Incursion

“Easy there, Jana. Recovering from a fatal wound is tough work.”

Jana mumbled, rubbing a sore spot on her head. “Did you say fatal?”

Macy helped her sit up. “Don’t push yourself. The nanobots are fast, but not that fast.” She peered in Jana’s dark eyes with a scanner. “You’re on the mend. In half an hour, you’ll be good as new.”

Jana slid off the examination table. “Some welcome home party. One minute I’m welcoming the deep space team home, the next I’m dead on a table. What happened?”

Macy pulled her red hair in a ponytail and took scans of her other two patients; a human male with graying hair and a human female with short, black hair. Jana knew who they were, even though she hadn’t seen them in twenty years: Peter and Tessa Wilkins. The last time she saw them, they were speaking at her elementary school before leaving for this mission to the Orion System. It seemed their first contact with the Xenbre did not have a happy ending.

“The ship blew up as soon as they stepped off board.” Macy pulled a long, metal rod from the basin next to the table Jana had been lying on. “You’re lucky. This went in your head. Since you’re wired, we were able to get the nanobots in you to heal the wound in time for revitalization.”

Jana rubbed her head again, amazed at the speed of the healing process. The spot was tender, but she couldn’t feel any scars or abrasions in the skin. Her long, brown hair had even grown back over the spot. “Thanks again to the wonders of technology.” She motioned to the couple. “They have any useful information?”

“I’m waking them now,” Macy said, injecting each with a clear fluid. In moments, both opened their eyes.

“What happened?” Tessa asked, sitting up.

“We were hoping you could tell us,” Macy said, helping Peter sit up. “Your ship blew up the moment you stepped off the landing pad. It killed a lot of people. What’s going on?”

Peter shook his head. “Didn’t you get our transmissions?”

“What do you mean?” Jana asked, accessing the communication files through her neural system. “I’m reviewing them now. Other than saying your first contact was a success, there’s nothing to indicate what brought this on.”

Peter looked indignant. “How could that be?”

Tessa pursed her lips. “They hacked into our system and altered the messages. Then they planted a bomb on the ship and remote detonated it as soon as it could cause the most damage.” She jumped from the table. “I should have known they’d set a trap in case we got away.”

Peter slid off the table. “That’s impossible. How could they do that all the way from the Orion system? Even with all of their technology, it’s impossible.”

She whirled on Peter. “Is it?”

Jana stepped between them. “Wait. What are you talking about? Did something happen on Xenbre?”

Peter and Tessa stared at Jana. Macy stepped beside her.

“All of your transmissions for the past twenty years said you made successful first contact with the Xenbre.” Macy paused, accessing the files through her own system. “The mission is going well. We’re meeting with high government officials and scientists. We’re exchanging mutually beneficial information and technology that will radically improve our quality of life. We’re living amongst the people to learn their culture. Those were your words.”

Tessa shook her head. “We never sent those.”

“They have your DNA codes,” Jana said.

Peter blew a sigh. “That’s why they kept taking blood samples. They could bypass the authorization codes, but they need fresh DNA to authenticate the messages.” He sat back on the table. “There was no successful first contact. As soon as we entered the Orion system, they tractored our ship to their planet. We’ve been held hostage. They ransacked our ship and copied all of the data. They did experiments on us, and once they couldn’t learn any more from us, they kept us as slaves to help them plan their attack on Earth.”

“So you didn’t leave peacefully,” Macy said.

“They shouldn’t know we left at all,” Tessa said. “They have cloning technology. They cloned us several times. We managed to steal some clones from the factory and put them in our place.”

“Then you just happened to find your ship in perfect working order after two decades and left the system without a problem?” Jana asked. “They had you by the throat for that long, and one day you wise up and run?”

“No, it took years of planning,” Peter said. “We knew they were keeping the ship in good order because they made us work on it regularly. They wanted to research it and use it in their attack.”

“And to intercept communications you sent to us,” Tessa said. “They know everything. They’ve been watching you.”

Jana and Macy glanced at each other, passing information through the system. Nodding, Jana moved beside Tessa. “I’m sorry; this is quite a shock. Why don’t you sit down so Macy can run some more scans?” She took Tessa’s arm to guide her to the table, but scratched her in the process. “I really should keep my nails trimmed.”

Macy moved in with a scanner. “Let me close that up for you before it bleeds any more.”

Tessa’s eyes widened as the scanner closed the wound. “That’s amazing, what is it?”

Macy forced a smile. “You’d be amazed at what we can do. For example, you remember that you asked why we didn’t send you to quarantine as soon as you arrived on planet.”

“Isn’t that standard procedure?” Peter asked.

Macy shook her head. “Not any more.” She turned to Jana. “How is she?”

Jana sighed. “They know you left.”

Tessa’s shook her head. “What do you mean?”

Jana looked at Macy. “She’s infected with an alien microbe. He probably is too.”

Macy moved to Peter’s side with lightening speed and pierced his arm with a fingernail.

“Ouch! Why did you do that?” he shouted.

Macy nodded. “You’re right. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“What are you talking about?” Tessa asked.

Jana studied her carefully, adjusting her eyes to the correct mode. “The microbes are dispersed throughout their bodies, but they’re only active in the central nervous system. They’re especially clustered in the brain. It looks like they’re sending and receiving some sort of encrypted subspace signals. This is amazing. Our regular visual scans wouldn’t have picked that up. I’ve never seen biological material that acts mechanical like this.”

Macy looked at Tessa. “Have you had any problems since you left Xenbre? Headaches, lightheadedness, memory loss, strange dreams, loss of consciousness, or anything unusual?”

“Everything for the past twenty years has been unusual!” Peter said sharply.

Macy looked at Jana. “Access the ship records that were downloaded when they entered the solar system.”

Peter grabbed Jana and pinned her to the wall. “No. What are you doing? You say you’re accessing files, but there’s no computer in here.”

Jana smiled. “I guess the hindrance in communication went both ways during your mission.” She tapped the side of her head. “While you were away, we had advancements of our own.”

Peter backed up a step. “The neural interface project. It went forward.”

“What are you talking about?” Tessa asked.

Peter laughed bitterly. “When we left for Orion, scientists worldwide were working on a way to implant computer ships directly into the human brain. The theory was that it would prolong life, expedite healing, and increase function at the mental and physical level.” He shook his head. “The early experiments caused brain damage and death. I was against it. Man and machine weren’t meant to be integrated. It’s unnatural.”

Tessa gasped. “The project, I remember. They lied. We were told it had been abandoned, but they moved forward. No wonder we were selected for this mission. Without us, the opposition movement dried up.” She laughed bitterly. “We fly to deep space to look for more natural ways to help our species and in the meantime they decide to help themselves. They’re cyborgs.”

“That’s silly,” Macy said. “We’re just as human as you are. We integrated our technology with our biology. It’s the next step in human evolution.”

“That’s not human!” Peter shouted, grabbing the shrapnel from the basin and sticking it in Jana’s neck.

Jana’s eyes widened for a moment, then she calmly pulled the shrapnel from her neck. Throwing it to the floor, she kicked Peter into a table and pinned him to the wall. “That hurt. You’re lucky those nanobots are still working to heal the damage you caused earlier or I might be inclined to hurt you back.”

“What do you mean he caused?” Tessa asked.

“You set the ship to self destruct while you were in orbit. You had it timed perfectly.”

Tessa shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

“We’re cyborgs, remember?” Macy asked, slamming Tessa to the table. “Those computer chips you think make us an abomination also network us. We can download and share information with a single thought, both from the machines we use and from one another.”

“No!” Peter shouted, trying to get up. Jana kicked him against the wall and set an invisible confinement field around him.

“They have their ways, we have ours,” Jana said, studying him. “They bugged you and you didn’t even know it. What a brilliant use of biological engineering. They can study you from galaxies away.”

“What do we do with them?” Macy asked.

Jana smiled. “They’ve been useful to the enemy. Now they can be useful to us. I want to study this to see how this biological technology works.”

“No!” Tessa screamed, jumping off the table. She hit a shock field that paralyzed her. Macy shook her head.

“Don’t worry, it’s temporary.”

Peter shuddered. “What are you going to do?”

Jana picked up a neural scanner and attached a thin cable to a port behind her ear. “First, I want to give the Xenbre a message.”

Peter’s eyes widened. “What?”

Jana smiled as she began the scan. “Tell them the cyborgs are coming.”