Prowlers

Part 9

Uneasy sleep taken in turns. The day is long, this time. We are anxious, question if we have enough ammo to survive another night.

Just five shotgun shells. Two in Jerry's double barrel, the rest in Daniel's pump action. One mag for each handgun. A half a mag for my AR. And just three rounds for the hunting rifle.

"Hello? Hellllo?" it is a woman's voice, soft, without accent.

The sound knocks us out of our daze. A voice? A voice! We grab our weapons, slowly and cautiously make our way to the door. Jerry posts up on the front window. I gesture for Daniel to keep a watch out back. He nods his head and jogs to the backdoor.

Looking out the window I see that it is in fact a woman.

Her skin is totally pale. Long black hair flows down low. Lacking curve, her body is thin and tight. A simple sundress moves slightly in the breeze.

Something is off. I can't put my finger on it. Something about the proportions of her face. The eyes, the eyes are just a bit too big, just a bit too black. The lips are bright red, but I get the impression that it is natural, and not makeup.

"Who are you?" I ask with naked suspicion.

Her mouth is just a bit too small; it smiles slightly as she speaks, "I am what you might call a prototype ambassador."

"An ambassador? You are here to make peace?"

"The people that you have been fighting are members of a scientific expedition. The ones with the big claws are the scouts. The ones that shot at you were researchers using portable scanners which were Jerry-rigged into primitive energy weapons. The floating ones are used to dissect specimens."

That explains why we were able to survive against such an advanced species. They aren't warriors. It was like we were jungle people fending off loggers using stone weapons. We held our own, but if it had been a group of soldiers, we wouldn't have stood a chance.

She continues, "The one that you killed last night was their commander. He is the closest to what our species naturally looks like. Most of us are so heavily genetically modified and cybernetically enhanced that we barely resemble the original thing. And as for me, well, as you can tell, I have been made to be more agreeable to your people."

"Why are you here?" Jerry askes.

"I was created in case it was felt that we could benefit from diplomacy."

"No, I mean why are your people attacking us?"

"It started as an effort to retrieve a device. A scanning system that had been dormant for many decades. It was recently reactivated. It was hoped that its logs could be downloaded and studied."

"Why would it be here?" I ask.

"The research team has no clue. They picked up its signal while in the area on a mission to study native wildlife. They thought that it was very odd, because it was originally deployed in a warzone on the other side of the planet."

By the time it hits me Jerry has already left the window. A minute later he opens the laundry room door, lugging the heavy chest, which he dumps down the steps. Intrigued, the strange woman moves to the pile of junk, sifting through it. She grabs the strange ashtray, holds it up in front of her face.

I find myself outraged, "So, this is what all of this was about! That little piece of junk! Some piece of crap that grandpa found in the jungle in Nam!"

"The commander thought that he could retrieve it. He thought wrong.

"Thank you for giving the device back. Now, listen very carefully. This isn't over yet. I was activated when the commander was killed, I wasn't the only one. He stays in stasis on the dark side of the moon, in case a research team gets into trouble. You would call him a commando. He is heading here. He doesn't care that the scanner has been retrieved. His warrior pride won't permit you to live."