The Scout

By GeekSeven


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DOWNLOADED FROM
http://www.superwomenmania.com/storybank
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Planetary Investigator (First Class) Alpha-5 approached the small, blue and
green world at high velocity. It was the third planet from a small yellow sun
and looked to have a pleasant climate and plentiful water covering two-thirds
of the planetary surface. A visual inspection confirmed what High Command had
suspected: that the planet was infested with an early technological
civilization. She entered the atmosphere and let friction slow her descent,
unconcerned by the extreme heat on her skin.

As intended, she had landed in a highly populated area. Her probe kit,
contained in a silver sphere half a meter across, followed her down and floated
above her left shoulder. The city was a crude settlement, comprised of tall
gray, metal and glass buildings arranged in blocks, interleaved with a grid of
paths. The paths were split into two areas; the center used by primitive ground
vehicles and a raised strip at the edges used by walking inhabitants.

Alpha-5 made an initial visual examination of the inhabitants, a group of
which had started to gather around her. They were remarkably similar in form to
herself. They were bipedal, ranged in height from 1.5 to nearly 2 meters,
sported hair on their heads in varying lengths and styles, and had skin in a
variety of colors from nearly white to dark brown. Alpha-5 herself was 2 meters
high, with light blue skin, long dark hair and a slender, toned figure. The
most shocking thing about the creatures was that many of them showed signs of
aging, something that had been unknown among her people for thousands of years.

Their clothing was bulky and crude, comprised of a mixture of natural and
synthetic fibers, woven into thin sheets that had been cut and sewn together.
This was quite unlike the thin material of her uniform, which had been grown
for out of exotic materials that were almost as impervious to damage as her own
body. Alpha-5 wore a standard Investigator's uniform, comprised of a white,
skin-tight suit that covered her full, firm breasts and her pelvic area, but
left her stomach, legs and arms exposed.

Alpha-5 noticed that the female creatures wore less clothing than the males;
she considered the implications for a moment, but anthropology was not really
relevant in this situation and put it out of her mind. Males had been extinct
among her people for over a hundred years, so it was hard for her to imagine
what it would be like to have them around.

It was time to begin her investigation into the inhabitants. She reached into
the circle of creatures that had gathered around her and grabbed one of the
males by the arm. He struggled and tried to free himself from the grip of her
slender hand, but he was unable to move even the smallest of her fingers by the
tiniest amount. Alpha-5 noted that they were lacking in strength.

Alpha-5 had never come across a species with such feeble forelimbs. To confirm
this, she grabbed the creature's other arm at the wrist. She closed her grip
and easily snapped the creature's hand off, coating her hands with his blood.
She placed her hands on each end of his forearm and tried to snap the bone; to
her surprise, it was easy to do. She repeated the process with the creature's
upper arm and found it to be no more resistant to her strength.

Alpha-5 noted in her memory journal that the inhabitants were lacking in
durability as well.

The atmosphere was a mixture of Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide and other
trace gases. Alpha-5 decided to investigate whether any of this was essential
to the inhabitants, as she had come across a number of other lesser species who
required atmospheric gases in order to live. Alpha-5 and her people were quite
capable of surviving in hard vacuum, of course.

She ordered her probe kit to generate a force shell ten meters in diameter.
Alpha-5 could control what came in and out of the shell down to the atomic
level. The crowd of inhabitants had moved away quickly when they had seen her
remove the arms from their fellow creature. Alpha-5 noted that they were aware
of other individuals and that causing one of them pain would upset the others.
She dashed towards the crowd at a gentle pace, but noted that they were unable
to run away from her at even a fraction of her speed. Clearly their weak limbs
could not sustain the kind of speeds that Alpha-5's graceful legs could.

She grabbed one of the creatures and carried him into the force shell. She
ordered the shell to expel all gases. As she had expected, the sudden vacuum
inside the shell had a catastrophic effect on the creature, who exploded quite
violently. She ordered the shell to expel the remains of the creature and to
let the natural atmosphere back in. She noted that sudden changes in pressure
were deadly to the creatures.

For the next test, she grabbed another creature. It struggled and yelled quite
ferociously, even though it must have been clear to him that she was far
superior to him in all respects. She noted that they were perhaps not as
intelligent as their technology might have indicated. This time she ordered the
shell to expel the atmospheric gases at a much slower rate. This time the
creature did not die as catastrophically, but she noted that it began to gasp
for breath when the gases became thin, and expired not long after they had been
expelled completely. Alpha-5 was quite comfortable herself.

She continued her investigations. The inhabitants had cleared a large area and
she was getting annoyed at having to travel further and further to grab her
experimental subjects, even though she could cover the distance in next to no
time. She encircled about a dozen subjects with a force belt and placed them
next to the force shell so that she could dip into them at any time.

After several more experiments and a number of asphyxiated inhabitants, she
had determined that Oxygen was the gas that the creatures required to live.
When placed in an atmosphere of pure Nitrogen, Carbon Dioxide or Argon, they
expired quickly. She suspected that the odd motion of their chests was due to
them taking the gas in through the mouth and nose, but she needed to confirm
this. She grabbed one of the inhabitants and placed one hand firmly over his
mouth and pinched his nostrils shut with the other hand; she had to be careful
not to crush the nose, because of the extreme fragility of the creature.

He began to thrash around in discomfort. He fruitlessly attempted to pry her
hands from his face, but her grip was far more powerful than he could have
hoped to match. He kicked at her with his legs, smashing his thickly-clad feet
against her knees, breaking his toes in the process. His struggles became
weaker and weaker as the lack of precious oxygen made itself felt and after a
few minutes he simply stopped moving.

Alpha-5 intended to investigate the internal structure of the native creatures
next and she fired up her laser scalpel in anticipation of opening them up, but
she was interrupted by the arrival of a black and white vehicle with flashing
lights that made an unpleasant noise. Two inhabitants climbed out of the
vehicle; they wore matching blue clothing and appeared to be carrying weapons
of some kind. Alpha-5 noted that the creatures were advanced enough to have
established a corps of Peace Officers to maintain order.

The two creatures babbled at her in their primitive language. It would have
taken Alpha all of a second for her incredible brain to decipher the language
if she had cared to, but it would have been pointless. There was nothing they
had to say that would be of any interest to her. The two Peace Officers held
their ground and pointed their weapons at her chest. This would be a crucial
part of her mission; discovering the kinds of weaponry that the inhabitants of
the planet could construct.

She walked towards them, ignoring their increasingly frantic shouts. They
opened fire simultaneously. The weapons appeared to be primitive projectile
cannons; Alpha-5 had not seen anything so pathetic in nearly 100 years. A
chemical reaction was used to propel a shaped metal projectile down a metal
barrel; the impact of the projectile was intended to damage its target through
the transfer of kinetic energy and the passage of the sharpened projectile
through the target's body.

Alpha-5 watched the projectiles approach, speeding up her senses so that the
world around her appeared to be moving in slow motion. She could have stepped
aside with ease if she had wanted to, but the best way to test the efficacy of
the weapons was to let them hit her. She was confident that they would do her
no harm. Her confidence was not misplaced. The sharp metal projectiles struck
her in the stomach and in the breast and shattered harmlessly, failing to
penetrate her suit, let alone the super-hard skin beneath.

She reached out and grabbed one of the weapons; she pulled it out of the
creature's hand with a gentle tug. The fragility of the creatures was brought
home to her again when she saw that one of his fingers had been pulled off when
she had taken his weapon. The creature's partner continued to shoot projectiles
at her and she ignored them as she examined the captured weapon. It was small
and made of soft metal; she was able to crush it easily between her hands and
roll it into a ball. She gauged the weight of the metal ball she had made and
threw it casually at the chest of the creature who was still shooting at her;
the ball flew straight through him, leaving a ragged hole in his chest. He fell
to the ground. Alpha-5 noted that the creatures appeared vulnerable to minor
wounds.

A larger group of Peace Officers arrived on the scene. There were about a
dozen of them; they also wore identical blue clothing, but of a bulkier nature
than their comrades. They wore helmets over their heads and some kind of armor
between their chests and their outer clothing. Alpha-5 was not surprised; the
creatures had such vulnerable chests that she was surprised that such armor was
not worn by all of the inhabitants. She approached the new arrivals to
investigate the efficacy of their armor.

The new group had larger, more powerful weapons than the Peace Officers who
had arrived initially. They fired on her in unison and Alpha-5 noted that they
appeared to display some degree of training and discipline. The projectiles
from the new weapons were larger, traveled at much higher velocities and were
produced in far higher quantities than the ones from the smaller weapon she had
looked at before. However, they were still completely ineffectual against her.
When Alpha-5 concentrated, she could sense a slight tickling sensation where
the projectiles hit that was sort of pleasant, especially on her breasts.

She reached the first of the new group and disarmed him. The weapon was made
of similar soft metals to the other one, which she confirmed by bending it into
a circle. She threw the hoop that had once been a gun at the head of the
creature she had taken it from and noted that his helmet did nothing to stop
his head from being removed by the impact.

They were finally starting to notice that their weapons were hopelessly
inadequate and were trying something new. Alpha-5 noted that most of the
creatures were now holding roundish lumps of metal; they pulled some kind of
pin mechanism out of the lumps and threw them in her direction. After what
seemed like an eternity, enough time for her to have killed the entire group
five times over, the lumps exploded. Some kind of crude chemical explosive that
produced shock waves and heat that washed over her body like a gentle breeze.
So far she was not impressed by the weaponry on this planet.

Alpha-5 ran over to the nearest of the Peace Officers and grabbed him by the
shoulder before he could react. She tore the outer layer of his clothing off
him as if it was nothing, and examined the armor underneath. The materials
exhibited some degree of sophistication, certainly more than anything else she
had seen so far on this world. She tentatively pushed at the vest with a
finger; she was able to push through the armor and into the fragile flesh below
with ease. Clearly the armor was designed to protect against the kind of
primitive projectile weapons that these creatures used, not something as
powerful as one of her fingers. She punched a dozen holes in the armor and the
creature beneath with her finger. The thin red blood that she had observed
coming from other individuals flowed out from the holes in his chest.

She tossed the creature to one side; he hit the ground with great force and
Alpha noticed some cracking sounds come from inside his body. It hardly seemed
possible that their skeletons could be so fragile as to break from an impact
with the ground, but she was learning not to overestimate the weakness of the
inhabitants of this world. She picked up another of the Peace Officers and
threw him as fast as she could at the side of a nearby building. He
disintegrated into a shower of flesh and shattered bone. She repeated the
process with another of the creatures, this time throwing him much slower. He
did not disintegrate, but she heard the cracks as most of the bones in his body
shattered from the impact.

The strongest bone in Alpha-5's body was her spine, since it protected her
super-fast central nervous system. Her analysis so far indicated that the thigh
bone was the strongest in the inhabitants of this world, but she was curious as
to how their spines stacked up. The Peace Officers were retreating from the
area, but she was easily able to catch up to one of them. She grabbed him with
one hand on the creature's neck and the other hand on his backside. She held
him up above her head and began to bend the two ends of his spine together; she
had barely gotten a quarter of the way when she felt and heard his spine give
way and shatter. She threw the creature away and made note of the poor tensile
strength of his spine. Just to confirm that he was not a particularly weak
specimen, she repeated the process with a few more of the creatures; all of
them had spines that were just as easy to snap into two.

Only two of the new group of Peace Officers were females, an unequal ratio
that confused Alpha-5 until she picked them up and twisted their bodies until
their spines broke. On this world, the females were slightly weaker than the
males; this was unusual in her experience and the reverse of her own species,
where the long-extinct males had been far weaker than their female
counterparts.

A rumbling sound indicated that the creatures had not yet exhausted their
defenses. Alpha-5 noted that they exhibited an escalating response to external
threats; a pattern she had noted in technological vermin on other worlds. A
number of large, green armored vehicles were approaching; pushing smaller
vehicles out of the way, or just driving over them. Clearly the inhabitants had
activated a militia of some kind and Alpha-5 was curious as to what they were
capable of. The armored vehicles sported turrets with long metal barrels that
looked depressingly like larger versions of the projectile weapons that she had
come across already.

Her suspicion was confirmed when two of the vehicles opened fire on her. Large
tapered metal cylinders flew towards her at speeds that did not impress her.
The weapons appeared to be fairly inaccurate as well, since they landed a short
distance in front of her. These projectiles were not just solid metal; they
included large quantities of the chemical explosives that had been inside the
small bombs that the Peace Officers had thrown at her. The explosions were
larger and louder, but they had just as little effect on her. Alpha-5 noted
that they were insufficient in power to cause her even the slightest
inconvenience; in fact she found the heat and the shower of sharp metal
shrapnel to be quite gentle.

The controllers of the armored vehicle were more accurate with their second
volley; this time the projectiles hit her square in the stomach. Alpha-5 noted
that the hardened tips were probably intended to help the projectiles penetrate
armor so that the chemical explosive could do more damage. The hardened tips,
and the rest of the projectiles, simply shattered into a million pieces when
they hit the bare skin of her stomach. There was definitely a tingling
sensation when they hit, but she had to concentrate to sense it and it
certainly was not painful.

She dashed over to the nearest armored vehicle, moving so fast that she
suspected that to the primitive senses of the creatures inside, it would seem
that she had simply disappeared from one spot and reappeared in the other. She
fired up her laser scalpel and cut a round hole in the side of the vehicle,
where the armor plating was the thickest. Alpha-5 noted that the armor was not
effective against even the weakest energy source at her disposal. She pushed
her fingers into the armor plating, noting that the supposed armor was
incredibly soft and pliable. She was able to tear a large hole in the side of
the vehicle just by pulling it apart with her hands.

Alpha-5 was surprised to see that the vehicle contained live creatures; she
noted that autonomous electronic control systems were not in general use on
this world. She summoned the force shell that she had used in her earlier
atmospheric experiments and ordered it to shrink down and enter the armored
vehicle. Then she ordered it to expand, slowly. As the force bubbled expanded,
it first crushed the crew against the inside of the armored vehicle and then
tore the vehicle apart from the inside. The construction was weak and shoddy by
her standards.

More vehicles arrived, of varying designs, each sporting a different weapon.
They were all variations on the existing theme, though. They sprayed her with
projectiles of varying sizes, hardness and speeds, but none of them caused her
to even bat an eyelid. The assembled militia seemed most discouraged when they
saw one of their larger projectiles strike her eyeball without penetrating it
or causing any damage whatsoever. The militia withdrew.

Alpha-5 had time to conduct some tests on the strength of the materials used
in the construction of buildings in the settlement. She pushed a couple over
with her bare hands and noted that they were using weak metals and a long
obsolete material called concrete for the bulk of their buildings. She was able
to crack the foundations of even the tallest buildings by stamping her foot on
the ground and she watched dispassionately as the massive structures fell to
the ground, taking hundreds of the native inhabitants to their deaths. For her,
even if she had lost the power of flight, a fall from such a height would be a
minor inconvenience, especially in the weak gravity of this small planet; but
for the native inhabitants, it was quite deadly.

A boom shook the air, heralding the arrival of a squadron of flying machines.
Alpha-5 had seen similar devices on other worlds whose inhabitants lacked the
natural ability to fly. They were propelled by inefficient jet engines and they
appeared to be armed. Self-propelled explosive devices streamed from the flying
machines and exploded all around her, showering her with debris. Alpha-5 noted
that these weapons used a more powerful form of chemical explosive, but that it
was still insufficient to concern her.

More flying machines arrived and dropped devices on her that simply fell
through the air to the ground; she supposed that making them dumb projectiles
left more room for explosives and wondered if she would actually be able to
feel something from these weapons. The devices were very different than the
previous ones; instead of a chemical explosive, they scattered a sticky white
substance around the area that caught fire when it reacted with the air. She
noted that the substance was clinging to her skin quite tenaciously and burned
ferociously. She summoned a device from her probe kit and measured the
temperature of the burning goo. It was only 1000 Degrees. Was that laughably
low temperature enough to hurt one of the creatures on this world?

There were none of the inhabitants visible on the ground, so she decided to
take a pilot from one of the flying machines as a test subject. She launched
herself into the air and made for the nearest flying machine. It tried to evade
her, but it was slow and maneuvered poorly compared to herself; she could fly
across the vast voids of space at speeds far in excess of light, yet she could
turn on a pinpoint. Against that kind of ability, the mechanical flyer had no
hope of evasion. She shattered the canopy of the flying machine with a slight
blow and grabbed the pilot. He was firmly strapped in, but she pulled him out
easily, snapping the straps as if they were nothing. She flew back towards the
area that had been bombed with the burning white substance.

There was enough of the burning goo left for her to conduct a suitable
experiment. She waded into a large puddle of it, holding her captive firmly.
The flames licked at her bare feet, but had no effect. When the flames touched
the creature's clothing, it caught fire and he was soon engulfed in flames.
Alpha-5 was more interested in the effect of the substance on the creature's
skin, so she tore his burning clothes from his body. She rolled him in the
burning goo and noted that the 1000 degree temperature had a significant effect
on his skin, turning it black and charred. She scooped up a handful and
drizzled it over the creature's face, observing how the substance, which was
totally harmless to her, was capable of burning the creature's eyes out of his
sockets. She left the creature to die in a puddle of the burning substance and
updated her notes.

The flying machines continued to attack her with larger and larger bombs, but
achieved nothing other than to wreck a large portion of their own settlement.
Alpha-5 continued about her business, taking measurements of the soil and air
composition. She noted that a large scale exodus of creatures from the city was
underway. When she became annoyed by the constant bombing, she shot the flying
machines out of the sky with burts of energy fired from her hands. Every shot
hit its target and destroyed it completely.

She realized why the city was being evacuated when a ballistic missile
containing a small thermonuclear device exploded fifty meters above her. She
noted with interest that the inhabitants did have an alternative to crude
chemical explosives, but that they had held it back as a last resort. Only last
year she had come across a planet where the natives were vulnerable to the
kinds of radiation that such weapons produced as a side-effect, and she
wondered if the same was true on this planet. It would certainly explain their
reluctance to use them earlier.

As the energies of the bomb washed over her harmlessly, she carefully noted
the yield of the device and hypothesized as to its likely design. She flew up
through the mushroom cloud and looked around, noting the effect that the weapon
had on the surrounding area; the materials used in their buildings were just as
fragile as her earlier experiments had indicated. She flew to another location
on the planet to take more readings. Her probe kit followed her.

Every time she stopped to investigate an area, the natives would launch more
thermonuclear devices at her. So far they had used fission bombs, fusion bombs
and neutron bombs of varying yields and quantities. Their energies were
devastating to the landscape around her, but did not even scratch her.
Nonetheless, there was no point scouting a planet if the inhabitants destroyed
it while fruitlessly trying to destroy her. She had all of the information she
needed, so she casually flew into orbit.

She was satisfied that the inhabitants of the planet were harmless to anyone
but themselves. A colony ship would arrive in a month, carrying 10,000 of her
species, each one as powerful as Alpha-5 herself. She would recommend that they
disarm the planet of weapons that could ruin the landscape, but that otherwise
the inhabitants were of no concern and could be safely exterminated at the
colonists' leisure.

Alpha-5 was satisfied with another job well done and made for the next star
system on her list. She hoped that the next time she came across native
creatures on a world that they were more interesting than the pathetic
specimens she had encountered today