears in her eyes.

  "Really," Janice had said. And they looked at each other for a long minute, and then Janice gave Sam a passionate kiss. At first Sam didn't know how to respond, but the alcohol, and her emotional state of mind seemed to respond for her, and she kissed Janice back. One thing led to another, and soon they were naked, rolling around and making love to each other on the rug on Sam's bedroom floor.

  Afterwards, lying in each other's arms, Sam said, "But... I'm not a lesbian."

  "Did you enjoy what we just did?" Janice asked.

  Sam nodded, smiling.

  "Then welcome aboard, honey," said Janice.

  Sam moved to comment further, but Janice cut her off with a kiss. Then she remounted Sam and gave her another repeat performance. "It's the scientific method, honey," said Janice, rubbing her pubic hair against Sam's clitoris, eliciting a gasp. "If you can duplicate the results, it's reliable."

  After that, Sam became a confirmed lesbian, much to the frustration of half the male population of USB. The stunning short haired blonde with big breasts was the property of Janice Whistler, and she made sure everyone knew it as she walked around campus with her arms around her lover's waist.

  But in her senior year Sam met a guy named Brian at a house party, and he switched her back to men. They drank, they kissed, they touched her, and petted, and one thing led to another, and before long Sam was back in Brian's dorm room, lying with her legs spread while Brian reacquainted her with the joys of penis.

  But even as he thrusted between her legs Sam half-protested, "But I'm with Janice."

  "Does Janice give you anything that feels half as good as this?" Brian asked, grinning.

  Sam groaned, as she felt the sensation of being completely filled. "No," she said. Suddenly, she knew.
She was addicted to penis. There was no way she could go back to Janice.

  Nevertheless, she had to explain it to Janice, and they inevitably had a falling out. Sam tried to explain that they were LUGs, Lesbians Until Graduation, and Janice asked if that was true, why had Sam never mentioned that before, and why had they broken up before graduation, and Sam had no good answer for that.

  They made up and stayed friends after that, but didn't see each other again until Janice graduated Medical School and was posted to HomePlanet Security in Alexandria, years later. When Sam saw her friend there, she hugged her, but worried that things might be awkward between them. They were awkward, somewhat, but they were still good friends.

  ********

  "These are prison cells of some kind," said Doctor Whistler, in a white lab coat. "Don't touch that!" she said to a soldier, who was reaching out to touch something in a cell. The redhead was short, a whole head shorter than everyone else, but she had an air of authority the others respected.

  "Prison cells," said Jack. "How can you tell?"

  " These rooms also have solid beryllium doors," said Janice. She pointed to the walls. "And look at those projectors. They look a lot like the stasis projectors we use in medical technology. They just didn't lock these rooms, they froze the people inside of it."

  "People?" Sam asked.

  "We're taking DNA samples now," said Janice.

  "What makes you think this was a prison ship? Maybe it was carrying perishable medical supplies." Sam said.

  "Which brings us to the crew," said Janice. She led them over to a corner of the crew lounge, where they saw three, desiccated husks.

  "What happened to them?" Sam asked.

  "As best I can tell, all life was drained from them," said Janice. "That's the good news."

  "That's the good news?" said Jack.

  "The alien virus that Infected the Earth 50 years ago didn't demonstrate this kind of ability," said Janice. "At least, we aren't dealing with them again."

  "No, we're just dealing with an alien, or aliens, who can suck the life out of people," said Jack. "And now there are a handful of them roaming somewhere, out there."

  "A handful?" said Janice. "Think dozens, Colonel. Perhaps even hundreds."

  "Dozens? Hundreds?" said Jack.

  Janice held up tiny containers. One held a leaf; another held a tiny insect; a third held black goo. "There could have been hundreds of entities on this ship."

  "And now they're all... out there," said Jack. "Sam, do you sense anything?"

  Sam shook her head. "Not since we arrived, Colonel."

  "Let's see if Gerry had some better news for us."

  They went to the cockpit, but the news wasn't better.

  "The controls have all been destroyed," said Captain Gerry.

  "The crash?"

  "Negative," said Captain Gerry. He indicated the destroyed control panel. "Whoever landed this ship wanted to make sure we couldn't get access to the data records" He sighed. "We can have a tech team dig into the components. Maybe they'll find something."

  Jack nodded. He and Sam went outside to look at the lovely countryside.

  "Beautiful place," said Jack. "If not for the aliens, I'd plan my next vacation here."

  "I was thinking the same thing, sir," said Sam. She suddenly felt awkward "I mean, for me and Gavin."

  "Of course you did," said Jack, giving her an unreadable look.

  They stared at the countryside in silence.

  "Sam?"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "We're facing another alien invasion, aren't we?"

  "I think so, sir, yes."

  "I so wish you hadn't said that," said Jack.

  ********

  As night was falling, they cordoned off the area with two GEV's, and with the two other GEV's headed back to the airfield. On the way back, they stopped at Anderson, the sleepy village just a few miles away.

  "Let's have a look around," said Jack, giving Sam a knowing glance.

  "Yes sir," she said. She knew what he wanted.

  They started to walk around. They saw farmers working the fields, and children walking on the road alone or with their parents. Occasionally an air car passed them. They passed a pub, and they went inside, and saw several people drinking, talking about the loud sound they had heard in the sky and the military's arrival. Jack seemed to be paying more attention to Sam than the people in the bar. But when he looked at her, she just shook her head.

  But then when they walked outside, they saw an old man, just sitting there, on the front porch.

  "Momomomom," he said.

  "He seems kind of old to be pining for his mommy," Jack said.

  "Are you all right, sir?" said Sam, looking down at him.

  The man blinked, and seemed to become aware of them for the first time. "Yes, I'm fine," he said. He looked at them. "You're with the military, aren't you?"

  "Yes," said Sam, giving him a smile.

  "What are you here for?" he asked.

  "Just making sure everyone is all right. Are you all right, sir?"

  "Of course," said the man, giving her a gentle smile.

  "Of course," said Sam, standing up and furling her eyebrows at Jack.

  The old man shouldn't have noticed it, but he did, and he sprang up and punched Sam. She went falling to the ground. Then he lunged at Jack and tried to grab him by the throat. Jack started to wrestle with him, but the old man was strong. Too strong.

  And then there was a flash of light and the old man dropped to the ground. Behind him Jack saw Major Samantha Arden on the ground, clutching a blaster which was still smoking in her hands.

  Other soldiers came rushing up to them.

  "Our first alien?" Jack asked, getting up.

  Sam nodded. "We need to get a hazmat team. Don't touch him!"

  ********

  Two days later, the team was sitting in the briefing room in Alexandria at HomePlanet Security Headquarters staring at a holographic image of a rider. The pancake shaped creature was lodged on the man's back, between his shoulder blades.

  "Have you tried to remove it?" General Henderson, asked.

  "I think it would kill the host," said Doctor Whistler. "It seems to generate intense pain in the host's body as a self-defense mechanism."

  "What is it?" said General Henderson.

  "Some kind of parasite, which seems to exhibit partial control over a human being," said Janice.

  "Partial?" Henderson asked.

  "At times the host-"

  "He is a man with a name, doctor. Let's use it," said General Henderson. Sam loved him for that comment.

  "Neil Truk," said Janice. "Mr. Truk, when we tried to question him, gave very contradictory answers. Sometimes he told us he had no idea how he got Infected. Other times he describes a pancake like creature, flying through the air, which attached itself to him."

  "Flying?" said Jack.

  "Flying," said Janice. "He also tells us that he saw other... creatures, heading in different directions. But then later he denies it. It's clear that the creature doesn't have total control of him. At least, not yet."

  "So this... creature is different from the one of the previous invasion?"

  "Definitely," said Doctor Whistler. "The first invasion was largely on a microbiological level, passed through sexual contact. This is a creature of some size which attaches itself to the victim's back. It seems to control him by tapping into his nervous system near the base of his neck."

  "Were any of the other villagers infected?" General Henderson asked.

  "We subjected them to compulsory physicals," said Jack. "None of them except this one, the one Major Arden found," he added pointedly.

  "I'm aware that Major Arden was invaluable in helping us apprehend this creature," said General Henderson. "Major, do you think that you can detect other creatures like this one?"

  "I... I hope so, sir," said Sam, feeling all eyes on her.

  "Then you will be our lead investigator in this situation, alo
ng with Colonel Sullivan," said Henderson.

  Sam felt a chill as Jack gave her a secret smile.

  "Doctor Whistler, what have your DNA analyses showed?"

  "We took scrapings from all six cells in the crashed ship," said Janice. "All I can tell you for sure is that each cell held different kinds of creatures. Very different. In one cell we found a form of plant. In another we found a kind of insect life. In a third and a fourth we found different kinds which... aren't readily classifiable. In a fifth we found DNA which remotely resembled human but with a lot of DNA sequences altered."

  "Sort of like a distant cousin of humans?" Sam asked.

  "Exactly," said Janice. "And in the sixth one we found samples of what appeared to be excrement."

  "The excrement of a creature?"

  "Or perhaps a creature that is composed of excrement."

  "Dear God, no," said Jack, covering his face.

  "How many of these creatures could we be facing, Doctor?" General Henderson asked.

  Janice shrugged her labcoated shoulders. "Dozens. Hundreds. It's hard to know."

  "I think I'm going to have to brief the President of the World Government on these developments," said Henderson. "In the meantime, study the captive we have, and find out what you can."

  After the briefing, Sam cornered Jack. "Thanks for speaking up for me in there," she said, standing close to him.

  "You're my subordinate. It's my responsibility to speak up for you," said Jack.

  "I know, I... thank you, sir," she said, looking up at him with gratitude and vulnerability and perhaps something else in her eyes.

  "You're welcome," said Jack, with a smile.

  ********

  Over the course of the next few days, Sam and Jack dropped in on Janice to see how she was doing with Neil Truk. They stared at him on the security monitors.

  "Sometimes he seems normal, and then sometimes... there it is again."

  Neil sat in a chair, his face glazed, and he began to mumble.

  "Momomomomomomomom," said Truk.

  "He wants his mommy. It's an alien who wants his mommy," said Jack.

  " Mamoomishom! Mamoomishom Momomom Mamoomishom!"