Wildfire

By P.Z. Johns

A woman is declared DOA after an alien attack on a cargo space vessel, and her remains are used in a special military project.  Doctors revive her and also give her alien abilities, but she has no memory of her former self. She doesn't even know her own name, but the doctors consider their work a success. She has cutting-edge prosthetics that give her advanced motor skills, and she possesses telepathic abilities that lets her communicate with her mind. These alien traits, however, make her an outcast among humans and she can only befriend a para-military psycho goth who has a fascination with sharp objects.

 

The only tangible evidence to her past is a photograph of a woman and a horse. The photo is only signed 'Mom', but she recalls nothing about her mother. She only remembers the horse whose name is Wildfire. She discovers that finding herself is difficult, so she slowly creates a new self. She reasons, if the military plan is to turn her into a new weapon, she will to give them more than what they bargained for. She changes her hair color to flaming red; puts on a black leather outfit; snaps a laser pistol to her side and officially changes her name to WILDFIRE. While she is pleased with this change, she still wonders about a voice she hears in her head.

 

That's when the military comes knocking - it's payback time. The aliens are advancing, and what's more, someone is murdering the members of the medical team that transformed Wildfire. Before one battle with the aliens, Wildfire teams up with a woman warrior named Akiko who is trained in the Japanese Samurai tradition. Through a tech-savvy friend of Akiko's, Wildfire also learns that her built-in equipment includes a 'kill switch'. Her military designers reasoned that, as she is a powerful tactical weapon, they need a way to shut her down if she runs amok. Despite this, she is asked to gain intelligence on the alien advance. So Wildfire and Akiko decide to go directly to the alien headquarters located in the mouth of a volcano. That's when all hell breaks loose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: P.Z. Johns
• Release date: Apr 22, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223290803

P.Z. Johns

P. Z. Johns was born in Canada and now lives with his Illinois-born wife in the United States. After spending a lifetime reading science fiction, P. Z. started writing when he retired from a career in business. He began working on a science fiction novel but set that aside to complete a family memoir dedicated to his daughter. At the same time, he reviewed new books for a sci-fi publisher. This book is the second of his novels dedicated to his daughter. When he is not writing, P. Z. is an avid video gamer and enjoys meeting players from around the world. He has begun work on another novel entitled “Locri: Portal to Hell.”

Book preview

The Attack

A RESCUE CONVOY FOUND us about three days after the attack. Everyone abandoned ship in forty escape pods, and most of them experienced some kind of damage from enemy fire, with some worse than others. Many sustained so much damage that all personnel on board were dead on arrival. My escape pod was one of those, the ones that had taken very severe blasts. When the medics came aboard, they did triage on all of us and pronounced me dead on arrival when they examined me again on board the hospital ship. What’s worse, all the blasts damaged my revive unit beyond the medics’ ability to repair it, so there was absolutely no chance of bringing me back. Technically, I’m telling you my story posthumously.

I also found out dying is easier than completely losing yourself.

Red emergency lights were flashing, and the steel hatch of the escape pod slammed shut. Locks spun into place and sealed us in. A computer voice announced, Evacuation procedures cannot commence until all passengers strap seat belts securely for safe travel in the emergency cots.

I was the last one who got to the escape pod, and someone yelled, Hey, strap in so we can take off!

I wanted to scream, but there had been enough of that. There was so much smoke in the ship’s corridors I couldn’t see and thought I’d never make it. I settled into my assigned launch cot and strapped up as fast as I could. As soon as I was lying flat, the computer voice announced, Ignition will commence in ten, nine, eight...

The engine roar was terrible. The shaking was worse. The g-force was so great I thought my legs would be shoved into my chest and my brain would collapse. Then suddenly, there was a pfoof sound, and everything became smooth and silent. The escape pod was shooting through space, and we were in our own little go-cart. For the first time since the trouble started, I breathed calmly. I asked to anyone who could hear me, Where we going?

I heard a woman answer, Who cares as long as we’re out of that exploding tin can.

Suddenly, there was an explosion, then another, and another. We were being bounced and shaken again. It felt like we were inside a soccer ball being kicked down an alley. I yelled, What’s happening?

The same voice answered, We’re being fired on. Those fucking assholes are shooting at us! Don’t they know we’re noncoms? She yelled at the ceiling, That means noncombatants, assholes! Then almost pleading, she cried, This is a life raft. Don’t you save women and children?

That’s when the last explosion blew. At least the last one that I knew about. It was terrible, and sparks were pouring down on me.

Everything was smooth sailing until the attack. We had no warning, but once it started, my world, as I knew it, ended.

My name is... Well, that’s part of my problem. I don’t know my name or who I am. I don’t know why I was on the ship, where I was coming from, or even where I was going.

One of the crew told me when we crossed into the Bode Galaxy—that’s the name of the new galaxy they discovered—using the Skeggsson wormhole. It was the shortest route, and it was smooth sailing. When war first broke out a year ago, I didn’t sign up. They talked about all the opportunities available in Bode Galaxy. The talk was you could make your fortune with a galaxy there for the taking. You could get rich! You could own your own asteroid loaded with any number of expensive minerals! Maybe that’s why I booked a passage on a merchant ship called the Emmanuel Fraser. The Fraser was a midclass space cargo ship. It regularly ran between our Milky Way galaxy and the Bode Galaxy. Most of its cargo was for the military, but a lot were staples for the pioneers that were settling on Aragain. That’s one of the first planets we are inhabiting in the new galaxy. I’m not sure why, but the planet Aragain was my destination.

Whatever my purpose, I was on my way to meet my future! Little did I know my life would change so drastically after the attack.

I was in the mess hall when all hell broke loose. First, the sirens went off, and a voice came over the loudspeakers, All hands to battle stations! All hands to battle stations! This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill. All hands to battle stations! Look sharp!

The surrounding explosions were deafening! Sparks were raining from the ceiling. Sirens were going off everywhere. I was knocked sideways into the wall and then flung across and slammed into the opposite wall. A knob from a cabinet poked into my side when I hit it. Damn, that hurt.

My ears were ringing because the explosions were so loud and incredible! Every blast we took shook the ship and threw me around the corridor. I am five feet and seven inches tall and weigh one hundred and thirty-five pounds. I know because the ship’s manifest took all our statistics when we boarded, but even at my size, I felt like I was a stone in a jar being shaken by a toddler. Men were running up the corridors to their posts. One officer grabbed my arm and barked an order, Yeoman, get to your station!

I don’t have a station, I answered. I’m a passenger!

Then stay the hell out of the way, go to your quarters, and keep your head down! And make sure you keep your revive unit close!

Good advice. We declared war. I don’t know if our new enemy did too or if they even noticed a difference in our normally belligerent attitude. We were fighting for a little while before our official and formal declaration. Our leaders claimed the other side started it. We found a new galaxy and called it the Bode Galaxy. We colonized a few habitable planets, but the Bode Galaxy was where the Nayleans lived. They naturally took exception to us moving into their land and taking their expensive minerals! Maybe that’s why I booked a passage on a merchant ship called the Emmanuel Fraser. The Fraser was a midclass space cargo ship. It regularly ran between our Milky Way galaxy and the Bode Galaxy. Most of its cargo was for the military, but a lot were staples for the pioneers that were settling on Aragain. That’s one of the first planets we are inhabiting in the new galaxy. I’m not sure why, but the planet Aragain was my destination.

Whatever my purpose, I was on my way to meet my future! Little did I know my life would change so drastically after the attack.

I was in the mess hall when all hell broke loose. First, the sirens went off, and a voice came over the loudspeakers, All hands to battle stations! All hands to battle stations! This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill. All hands to battle stations! Look sharp!

The surrounding explosions were deafening! Sparks were raining from the ceiling. Sirens were going off everywhere. I was being knocked sideways into the wall and then flung across and slammed into the opposite wall. A knob from a cabinet poked into my side when I hit it. Damn, that hurt.

My ears were ringing because the explosions were so loud and incredible! Every blast we took shook the ship and threw me around the corridor. I am five feet and seven inches tall and weigh one hundred and thirty-five pounds. I know because the ship’s manifest took all our statistics when we boarded, but even at my size, I felt like I was a stone in a jar being shaken by a toddler. Men were running up the corridors to their posts. One officer grabbed my arm and barked an order, Yeoman, get to your station!

I don’t have a station, I answered. I’m a passenger!

Then stay the hell out of the way, go to your quarters, and keep your head down! And make sure you keep your revive unit close!

Good advice. We declared war. I don’t know if our new enemy did too or if they even noticed a difference in our normally belligerent attitude. We were fighting for a little while before our official and formal declaration. Our leaders claimed the other side started it. We found a new galaxy and called it the Bode Galaxy. We colonized a few habitable planets, but the Bode Galaxy was where the Nayleans lived. They naturally took exception to us moving into their land and tried to boot us out. That’s when we claimed that the aliens invaded our colonies. They invaded us? Figure that one out when we’re the ones squatting on their turf. But does it really matter what we claim? It’s war! It’s called the Thought War because that’s what the Nayleans do—they think you to death. The Nayleans are telekinetic. They do not speak. They do not use their hands for manipulating tools or weapons. They do everything by thinking about it. They move things with their minds. Things may look like they automatically rise from a table and float to a counter, but it is really a Naylean thinking about it. We call them freaks, mutes, dummies, minders, floaters, dolls...it goes on. We even call them witches, warlocks, and sorcerers. When some people use any word referring to the Nayleans, they spit on the ground.

Nayleans look down on humans with both disdain and puzzlement. They know their own early ancestors didn’t have any telekinetic ability, and over time, higher life-forms evolved, and that allowed them to develop their nonphysical abilities. This is very similar to how humans gradually came to stand on two feet and develop an opposable thumb. That gave us the ability to make tools and continue to advance. For Nayleans though, they used mind strength instead of tools and weapons. Their mind strength can even be a weapon.

To a Naylean, mind strength separates them from animals. Animals do not possess telekinetic ability, and neither do the humans settling in their territory. Animals with no mind abilities are looked upon as a lower life-form, and so are humans. But humans also fascinate the Nayleans. For lower life-forms, humans have accomplished space travel and set up complicated structures and organizations. Nayleans find it amazing that humans have governments and can accomplish higher-level cultural goals. This is a feat that the Nayleans have never observed in lower-form animals, certainly beyond the single-purpose activities of ants or bees.

Regardless of the fascination with human evolution and skills, Nayleans decided that the human encroachment on Naylean territory could not be tolerated. Human presence is becoming too widespread and belligerent. To the Nayleans, it is the same as if a group of hostile apes came out of the countryside and moved into a Naylean town. What starts out as rude and uncivilized behavior turns into aggression and murder. To them, the human presence is an infestation.

But we humans are a resourceful group. Major advances came when scientists developed the revive terminal. It’s a more complicated version of a transporter but works on the same principle. When you get transported, all your molecules get bio-sequenced or put into a subatomic DNA-like stream. This stream actually sparkles and gets transported, and then you get reassembled and resparkled at the destination terminal. They teach how to do this in high school using experiments on frogs, poor things. It’s not a pretty sight when a high school kid gets their hands on a frog and a bio-sequencer, but it teaches them something. I’m not exactly sure what, except never be a frog caught by a high school kid in biology.

Well, some guy figured out how to store a copy of your sparkly DNA stream and put it all in a little box. It’s not actually a box; it’s more like a portable travel drive that stores your bio-sequenced self digitally. If you had an accident and, say, lost your arm or leg, you could be resequenced by using your bio info that was stored ahead of time in your little bio-travel drive. That way, you can be restored back to your original state.

At first, they called the bio-travel drive a black box because it was a lot like the recorders that store all of a ship’s data before a crash. They soon realized they needed something shorter to call it than its actual name. Would you believe it is a Sequencing Cellular and Atomic Revive Assembly Box? Whew, that’s a mouthful. That’s why it became known as a SCARAB for short. I was told that a scarab was actually some kind of beetle, but an ancient Egyptian broach was called a scarab too. At any rate, the name for our digital black boxes stuck. We now call them SCARABs.

It is an incredible idea that reduces the need for hospitals. But it also reduces the need for cemeteries. If, in that same accident, your heart stopped or your breathing stopped, you can be restored in a revive terminal using the copy of your bio-sequence from your SCARAB. That is, if your SCARAB didn’t get destroyed by a bomb blast like mine was in that attack I was in.

It has changed people’s attitudes. Some kids can be reckless and suicidal. Want to see what it feels like to jump off a cliff or blow your brains out? Go ahead. Just make sure you have your SCARAB with you. Most injuries though hurt like hell until your breathing stops. That’s probably the only reason it’s not done too often, at least not deliberately. Broken bones can sting like a bitch if you don’t properly kill yourself in the process. You get revived or restored, but until then, it hurts like hell. I don’t know why I know all this, but something tells me I have firsthand knowledge of using my SCARAB in my earlier life.

The nice part is that a SCARAB isn’t that big. It is just a couple of inches long and half an inch wide and thick, so some people wear them as necklaces or bracelets. I prefer keeping mine on my left side under my arm. I sew small pockets in my bras, and I know I shouldn’t lose them too often. I have lost bras, but so far, I have been able to go back and...well, just never mind, that isn’t any of your business anyway.

The only reason the Nayleans haven’t wiped us out yet is because of the revive terminals. All soldiers have SCARABs. So, we can fight on their turf a million miles from home because our numbers can be as countless as theirs. The other reason we haven’t been wiped out yet is that we humans can be devious, deceptive, and dishonest. Nayleans can plan ahead four, five, six moves—if humans do this, we’ll do that and so on. Nayleans can be great chess players, but they don’t lie to one another. They have no reason to. They have a bond between them that goes beyond physical. They can link to another person and feel what each other feels. They simply don’t have any reason to be hurtful or cruel to one another. They don’t care about those things. But humans are always mean to one another and lie to one another.

Is that why I came to feel a lot of hurt and pain from humans— my own kind? I was human once. I was born human. Damn it, I’m still human!

I had just gotten to my quarters when a voice came on the loudspeakers. Abandon ship! Abandon ship! All personnel to lifeboat stations! Repeat, abandon ship! All personnel to lifeboat stations! Abandon ship!

We were losing power, and the lights were shutting down. The smell of burning wires and plastic was putrid. Smoke was everywhere and burned my eyes and stung my throat. Somebody came up and grabbed my arm. You gotta get to the life rafts!

I can’t see anything, the smoke! I don’t know where lifeboats are!

I’ll take you! Let’s go, FAST! And he pulled me the opposite way down the corridor. Just then, another explosion knocked us sideways, and he lost his grip on me. He came slamming sideways again in front of me and yelled, Grab a hold of me! All I could see was the belt on the back of his pants, and I grabbed it with both hands. When he thought I was secure, he was off again. Hang on! and he went farther down the corridor.

We stopped at a junction of corridors, and he asked, What life raft gate are you?

Oh, great! I don’t know! Who pays attention to all that shit? We had fire drills. We had loss of oxygen drills. We had gas emission drills. We had isotope leak drills. Who the fuck is paying attention when you finally get around to evacuation drills? That’s like the flight attendant going through safety precautions. Nobody listens.

Then it came to me. I think level B gate 8 maybe. I can’t believe I remembered that. He pointed to my right and yelled, Down there! And he took off down the other hall. I moved carefully and found it. A crew member was standing at the opening and told me to get in, that I was the last one for this vehicle.

He slapped one of my hands on a bar over the small door opening. I hoisted up and lifted my feet in first. There was a cot that looked like a small cage. I shimmied into it. I guess we take off lying down. He yelled, Watch yourself! I’m closing the gate.

A computer voice came on, Evacuation procedures cannot commence until all passengers are strapped into emergency cots and seat belts are fastened.

A Medical Miracle

MY HEAD WAS POUNDING! God, there’s a pain that started at the back of my neck and rolled to my forehead. I felt like my brain would explode. That’s what must have woken me up. My head’s my first problem. I guess my second problem was where the hell I was.

My sight was fuzzy, but I could tell that I was lying in a bed, and it looked something like a hospital room, but not quite. Chimes were going off somewhere above my left shoulder. It must be something attached to the wall behind me. I’d got an IV stuck in the back of my hand. No, not one IV, there were three, no make that four tubes running into the same needle in my hand. My left arm and hand were in a sling resting on my stomach. I tried to raise my good hand to my head to check that it hadn’t split open and felt that my head was all bandaged too, even down over my right eye.

The door to the room was on my right side, and on the left side was a workbench that looked like a computer station. I recognize it because...I don’t know why I recognize it. Had I been near one before? How is it I can remember something as stupid as a computer worktable but I can’t remember who the hell am I?

Then I heard footsteps at my door, and it quietly opened. A young orderly walked in and looked over at me. He was not in typical hospital scrubs. He wore white shoes, white slacks, and white sport coat with ID tags and a photo card hanging from his top pocket. After checking the IV tubes, he looked at me. Well, you finally decided to join us. My monitor told me you woke up. Welcome to the land of the conscious. How do you feel? He did something with some kind of TV remote thing that stopped the chime that was going off over my head.

I stared back at him and must have looked groggy and only half in this world. He smiled and spoke again, I’m sorry I don’t mean to press you. Can you talk?

I opened my mouth, but it took a while. Head hurts...bad. My left eye started to water.

Okay, let’s see what we can do here. He went to the tree of IV hoses and fiddled with a pump. He kept talking. Let me know if this helps. My name is Chris Broker. I’m your nurse. He wiped my cheek with a tissue. Dr. Philippe is your lead physician. He is not on the grounds right now, but I’ve notified him that you’re awake. There are others too, and they are on their way. We weren’t expecting you to wake up so soon; that’s why nobody is here.

Where...here? was all I got out, and I laid my head back in the pillow.

We’re in the med research facility on one of the Storm Islands. He must have been