She Has Your Eyes

A thin needle extruded from the wall and sank into Ben’s neck. A nutrient packet along with a solution of Nano-alerter bots flowed into his artery. Moments later, the injector retracted and the lid to the stasis chamber whooshed open.

He was instantly alert. “What do you have, Ship.”

“Sir, there is a distress call coming in from the Drega System. We have a small outpost there supporting a Helium-3 mining operation. Total population is estimated at three hundred; that includes family members. They are currently experiencing a level three assault. The attackers appear to be Biotopes, a highly aggressive humanoid species.”

Ben climbed out of the chamber and began to dress. His eyes settled momentarily on the latest picture sent from home. His wife was holding their new daughter, Lisa. He reached out and touched the image initiating the audio message.

“Ben, she has your eyes.” He’d already heard it a hundred times and it still made him smile.

He turned and hurried up towards the command bridge.

“Ship, how much time?”

Ship correctly determined this to be a two part question. The Captain needed to know how long it would take to get there. He also needed to know how long he and his men would have to hold off the Biotopes. A level three assault was not one they could hope to defeat.

“We can be there in three jumps; just over twenty minutes ship time. Star Cruiser Galileo will arrive two hours after that.”

This was going to get ugly; Ben was certain of that. The Biotopes, while humanoid in appearance were vicious fighters. They seemed to be without conscience, often destroying entire villages, even when no resistance was offered. Ben’s small patrol unit consisting of him and twenty marines were all that stood between the families at the Drega outpost and the “scorched earth” tactics of the aliens.

Ben hesitated only a moment.

She has your eyes…

“Ship, sound general quarters and initiate the jump sequence.”

The next twenty minutes passed in a blur. Men went from deep sleep to full battle readiness in a matter of minutes. Weapons were checked. Battle tactics were refined. And then, with one jump and minutes left before the fight, every man was given time to gather his thoughts. There would be no time on the battlefield for anything other than complete focus on the fight at hand.


Alone in his stateroom, Ben looked at the photo and asked, “Ship, probable outcome?”

“Captain, I estimate fifty percent casualties in the first minute after landfall. There is a less than two percent chance of anyone surviving until the Galileo arrives. The fall of the base is a near certainty.”

Ben barely listened as he already had guessed as much. He could feel the ache in his chest grow, letting it come without resistance. It wasn’t the ache of near certain death; he could deal with that. No, it was the ache of mourning. He wouldn’t have the chance to kiss his wife one last time. He would never hold her again. And then there was the daughter that would never know how much he loved her.

She has your eyes…

Then it was time.

All twenty-one drop-chutes were occupied. The entire, compliment of the ship would be involved in the attack; except of course, the ship itself. In accordance with standard procedure, it would stand off at a safe distance and record the event. Every detail of the battle would be analyzed later by Fleet Command.

There was the familiar disorientation associated with a jump-ending phase shift. Probability wave functions collapsed until only one possibility existed and the scout ship popped into existence a mile over the advancing Biotope invaders. An instant later, it disappeared, leaving behind a platoon of marines in high-velocity free fall.

Ben fell with his arms at his side to minimize atmospheric drag on his suit. Hopefully, the insertion had gone unnoticed. Ben and his men would need every scrap of advantage if they wanted to hold off the Biotopes. Soon, his suit indicated that it would initiate a hard-stop landing sequence in five seconds. The deceleration would cause him to temporarily lose consciousness.

His auto-injector woke him with a start. Almost immediately there was an explosion off to his left and three Life-Icons blinked red on his heads-up display.


So much for the element of surprise, he thought. They had been on the ground for only a few seconds and already three men were gone.

Looks like Ship might have underestimated our casualty rate. he thought.

No time to worry about that now. On the battle field, probabilities were little more than a measure of error. As far as Ben was concerned, if you couldn’t shoot it at someone, he didn’t need it. Leave the math to the post-battle analysis.

He fanned his men out in a tight arc with the outpost’s habitat to their backs. Pop-up scout-bots reported back enemy whereabouts. Ben didn’t like what he saw. The Biotopes were everywhere and quickly closing in on his platoon’s location. This looked like it might be over before it even started.


She has your eyes…

Ben shut out the memory for now, his best hope of getting home was to fight. He signaled for an EMP launch. The Electo-Magnetic Pulse would electronically blind the enemy while two of his men rushed out to lay mines. Fifteen seconds later, the mine field was in place, and two more Life-Icons blinked red.


For the next few minutes, a series of explosions indicated that the Biotopes where testing the effectiveness of the newly laid mines. Soon, everything got quiet; never a good thing when one was on the defensive. Quiet meant that the attackers were strategizing. They would be changing their tactics and thus keeping Ben and his men on the defensive.


The enemy would be coming soon, dictating events. Ben had to change that. It was time to take the battle to them. He broke his men into three groups: a left flank, a right flank and a spearhead right up the middle. Ben would lead the charge. He launched another EMP bomb and then ordered his men to attack.


“Star Cruiser Galileo is en-route; ETA – ninety minutes.”


The message flicked across his screen, almost like a taunt. An hour and a half on a battlefield was a lifetime.


She has your eyes…


Focus! He thought. This was no time to be thinking of home.


The next hour and a half were a blur. The marines took the offensive, scattering the Biotopes, but it didn’t last. The aliens regrouped and counter attacked. Lasers cut through the sky and explosions made it feel as if they were experiencing a non-stop earthquake.

A large blast knocked Ben back over a hundred feet. Only his armor kept him intact as everything went dark.


An auto-injection woke Ben with a start and he found himself face down in a deep pit where he had apparently been blown. He crawled to the rim and saw that the habitat was only a hundred yards away. A look in the other direction showed the advancing Biotopes were even closer.


“Star Cruiser Galileo – Ten minutes out.”


We just might do this, Ben thought.


She has your eyes…


Quickly he scanned through his remaining resources, looking for a way to reposition his troops that would give them the most advantage. Only then did he realize that every icon on the display was red. All save one – his. He set his jaw and began to consider his quickly dwindling options. He could just lay low. There was a chance that the Biotopes didn’t even know he was there. In ten minutes, the Star Cruiser would arrive and that would be the end of that.


Ben chose otherwise.

Captain Ben Saxton sat down for only a moment. That was all the time he had and it would have to do. With a flick of his finger, he called up his wife’s last message. There she was, holding their little girl. He smiled as his wife told him, “She has your eyes.”


I’m sorry, honey. I’ve run out of time, he thought. Ten minutes was going to be just a little too late.


He took one more moment to send a reply to his wife.


"She has your smile…"


With a flick of his left index finger, he triggered yet another pain-blocker injection. A red light flashed at the edge of his vision indicating there was nothing left to inject. A nearby explosion jolted him and more lights began to flash. His suit’s hydraulic system was leaking badly. Soon he would be trapped in a two-ton coffin that was his battle armor. Life support was in the red.


He felt the ground beginning to rumble, indicating they were on the move. The Biotopes knew help was coming and only a final assault would enable them to destroy the humans before it was too late.


That was when Ben attacked.

Charging out of the hole, he ran forward, firing everything he had. Explosions where going off all around him as he ran into their midst. He had no idea which explosions came from him and which came from the enemy. He was struck over and over but somehow maintained his feet. Only when his armament icon went red did he finally know that he had given all that he could give.

A Biotope, seeing its enemy unarmed, walked forward and struck Ben in the helmet, knocking him to the ground.

I’m sorry baby. Daddy isn’t going to make it home. Take care of your mom for me…

Ben was barely aware of the Biotope that spun him over, onto his back. The alien leaned forward and Ben saw…

Himself.

It was him, he was sure of it. He wasn’t looking at the face of Captain Ben Saxton. He was looking into the face of a Biotope. He was looking at himself, the Biotope that dealt the final blow that killed Ben Saxton.

That was when he saw the tear.

****

“Wake him up.”

Chof blinked up into the bright lights. He didn’t understand what was going on. One moment he was a marine, the next a biotope and now this. He tried to get up but found that he was somehow restrained; possibly to a table.

“There. See it right there?” Faces appeared in his peripheral vision as fingers pointed towards his eyes.

“Yes, he seems to have had an emotional response.”

Chof heard the words but couldn’t understand them without his translator implant, which apparently had been removed.

“We’ve done it. We have finally succeeded in transferring an emotional response from a human to a Biotope. Now all we need is a delivery system. If they can be made to feel sorrow or remorse like we do, perhaps it will take the savagery out of them.”

“Congratulation Sir. It was shear genius to implant Captain Saxton’s memories into the very Biotope that ended his life. For him to experience the very loss that he caused was just what it took to push it beyond its sociopathic nature.”

Chof’s head began to clear. He remembered now. After killing that last human, they had advanced on the habitat. Only the last minute arrival of that star cruiser had kept them from leveling the place. He now remembered who and what he was.

And yet, he also remembered something else. Something that made him feel an ache deep in his chest.

“She has your eyes…”



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