Short Story Contest
Space Opera:
Story of the Persistent
Every creature has its limits. They might be aware of it, but sometimes that is not the case. They continually try to surpass them and in their attempt to do so, they better themselves. They grow, evolve and prosper. They are often left alone, that is, until they become a threat. Then they are eradicated.
Persistent were an alien race that had strange ability. They were not humanoid or bipedal. They were alien race of no origin, no home planet and no history. No one knows how did they get their name, no one knows why would anyone tell stories of such boring race. But one thing is certain. They were real. William did not believe in stories of persistent. They were boring and surreal. Besides, those stories were stupid. Being doctor in outer space was hard enough without some silly stories. The meds were late on a constant basis. Stupid scouts would come in contact with some strange diseases, or find some complex alien on a death bed and he should be the one to cure them. One night, after a quiet star system exploration the Executor Omega came across an energy planet. Executor Omega was once a proud alien flagship. But after its capture as a spoil of war by humans it became obsolete. Humans with far more advanced technology did not destroy the ship as it was one of terms of surrender that aliens agreed to. Deal was struck that humans can never destroy that symbol of alien race, but they can use it in any way they like. So it became a survey ship. Anyway as ship was approaching the planet it was quite evident that ship could not withstand the energy radiation. So shuttle Omega Raider made by humans who could pummel the ship in whose cargo it was residing, was sent on an exploratory mission on the planet’s surface. Now, energy planets were mystery for most of the time. Only recently it has been discovered that those are actually gas giants with giant parts of ancient battleships that ionized the gas particles. That was the evidence of even more powerful and advanced races that were raging on that space. The scouts found alien structure on the planet’s surface. They pry opened the door and found dozens of capsules containing all kinds dead creatures. All pods were damaged, but one still had lights and power. The light was dim, but it was there. Life support pod inside the bunker had terminal on it and it indicated that power was low, but surprisingly it was in English. Amazed by this the scouts went to the main terminal and read that the bunker was a subject to alien bombardment. Again it was written in English. They recovered the life support pod and discovered that it had signs of life. Back on the Executor, William was getting bored. He anticipated that life they found would be on his table, dying, while he had absolutely no idea what to do. The scouts brought the pod into the sickbay and he began inspecting the creature. It had no face, no limbs, no bones; it was just very muscular bag of flesh. As much as he wanted to rip the creature apart with his scalpel, he had his orders. Yet he was intrigued by the anatomy of the alien. Harry and Edward were two scouts with terminal diseases. The terminal people were always popular in marine. They had no ties, no connections, no one to love or to be loved by. Sort of expendable cannon fodders. After their encounter with gooey blob of flesh they were feeling better, invigorated. No one knew why and they had totally different type of illness. Everyone was amazed, but not as much as William who instantly seen himself receiving Universal Degree and Interstellar Doctor prize.
It had been days since they brought the creature in and it was not feeling any better. Its vitals were same as ever and William thought it was brain dead or something. Harry and Edward were totally healed, quit their jobs and had teleported home to reconnect with their loved ones. Following night William was awoken by the silent alarm in the sickbay.
Ted the member of the security team was sobbing above the creature, begging it to heal him as well. Because Ted was terminal too, he had very simple disease, but had no money to cure it. He had wife and two daughters which loved him very much. But the only place Ted could get job was the marine, and all he wanted was to spend the little time he was left with his family. But he had to earn money and had no time for being sick. One shot that William could give him would cure him, but he was not allowed to. That shot was extremely expensive and he could not risk the chance of getting caught. Corporate planet that Earth had become had no mercy on the people. Even if they worked in security for 30 years like Ted was. He even got injured on the line of duty ten times, but still could not get one lousy shot as pro bono procedure.
William said:
-Ted, dude you know you can’t be here, leave!
Ted:
-Do you know how it is, to have everyone look at you and treat you as expandable creep that will die? To be government’s call girl who once dead has no one to mourn for her.
William:
-I know but you still can’t be here. LEAVE!!!
We all have our problems. If you were even remotely as smart you would not come in my sickbay and beg me for help, especially after academy. You want me to risk losing my job for some guy who constantly humiliated me during my education.
Ted:
-Please, just give me that shot. You took an oath and I was a kid back then. Please if not for me that do it for my family who loves me. They did nothing to you.
William reached for the locker and took out a box full of syringes. He took one and just then the door burst open. The security captain came in because William didn’t turn the alarm off. After having eavesdropping the captain arrested Ted and put William on probation. William knew that Annie, security captain was his close friend that would cover for him even if he gave that shot. But William did not want to risk his career even if it meant saving a man’s life and honoring his oath. Ted was being dishonorably discharged and when William threw a look at a holo-monitor he saw that the creatures vitals were changed in same way that human’s would change in the state of panic or rage.
Amazed by the creature not being brain dead, William subjected the creature to series of tests. That night after two hours of sleep William was awoken again by alarm. His patient was crashing. He rushed to the sickbay and discovered that creature had internal bleeding. William knew that he could never operate on unknown alien, but he was pushed by his desire for awards and he opened the creature.
He was once again amazed that the anatomy of the creature was the same as of human child with bones and everything. He began the procedure and he discovered that its pancreas was bleeding. As he fixed the bleed, in front of his very eyes the creature began to change into something more complex by the second. After 5 seconds creature was done and what looked like a simple procedure of fixing pancreas looked like something not even nanites could do. Then before he knew it, the creature was in its original form, closed itself up and had healed. That morning the creature was gone. William did not know when, and no one seen it come or go. It was an absolute chaos. Cameras and lights flickered and the creature was gone. William explored the sickbay with the hopes of getting a clue to where had creature departed.
Executor has been flying near a planet that was uninhabited. But recently it had become a home to marauding space pirates. The pirates attacked Executor who even though was obsolete according to human standards, was more than enough to defend itself. Humans were the race that after interstellar travel, perfected space weapons. They quickly conquered many worlds and assimilated their technology. Ever since then, they had been harvesting the resources and were left with very few enemies. Anyway since pirates were failing they sent an MEMP (Mega Electro Magnetic Pulse) as a distraction to get away. MEMP depowered Executor for mere 2 seconds. William was distracted long enough to have something huge pin him against the wall. It was Ted.
Ted:
-How dare you! All he wanted was a lousy shot to save himself and to save his family. Who do you think you are to deny him that?
William:
-Dude are you crazy, you know I can’t. I would have but the captain interrupted us.
Ted:
-You are lying, I read your thoughts, she was your close friend. You condemned another human being to pain and death. But I decided to intervene so I healed him.
William:
-Who are you? Tell me!
Ted:
- You people named us the Persistent. I am one of them.
William:
-Persistent are not real. They are made up stories.
Persistent:
-Really? Did I have a face, limbs, home planet or history? We were once a race advanced like yours. But we were pure unlike you. We were about to be destroyed by ancient force of evil. So we subjected our entire race to evolution ray. The ray turned us into the small blobs. Blobs were evolutionary nearly perfect and allowed us to transform into any lesser being. We used our new powers to survive the destruction of our planet. We were flying through the space and I was damaged by overexposure from cosmic radiation. So I landed on the planet you recovered me from. People of the planet put me on life support and tended to me and the next thing I know I wake up in this sickbay only to have you people trying to kill me.
William:
-But you were dying. I saved you. What do you want?
Persistent:
-Only because you damaged my healing organ with your experiments. And you only did it to get your awards. I simplified enough for you to know how to fix me. And because of that your execution shall be swift. And what I want is simply to punish you for abusing your power.
William:
-No wait, why would you do this, you know that on this ship there are hundreds of people who will kill you if you cause me harm. We could work this out. Please don’t kill me!
Persistent transformed his arm in octopus tentacle, wrapped it around William’s mouth and transformed his other arm into a chitin blade and pierced William’s intestines.
Persistent:
-I am doing this to punish your race for evil it does. As for your security team, I doubt they could handle me. Besides they won’t be targeting you.
Persistent transformed from Ted to William in the matter of seconds. He left whimpering William on floor, looked at him with disgust and said:
-People call us Persistent even though it is not our real name. We were nicknamed after our ability to change through mere will and persistence alone. We strived so hard to preserve the serenity of our planet and we failed. So now I am going to make all of you abusers pay.
Persistent hid William in the morgue and left him to bleed out. William would have died if it wasn’t for the Quick Heal Injection he had in store. He learned that Persistent use their ability to copy abilities of any creature there is, and since there is unlimited number of creatures in the universe, the Persistent are near omnipotent. William waited inside of sickbay waiting for his wounds to heal so he can try to escape. Persistent made a point of personally slaying humans on board. He was still transformed as William. Only his hands were transformed in some kind of weapons. One was shooting plasma, and other shooting electricity. Persistent showed ability to move at great speeds. He even passed through force fields with ease. Once he was shot at, he would create an energy shield. Sometimes when cornered, he would control the minds of humans fighting him. Persistent was unstoppable. The people inside the escape pods were cheering too soon because Persistent would just crush them with psionic force. Slowly but steadily, Persistent wiped out the crew. It was only luck that saved William because he was the only one who knew access code to Raider Omega and was still alive. Just as he was taking off, Persistent showed up and attacked the shuttle. But because of shuttles advanced technology it survived long enough for William to teleport on Earth. Back on Earth, he was interrogated on whereabouts of the Executor Omega. He told the supervisors about Persistent, but they did not believe him. They said he was traumatized and unreliable source. William was turned into psych ward since he kept telling people how the shapeless horror would kill them all. No one believed him and he slipped into insanity. He became paranoid and thought that Persistent was after him. Fearing from witnessing sheer power of Persistent, he committed a suicide.
So yes every creature has its limits. Even Persistent did. Though they had their perfect planet, they could not preserve it because there is always a higher power bent on destruction. Humans also became the aliens they once feared, as irony would be, they became the bad guys. So in the world there will always be people with limits. But every human should decide in which way he should reach them.
Don't you worry. I might join the next contest.
