An Alian on a Train

Sargent Daro woke up and looked around. She was confused and didn’t know where she was, but she felt like she was moving. Opening up the shade to the little window next to the seat where she was sitting, she saw she was on a train.

“How did I get here” Daro thought to himself

Sargent Daro tried to get up, but plopped back down in her seat, her head was spinning, she was tranquilized. Human drugs wouldn’t have an effect on her so it must have been alien...someone new or someone from Targof?

“Ripar, can you hear me Ripar” she thought. Because of the drug and brain haze communication wasn’t getting through.

“What is going on here?”

It took a while but the haze was lifting and she was able to get up, she tried to communicate again with Ripar.

“Ripar do you hear me?” Sargent Daro tried communicating again

“Yes, I do, what’s wrong Daro?”

“I’m on a train. I was drugged and I have no idea how I got here.” Daro replied.

Ripar contacted Doctor Vocar and Captain Roj and filled them in. They ran to the ship cloaked and took off. Getting to where Daro was taken in seconds and Roj scanned the train.

“It looks like the breaks were tampered with and there are explosives under the engine, the middle car, and the last car. They’re Targofian, not human”.

“Did Kor survive or is there another Targofian doing this?” Daro asked, “I know you don’t know, just thinking out loud”.

“It looks like the explosive will go off when the train stops.” Captain Roj said

“Great” Daro muttered

Where Daro was sitting there wasn’t anyone in the seats around her. She looked in her pockets and found a ticket.

“Well, I can guess how I got here,” she thought to herself.

Sargent Daro got up and walked around, looking at the people on the train.

“Anyone can be the suspect; can you do a scan to see who’s not human?” She asked

“Everyone seems to be human...except for you of course” Ripar answered

“If this is Kor, he would show up as human, I’ll have to try another tactic”

Sargent Daro continued to walk around, looking for some sign to find the suspect who’s doing this to her.

“Aren’t you glad you let me implant the enhancer on you, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to communicate with me” Doctor Vocar said

“There has to be a way to find Kor or whoever this is” Daro said

“He would have to touch the person he copied...let me send you pictures of all the people he killed. I can also do a scan of the train to see if there are any bodies or people incapacitated. I’ll have Ripar check the emergency channels to see if there is anyone found dead or knocked out. That’s a start.” Doctor Vocar replied

Sargent Daro looked at the pictures as he walked around the train, not seeing anyone familiar.

“There aren’t any bodies dead or knocked out on the train” Ripar said "The police found a body in back of a train station about 54 miles from our destination. We’ll go check it out and take a picture of them for you.” Captain Roj said.

“How far until our next stop?”

“This train looks like it’s a non-stop and the final stop is about 3 hours” Roj answered

“Great” Daro thought

Roj and his commrads arrived at the crime scene. The body was laying outside naked but not cut up.

“To many people around, I can’t get a good angle. I’ll have to go down there and take the picture from close up.” Ripar said

Roj tractor beamed Ripar to a secluded area. Ripar walked up to where the people were but with the crowd of police and techs, he still couldn’t see the body. The crime scene photographer was shooting at evidence around the scene, and when he was done, he walked back to his car and put the camera in a case in the front seat, then was called over by a police officer. Ripar quickly ran to the car, opened the unlocked door took out the camera and looked at the pictures. He took out a device from his pocket and scanned the camera downloading the data from it and sending it to the ship. He quickly put the camera back, closed the door and ran off. A few seconds later Roj tractor beamed him back on to the ship and they sped off.

“Great work Ripar, it doesn’t look like anyone saw you,” Roj said

“I’m a scout, we’re trained not to be seen, but thank you”

They looked at the pictures and sent a headshot to Daro

“Thanks, this will make things a lot easier. Plus, Kor will be taken by surprise.”

The person Kor copied was a woman in her 40s or so, Latina with a heavy build. He remembered back in the car he woke up in he saw this woman. He’ll have to not let Kor know until everyone is safe and the car is stopped.

"Ok, if I tell you where Kor is can you track her from the ship?"

"Yes and no, if she gets up and walks around other people, we may lose her,Roj said

“I’ve been working on something, let's see how well it works. Tell me exactly where Kor is”. Dr. Vocar said

Taking the tracker on the ground and opened the ship hatch picking it up with a tractor beam.

A child with its parents walked past Daro, he touched each of them excusing himself. He then went into an empty passenger room and changed into the mother and walked toward where Kor was sitting which was about 8 seats from where he woke up.

“I’m directly in back of Kor now.”

Daro saw a thin tractor beam appear

“Is this Kor?”

“Yes” Daro answered

The beam quickly touched Kor and disappeared.

“Did you do what I think you did? How did you do that?”

“I figured out how to take the phase energy and put it in a tractor beam making the object inside phase. I haven’t tried it with a living being yet, the tractor beams energy dilutes the phase energy so I’ve only been able to do it with inanimate objects, and smaller ones at that. I’m working on it though”

“You amaze me sometimes Doctor.”

“Thank you,” Doctor Vocar said with glee

“We have Kor on our monitor. Now we just have to disable the bombs before you stop. 2 hours left”. Roj said

“Can you phase the bombs and remove them?” Ripar asked

“I don’t want to take the chance; I don’t know what the combined phase and tractor energies would do to a live bomb. I guess that’s something I’ll have to test...in a safe area without live humans around.”

“We have 2 hours, do you have bombs on board you can test, if so do the test”. Doctor Vocar said

“Yes, I suppose we can. It wouldn’t take that long to do. Ok hold on, I’ll see what I can do.”

Daro got up, walked back to the empty car, changed back into his regular human form and sat down in his seat.

“Isn’t it strange Kor hasn’t moved?” Ripar asked

“Where am I going to go? Also, she thinks I don’t know what’s going on yet. To Kor I’m confused how I got onto a train. The thing that gets me is why put me on a train with a bomb when she’s on it as well?”

“That’s something we’ll have to figure out later when we capture her” Roj said

Roj and Vocar got a few bombs from the armory and sent Ripar down with a tractor beam into the middle of a rock quarry. Ripar set the bomb and ran to a safe distance. Roj tried to pick it up with the phase tractor beam and it exploded.

“Ok, I have to use less intensity on the phase beam. It may make the object slightly visible but should work.” Vocar said

Vocar decreased the phased beam by 10 percent. Ripar set another bomb and lifted it up. The bomb was slightly visible but it was phased enough to move it through a tree and then set it down. Ripar turned off the bomb and was beamed back onto the ship.

“We did it, we’ll get those bombs off that train in no time then we can stop it and capture Kor. I sent a message to the counsel; they’re going to send a ship here to pick him up.”

“Ok, sounds like a plan” Daro said

The ship got into place matching the speed of the train, aiming the beam at the first bomb at the back of the train and eased it off the train and onto the ship where it was turned off. The same was done to the other two with a little over an hour to spare.

“I have a plan.” Roj said “We stop the train. You stand near an exit and when it stops open it and run out. Kor will follow you and we’ll tractor phase him into the hold.”

“You said it wasn’t tested with anything alive”

“Kor will be the test. If she lives, we send her back to Targof alive, if it doesn’t, she’ll die and we’ll send Kor back dead. Either way, the job is over and people are safe.”

“What will the counsel think,” Ripar asked

“We’ll ask for forgiveness later,” Daro said “Let's do it”.

With the tractor beam, Roj slowly slowed won the train. People on the train looked around and started worryingly asking what was going on. Kor looked around and Daro pretended to be curious and worried too. The train came to a stop and Daro opened the exit door and ran out. Kor got up and followed, pushing people out of the way. When Kor exited the train Roj hit him with the tractor phase on full power, as Kor was being lifted, he screamed in pain, when she was brought up to the ship into the hold and unphased, she was dead.

“Well, I guess that answers that. I’ll have to work on getting this to work.” Vocar said.

Ripar contacted the counsil and told them what happened. They said, “as long as it was the only option, it’s a job well done”. Daro was brought onto the ship and they took her home. They got into her car and drove to a restaurant and ate a big meal, then she drove home and went to sleep. The rest of the gang went back to the ranch where they told the gang what happened in the morning over breakfast.