Exo-Hunter Read online

  Chuy’s callsign is the nickname version of Jesus, which was pronounced ‘Hey Zeus’ en Español, a popular name in Mexico once upon a time. She chose Chuy as a callsign, not because of her beliefs, but because Jesus is who she sends our enemies to meet. Probably not the most Jesus-like rationalization, but neither were the Crusades—all five of them. Her real name, which I’m forbidden from speaking aloud, is Sophia Calleja Pérez. It’s not even close to a match for her personality. Like naming a German shepherd Rose, Cuddles, or Gertrude.

  I lean closer to the window. Huff my breath onto it, fogging it up. My finger squeaks over the glass, as I draw a crude recreation of my own pooch, a corgi named Attila. When not deployed on missions or at a movie with the team, I spent my time with Attila. She was my companion for seven years. Of everyone left behind in the twentieth century, I miss her company the most.

  “Sorry, buddy,” I say, hoping that she ended up in a good home. Then I wipe the image away and roll onto my back.

  Another sleepless ‘night.’ I tell the crew that my lack of sleep has to do more with being accustomed to a legitimate day-and-night provided by the sun and the rotation of a planet. Truth is, I’m plagued by fears that I won’t be able to save my people. That they’ve been dead for five years.

  And if that’s true, my last mission—the thing that makes me…me—will be over. I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle that, because there really is no place for me in this future world.

  And that’s what planet 003189 is for.

  According to Union records, the planet’s atmosphere is unbreathable to humans, the temperature variation between day and night is a hundred degrees, and the water there is so acidic it melts skin.

  Couldn’t be farther from the truth.

  Planet 003189, which Chuy and I call ‘Elysium,’ is a paradise. It’s Earth-like in every way that matters, aside from the fact that there is no intelligent life. Not even Drago knows the place’s true value. When this mission ends, it’s where I’m going to retire, free from the bleached-white Union and this oversized coffin. I’m fond of Bitch’n, mostly because of its name, but I look forward to every moment I spend somewhere else.

  If I recover my people, they’ll be welcome to join us, or to pursue their own path through the stars. If my mission fails…Chuy and I will have the place to ourselves. Who knows, maybe we’ll eventually get together. She’s my closest friend. Has been for a long time. She’s a looker, too, and a great cook. But we’re too similar—if that makes sense. It would be like falling in love with myself. If I had boobs. But I’m not currently my favorite person.

  “Hey,” Chuy says through the comms. Her voice is unexpected, but it doesn’t startle.

  “Hey,” I reply.

  “You’re awake.”

  “You know I am.”

  “Going to have to do something about that,” she says. “You’re still human, you know.”

  “Going to have to do something about that, too,” I say. “Think they could genetically engineer me to not need sleep?”

  “I think that’s how God made you already,” she says.

  “Maybe.” I turn to the view again. Hasn’t changed. “What’s up?”

  “We have a new set of celestial coordinates.”

  “Already?” I sit up.

  “This planet was strike number seven for us, and planet 001045 is ready to pop. They say.”

  I slide my bare feet to the cold metal floor.

  “You know…we don’t need to do this,” she says.

  “I’m not ready to retire.” I force the words out.

  “Neither am I,” she says.

  “What other job in the Union would you want to do?” I can’t imagine either of us spending any real time among this future society outside of our skeleton crew, to whom we’ve grown accustomed.

  “We go outside the Union,” she says, and I can hear her smiling.

  “Really? Pirates?”

  “How did you know!?”

  I know because I’ve considered the same thing. It would be fun. And easy. But there’s a stumbling block I just can’t get past. “So, the end result of us traveling a thousand years in the future would be to reignite people’s xenophobic stereotypes about black men and Mexicans?”

  “I was born in LA, gilipollas. And what does it matter? After we’re dead, the galaxy will be bleached clean again, probably forever.”

  It’s a fair point. “I’ll think about it…after I give up.”

  “Which isn’t today?”

  “Not today,” I confirm. Probably not for many more years. “Drago.”

  “Dah?” He replies from somewhere else aboard the ship.

  “Rotate us when you’re ready. I’ll be there in five mikes.”

  “Always with mikes. Why not say ‘minutes’ like normal person?”

  “I’m not a normal person,” I say, and I toggle off my comms. I’m supposed to keep them active when in dangerous situations or rotating through the galaxy—in case something goes wrong—but I don’t feel like arguing with Drago right now, and the odds of things going sideways before I reach the bridge are disappointingly nil.

  I hit the shower. The high-pressure mist stings, but it hits every nook and cranny with enough scalding water to clean even Drago. I close my eyes and wait for it to finish. Then, I hold my breath as the fans kick on, whisking away every drop to be recycled into drinking water, or someone else’s shower.

  As a typhoon of warm air swirls around me, I feel a momentary shift in equilibrium. I open my eyes to endless white light. And then, in a blink, the shower’s interior returns.

  We’ve rotated already. Drago must be bored.

  I step out of the bathroom, throw on some homemade boxers, and head back into my quarters. Trying to lighten my mood, I start whistling Axel F by Harold Falter-something. I couldn’t remember his name in the 80s, let alone now. I shake out my freshly cleaned pants, slip my leg in, and get stuck in a fold. I’m hopping around the room, cursing up a storm, when the door whooshes open and Chuy runs inside.

  “Gah!” I shout in surprise, losing my balance, and spilling onto the bed.

  “Sorry,” she says, but she looks too frazzled for me to care about the intrusion.

  I withdraw my leg from the pants and stand. “What is it?”

  “Step Four,” she says. “We got a hit.”

  4

  “Show me,” I say, standing in the middle of the bridge.

  Porter spins around in his chair, mouth open to talk. But he stops upon seeing me. Closes his mouth. Furrows his brow. He’s got a bearded John Candy thing going on. Like someone’s uncle who might be an alcoholic, or a pedophile. “Ahh.”

  “Spit it out,” I say, quickly losing patience.

  Drago starts chuckling. Burnett and Morton turn to look at the commotion and start laughing, too.

  “Hey, Buckaroo Banzai,” Chuy says, stepping onto the bridge with a smile on her face, “you forget something?” She tosses a wad of clothing into my bare chest.

  I sit in the captain’s chair, trying hard to not flinch from its cold surface. The bridge is laid out something like the USS Enterprise, but more rectangular and with Klingon décor sensibilities. And the viewscreen…isn’t. It’s just a large window through which we can see the endlessness of space. “Anyone who doesn’t cut the shit and tell me what you found is going to be cleaning the hull next time we rotate.”

  Porter’s face falls flat, suddenly serious. Burnett and Morton, too. Drago just laughs harder.

  I look Porter in the eyes. “Spill it.”

  “We ran through the four—”

  I gesture my hand in rapid circles. “I already got the verbal foreplay, thanks. Give me the details.”

  Porter sits up straighter, blinks a few times and says, “We found a signal on 104.1 hertz. The same high-pitched squeal the three of you radiate.” He glances at Drago, Chuy, and then back to me.

  “It came from the planet’s surface?” I ask, slipping into my pants, this ti
me successfully. “It wasn’t some random radio burst from a distant pulsar or something?”

  “It came from the center of the planet’s only landmass,” Burnett says.

  I pull a tight, black, long-sleeve undershirt on. “Show me.”

  The center of the bridge fills with a hologram of the planet we’re orbiting. Two thirds of it is water, the rest is a massive continent stretching north to south and capped with ice on the poles. But it looks like it’s cracking apart. Large seas cut into the mass, fueled by rivers large enough to see from space.

  “It’s like an exo-planet Pangea,” I say.

  “That’s exactly what it is,” Morton says. “There are actually eight separate continents all squashed together and very slowly separating. In a billion years—”

  “Radio signal,” I say, redirecting them back to what I care about.

  A red blip appears near the center of the land mass.

  “This is where the signal appeared,” Porter says. “The environment is equatorial, hot, humid, and lush, with some kind of jungle. The atmosphere is rich with oxygen, but not enough to be toxic. You can—”

  “Porter…” I stand, buckling my belt. “Why did you use past tense to describe the signal?”

  “Oh,” he says. “Because it’s gone.”

  “Explain ‘gone.’”

  Porter looks nervous, like he’s been caught in a lie, even though he’s not. My crew is afraid of me. Not because I’ve ever actually hurt them, but because they know I could. And I let them think it. The truth is, they’re my people now. I’d fight for them just like I am for my twentieth century team. They might be descended from space Nazis, but they’re closer to happy-go-lucky basset hounds.

  “Well, it was there for a few seconds,” he says. “And then…it wasn’t.”

  “Lasted six point five seconds,” Drago says. “Stopped just after Chuy left bridge.”

  “Any explanations?” I ask.

  Burnett raises his hand.

  I huff out a laugh, shake my head, and roll my eyes. “You don’t need to raise your hand.”

  “Oh…” He lowers his hand. “Okay. Uhh, the signal’s disappearance can be explained by one of two logical conclusions…”

  “Which are…?”

  “If it came from someone like the three of you, it’s possible the signal is being blocked.”

  “Blocked by what?”

  “Given the rugged landscape, I’d guess a cave.”

  “And the second possibility?”

  Somehow, Morton pales a little further. “They’re…ahh, they’re dead.”

  I throw on the last of my clothing. Reach for the personal Slew Drive on my belt.

  “Dark Horse,” Chuy says, as my finger hovers over the activation button. She gives me a ‘Don’t you dare’ look, shooting me with imaginary .50 caliber rounds. I hesitate because I know she’ll absolutely follow through on her dick punch threat.

  “This is different,” I say.

  “You are right,” Drago says, standing from his chair and stretching his arms. “This time is important to all of us.”

  I hadn’t realized Drago cared about finding my people. I thought he was just along for the ride on the only ship in the galaxy that still carried real soldiers.

  “We go together,” he says, and he bumps into me as he passes. “Also, you have no gun.” To Chuy he asks, “Was always so forgetful?”

  “No,” she says, eyes still on me. “He wasn’t.”

  I remove my hand from the Slew Drive. “Fine. Let’s get this done double-time.”

  As Chuy and Drago exit the bridge, I turn to Morton, who has managed to get himself in decent shape over the past few years, I think because he’s secretly in love with Chuy. In shape or not, his large beak of a nose and his smile that looks like a sneer aren’t doing him any favors. “Get Lil Bitch’n ready. You’re flying.”

  To Burnett I say, “Prep the medical bay. Just in case.” To Porter, I add, “Remember when you told me you had an idea on how to reduce the recharge time on this?” I pat the Slew Drive on my hip.

  “Yes…?”

  “Get it done.”

  “Yes, sir.” He salutes.

  Ugh. These guys…

  I leave before something sarcastic slips out. It’s not their fault they’re placid and malleable, but it still irks me. I sometimes prefer Drago’s incessant asshole routine. But only because I know it’s an act. He slips up sometimes, usually when he’s been drinking his homebrewed swill. He had a wife. A son. Parents and grandparents. All of them were alive, and close, when we were whisked away. All of them lived their lives without him.

  I was an only child. My parents and grandparents had passed away. Atilla was the best dog in the whole world, yes, she was, but that’s not the same as losing a son and wife.

  Chuy left behind her parents and two brothers, so they’ve both got me beat in the twentieth-century baggage department.

  At least I still have a chance to save my extended family.

  I step into the armory. Chuy slaps a magazine into her rifle. Like all of our projectile weapons, they’re custom designs built to our specifications by the dynamic trio. They’re vaguely futuristic, but in very 1980s ways. What they all have in common is that they throw a lot of heavy tungsten, very quickly.

  “Look at this moron,” she says, and she nods toward Drago.

  He’s got two handguns strapped on his chest. Two more on his hips. He’s got a rifle with an attached pulse grenade launcher over his back and two sawed off shotguns in his hands.

  I look him up and down.

  “You going to hold the Hot Gates against the Persian army all on your own?”

  Drago raises an eyebrow. “First, I do not know reference.”

  “It’s history,” I say, “so I’m not surprised.”

  “Second, better to be prepared and not need, than need and not have.”

  “A cliché spoken like a Neanderthal, but…you’re not wrong. And Chuy’s not wrong, either.” I pick up a magazine and slide it into my armor. Then another. And another. And another. And another. I keep my eyes on Drago’s the whole time, until I’ve loaded myself with ten magazines. “Same amount of fire power. A fraction of the weight.”

  Drago grimaces. And then shrugs. “Are we going?”

  Five minutes later, we’re strapped into Lil Bitch’n, punching through the atmosphere.

  The view through the windshield goes from fiery orange to white, as we slip out of the upper atmosphere and through a layer of cloud cover. And then, the world below turns green.

  “Looks like the Amazon,” Chuy says.

  “The vegetation here is larger than anything that grew on Earth during your time period,” Morton says, getting all of our attention. “I’ve been doing research. Like you suggested. Anyway…the trees here are an average of five hundred feet tall.”

  “Five hundred…feet?” I ask. “Are you sure?”

  “You’ll see for yourself in a moment,” he says, taking us down toward the growing wall of green. “Just need to find a gap in the—here we go.”

  Lil Bitch’n twists and descends. It’s an impressive maneuver. Bold for Morton. He’s been learning about more than just ancient history. And he’s right about the trees. We spend a full minute watching a trunk grow thicker as we descend. It’s covered in a strata of vines and moss, which appear to change species at different altitudes. Each tree in this vast forest is its own ecosystem.

  And from what I’ve seen, this planet is prime real estate for the Union. I feel protective of this place already, and I would consider hiding it if Morton hadn’t already seen it up close and personal. I don’t know if my crew’s loyalty to me supersedes the Union’s will, and I don’t want to put it to the test.

  Not yet, anyway.

  We set down between two tree trunks that are a good fifty feet wide.

  I unbuckle and hurry to the rear hatch, which is opening as I reach it. I step outside, and I’m blown away by the scent of Earth-plant
decay and the sweet smell of flowers. The extra oxygen in the atmosphere invigorates me, and for the briefest of moments, I forget why I’m here.

  Then I raise the radio signal detector and spin in a circle, waiting for it to squeak.

  And…nothing.

  Whoever set it off is still hidden.

  Or still dead.

  I step out onto the solid ground. Nothing spongy about it.

  “Gonna suck telling them about this place,” Chuy says, stepping up beside me.

  “So, we do not tell,” Drago says. “If Dark Horse can claim planet, so can I.” He gives me a wink when I look surprised that he knows. “You think I don’t know about your planet, but I am watching. Like hawk in sky.” He takes a deep breath, expanding his weapon-laden chest. “Is good for future Russian home world.”

  Can’t tell if he’s joking. Don’t really care. I activate my comms. “Morton, how far are we from the signal’s last known location?”

  “It was two klicks to the north,” he says. “Did I get that right? Is it klicks or mikes?”

  “You got it right,” I say, and I toggle off my comms. “Who’s up for a hike?”

  Chuy strikes out with me. Drago, who is carrying a few hundred more pounds than he should be, grunts and then follows, which is good, because there’s a good chance whoever we find—if they’re alive—would react badly to seeing his face first. Not because they’d recognize him, but because he’s so damn ugly.

  5

  Everything about this world makes me feel like an insect. The trees are skyscrapers. The leaves, king size blankets. We’re wading through what I think would be classified as grass, but each blade is like a broadsword—and just as sharp. The vegetation forced me to put on gloves, and let Drago take point. He’s hacking away with his machete-sized, eagle-head knife. I’m not sure why it’s important to him, but it’s his most prized possession.

  And I can see why. The machete-sized blade hacks through the razor reeds, trailblazing a path northward.

  But it’s also making a lot of noise, the metal tinging as it lops the stems down. There could be an army in the grass with us, and we’d never know.

  Blind and deaf, I focus on my only other sense that might detect trouble before it’s knocking on our door. I sniff, long and deep, but everything is foreign. I weed out the scents I’m sure are vegetation—earthy decay and sweetness. The cut grass is fragrant, like roses.