The end of the human race is closer than you might think...
| Novel Information | January 2004 |
| Title | Fire and Frost |
| Author | Schuyler R. Thorpe |
| Copyright | 1999 |
| Genre | Adult Fantasy |
| Word Count | 185,681 |
| Original Page Number Totals | |
| Single-spaced | 413 |
| Double-spaced | 722 |
| New Page Totals | |
| Single-spaced | N/A |
| Double-spaced | N/A |
| Rewrites (0) | 2006 (basic editing) |
| Original Version | 1999 |
| Completed? | Yes |
| **SUGGESTIVE LANGUAGE. READER'S ADVISORY RECOMMENDED.** |
Prologue
Its birth had been a violent one, it could neither tell when, or where it happened, or for that matter: How.
Pitted with scars and craters, the object spun slowly, not having a definite goal. Its creation but one of pure chance, not by choice. All it knew was that its future destiny was nothing but a timeless journey, not to mention an endless maze. Its track taking it well beyond its celestial neighbors, but within the limits of its own imagination.
Every now and then, the asteroid’s course would take it perilously close to each and every one of them, then by some quirk of fate–be wrenched away from its intended target.
If the rocky behemoth were alive it would have felt cheated of having lost potential prey, but it could only continue, hoping for that one slim chance to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world.
Eventually, the asteroid fell into a black hole, where it later emerged on the far side of the galaxy. Free of the irregularity’s gravitational pull, the thing proceeded on a newfound journey. With the help of a large gas giant, the giant space borne rock came upon an unusual triple star system that had thirteen planets.
As it ventured into the outer fringes of the system, it had no way of knowing that the long awaited chance had finally arrived: The chance to enact revenge for its past failures.
Death was about to make an unexpected house call.
Chapter 1
Kamar IV.
The triple star family shone bright on the fourth planet; a blue green marble that orbited around them in a tight spiral. The planet’s twin moons were also held in similar orbits, spinning in the darkness of space like a pair of jeweled dancers in the night sky. The stars themselves had seen many cataclysms that spawned on the evolutionary or cosmic scale, or bore witness to the rise and fall of many of this system’s countless civilizations over the past eons. Sometimes, they were witnesses as they watched beings destroy each other simply because they thought that they were more superior.
However, at this stage in the cosmic wheel, they were beyond caring at this point. They only waited for the time when their deaths would only be registered as bright points of forced light and destruction.
Supernovas in the night sky.
They seriously doubted the system’s current forms of life–sentient or otherwise–would be there to see it.
But then they noticed something strange coming in on the far side of the system–past the twelfth planet. From their current perspective, they saw that it was indeed slightly larger than the last one that passed through, and they wonder what its purpose is.
From their fixed position, the three stars were powerless to stop it, or even slow it down. Instead, they turned their full attention outwards as it came into view; gazing with all their infinite might, and caressed the stony monolith with their rays. But the thing refused to reveal even its most darkest secrets to them.
Shrugging off their futile efforts to stop it or delay it, the thing that it was continued on, forever mired in the path that it chose, and subtle destiny that it knew lay ahead of itself.
The stars themselves could only watch and bear witness to the future events that would eventually unfold, convinced that they were the only ones that knew of the visitor’s existence.
But they weren’t the only one who knew of the behemoth’s arrival....
Kamarian Science Institute.
Lomar Province, southern tip of the Atkins Peninsula.
Doctor Cassandra Noyen noticed something strange in her monitor screens that wasn’t present almost five days ago.
Accessing information from a remote satellite near Kamar VII, she could only stare with mounting anxiety as the small object hurtled towards her at a painfully crawling pace. Within the space of an hour, it filled her entire field of vision completely. Alarm was the first thing that registered in the back of her mind as the scientist calculated the exact speed of the new arrival. At the same time, however, she was equally puzzled by its current trajectory setting. With all the available data at her disposal, she could not even project a proper path of origin. But then the computer gave her something completely unexpected: it was an asteroid.
“Is it possible?” She said softly to herself, as she cross-referenced and checked other data discs that were at her disposal.
But there was no irrelevant information anywhere that the thirty year-old could find. Disbelief set in immediately since the discovery of the errant asteroid was made only mere moments ago. She pushed back a strand of black hair that had gotten into her gray colored eyes, and blew out her breath slowly in exasperation. This new discovery technically blasted every theory that was related to or written about asteroids in general science.
Frustrated more with herself than anything else, she went to find her assistant Donald Truman, but she found that he was no longer at his work station.
Truman on the other hand was on break, making coffee for himself and wolfing down a powdered doughnut when he heard her yelling again.
“Donald! Get your sorry ass out here–now!” Grumbling some, the twenty-year old man put his still brewed, still hot cup of coffee, down at the food terminal he was using. That also included the other as of yet eaten portion of the powdered doughnut as well.
“What?” He answered in a rebellious tone of voice, as he ran down the empty white corridor that would lead him back towards the main area. He stopped only for a moment at the entrance to the main lab area to wipe the stinging sweat from his blue eyes. “I still have ten minutes left on my damned break, and I need my daily infusion of caffeine and sugar if I’m going to be pulling these fifteen hour shifts day in and day out,” he complained under his breath, pushing a strand of ash blond hair out of his eyes. Noyen glanced at him in private amusement.
“If you help me with this, I’ll give you two hours off with pay.”
Donald was instantly bought. “Well then.” He quipped. “That’s different.” Saddling up to his terminal, she watched her six foot assistant punch in his name and access code, watching the various muscles of his well honed biceps jump to and fro as he worked the terminal for a second.
“So what’s so hard that you need my personal expertise?” He asked casually, transferring his security card to another slot, and patiently waited for the computer to clear him.
A moment later, it did.
“This.” She answered, bringing up a block of data that had been flashing for the past minute now, and grew exponentially as the satellite remote continued to collect more information on the new visitor. For the time being, the monitor was showing a real time image of Kamar XI, which was half obscured by Kamar XII.
Donald just sat there, staring at the image incomprehensibly.
“Yeah? So? It’s just a long range view of the system’s eleventh planet. What’s so big about that?” Noyen rabbit punched him the shoulder, but not very hard since she knew that it wouldn’t hurt him, but Donald winced anyway.
“You blockhead! It’s not the planet that’s got me interested, but what’s behind it that does!” She turned to her computer, and asked it to display her previous findings on the asteroid.
It did so with such speed and accuracy that neither of them had time to blink.
“Data ready.” It said in a toneless voice.
Cassandra slid into a seat in front of the large screen that sat in front of them, and got right down to business.
“Display sector coordinates sixteen alpha through five gamma. After that, enhance section eight J.”
A second later the results were shown on a screen closer to Donald.
It was the asteroid.
All pristine and relatively untouched on one side, pitted and scarred on the other. Truman whistled in mute surprise, having been completely off guard by the sheer size of it.
“Big mother. Looks like a Class Two maybe a possible Class Three–according to the size ratios from the computer banks,” he said, entering in some complex equations which the machine ate up hungrily.
Cassandra glanced up from her findings that she had gathered so far, confusion evident all over her face.
“What’s a Class Three?” She asked, not sure if he wanted to know. However, curiosity won out in the end.
Donald looked at her briefly, accessed another bit of data from his end of the mainframe, and transferred it to her work station.
On the main screen, asteroids of various shapes and sizes filled most of it, while comparison charts covered the remaining portion. As the seconds ticked by, each asteroid took on a sense of solidity as the computer brought some animation programs to life.
He pointed at each in turn.
“Each class is due to the size of the target asteroid. Class Eight being the smallest– ” he highlighted one part of the screen with a laser pointer, and the computer automatically cut in with the asteroid’s biographical information: type, composition, impact ratios, and recorded sightings. “– which is about five to ten miles in diameter. To…” he moved to another part of the screen, with the computer moving with him; highlighting the biggest and most deadliest of them all. Looking at this graphical representation of a monster suddenly coming right at her made the woman shuddered at some hidden memory that the image wrought, and she did her best to appear unshaken.
“–a Class One, that bastard being the largest. This is what we call a potential planet killer.”
“How big?” She whispered, the fear starting to become apparent from being in close proximity to the computerized hologram. Somehow, she managed to contain it, and still manage to maintain a sense of professionalism at the same time.
Donald was unaware of her reaction, and continued to access more and more data as it was becoming available to him.
“ ‘How big?’ ” He echoed. He typed in a request and patiently waited for the computer to give him the answer. The information came up after a minute.
“About two hundred miles, plus or minus twenty. According to these readings, that's about 18 times the size of Outpost 42,” he glanced at another set of calculations. “Or about the size of three or four of our major continents combined.” He glanced over in her general direction. “In other words, this asteroid is big enough in such a manner, that it could very well crack this planet’s mantle in two, or destroy Kamar IV completely all together.”
Noyen blanched. “Oh god...”
“I know what you’re thinking: We haven’t encountered one of that magnitude in well over five centuries.” Cassandra was quiet for a moment, eyebrows knit in heavy concentration as she stood staring at the computer generated asteroid.
“I think it was nearly 535 years ago, maybe 540.”
Donald looked at her with surprise. “H-how did you know of the Dark Period?”
Noyen returned his gaze with open curiosity. “Is that what their calling it now?” She went back to her station, and killed the image of the terrifying behemoth, privately relieved that she wouldn’t have to continue to work in its shadow again. Somehow, the thought wasn’t very comforting. She punched up a request for an overview of the system, and had it overlaid with a projected course of the asteroid.
The data wasn’t very convincing.
She turned back at him, and gazed at the monitor which currently showed a satellite view of Kamar IX, dutifully accompanied by more satellite information.
“It had been a story that my grandparents told me when I was a little girl, a few years before the Tonaria Riots. Before they died in them...” Her mind flashed back to happier times, a time when a young girl could grow up and not having to fear the outside world. A world that was slowly turning to rot simply because a few people ceased to care about what happened to it, or the people on it.
She shook off the painful memories, and looked at him with a small amount of contempt.
“Something tells me that you know a great deal about the Dark Period too, or you wouldn’t have tried to obscure the fact with such a lame answer.” And turned her attention back to her work. The computer wasn’t going to be much help in assisting her with the programs needed to correlate with the tracking probes and satellites, so she would have to do it manually. That meant ten maybe twelve hours worth of work.
She sighed.
Donald did the same, and leaned back against the console, watching the newly configured data flow past at such a speed that blue his eyes were beginning to hurt. He looked away to rub and then turned back to Noyen.
“It’s not that at all. The things that they teach you in school is only a rough approximation to what actually took place all those centuries ago. If someone comes along later in life and tells you something completely different, how are you going to know then if he’s right and you were wrong? You can’t.” He went back to his console and played his fingers lightly over its settings before continuing.
“It is true that only a few people left alive today know about what actually happened those centuries ago. People who were given special information that hadn’t been abused by the Kamarian Government or any other inside source of data retrieval that we know of today.” He laughed briefly.
“That’s what people used to call a ‘treasure trove’ of information, and so it must be guarded by at any cost, so that in the succeeding years, their descendants will always know the truth of what had happened, and not by some misguided piece of data which happened to make it’s way into the educational system.”
Noyen could understand it from his point of view.
This had been an old story passed down through the generations.
Centuries ago, their ancestors fled destruction of their world by an asteroid, only to travel to this system by a complex series of space jumps. It was a process took almost seventy years to complete. From then on, years thus, the destruction of the Blue World was forever known as the Dark Period. Records that were reconstructed three hundred years later, recounted exactly what had happened and in great detail. But sadly, most of the original records were lost during the long voyage following an attack on the survivors by an unknown race. It was a civilization that they had accidentally stumbled upon while trying to land on the planet of Kamar IV. Even though their human ancestors were victorious, both sides took heavy losses.
Soon after, Kamar IV was established as a colony, and then as the sole protector of the last vestigial of a race that once numbered in the billions.
A race that once called itself Man.
Eventually, their ancestors colonized the entire planet, finished constructing immense orbital defense platforms, and improved upon their knowledge of technology. Finally, the Kamarians proved victorious over their enemies, with the last war having been recorded as being fought almost 347 years ago.
Donald shook off the reverie. “Do you ever miss the Blue World?” He asked suddenly.
Noyen was thoughtful. “I don’t know.” She said. “I remember a story that my grandfather had told me when I was a little girl. He told me that one of our ancestors had mulled over the fact that they were essentially marooned in interstellar space with no world to return to. I think he might’ve been referring to the Blue World...”
Donald stared at the image of the asteroid, and watched it tumble in real time graphics. The one version of what did happen compared to what they were facing now was too much of a coincidence.
He was troubled by this.
“Perhaps, but I theorize that it would happen again, since we no longer have the resources to initiate a whole scale planetary evacuation like our ancestors did.” He turned back to his station, and the accumulated data. In a quiet voice he murmured, “We could very well perish as a race, not one of us a sole survivor.”
Dr. Noyen shuddered again, having overheard what he said. But this time it was at the single thought of dying as a person, and not being able to do a damned thing about it. She went over to where he was sitting, and placed a hand on her colleague’s shoulder very carefully.
“When the time comes, and if it does boil down to it, we shall have something already in place by then. Trust me on this one Donald.”
Donald snorted derisively.
“Isn’t that the whole point of the issue? Trust?” He pulled away from her momentarily, and looked at the main screen; watching Kamar VIII spin slowly in place. “Honestly, Cassie, there are a lot of things that are going on in this world than that. A lot more.” He sat there and stewed quietly for a moment.
The woman nodded in mutual agreement, while pondering over the data streams that flowed across the huge view screen. Nothing there could dispel the doubt that lurked in the back of her mind.
“Yeah, I know what you mean: Riots, wars, terrorists, and a thing that is called unfair government.”
Donald shook his head placidly.
“And that’s just the start of it. What would happen if we had colonized a different world instead of Kamar IV?”
“We’d probably act the same, I suppose.” She replied, punching in the final data algorithms from the console in front of her, and then wagged a finger at him.
“So...do you want to start the simulation tests or should I do it?” She smiled at him while she said it, but Donald knew better than to be baited by beautiful women.
Even if one was his superior.
“You do it,” he said with an ever growing smile on his face, all the frustration and anger melting away from his handsome features. “I’m on break, remember?”
Bruan Providence, eastern section of the Talmar Province.
Third Continent.
School was out, and for a very brief moment the streets were clear of any incoming traffic.
That would change in a second, the boy with the red cap and purple jacket realized, as he waited for another hover bus to arrive to take him home. He glanced upwards with soft blue eyes, towards the pure topaz sky and watched a few stray clouds do a jig in time to the golden rays from the three distant suns.
That subtle moment left the thirteen year old content until that one stray thought of having to do homework destroyed whatever chances that he would have for a quiet night.
Ten pages in history, and four pages of calculus, he reflected. Still, the teenager was secretly hoping to watch some cartoons on the holo vid tonight, but he saw that as an impossibility now. He fumed at his own carelessness for not trying to fake his own way out of homework. Not like a couple of his classmates had done earlier in the day, and were sent home because of it. And while the teacher debated on how the incident had taken place, only he knew the whole truth to the matter.
He remembered seeing both of his classmates downing what he thought were Venom capsules in the hall before class was to begin. He knew that the drug specifically was designed to raise the body’s temperature artificially in case it couldn’t do it on its own.
Like in a coma for instance.
Instead of saying anything to the teacher right off, Jason watched as both boys got violently sick, and the teacher had no other choice but to excuse them both before something messy took place. Only then did he know of the cause of the pair’s sudden ailment, but declined to sound the alarm, even when he found out that the two miscreants almost overdosed on the drug.
Fortunately for the two, the Venom drug would dissipate with no lasting effects, with the minor exception of a moderate fever and chills that would last at least a week.
The boy considered at that point of pulling the same stunt as he was in the process of crossing an intersection. But then he realized that it would’ve done him no good: Long ago, his parents had acquired an impenetrable DNA lock coded only to them, and placed on the medicine cabinet. Burning a hole through it would have proved pointless, because the cabinet itself was made of a composite tritanium/Duralite material from nearly twenty years ago.
An antique now, but back then it was still considered state-of-the-art.
A sudden gust of wind blew his red cap off the top of his head, and ruffled his blond hair at the same time. However, it did more than that: It broke his concentration as well.
Annoyed at this sudden interruption, Jason watched as his beloved possession fluttered sideways in the wind’s grasp for only a few seconds before plummeting to the hard ground with a surprisingly gentle thump!
To his dismay, it had landed precariously in the middle of a busy intersection. And Jason was not the type to leave something that he had for most of his life, regardless of the present dangers.
Looking both ways before crossing the street, the young boy could see no traffic in either direction. However, he did note a few ground cars that had been parked erratically on the opposite sides of the road.
Nothing to worry about, he thought as he did a quick jaunt into the middle of the road to retrieve his cap.
As he was in the motion of putting it back on his head, he heard the familiar whine of an engine as it died down from the hypersonic range to the level of human hearing. Even at that stage, the keening noise was madly deafening at close range. And judging from the distance he had previously heard it, the teenager knew right then that he was in deep trouble.
Barely having time to turn around, the sounds of screeching tires was unmistakable as the hover car came to an abrupt halt, neutronium exhaust billowing out all around him like bed sheets on a breezy summer day. He suddenly found that he was mortally disgusted by the smell.
Why hadn’t they created a better power source to run those things?
The person in question who drove the car, was about to jump out of his restraint harness and chew him out royally, when a garbage hauler came out of nowhere and slammed into the back of the man’s vehicle without warning.
The man hung on for dear life as his car spun around like a kid’s top. He then watched with growing anger as the massive truck continued to float past him, unaware of what it had hit.
Flustered, he turned on the boy in a fit of rage. “Watch where your going, you dumb shit!”
Unfazed, Jason stopped only for a moment to give him the bird, and started to walk home.
Outraged beyond words, the driver shoved his car back into gear with a vicious yank on the vehicle’s drive stick, causing the onboard computer to protest at the unwarranted treatment with a shrill bleep!
However, the driver was too pissed off to notice.
Kicking in the machine’s internal afterburners, the ground car shot after the boy with an incredible burst of acceleration, leaving behind black skid marks that instantly caught fire afterwards. It forced the street’s auto extinguisher system to put it out before it could spread.
The teenager heard or rather felt the incoming presence of the massively powered car as it barreled down on him with unimaginable speeds.
“Wasn’t nice to torque him off like that, but oh, well.” He deserves that for calling me a dumb shit, he added quietly.
Finding no other immediate place for cover, he fished out his Electromagnetic Pulse blaster and upped the charge to maximum output. He then squeezed off a poorly aimed shot that he was sure would either blind him for life, or kill the guy that was intentionally trying to run him down.
As luck would have it, the kinetic force of the gun saved by knocking him on his ass. He felt somewhat disoriented as well as dazed for a grand total of one, maybe two, seconds at the most. What soon followed the discharge proved to be one big blur for him to recall accurately, for the hover car’s computer recorded it instantly, and counteracted with a defensive mechanism of its own.
A reactive shield sprung up and deflected the incoming shot and forced it to go the other way than it ha was originally intended. But in the end, it created a new set of conditions, and rebounded back to the child with twice its combined kinetic and explosive energy that he himself had created only moments before.
That didn’t give him much time to dodge the volley that was like a blazing stream of fire in his eyes--giving him a few seconds to find anything in which he could protect himself from the blast. A moment later, he spied the perfect cover: a row of hedgebushes.
Perfect!
Diving behind them and hitting the ground at the same time, the salvo impacted on a parked hover car directly in front of him, and it detonated with the force of a small carbonite bomb at close range.
A wall of fire suddenly exploded in front of the boy, and Jason instinctively shielded his eyes from the flames fury, as secondary explosions touched off abruptly from the result of the car’s neutronium power cells being breached by the fires. Changing positions gave him some measure of safety as more successive detonations followed, but it was the sounds of tortured metal that made him cringe involuntarily.
It was definitely not one of those days, he reflected as he got off the ground, and began to brush himself off. But the commotion had drawn the attention of an elderly man who showed up to view the scene of death--spotting Jason Scott as he was about to take off.
“Hey son! Are you okay?”
Jason froze unexpectedly, and then turned around slowly; half expecting to be caught by the authorities for the mess he caused.
“Yeah...I’m okay...” He answered warily, not taking the chance of staring into the eyes of the old man.
But he nodded nonetheless, surveying what was left of the burning wreckage from where he was standing. There was no sign of the other car that had tried so unsuccessfully in running him over. All that was left was flaming debris that was being extinguished by the street’s auto extinguishers and what appeared to be a blackened and charred shoe.
Then an elderly woman came running out of the house with a look of fear on her aged face. After a tense exchange, the elderly man walked over to the teenager and gripped him firmly by the shoulder.
“You had better run home, young man. My wife here says that a squad of Enforcers has been dispatched, and are coming this way. They won’t question a pair of old farts like us, but if they see you here...” He trailed off nervously, allowing the old woman to speak up for the first time.
“Oswald speaks the truth. And since we know who caused this, you had better get going.”
Jason protested automatically, saying, “It wasn’t me! He-” and was cut off by the old man.
“I know that. But it happens sometimes with people like that guy. It’s nothing but a simple case of what they used to call road rage. Now run around along home, and let us deal with the authorities.”
“But why-?” He asked, not fully understanding. He looked around, and saw no Enforcers in sight from his point of view: Just a quiet and peaceful looking neighborhood. But the spell was broken a moment later, when the street’s sirens went off, and Oswald shoved him forward, bellowing, “Run if you know what’s good for you!”
“But-!” Another shove, this time propelling him in the direction of his house.
“Go!” The old woman hissed.
So Jason Scott ran.
True to the old man’s words, the first cruisers started to arrive, followed closely by many more. Then Enforcer personnel began to spill out of a modified troop carrier that lumbered onto the scene, and swarmed all over the crime scene. Jason risked a glance back and watched with unbridled confusion as the elderly couple were being led into the carrier.
Why? He thought.
Chapter 2
"This is Frederick Corsairs, WNN News, for September 5th, 2983,” the announcer replied in a cheerful voice while looking straight at a holo camera, which stood slightly to his left. The angular, box-shaped device moved when he did, keeping him in full coverage.
Frederick turned his attention to a series of comm readouts on the top of the desk mount in front of him. Holocube transfer ports were the only thing visible from where he was sitting. And despite the morbid aspect of telling his countless viewers the news each evening, he kept a professional smile locked into place.
Besides, he told himself. The ratings should soar after tonight’s broadcast.
And continued the narration.
“Renewed fighting in the Kholar Province has now resulted in the deaths of well over two hundred people as the energy crisis over in that segment of the Fourth Continent, goes into it’s third week. Other isolated outbreaks of violence are also being reported in five other regions of the Eighth Continent, as the shortage of neutronium power cells continue. However, The severe shortage cannot be currently explained in full by the government, or by the Kamarian Science Institute. The issue has not been discussed openly as the government continues to enforce its strangle hold on the media.
“With that in mind, very few people fully understand the consequences of this ongoing energy crisis. Those that try to confront the issue have been dealt with severely...”
He cut to a live feed that was currently being recorded by a remote drone.
It was a protest in the making.
The device zoomed in on the action.
People were milling about, carrying signs that protested the Kamarian president for not giving them the help that they needed most. In the forefront, an elderly woman was screaming her pent up rage at the sphere shaped remote which was hovering ten feet in the air, and others joined her.
“It’s President Stevenson’s fault! If he started listening to us, and gave us what we needed, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with! The city of Telari demands restitution! And as it’s loyal citizens, so do we!” The others around her echoed their own sentiments, and then a low chant started to pick up among them. It was low at first, but it picked up momentum until its message was perfectly clear to those listening in:
“STEVENSON RESIGN! STEVENSON RESIGN! STEVENSON RESIGN!”
Even Frederick knew. But he declined to say anything, so he just watched as things unfolded as they always had in situations such as this.
A small contingent of Enforcers arrived on the scene, and the crowd began to slowly advance on them; waving their signs and shouting at the same time.
Normally, they wouldn’t do that, given the Enforcers well known reputation. But right now, the didn’t care.
The anchorman couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Surely, these people must be out of their minds.
Then an Enforcer separated from the main group, and watched impassively as the woman-clearly the leader in his personal opinion-drive the crowd of protesters into a further state of frenzy, and decided to end this.
Activating a portable mike, he spoke in a clear, amplified voice to get their attention.
“This demonstration ends now! If you do not disperse within the next five minutes, each and every one of you will be executed for obstructing Section 7 of the Kamarian martial law! This is your only warning!”
He winced as a headache came on to him full blown.
“You okay, sir?” One of the Enforcers asked in a quiet voice. The man nodded, and gave him the mike.
Another stepped forward with a look of concern on his face.
“Isn’t that a bit harsh, Lieutenant Ackerson? I mean, we can’t just execute them simply because their holding a demonstration in front of city hall, can we?”
Ackerson turned on the junior officer abruptly, his face perspiring as he cocked his MAX-8 assault cannon.
“They are violating government policies, and we were trained to uphold them no matter how strange they might be. Now what are you going to do about it?”
The slightly inexperienced Enforcer looked at him carefully, before nodding.
Ackerson checked to see if the crowd had dispersed, but was surprised to see that they hadn’t. To make matters worse, they were more defiant than ever.
“Leave now!” He almost screamed at them, and his head started to pound in unison to the beat of his racing heart.
Fear gripped him, but there wasn’t much that he could do to control the feeling of dread that tightened around his chest.
What’s wrong with me? He wondered.
A struggling bystander fought with two other armored Enforcers, trying to get his point across.
“Obstructing the law? Hah! I laugh at you and your so called law!” He replied angrily.
Ackerson wasn’t sure what was happening next in his own personal opinion. He just wasn’t sure at all. All he knew was that he had a sudden urge to do something about the situation, and the only way that he could solve the problem was by force.
“Very well,” Ackerson said in a casual tone, as he raised his cannon at the man. “Laugh this off.”
Before anyone could move or the other Enforcers intercede, the man squeezed the trigger, sending a cascading torrent of energy.
The man didn’t even have time to scream.
The close range blast not only took his head clean off, a part of his upper torso as well, but also tagged two Enforcers that were trying to hold back the crowd as well. Blood and gore splashed against other horrified bystanders that were caught up in this mess, and the rest of the group started to panic.
In that split second, two Enforcers leaped forward in an attempt to restrain Ackerson as he leveled his weapon at another fleeing bystander, and prepared to fire. In an act of desperation, an Enforcer by the name of Alexander Ganon grabbed hold of the cannon’s muzzle, and tried to point it in another direction; away from the innocent civilians and scared protesters. But another officer bumped into the lieutenant by accident, and the gun went off.
The explosive shot slammed into a series of parked hover cars, the first one instantly vaporized in the space of a heartbeat.
The resulting fireballs set off the others in a chain reaction sequence.
In the span of a few minutes, the whole city block was engulf in flames.
Ganon was stunned by the assault cannon’s kick as he lay there on his back, nursing a badly burned hand. The alloy gauntlet covering his hand had melted into his skin, and judging by the excruciating pain that he was feeling, he wasn’t sure if he was going to have use of it again.
Through the haze that filtered through his mind, he heard people screaming and shouting in confusion.
Anger. Pain.
Anguish.
In the back of his mind’s eye, Alexander could almost picture Death dancing with glee on the sidelines. But the vision gave him the necessary strength to get back up onto his feet, where he stood swaying to and fro like some hopeless drunk; but managed to stay focused on his immediate surroundings.
“What the fuck did you do that for?!?” He heard one of the Enforcers bellow at Ackerson, but the man himself was beyond hearing. In fact, he appeared to be beyond anything at the moment. For a split second, Ganon thought he saw a thin line of blood trickle out of his right ear, and he knew that it wasn’t from taking a few well placed blows to the head.
But that changed an instant when the officer in question was rewarded with a jaw breaking hit from the end of the lieutenant’s weapon. He went down almost immediately, clutching his face and moaning, blood flowing out of his mouth as he tried to staunch it with his hands.
The remaining officers went after him en mass in an attempt to distract him, or take him down without hurting him too much.
But Ackerson was ready for them, and before Ganon could react to the sudden change in the situation, opened fire.
On full auto, the cannon spat out murderous fire in the form of streaming globs of yellow energy which spewed left and right, reducing most of the remaining Enforcers into a pile of smoking bodies.
Despite his injuries, Alexander valiantly rushed him, but was rewarded with a vicious kick to the arm, spinning him out of control for a second before he hit the pavement at an angle.
Something similar to hot pokers shot up into his limb, and he cried out in pain.
Ackerson, in the meantime, wasn’t finished yet. Whatever had a minor foothold on him earlier, now held him in a steel-like vise.
“Assholes!” He screamed at the top of his lungs. If anyone was listening, they were either too scared to move or were too busy trying to dodge the crazed officer’s cannon. “Can’t you see that what we have to do these days to keep the peace?” He nudged the arm of a dead Enforcer, half expecting him to answer, but received none in reply. He whirled around, and started to laugh uncontrollably, and then started to cry.
“That’s what they taught you at the Academy didn’t they, Brian?” Then he quieted, giving Ganon the idea that he might’ve fallen victim to his own insanity. It was no secret to the others around him that he had been working hard for that promotion to his first captaincy. Maybe that offered some partial explanation to what was going on.
But how could he explain this?
The officer had heard of the name ‘Brian’ being used before, and he remembered there was one such Enforcer by that name whom was assigned to this squad, and he was sure that he was one of the many who was killed in the massacre only moments ago.
But with the pain gnawing at his brain, it seemed like hours.
Then his attention was suddenly diverted when Lieutenant Ackerson suddenly roused, and used his cannon as a crutch to bear most of his weight while he struggled to get back up to his feet.
Alexander craned his neck, and found that he was kneeling by the body of one of the dead Enforcers. And sure enough, the half scorched patch burned into his alloy armor bore the name ‘-IAN’. The rest was burned away.
Okay. What’s he going to do now? The man wondered as he watched Ackerson stagger around like a drunk after one too many beers. And what was strange was that he was mumbling to boot.
Ganon strained the absolute limits of human hearing in order to catch the half whispered words.
“Isn’t that what they taught you? ‘Keep the peace?’ ” His voice changed from infinite sadness, to one of anger and rage.
“Well, there’s going to be a lot of pieces just waiting to do just that!”
Raising his assault cannon, Ackerson turned and opened fire some more.
Corsairs could do nothing for the injured Enforcer, or the one that just suddenly went insane. In fact, he was too horrified to do anything. He just sat there with a stunned expression on his face, while his director was screaming at him to cut to commercial.
But he didn’t hear him or anything for that matter--his eyes were still riveted to the monitor.
“Cut to commercial!” The director shouted a final time before a tech’s hand came out of nowhere and slapped the override switch; the drone's footage automatically pre-empted by a car commercial.
“Corsairs! What the hell is wrong with you? Didn’t you hear me say ‘cut’ ?" His face was flushed red from screaming, but there was a hint of fear in the man’s voice, even if he didn’t care to admit.
The anchorman did. All he could say was, “Dear god.”
Cannon fire thundered and roared into his ears, and Alexander Ganon discovered that he must’ve passed out from the pain. Somewhere off to the side, a boom! was heard, and the voices started again. But he wasn’t sure who’s it was or where they were coming from. He also found that he couldn’t move his arm very much.
“Broken.” The first word he mumbled since coming to consciousness. He flopped over onto his back, where he used his free hand to feel for anything he could use for a weapon.
Something. Anything.
Then his bloodied fingers closed on the thin muzzle of a gun that he wasn’t familiar with right off the bat and then continued to probe at its outer casing, and discovered that it was a powerful graviton pulse beam rifle. He gripped it with all his remaining strength, and heaved it onto his chest and looked at the weapon. The thing was embossed in a gun metal gray, with a squat tapered barrel, and ended with a long emitter cone which extended to a small point towards the end.
He checked it’s power supply, and found it to be fully energized.
He didn’t know who used to operate the rifle, or if it used to belong to Brian or someone who was proficient in the weapon’s operational capabilities.
Ganon didn’t really care. The only thought that was going through his mind was, someone has to end this.
He wasn’t a murderer by design, but he would do what he was ordered to do if his superior ordered it that way. But was he strong enough to kill someone in cold blood?
It took all of his remaining strength to lift the rifle into position and check off the safety. Then he carefully aimed it at the man that he was once considered a friend, but now was currently turning the few remaining survivors of the crowd into some kind of duck hunt during a full moon.
He could hear him screaming at the top of his lungs, saying something that made him almost hesitate.
“Shut up!” Ackerson screamed, beads of perspiration streaming down his face. And all he could see was
People laughing at him.
He cocked his weapon back to full power, preparing for another salvo. The woman directing the protest wasn’t finished with him, and she shouldered her way through the remaining crowd of people in order to confront him. However, several people tried to block her, telling her that the guy had lost it.
But she wouldn’t listen.
“You...you bastard! You didn’t have to kill everyone in cold blood!”
The man stared at her coldly.
“You laughed at me,” he said in an odd voice. “But you won’t be laughing when I kill you all.”
Her eyes widened, and she began to back off.
“Your crazy...” she whispered.
“Just doing my job ma’am.”
With the shooting stopped, the remnants of the demonstration group gathered around and waited.
Someone has to end this.
It was that single shot that made the junior officer of the Enforcers decide at that time, that there was no other recourse, and he did the only thing that he thought was right.
He sighted in on his human target, and fired.
A powerful shot crackled in the air, and Ackerson fell to the ground, his face contorted with surprise as his limbs started to shake and shiver uncontrollably. His mouth opened, but no sounds of any kind came out.
Purple and blue energy ribbons snaked in and out of his body, seemingly in search of something vital. But as the others looked on, his body started getting smaller and smaller with each passing second; until, at the last moment, he vanished without a trace. The only thing that marked his passing, was a thin wisp of energy.
A distant clattering sound drew the crowd to its most unlikely source, but all they saw were a pile of burned bodies an Enforcer that was laying on the ground, cradling and extremely large gun. Then he dropped it unexpectedly and collapsed like a sack of potatoes.
Corsair sat and watched the scene replay on a monitor from the data that he had keyed to his terminal, and winced every time he witnessed the insane expression on the Enforcer’s face as he carved a hole into the disorganized ranks of the protesters. It was made even worse when he froze the frame to the last segment of the video, and watched the man’s face as he died.
Surprise.
Not like surprise, as in good surprise, but rather the kind that seemed to indicate that he was completely taken off guard by the unexpected change that was happening in him.
It didn’t make sense to the news anchor.
The man rubbed the bridge of his nose, and tried to forget what had happened today. But his photographic memory wasn’t that easy to dismiss as the picture continued to replay in his mind.
His hand closed around the cup of coffee that had gone cold from neglect.
“Damn.” He muttered as drank from it, and then made a face as the bitterness of the coffee sank into his taste buds.
He immediately dropped it in the wastebasket next to him, watching as it’s contents spilled onto crushed paper and other used manuscripts.
It wasn’t the caffeine boost that he was interested in now. No, he wanted something much stronger in which he could bury the growing depression. And then he was reminded of something else: Alcohol was barred from society since laws were passed twenty years ago that prevented people from buying the stuff. Since then, there hadn’t been a drinking related crimes in over ten years.
There really was no point in getting drunk now.
The director saddled up next to him, and replaced his cup with a fresh one.
“Fred? What's wrong?”
The anchorman sat there, torn inside from the footage he had just seen.
“Nothing.” He admitted. “Nothing that you can do. This is just something that I’m not used to.”
The man thumped him one on the back lightly, and smiled.
“Sure you are! Remember the Tonaria Riots?”
Corsairs nodded.
“Sure, everyone does. But that was different. The Enforcers didn’t use energy based weapons on the populace either. Just conventional anti-riot hardware.”
“Same thing. Except this time we have to follow the main government to enforce laws and policies from time to time. Its really for the best.”
Corsairs looked at him.
“But for who? The government whose thinking is beyond rational, or the people of Kamar IV who are just trying to survive?”
“You’d make for great commentary material you know,” The director said, trying to change the subject.
“Alfred! Quit trying to be my boss for one second will you? This is serious!”
“But I am! Fred, a lot of things have changed since Garik III went nova fifty-two standard years ago. We're damned lucky that the government had stockpiled the neutronium over the years, or known civilization on Kamar IV wouldn’t exist....period.”
Quiet prevailed for a minute before either of them spoke. But it was the director that got in the first word.
“Look. Things are just the way they are. We both know that nothing can be changed right now, so quit trying to find ways to do just that. Eventually, things around here will cool down, and people will be going back to their regular routine in life, and so will you.”
“That maybe true in some respects, but you can’t expect things to last forever. Sooner or later something is going to give, and I bet that its going to be the people. Just think long and hard about this for one minute, Alfred: Have you ever thought as to why the people are reacting in this manner? It’s the government’s fault. First, it was this asinine law that prevented people from speaking against the government. Freedom of speech, I think it was called back then. But the law was enforced almost fifty years ago after the Garik III incident. You weren’t allowed to form an opinion or speak in public against the government without the fear of being executed on the spot by the Enforcers. Only in private, like we are doing now.” He drank some coffee before continuing.
“I did some research on the issue involving anti-government activities on Kamar IV-a few years before joining the WNN- and discovered that the subject matter involved extended as far back as six hundred years. There were numerous references to the legendary Blue World that we all came from, but the exact location was lost.” Corsairs stared at the monitor, watching once more as the crazed officer blow away another helpless pedestrian.
“Anyway, the Blue World had hundreds of governments that functioned independently of one another, each controlling governing their own respective territories much like the Kamarian government is now.”
Alfred nodded distractedly.
“This is all very interesting Fred. But what does it have to do with the current discussion?”
“Even legends can come true.”
“So your saying is that what had happened centuries ago, could happen again?”
“Possibly. But the only difference is that the Blue World had finally united then, when it was faced with a common threat. Ours? Well, you can see how things have held up in the last fifty years.”
Alfred slammed a hand down on his desk unexpectedly in a short fit of anger. “Bullshit! Sure our world is corrupt! But how can you predict events that haven’t happened yet? You can’t!”
Corsair shook his head in slight irritation.
“I’m not. I'm just stating the possibilities that could happen if things continue to get out of hand.”
Outpost 42.
In orbit around Kamar IX.
Current Status: Fully operational.
Commander Edward Delomar Sanchez hated the morning shifts. Somehow, he got it because some asshole forgot to set his clock again. Well, whatever the reasons, he was patiently waiting for a communications feed directly from the Kamarian government. Eating raspberry Danishes and drinking real coffee no less. Not the replicated shit from the outpost’s micro replication systems. He made a mental note to thank whoever stashed the shipment.
“Incoming transmission from the Garen Province. Priority Three communication dispatch, scramblers in use. Repeat: Scrambler circuits are now active. Holo and audio capabilities 76% of nominal.” A soft voice toned, jerking the man out of his reverie.
“About time.” He muttered, and began tapping in for more information while at the same time, placing in his security code.
“Security protocols. Sanchez-3-8-4. Coded and acknowledged.”
“Verification complete, Identification confirmed. Transmission commencing.”
A holo sphere flared out in the center of the room, and then an image of sorts stabilized, but fragmented a little towards the end.
A gray haired man dressed in a burgundy three piece suit with pin stripes stared back at Sanchez.
“Senator Norris. What can I do for you?” He returned politely.
Norris was supposedly the liaison for the Planetary Defense Committee. Solely responsible for the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Continents. That much the bearded man knew from his dossiers. Been heavily involved in politics for nearly thirty years, and even ran for the President’s platform twice without much success.
There was no telling what he was up to now.
“How’s it going, Commander Sanchez? I hope that I’m not interrupting anything too important.”
“Not at all. Morning shift just started an hour ago.”
Norris looked away for a moment.
“Yes, well. A lot has happened since the last communiqué. Riots in all parts of the world are increasing at a phenomenal rate since the supply of neutronium is dwindling faster than our scientists predicated. Estimates so far are between two to five years at the most until all stock piles are completely exhausted. Reserves won’t last for more than a year after that, even if we went sparingly.”
Sanchez mulled over that one for a moment. The fifteen mile long outpost was mainly run on four modified neutronium-fusion reactors surrounding a central Core. It’s power systems depended heavily on it, and it’s enormous supply wasn’t exactly finite either.
“What about converting back to antimatter?”
Norris disagreed with a shake of the head.
“All of our older style reactors that were based on the antimatter fuel design have already been recycled some thirty years ago. We don’t have the necessary resources to reconvert the power cores to what they previously were.”
“So what your telling me is that we have no other way to keep the populace running when the power finally runs out.”
“Essentially, that is correct.”
“So what else is there for us to do?”
Norris say anything right off, he was a little too busy shuffling papers.
“On your end? Not much I’m afraid. The Kamarian Science Institute is coming up with some interesting possibilities, but we’re not entirely sure if the current seat of government can implement them in time.”
That didn’t sound good. No backup to rely on just in case things got worse.
“What about planetary evacuation?” Sanchez suggested hopefully, not willing to give up just yet. But the underlying question sounded next to impossible.
“We have a few interstellar ships, but only a couple are equipped with Star Jumpers.”
“Outpost 42 is also similarly equipped with the drive system.” The commander pointed out helpfully, before swallowing the last of his Danish.
“How true. But what I’m getting at is that we don’t have enough fuel for all the ships entirely. Most of the neutronium we have was converted to civilian use only, and could never be adapted for those transport ships. So most of the fuel would be useless even if we did manage to get it unloaded and prepped. Your station is in a similar position because your energy converters were adapted for raw neutronium, rather than the synthetic version.”
Edward’s pale nose wrinkled slightly.
“Which still smells like shit the last time I received a lungful from my grandfather’s ground car.”
“We know that. But I’m afraid there is nothing we can do about that. I’m sure your well aware of the facts behind it.”
Sanchez squared his shoulders.
“Tell me about it.”
Another shuffle of some papers, and the commander was curious about what the senator did with all that paperwork.
“Anyway, your station is not due for refueling for another ten years at the least.”
Eddie stared at the desktop monitor in front of him, and called up a status report.
“That still won’t help solve the energy crisis on Kamar IV, Senator. If it’s as bad as I’ve heard on the comm channels lately, we’re just as screwed as you are. Like you said, ‘if the stockpiles are dwindling at a rapid pace...” There won’t be enough to refuel this station.”
He looked at Senator Norris carefully.
“Which means in the next ten years, this place will be as dry as a bone.”
“Your supply should be adequate for the time being, Commander. Unless of course, your using it for something else other than standard operations.”
Sanchez smile conspiratorially.
“Sorry.”
“You should really consider what I’ve said. There won’t be enough time to start second guessing ourselves once the problem becomes more and more apparent to the citizens here on Kamar IV. We’ll be needing a clear cut path if this problem is going to be solved-”
Edward cut him off, seeing the direction this conversation was heading.
“I’m sorry, Senator. This outpost was built for monitoring and defense. Not sanctuary.”
The old man shook his head adamantly.
“That’s not entirely correct, Commander. Originally, Outpost 42 was intended as a mobile space colony. Totally self sustaining, and without the need for replenishment.”
“I don’t care what you people think you have planned for this outpost, Senator. You can blow it all to hell if you want, and I wouldn’t give a rat's ass about it. But if you think that for an instant your going to turn this place in some space going ark, forget it. I have enough problems as it is trying to keep three thousand crewmen in line, and overseeing the daily operations on this chunk of rock. I’m not going to be playing baby-sitter to a small population of refugees. We simply don’t have the room for that sort of thing.” He crossed the large room in the space of a couple of seconds, and opened the door to a brightly lit corridor.
Norris wasn’t about to give up, however.
“It doesn’t have to end this way! We can give you supplies-” He pleaded openly, but the door closed before the man could finish the sentence, effectively cutting him off from any further communication.
Kamarian Medical Institute.
Toran Province, located on the southern tip of the Illari peninsula.
Level 5.
Section A-906.
Bio Research Lab 23.
Doctor Alexander Jenolan studied the medical profile of the canister that was set in a crystalline clamp. The label read,
‘BIOHAZARD: CAUTION!’
He knew what was contained in the innocent looking vial. Something that was no bigger than an encyclopedia itself.
Virus X.
It was a biological contaminant that was never supposed to have made it past the first stage of development, but did. Once unleashed onto a small segment of the population, it had the potential capabilities of wiping out every living it came in contact with.
Jenolan carefully extracted the canister from its housing and uncorked it. There was no immediate danger of being contaminated from handling it as long as it was kept in stasis.
Placing it under it under an ion powered micro-scanner, the doctor peered into a harmless world that was fraught with danger.
The symmetry of the virus was an exotic shape, thin and string-like with octagon shaped tubules that tri-lapped in several different ways, and spread out in six directions.
Jenolan thought back to when talk spread among the researchers about using it for a bio weapon of mass destruction. But eventually, the topic was soon mysteriously shelved.
Even in its Duralite casing, and the vacuum environment it was suspended in, the doctor wondered about the long term effects on humans. From his personal standpoint, Humans were easy to cure, but what about the plants and animals? In what fashion would the virus affect them in, if any?
Jenolan continued to take notes on his research.
Mayor Jack Larson stared out the window of his five story office building, contemplating the mass of people that had gathered seemingly overnight. Just like lemmings, he thought. Get a large crowd of them together, and they're all ready and willing to jump off of some obscure cliff.
For the time being, they were just talking among themselves, and not trying to draw too much attention to themselves. So far, no one had gotten hurt, and he would like to keep it that way if possible.
“The latest news just arrived, Your Honor. The Sixth Continent is under riot control Enforcers. Reports from there indicate that one Enforcer suddenly went nuts and turned his assault cannon on a crowd of people that were demonstrating in front of their city hall. Twenty-six people were confirmed killed, and at least two hundred people were injured.” He checked off something on the pad that he had been carrying, and waited for a second while the thing’s mini computer brought up more information,
“Among the injured was an Enforcer officer by the name of Matthew L. Ganon. He sustained a fractured cheekbone, a burned hand, and a broken arm when he tried to stop the officer from any further killing.”
“So did the other Enforcers manage top stop him in time?”
“No. The bastard killed them in cold blood when they tried. Ganon was the sole survivor. And the only way to stop the Enforcer was by using a gravity gun.”
“So where is he now?” Larson asked, keeping a steady eye on the crowd.
“Taken to one of the med centers for treatment.”
“Did any of other Enforcers exhibit signs of this madness?” It was important that the town remained untouched, considering the precarious position he was in. He didn’t cherish the idea of people running amok and killing each other with energy weapons. That alone would seal his fate.
And then there was the matter of the Enforcers.
One division of them were stationed in the heart of the city, for the practical purpose of keeping things in check. If the madness gripped them, who knows what kind of destruction might be caused by their experienced hands?
Larson sighed.
“Keep me posted.”
The secretary nodded, and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Jack looked out the window, past the crowd of people, towards the mountains and beyond. He tried to imagine what was going on, and placed him in the shoes of those who would be in a position to do something about it.
But failed.
He wasn’t much into politics, not the heavy kind of politics anyway. Maybe that would be his failing in the long run. But for now, he only knew what was taking place inside the limits of his own town.
Staring into the faces of those down below gave him reason to believe that it would be different.
Like the calm before the storm.
And if those hallowed expressions were any future indication of coming events, it was going to get worse before it got any better.
“Damn.”
The ICU ward was full of patients, most were from the demonstration, some were regular patients.
Ganon was one of them, and currently under heavy sedation due to the severity of his injuries. Bandages snaked around his arm, connecting to the support brace that left it immobile half the time. Doctors came in from time to time to administer anti-shock and drug ampoules to calm his battered nervous system. In the meantime, a few friends and some of his family came by to say hello, whisper a few words of encouragement and love before they had to leave.
But now his stay went into its fourteenth day, and the officer was beginning to wonder if he would ever see the light of day again.
Then the door to his part of the ward opened, and someone knew came to see him.
The injured man couldn’t tell if he was a doctor from one of the hospital’s regular staff. When he finally caught a glimpse of the dark jumpsuit that was partially visible from underneath the light blue jacket; the Enforcer wasn’t able to determine if he was either military or para-military. The suit was nothing of the likes he had ever seen, and it didn’t help matters very much with the way his face was currently obscured by the clipboard that he was holding up. And there was something else that was bothering him as well: The jacket itself was similar to the ones he had seen the emergency staff wear while they were trying to keep him alive. But for some strange reason, he couldn’t place exactly where he had seen the jacket itself.
It did have that familiar look to it....
The emblem.
His eyes traced the smooth outline of the snake-staff emblem.
It was a forgotten piece of ancient history, for it had lost its original translation sometime during the last three hundred years. Only a few doctors today, knew what it stood for. While the mysterious went through a series of seemingly normal routines, Ganon was suddenly bothered by the fact that the man hadn’t bothered to buzz the door entrance just before he entered.
As he turned from what he was doing, the emblem flashed to a blood red color for a seconds.
Matthew Ganon knew that he was in mortal danger then.
The person in front of him wasn't a doctor: He was an assassin!
The trip home was quiet for a change, and John Scott could not believe how much overtime he had pulled just for today alone. With the exception of his friend, Kevin McDougal, he was the only one looking forward to a nice, fat paycheck. The others in his shift detail worked normal hours, and now, they were on their way home to their respective families in the Bruan and Fratu provinces.
Gossip filtered down to him, and he could pick out a few workers bragging to each other about how much time they would have off during the coming week, then he heard the laughter and talk that followed.
And smiled.
As the plant’s main supervisor, he could’ve taken the option of taking the next two weeks off like his other colleagues had, but he chose the other avenue, and decided to wait until the holidays so that he could spend the time with his wife and son.
“Are you planning to have a couple of weeks off, Kevin?” John asked quietly, while the bus made a gentle turn.
Kevin shook his head.
“Nope. Not yet. I want to wait a little while longer.”
John nodded in understanding. Unlike him, blue collared workers only had a week off, and the rest of the junior staff, like his friend Kevin, had only five days. It didn’t seem fair, but that's the way the system had worked for the last four years. John could fondly remember the time he had to put up with a lot in order to get where he was today.
Like they say: No pain, no gain.
Then the voices started to pick up again, cutting into the man’s private reverie, and he wondered what was going on in the back of the bus. All he saw several of the off duty workers crowding another worker. A sudden jolt revealed a book sized computer in his hands. He watched him make some corrections via touch pad.
The machine continuously beeped on end, eliciting cheers from the others that had grouped around him. Fist rose in jubilation, and cries of delight echoed throughout the confines of the bus.
John nudged his friend in the shoulder, who was at the moment, absorbed in something else, and gestured towards the back of the hoverbus.
“What's their story?”
Kevin rocked back in forth in sudden agitation, eyes brimming with excitement.
“Hot pick tonight, boss,” the young man answered after leaning back in his seat, glancing at the blue running lights buried in the ceiling.
“Riot in progress on the Fourth Continent. Six divisions of Enforcers with anti-personnel weapons, and a couple of Gladiator-style hover tanks. From what I’ve been hearing, they’ve just been deployed to stop 400 demonstrators armed with a collection of energy weapons and E-Pulse guns-” He stopped for a second, and craned his head in his friend’s general direction. “You know, there have been rumors of a faction of the much vaunted Steel Knights getting mixed up in this mess. They could easily instigated this riot with very little effort on their part.”
“How so?” John wanted to know as he peered out of the lit passenger area of the company hover bus. Streets were lit from the overhead floaters, but spaced apart because of the high voltage involved. As the bus passed by one of them, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a family settling down for a night in front of the holovid.
He wished then and there that he could do the same on a night that he didn’t have to work, but his hours precluded that ever happening. So he turned his attention back to the conversation at hand.
“Well, they could say something to the right person, or print it out on paper, or even tack a few thousand leaflets in every shopping district on this continent. A riot can basically come from anything.”
Cheering erupted from the rear, and it brought a smile to his face.
“Such as?”
Kevin’s stubble covered face burst into a handsome grin, and the man envied his friend for that special ability.
“The uh...the..um...current energy crisis.” He stuttered in an unsure voice, not sure if he should be the one to tell him that since he knew that he didn’t have the proper security clearance. John’s face flushed with self imposed embarrassment.
“Oh.” Then seconds later, another part of his brain came on like a light had been switched on, and he turned to face his friend with undisguised astonishment.
“How did you know that?”
Kevin fiddled with his fingers in a nervous manner, and he tried his best to explain to his friend. But in the end, it all came out the same way.
“Your comm link was on one day, and I overheard the whole thing in regards to the dwindling stock piles of neutronium. No one else heard it, and so far these guys think that their betting on a group of fascist sons of a bitches who claim that they have the sole ability to change the world.” He smiled a bit more and laughed. “Truth is: They may be right. But who are we to argue?”
“That’s what the media has been saying all along for the last five hundred years after destruction of the fabled Blue World. Even today, they think that the power of their words can move a nation or in this case; a continent.” He looked out the window again, and just in time to see the last bits of suburbia being swallowed by the darkness, as the bus entered the highway. From his point of view, it looked strangely deserted. “But I think that even the power of those words is quickly losing all meaning. And the only way the people of this world can act, is through violence; hoping that it’ll get someone’s attention in the long run.” Kevin's doubtful expression struck home with John.
“I know, I know. Its a desperate gamble. But personally, I believe that the Kamarian government is losing face in light of the ongoing riots.” Both were quiet as the action in the back got more and more upbeat, and more people up front started to leave their seats in order to see what all the commotion was in the back. That unexpectedly forced the vehicle’s computer to counterbalance abruptly and disrupted the micro gravity generators that were–in conjunction–with the magnetic stabilizers-keeping the bus from running into the ground.
People that were on their feet, suddenly found themselves being thrown roughly in all directions, and even John and Kevin weren’t completely spared.
“Get back in your fuckin’ seats, ya morons! Or you’ll tip us over!” Someone from the back screamed. Most everyone did as they were told, and the guy with the computer glanced back at his data.
“10 to 1 odds in favor of the Enforcers, with a 6 to 1 split on the revolutionists!”
Revolutionists? John thought with a certain degree of puzzlement. He glanced over at his friend, and saw a similar expression that mirrored his own.
Kevin just shrugged.
“Ten credits on the revolutionists!” A black worker declared, and pushed a thin chip into the man's hand.
“Any other bets?” The worker-now turned bookie-asked around.
Kevin frowned.
“Six to one? Those aren’t very good odds.”
“Just wait.” John said quietly as he fished out his chip from his pants pocket.
“50 credits on the Revolutionists.” Stunned silence greeted the two, and that lasted for only a second at best. Then immediate chaos reigned as everyone else on both bottom and top levels of the bus scrambled for their credit chips, and then made their way up to the back to deposit the chips into the computer’s reader port.
Even their bus driver, Moe, chipped in twenty.
“I have some friends involved in that dispute on the Fourth Continent. I want to see them kick some serious ass for a change.”
“John-?” Kevin prodded. He was staring out the window for the third time as the bus made it’s way around the bend. He looked out the nearest window in the same direction, but couldn’t see anything yet.
“John?”
He waved him off.
“Not now, Kevin. Things are just starting to get interesting.”
Then a brief flash of light caught Kevin’s eye as it lit up in the darkness being swallowed up.
“Yeah well, so is whatever’s going on outside.”
“Huh?” John queried, and stared at him in confusion. “Say what?”
Kevin pointed out the window.
“I saw flashes of light in the distance. I think they came from Raven’s Cliff.”
The man looked as well, and saw what he saw: Another brief flash of light, and then nothing. His eyesight couldn’t penetrate the night's infinite darkness.
“What the hell-?”
Seconds later, a sharp whistling was heard, followed by a concussion blast that nearly pushed the bus off the road.
“Shit!!” John cursed, and made his down to the stairwell, to the lower level, and finally to the front of the bus. Just as he made it to the driver’s compartment, another huge speed projectile exploded, hurling rocky debris against its metal framework.
A few windows cracked under the assault, but held.
“Hey Moe! Someone just fired on us!” He yelled over the hollow scream of another missile as it zeroed in on its target.
The driver swerved sharply to avoid the crater that had been created only moments ago.
“No shit! You think this happens to me on a regular basis?” He sounded more pissed off than irritated at the developing situation, than at John’s lame ass question. He gripped the steering wheel more tightly with one hand, while entering a complex set of commands into the auto-navigation console with the other.
“Manual drive engaged.” A computerized voice echoed in the small compartment.
A fireball erupted in front of them, causing a massive blowout to the front of the window. Hot winds rushed inside the compartment, creating a momentary vacuum as it passed.
“Manual control inoperative.” The same voice bleated.
Moe stared at the control panel that he was using to help control the bus’s direction. His eyes went wide once he discovered that he had absolutely no control over the vehicle.
“Oh crap.” He moaned helplessly.
Up on the cliff, the attackers watched the whole entire scene unfold through a special set of night vision goggles that dispelled the night; throwing the entire landscape into a pale field of blue.
“Stupid! Ya missed!”
The individual that was armed with a high velocity LRM cringed as the man behind him, smacked him soundly across the back of his helmet. He ignored his partner's criticism and looked at the mount that was placed at the base of his feet.
“Higgins here can’t shoot worth a damn, ma’am!” The other hollered into the quiet night.
“Tell him he’d better not miss, or I’m going to personally come up there and kick him in the balls!” A woman’s voice returned. Full of anger. Full of spite.
The man’s face burned with humiliation as he checked the flickering readouts.
“I won’t miss. I never miss. Its this setup.” He explained defensively, checking the launcher again. “Well no wonder: The fuckin’ targeting mechanism is off!” He gave his partner an accusative look. “I told you should’ve been more careful with this recent weapons’ shipment that we stole last week. But did anyone listen to me? No-o-o-ooo...”
His partner cuffed him again on the helmet.
“Shut yer hole, and fire you goddamn moron! They’re getting away!”
Higgins stared into the targeting scope, and found that it was working again.
“Not this time, their not.” He vowed quietly to himself, and after making some corrections to his aim, he pressed the firing switch.
John couldn’t believe this.
“Is there anything that you can do that would fix this problem?”
Moe gave that notion some serious thought for a second, and then started to pound on the control console.
BAM!
BAM!
“Come on you hunk of junk! Start working!” He yelled at it desperately, and began to hit it some more.
Bleep!
Moe grinned.
“There. It works.” He made some corrections to the auto-nav, and felt the bus respond smoothly to his commands. “See? Nothing to worry about.”
Another flash. Another missile.
“Start worrying,” John replied, pointing out the window.
The driver cursed, and turned on the comm system.
“Everyone get into your seats and assume crash positions!” And then shut it off with a flick of a finger. He gripped the wheel more firmly, and tensed instinctively. He looked over and saw John standing there with a pale expression, and shoved him back.
“Get back there, dammit! I don’t have time for this horseshit baby-sitting!” John took one last look, and then bolted back to his seat as fast as he could. Just as he got there, he felt gravity shift to one side as the bus pulled a sudden, gut wrenching, one-eighty.
“Ohhhh......sh...iiiit...!” Kevin wailed helplessly, as he held on for dear life. John discovered that he hadn’t put his seat belt, and reached over to fasten him in.
“Th-thanks.” He stammered, face pale from the gees being forced on him.
“Don’t mention it.” His friend replied calmly and buckled up as well, while trying to keep his bearings as the bus continued to bounced and turn in its attempt to avoid getting hit.
At the last second, the man thought he heard Moe’s voice.
“Its going to be close one!”
A loud explosion ripped through the bus's external frame, jarring the hell out of everyone present. John thought his body had been turned into one giant tuning fork or something similar.
Then quiet prevailed.
Disoriented, John called up to the driver's compartment.
“Moe? Better shield your end real good. There’s no telling where the next one will hit.”
The driver heard him, and flipped a switch underneath the steering column, and within a second, and armored partition slid into place; completely obscuring him from normal view.
But the next few shots proved lethal. Warheads of different types and sizes tore into the road in front of them, blowing holes a good twenty feet in diameter.
The bus had no problem passing over most of them, but John saw that there was no way in hell that they would be able to keep this rash of good luck up for very long. Sooner or later, whoever was firing at them, would score a direct hit.
Kevin couldn’t believe what they were going through. But as time went by, he was suddenly confronted with the harshness of reality.
“Their playing with us...” He murmured. John gazed at him with undisguised fear.
“Are you crazy?”
Kevin shook his head.
“No, I’m not. Those shots could’ve hit us long ago, but I think that either their trying to kill us or scare us.”
“Or maybe their just bad aimers?” John supplied hopefully.
“Not likely.” Kevin answered firmly.
Both men tried to keep their sense of balance; not to mention their stomach as the driver threw them into another gut wrenching spin, and then straightened out. Another missile came screaming in, and the front of the bus took a direct hit-- exploding into a ball of fire.
Moe! John thought with growing terror as the vehicle went into an uncontrolled lurch, and then proceeded to slide sideways a few feet until it came to rest up on an embankment.
He struggled to get out of his straps, but the damned things were jammed tight. But with his friend’s help, he managed to get free and stagger to the driver’s compartment. But the minute he heard the sizzle of broiling flesh and the hiss of hot metal coming into contact with cold metal, the man knew that there was no way he was going to save him.
Even in the failing light, he could barely make out the others that were strapped into their respective seats, and saw how terrified they were.
Half stumbling, half walking, he got out of his seat, trying not to think about the driver. Then he looked out a now cracked window, and got perhaps, the shock of his life.
Another flare, and this time he could somehow sense that this was the final missile being shot at them.
A final blow of sorts.
John figured that their assailants knew about the battered condition of the bus, and concluded that it wasn’t going to go anywhere.
Or for that fact, miss this time around.
He followed the missile’s arc, and watched it vanish into the night. He knew that it was a dangerous assumption to actually believe that the missile had simply gone some where’s else, but that wouldn’t be the case this time.
Their luck had finally run out.
“Kevin, I want you to help me move everyone towards the front of the bus. Those people up on Raven’s Cliff had just launched another one, and I believe that its going to hit the back.”
“Just a guess?” The younger man pondered with a touch of irony in his voice, as he got out of his straps, and quietly told everyone within earshot to move forward. The process took only a couple of minutes, and he knew that it was barely enough time to prepare for the inevitable.
Then John instructed the other surviving workers to keep their heads down and ears covered, because the shockwave was most likely to rupture a few eardrums.
“What about Moe?” Someone piped up in the sudden darkness, as the lights in the bus died.
John almost hesitated, but finally relented.
“Moe’s dead, Charlie. And a few of us might’ve joined him if he hadn’t shielded his half of the compartment.”
Another man went up front and stupidly placed his hand on the still hot metal.
“Ye-ow! Is the front still on fire?” Another co-worker came forward, ran his hand slowly over the blistering bulkhead, and then pulled it away.
“Yep.”
Chapter 3
Night had fallen by the time Jason’s mom had come home, and she was tired from working as always, and he wondered why.
“Hi mom!” He said in a cheerful tone as she closed the door, and was suddenly set upon by a happy son and an overly hyper dog.
“Hi hon.” She returned tiredly, but managed to draw on some of her inner strength in order to give him a hug and a peck on the cheek. However, the dog wanted nothing more than to French kiss his mistress on the mouth, and take off for the kitchen in an excited rush--barking all the way into the living room.
“Uggh..” She groaned, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, and placing her power pack on the hallway table. “Jason, you've got to have a bit more control over Spot.”
But her son looked at her with an amused glint in his eyes.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but Spot is his own person. You know that.” He went back into the living room, and sat down in front of the holovid to watch some cartoons. The large screen sat on a pedestal towards the window, with the sound blaring. His mother’s head peeked out from the kitchen, and told him to keep the sound down to a minimum, because she was on the comm link to one of her neighbors.
Complying, he watched the screen with rapt interest.
Samantha Scott turned her attention back to the comm screen which she was using to hold a conversation with a friend of hers. Spot was whining like always whenever she was in the large kitchen preparing meals, and she paused for a moment to get him something from the micro-replication systems (or MRS for short). A second later, a chicken leg appeared on a plate, which she placed in the dog’s food dish next to the fridge.
Spot immediately went to town on the treasured morsel; tail wagging with profound joy.
“Sorry about that Mildred. My son’s pet wanted something to snack on. Your were saying-?” She prompted with a certain amount of enthusiasm, as she started to prepare the table for dinner.
“You should really think about putting that dog of yours on a diet, Sam. He’s getting fatter by the day.” The woman’s image smirked broadly. Her auburn colored hair was done up in a bun-like style that some women wore these days in keeping with the times, which was held together by a gold clip. Her face was youthful for her age: A light tan that was slightly colored from the makeup that she had applied earlier in the day, which included a dimple that rode the crest of her right cheek. Her eyes were a deep hazel color that gave her a startling sense of charisma, and maybe power to, if the 32-year old placed it correctly.
The woman’s eyes narrowed as she started to place napkins on the table, and then she shook her head.
“Jason would have a cow if he found out that his beloved dog was being put on a diet. Sorry to say, we spoil that dog terribly as it is.”
Her friend nodded understandably.
“Yeah, I figured as much. Still, you might want to put him on a small diet in the near future. Or maybe you could have his biochip’s programming altered just a little.”
“Not a chance, Mildred. That dog stays the same, now and forever,” she replied sternly and finished laying out the last of the dinner ware on the oak table.
Her neighbor appeared hurt by her friend’s sudden change in attitude, but took it all in stride.
“No need to use harsh language, my dear. I was just pointing out some of the possibilities that’s all.”
Sam rubbed her eyes for a second.
“I know. Its just that I’ve had a rough day at work, having to deal with piss ant news directors and having to run equipment that I’m not even certified with.” She sat down at the table for a minute to relax, and stared at the screen. “I’m sure that you’ve had some rotten days.” Mildred was quiet, but Samantha knew that mood wasn’t going to last for very long.
“Not as often as my husband has at the plant. Getting paid 26C an hour, and doing 14 hour shifts. Its hard on our marriage as it is, but we try and find time for ourselves.”
“Charlie’s a good man, Mildred. The only reason why he’s working this hard is because he loves you very much. So don’t worry too much, or you’ll go into labor prematurely again like you did the last time.” The woman said, trying to hide a smile that didn’t go completely unnoticed.
“So you’ve noticed huh? What do you think: Boy or girl?”
That was a hard one, and she would’ve had the answer right off. But being a neighbor of hers for almost five years now wasn’t much help. Neither were the random thoughts that were going through her head. Then she remembered something that John had told her the previous night.
“My husband thought it might be twins the way that you’ve holding yourself in check.”
Shock etched into the young woman’s face, as she had a difficult time digesting that piece of news. But a not so secret grin played across her face.
“Good Lord! John’s just as bad as my husband. He thought so too.”
Samantha stretched her long shapely legs under the table, and sighed.
“Men. You know what I think? I think you either need to get a new husband, or you should get out more often.”
“I did. And I married Charlie Evans as a result.”
The woman laughed.
President Stevenson slept.
When he did not sleep, he was busy keeping tabs on the events that were taking shape all over the world.
Then a gentle hand aroused him to consciousness, and he grumbled and griped at being woke up.
“God...can’t I get some sleep? Its three in the damned morning!” He muffled after hiding his face under the huge pillow.
His aide grinned affectionately in the dark, and spoke to him in a low voice.
“Actually sir, its close to ten in the evening. There’s someone here from the Medical Institute.” She explained. He pulled the pillow off of him, and made a half hearted attempt to hit her with it, but the woman dodged the projectile as it landed lopsidedly on floor. She retrieved it, and set it on the end of his bed.
“Tell them I’ll take a rain check.” Confused by that idiom, she stood her ground.
“Um...sir, I don’t think he will. He says that its urgent.” Stevenson opened his eyes slowly. The expression on his face betrayed the well known fact that he hated to be woken up in the late evening.
But the woman felt that this was too significant to have it wait until morning.
“And what’s so blasted important that I only get four hours of undisturbed sleep?”
“He says that it has to do with something called Virus X.”
Shit! The president thought to himself, and fumbled for the large bedside lamp.
After a couple of false starts, he managed to hit the appropriate switch, and suddenly the room was bathed in a greenish glow. The man’s already whitening hair took on an even more purer white color, and his weathered face looked almost pallid despite being tanned by the tertiary suns over the years. Stevenson’s eyes bored into the woman’s who had gone to great lengths and personal effort to wake up a grouchy old man.
A man who had yet to reach the prime of his life.
“Good. Joanne, tell him that I will be down there in a few minutes.”
She nodded, and shut the double doors as she left, allowing the President some privacy in getting dressed.
The missile of course was a splitter.
John should have foreseen that possibility, but he wasn’t a weapons specialist, and it was far too late to make a second guess at it’s deadly potential.
Almost instantly, the warhead fell apart into three independent ones, the largest of the three slamming into the rear of the bus with so much explosive force, that it actually lifted it at a completely straight angle. That in turn would’ve killed everyone inside if they weren’t securely fastened in their seats.
Still, the ride was one that could’ve been described as the One From Hell as the body of the vehicle tilted backwards and came crashing down on its suspension system the hard way. John could feel his insides shift completely out of place, and he found that it was the sudden gee force that did that.
Screaming voices filled the bus a second later before the other two warheads found their mark on both sides and every window that survived the trip so far, shattered with ease, spraying glass onto the occupants below them. The structural support beams that were holding the top level compartments and the roof, came apart with a shower of metal fragments, molten steel, and fiberglass components. That already added to the pile of glass that had been violently shot inwards from the warheads’ blast effect.
Creaks and groans were heard as one section of the overhead roof adjoining the top level compartment gave way, and collapsed on top of the injured workers that had survived the first hit, and John suddenly found himself pinned on the bottom floor whereas earlier; he had been on the top floor of the bus.
With shards of glass covering him like confetti, and his face bloodied from a deep gash in his forehead, John Scott struggled to free himself from his makeshift prison that the ceiling had made for him.
“Uhh....” He heard someone moan, and realized that it was his friend, Kevin McDougal. He looked up in his general direction and saw that he didn’t look any better than he did. Then he noticed glistening white bone protruding out of his skin in his upper arm, and the man came to the grim conclusion that he must’ve broken it during the fall. He also discovered to some dismay, that his chair was nearly upside down facing him, but upright at the same time.
The man speculated that at the same moment the missiles hit, the successive explosions jarred him loose, and the ensuing shock waves buffeted him like a leaf for a fraction of a second, before the roof collapsed on top of him. A section of it must’ve came loose during the chaos, and neatly slam dunked him through the opening; saving him and Kevin from a crushing death.
The whole thing struck him as being funny, simply because of the way his chair had been placed. It made it appear that it could support the section of the fallen roof, even though he knew that the materials incorporated into the chair itself was never designed to hold up nearly a thousand pounds of dead weight.
“You okay?” John asked, very concerned about the well being of his friend. He found that he still couldn’t move. Not even an inch.
Kevin's eyes opened up slowly, and he realized that he was still alive.
“Are we dead?” He croaked.
John grinned at his friend’s attempt at light humor in a grim situation.
“Not unless you think you are, and like speaking to people like me who are still hanging on by a thread.”
“Then we are dead...” He moaned hopelessly, and plopped his head back. “I’ll never get the chance of being married to a beautiful woman, and since I’m already.... and that means....damn!” John couldn’t help but laugh at his friend’s bizarre sense of humor.
“Kevin. Your not dead.” The pinned man said with some forced breath. Up till now, he hadn’t stopped to consider that breathing was becoming quite difficult, but he realized that it wasn’t the exact truth either. He sniffed the surrounding air experimentally.
“At least, not yet.”
Another sniff.
“Oh shit.”
Kevin’s eyes widened in the darkness, the light of a couple of street lamps playing across his face.
“What? What’s this ‘oh shit’, I’m hearing?” He said, and then started choking on his own words as fumes from below started to fill the tight space. He covered his mouth with his good hand, but winced sharply as the bone in his arm began to grind uncontrollably. He held it gingerly, having no choice but to hold it still, and take his chances with the overpowering stench.
“Neutronium fumes. Those heartless bastards must’ve hit a fuel line somewhere.” John confirmed by staring into a hole that must’ve been created by the impact earlier, and found that he was looking into the engine compartment. To his muted horror, the entire lower half of it was already full of an onyx colored liquid, with the other half beginning to fill quite rapidly.
“Worse. The engine manifold is filling up.” He could barely make out the cadmium batteries, and it appeared by his point of view, that they were already submerged.
Kevin wiggled his seat a little, but found that it was held fast in place with nowhere to go.
“The neutronium has escaped from their holding tanks?” He continued to move, but wasn’t having much luck. “Oh yeah, that’s going to make my day. Yessiree. I just love having my body parts blown across a radius of over two hundred miles and then some.”
“Someone throws a match into that volatile pool, and they can mail me as a paperweight inside a very small envelope,” John added to what he thought was a fiery death. But the term fiery was never used in the same context to that of a super nova.
Then they heard voices.
Kamarian Medical Institute.
The holographic images of the calcified strand properly code named Virus X hung like a messenger of death to the man attending to the task at hand. He was currently involved in the next phase of the research that promised a possible vaccine in the long run. But he was willing to stick it out, no matter how long it took.
For now, he needn’t fear it, because this version of the virus had been electronically mapped out by using an anti-proton scanner, and a very large view screen that sat in front of him. The data he got from its mainframe, was actually transmitted up from a series of specially constructed vaults, nearly seven levels below him.
“Fourth Level check.” He replied, touching a console near him.
“Check scan complete,” an automated voice confirmed. “No trace of contamination in the virus’s DNA code.”
“Go to Third Level.”
“Scan complete. 16% contaminated.”
“Damn.” That meant that the virus was far from being the perfect biological weapon that everyone claimed it would be. In fact, it was far from being useless. A sixteen percent contamination from an outside source would prove to be just as deadly if anything living came direct contact with it.
It also pointed to the possibility that this particular strain of virus had some unforeseen genetic properties that could still be lethal to most of the world's current population.
In other words, people would be dying and they wouldn’t even know it. But by then, it would be far too late.
But what would he do with these findings?
A small cover up seemed to be in order, even though the doctor himself was an honest man. But he felt that safeguarding the planet was far more important than a personal battle with his own morality.
Let them go on thinking that they have the perfect delivery system, he thought. Only I know the truth.
And the truth is...
“Computer. Load subroutine alpha-four, and store in a selective memory cache. Then secure it under an Omega-3 password known only to me.”
“Loading all current data in regards to Virus X under classified datum storage protocol...Saving...Procedure completed.”
“Excellent. Is the original virus contaminated by the outside source?”
“Negative. Virus X:1 is still available.”
The man smiled and shut down the terminal.
War was a beautiful thing, and with the proper push;, a glorious piece of work. He then left the lab--whistling.
Kamarian Science Institute.
Debbie Peters studied the newest batch of information collected earlier in the morning, and was a bit pissed when she couldn’t determine the damn thing’s final trajectory, or its point of origin. Even the data from the morning run proved to be inconclusive, although it was the biggest one yet.
Current position? She keyed into the computer’s main database.
Numbers and algorithms scrolled past her before the computer displayed a star map of their galaxy, and then star systems that had yet to be explored. Then it finally homed in on the three star family of the Kamar star system, and then their group collective of planets.
Finally, telemetry from orbiting recon satellites pinpointed the exact position of the visitor.
Density, composition, size, and other factors were listed on the side screen console, and screen shots of the asteroid were displayed in front of her. Debbie frowned at what she was looking at, and at the same time, not entirely happy with Doctor Noyen did at all.
“That bitch had to screw this up, didn’t she? She couldn’t get a descent profile on this new and undisguised threat....No. She had to keep farting around with the scanners, and botch up a perfectly good data scan.” The computer recorded the proper information and stored it in the main database.
Peters pecked at the control console some more, but the machine wouldn’t yield any new information that was vital.
“Christ! Maybe Commander Sanchez has something that I’ve missed.” She punched up her access code for the deep space comm link, and immediately got a buzz of static.
Outpost 42.
The office lighting was a bit subdued after the last shift change, and Sanchez had just come off duty only an hour ago. His body was already tense and his mind overflowing with stress from multiple discussions and arguments with his officers over the discussion he had with Senator Norris.
First Officer Gordon Wuan indicated at the briefing that the outpost could probably take a limited amount of people if the planet were to be evacuated. Maybe not even three thousand more people added already to the number of people that inhabited the station. Far less number of civilians and maybe even that amount may have a strain on the station's power supplies.
“But there may be some options left,” Sanchez pointed out earlier. The outpost had sufficient fire power to destroy the asteroid that was presently closing in on Kamar Ten’s orbit. But Weapons’ Officer Harold Masterson indicated that Outpost 42 would not be in firing range for another five days, and even the onboard fighters didn’t have the necessary range for possible interception.
It was clearly a classic case of a no-win scenario that had been taught to him, while he was at the Kamarian Naval Academy. Or in simpler terms: The sacrifice of one person for the good of the many.
But the commander had other ideas of his own. As soon as he could come up with one.
But he was interrupted in his reverie by the comm link.
“Commander?”
“Yes? What is it?” Sanchez got up from behind his desk, and placed the book that he was reading earlier, back on the shelf. Some things in life were never finished, he thought. Such as this book for instance.
“We’re getting something peculiar, sir. Commscan indicates that it could be an incoming transmission, but the source in question is extremely scrambled. Nothing but static, and a few unintelligible words.”
“Okay. But keep working on it as best you can.” Sanchez replied in a calm voice. He needn’t go to the command center just yet. He had enough excitement to last for one day.
He picked up the same book he put down earlier, and continued to read it.
Chapter 4
The asteroid continued on a steady pace, not letting up for one minute. Its orbit erratic, and stable.
But solid enough, that it literally dug into the atmosphere of the giant gas planet known as Kamar Ten. Even though it was nearly eleven miles in diameter, it was still slightly bigger than it looked from a certain point of view. At times, it would elongate; reducing its visible side to a mere pencil like protrusion. But it was nearly pear shaped when it finally straightened.
Right then, the pear shaped side hit the atmosphere at almost 12,000 kilometers per second, throwing up sparks as it caromed around like a steel ball in a high speed pinball game.
Red and orange trails of debris speckled the gas giant as the asteroid bounced once, and then twice like a stone skipping across the lake. Finally, the “rock” was helped out of by the planet’s gravity, and it left the outer fringes of the atmosphere at twice its original speed, and continued to gain momentum as it was launched out of its old orbit and into a new one.
However, its new trajectory put it in a direct course for Outpost 42.
Bruan Province.
It was half past twelve when Jason felt his mother shake him urgently.
“Honey? Wake up. Something’s wrong.”
Even in the stark black of night, the young boy could hear the tension and worry that was emanating from his mom.
“Mom–!” The thirteen year old protested, not used to waking up in the middle of the night.
“Sorry about this dear, but your father hasn’t come home, and people on the news are saying that there was some recent fighting in the Yon-Ty region. That’s where your father’s bus was before it started....” But she trailed off abruptly.
Jason couldn’t figure out what she was saying precisely because his mind was still clouded from wisps of sleep.
“Okay,” He replied as he got up slowly from his soft bed and started hunting for his clothes. Samantha Scott left her son’s room so he could get a bit of privacy, and headed back down stairs.
Once he got his clothes on, Jason began the search for his backpack and his E-pulse blaster.
Spot peeked his pointed head out from underneath the covers, and growled softly in response to his master's heightened sense of anxiety. He barked a couple of times when Jason pulled out some spare energy clips from his dresser, and then went to check on the ones that had been placed in the charger unit for the last couple days.
“Don’t worry boy. I’m just being cautious that’s all. With dad gone, and possibly missing, it appears that its just you and I to guard the house.”
The animal barked in response to that statement, and jumped off of the bed.
Jason left a moment later once he got his things.
President Stevenson plodded down the stairs after getting some personal business taken care of, his aide ushering him into the large office that had become part his residence in the Presidium since the elections.
“Hello?” He called out, finding that the room’s overhead lights hadn’t been turned on yet. Even as he was reaching for the switch, he was immediately stopped by a rumbling voice.
“I prefer it dark, Mr. President.”
The man fumbled for the comm switch that would connect him to his security people at a second's notice, but found to his growing anxiety, the panel had been intentionally ripped out. Wires of all colors and sizes dangled out at odd angles, internal circuitry sparking like mad.
“What do you want? I gave you what you wanted last month, now why have you done this?” Stevenson demanded angrily, drowning the fear that welt up like an unwanted predator.
The voice continued, unabated by the man’s emotional turmoil.
“Please remain calm, Stevenson. There is no need to get that upset. I just took the necessary precaution of not having to deal with unwanted guests. Rest assured, I have no intentions of harming you. If I did, you wouldn’t be standing there right now.” The threat wasn’t a cleverly disguised one, but rather it was a statement of the undeniable truth, and the old man knew it. The president relaxed some, and then started feeling around for his custom made easy chair. Once he found it, he plopped himself down, and addressed his unknown contact.
“So what is it that you want? Money? Power? What?”
The darkness seemed to mock his every attempt to unmask his adversary, despite the fact that his vision was like that of an owl’s: Sharp, focused, and attentive to every small detail. That is, of course, if his little friend was wearing some kind of personal cloaking shield on his body which masked his every movements.
Then his efforts spent on discovering the naked truth, in a sea of lies, was going to be rather futile.
“Nothing as petty as that. As your lovely secretary had said, we are here to discuss Virus X. That’s what I want. Nothing else.”
“I can’t give you that.” Stevenson replied curtly, shifting uneasily in his chair. “Its not in my power to give.”
The voice appeared undaunted by the refusal. In fact, it looked like he was expecting such an answer.
“Of course you can. Unless of course your prepared to face the consequences of your actions.”
“What might those be?” The threats were starting to wear thin in his book, and the old man was growing tired of it.
In fact-
He leaped forward at the spot where he thought the invisible intruder was, but came up hard against the wall, bruising the left side of his face in the process.
“Nice try, Kyle. But as you can see, I don’t exist here in this form of reality. You might say that I don’t exist at all.”
“Hologram?!? Your a damned hologram?”
That hypothesis seemed to fit the evidence so far. But why go to great lengths just to deceive him?
“Very perceptive, but wrong as always. I’m not a hologram, but rather a figment of a delusional mind: Yours.”
“Stop wasting my time damn you!”
“And your wasting mine. I can do this all night. Can you?”
Stevenson sat back in his chair, feeling utterly defeated, and he rubbed the sore spot on his jaw. He wondered if he still had his wisdom teeth.
“No.” He said finally. “I’ll see what I can do about the virus for you. But I can’t guarantee anything solid.”
“That’ll do.” The mysterious voice said, and ceased.
Kyle Stevenson sat there in the dark, wondering what to do next.
Yon-Ty Region.
It had been several hours since John and Kevin heard the whisper of voices. But the voices belonged to those who had been injured and wounded that lay in what was left of the hover bus.
Out of fifty that had been registered on a scorched data pad, only thirty-three were left alive. Nearly half that number, including himself, and his friend whom needed immediate medical attention.
But that was just for starters.
Already, he could feel the ice cold neutronium snap at his exposed skin as it continued to rise slowly, the engine compartment nearly full. Even in his torn coveralls, he could feel it creeping up on him. Direct contact with the neutronium wasn’t deadly, but total immersion in could kill a grown man in minutes if it wasn’t washed off quickly. Even in the most extreme cases, it could only give a person a case of mild frostbite.
In the most sensitive places of the human body.
But total immersion with the raw fuel could spell a quick death if it wasn’t washed off in time. The very fact that the unique fuel was balanced with other caustic materials had proved poisonous in the past when it came in contact with any organic tissue.
But John seemed to recall that the problem had been taken care of by modern science not to long ago.
All in all, the man didn’t savor the idea of dying a senseless death. With his mind working on overdrive in trying to find a way out of this mess, when his ears picked up something new that wasn’t present an hour ago: The sounds of crunching gravel. The first thought that was going through his mind was, someone had seen the bus, and is here to rescue us!
“Someone’s coming.” He heard Kevin say in a soft whisper, and he wasn’t at all surprised if the others around them hadn’t come to the same conclusion.
It was only a matter of time.
But another, more ominous thought crept into his mind, nearly freezing him with a sense of dread: What if they weren’t friendly, but hostile? His breathing suddenly went deathly quiet in response to the chemical warning signs that his brain was sending. But all around him was another matter entirely. Even if the person was hostile, you simply could not shut the people up who were wounded and probably dying. No, it wouldn’t be that easy.
But at the very least, he could listen.
“-told you that I tagged it, you lying sack of horse shit!” Someone towards the rear gloated openly.
“Shut your hole man! This isn’t the time to start your damned boasting now! We have to make sure that this is the military transport that the Enforcers sent out earlier this evening-” The leader of the Steel Knights responded, halfway down the road, as the sounds of footfalls got increasingly louder.
And louder.
“That’s if Karen got her information right in the first place,” the first speaker said in a teasing voice. “It isn’t easy buying off their informants when you know that they could be lying to you.”
“Then I guess it wouldn’t hurt to fill the bastard full of plasma fire then would it?” A woman piped up.
By the sound of their voices, John counted at least seven people as they started to surround the destroyed bus, and a couple of them whistled in surprise.
“Jeez. What a fucking mess this turned out to be, and it wasn’t even the right target! Nice going moron!” The same voice rang out as she cuffed the person responsible across the head with an open palm, and the man yelped in pain, as blood dribbled down the side of his face from the newly formed gash across his forehead.
“You stupid fuck! This isn’t the time to start blaming each other!” Another spoke up angrily, but his comrade obviously knew that as he applied direct pressure to the wound in order to stop the crimson flow.
“Well excuse me! And you didn’t have to hit me so hard either god dammit!” He seethed.
“Just checking to see if your head is as hard as they claimed it to be. That’s all.” Karen shot back with mild reproof, her patience with the man obviously worn a trifle thin. She turned backed to the leader of the group.
“So you think that our paid man knew what was really going down, or was he pulling our leg?” She asked.
The leader didn’t respond to her question right off as he checked the vicinity of the vehicle, and came back for a closer look at it's staved in sides.
“I dunno. But what I do know is that asshole has a lot to answer for when we get back to J’mar. I do not appreciate being lied to.” John nudged his friend while the party came closer to one of the openings, and held absolutely still for non-descriptive reasons. One of the men didn’t notice anything unusual until a couple of the wounded workers started to moan loudly as they regained consciousness.
Rifles of unknown origin came to bear on the collapsed section of the roof, and John held his breath, and half expected to be shot right there.
A beam of light punched through the jagged opening and revealed some injured people.
“Captain! We’ve got possible survivors!” The one with the light shouted in a baritone voice, then he shone his beam on them.
“Holy...” He whispered in astonishment.
“Any Enforcers..?” The leader asked.
John shut his eyes as the illuminated as the light illuminated his area, and him as well, and then blinked out.
“Not in my line of sight, sir.”
A flashlight blared out into the darkness as another man stepped forward to survey the carnage, and he began to comb the entire area with it, and was just as shocked -if not stunned- to find not one Enforcer in the whole bunch of people that he could see.
Bloodied, wounded, and dying civilians.
But no Enforcers.
“Uh...sir??” He motioned for his commander to take a look himself, and when he did, he expertly backhanded the man across the mouth with so much force, that John thought he saw a couple of teeth flying.
“You idiot! This isn’t a transport...” The man backed away fearfully as the leader unholstered his blaster. “It’s a damn hover bus!”
With the blaster pointing directly at him, the man did his best to explain.
“But sir! That’s not what our informant indicated to me on last night’s run after he risked life and limb stealing the plans from their headquarters-” The man advanced on him slowly, and the other team members graciously backed away, knowing what was about to take place; probably already guessing what the outcome was going to be. But none of them had the guts to interfere in the dispute, so they just stood there and watched the whole thing unfold.
“The only thing that he probably stole were plans for the fucking bathroom. The man is obviously not getting paid enough for his work right,” He replied as he lowered his gun, and walked back to the opening where he could see the workers sprawled about, and even lower was John and Kevin.
With the unmistakable fear etched into their respective faces.
“Thank you sir-” was all he got out before the leader aimed his weapon at him unexpectedly, and fired at point blank range.
The explosive force ripped into him like a rag doll being tossed into the air playfully, and fell to the ground. The dead man slumped face down into the dirt with smoke pouring out of a hole in his middle.
“Karen, after you get rid of Higgins’ body, help me in getting these poor fools out of the bus.”
The woman nodded quickly, and began barking orders for a cutting laser, and a pair of vibro-grip gloves. After that, she helped with disposing of the man’s body.
“Sir-?” She inquired, as she started helping with the extraction of the first injured worker.
The group’s leader looked at her briefly, if only for a moment before turning back to the tasks at hand.
“Later Kari. Right now we have some work to do.”
“But sir-” She began lightly.
“Later.”
Enforcer Headquarters.
Qoorda Precinct.
64 miles inland from the Targus Sea.
Jason couldn’t believe the sheer size of the place. It had to be the biggest building -compound- that he had ever seen pictured from his history books. The inlaid steel walls alone extended upwards to a height of three hundred feet at least. Twenty-five foot walls with Duralite reinforced bulkheads running inside every forty meters in a vague circular shape. The complex also had guard towers of every type imaginable to an individual gazing at the place from the outside.
The teenager could easily pick out the high energy cannons that jutted out menacingly; with hidden sensor that tracked his every moves.
“Let’s go Jason.” His mother called out to him, as they began to make their way up the front steps.
“But mom! This is so cool!”
Captain Terry Westfield pounded his desk with growing frustration at the latest report to come across his desk. A report that was hours old, but left him feeling stunned nonetheless.
“An assassin-! A damned assassin kills a helpless man while he lays on a hospital bed, and then Ackerson dies in yesterday’s riots-!” He threw a stack of files across the room and watched in disinterest as the papers fluttered to the floor
“Shit! What a sorry mess this has turned out to be.” And he wasn’t referring to the one he made either.
Samantha Scott rubbed her eyes tiredly after an hour’s worth of paperwork.
Did your husband work for a para-legal corporation?
Was he ever involved in any illegal activities prior before his disappearance?
The questions seemed to go on forever, and she was just exhausted from the taxing ordeal.
“Jason?” She asked, forgetting for the moment where her son was. The platinum blond woman glanced over her shoulder, and found that he was no where in sight of the large corridor.
“Jason?”
In her small frame of mind, things were just about to get more hectic from her personal point of view, as she went searching for any clues to her son’s whereabouts.
The very few things that can entice a child is the constant noise that filters all around him or her, making it extremely difficult for that child to resist the temptation of going to go see what the source of the disturbance is--natural or artificial.
In Jason Scott’s case, it was something else entirely.
“C’mon Mac! Hurry up with those handcuffs! This guy’s getting way of control here, and I can barely hold him as it is!” The man yelled to his partner, who was fumbling with the electronic cuffs. On several tries, he failed to get them open, dropping either the cuffs or the key chip on the floor. But the man in question was a rookie in his first year, and this was his first major break as an Enforcer.
“Trying to man, but the cuffs won’t come undone!” He cursed as he dropped them again, and the perp decided at that time to make a break for it. He twisted around and grabbed the young Enforcer by the neck, and threw him into the barricade wall with so much force that Mac thought he heard some bones break violently. He watched with horror as his partner sagged to the floor; unmoving.
Mac stared at the man who was seven eight feet tall, wearing an odd jacket that was made from real leather and not that replicated material that people bought at stores nowadays. He was a heavily muscled goon who once belonged to an underground faction that was responsible for the spread of drugs in the streets of Boran.
On top of the scars and tattoos that dotted every exposed part of his body (common as a night light these days), the man was also on designer drugs that had no known match in the Enforcer database, or on the controlled substance list. His normally brown eyes were red from lack of sleep, and his hair unkempt from not showering in the past week. But that didn’t stop him from ripping into some of his best people that he had once considered friends and comrades-in-arms.
Mac still recalled that fateful afternoon as he watched the psycho come out of nowhere with nothing but bare hands, and single handedly killed each and every one of them in ways that he thought couldn’t be done. Then he was knocked unconscious by a harsh blow to the back of his skull, his sense of consciousness reeling as he was thrown backwards into a stack of crates. Although his vision was a little hazy from impact, his hearing was the sharpest it ever was.
And for one moment, he wished it hadn’t been. Because then he wouldn’t be carrying the painful memory of what happened next for the rest of his life.
He listened as full grown men screamed for mercy and getting none, and listening to the sickening crunch of bones being cracked, crushed, or broken in ways that would make any man cry out in sympathy. As his vision cleared, he rose to his feet with a supreme effort that came from a bout of spasms which his aching body was sending his brain; only to witness the final atrocity.
Even as the memory faded, he could still see the red blood dripping from the killer’s hands as he finished tearing one of his comrades a new asshole with an old fashion crowbar, and then used it to beat him to death with precision-like hits that sounded like apples being split open over and over.
Those sounds were enough to drive anyone crazy.
The seven foot bruiser teetered towards him like a swaying tree in a full blown hurricane, and then stopped, only to stare at him curiously.
It gave Mac enough time to pull out his standard issue A-7 blaster with stun capacity charges built into the muzzle. Seeing the weapon caused the druggie to laugh at him.
“Ohh....lookie this....The big bad cop with his little pop gun...You know this kinda takes me back to -what- yesterday was it?” The man placed a beefy finger to his sweaty forehead, and tapped his cranium for a second. “Oh yeah! That was when I gave your Enforcer buddies the new meaning to the term ‘plastic surgery.’ ”
Then he laughed again at the top of his lungs, and the cruel sound hurt the Enforcer's eardrums.
“You think that this is funny?” Mac stared him in disbelief. Inside him however, his anger was reaching a sudden boiling point. And for a split second, he was ready to throw it all away for the sake of revenge. “You think that what you did is funny?”
The druggie laughed maniacally.
“Actually: Yeah. Its been a hoot to see you pigs squirm under our thumb whenever we cross paths. And its such a thrill for me to kill a few of you every now and then with my bare hands.”
Mac was suddenly ill from hearing this, as he drew his weapon from its holster.
“And you think that for one minute that I’m going to allow you to walk out of here alive-” The Enforcer stopped hesitantly, seeing the weird glint in the man’s eye, and he fired at point blank range.
But to his surprise, his would be assailant kept coming at him, the blaster humming as it struggled to recharge. But the officer knew that there wouldn’t be enough time to defend himself, and he prepared to die.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone in the darkened recess of the hallway raising a weapon, and then a bright flash discharged from the square shaped muzzle blinding him...
John felt a rough slap as someone took a sort of perverse way in waking him up from a sound sleep.
“Huh?” He answered groggily, as his senses gave him the opportunity to see who was the person responsible for the action in question.
“Kevin?” He asked, clearly confused by the petite woman that was bent over him with a small smile on her lovely face.
“Sorry to disappoint you, big guy. But if your referring to that cute sidekick of yours, he’s being administered to by our group’s medic.” The woman handed him a cup of coffee, and then resumed her guard position by unslinging a nasty looking rifle. The stock and barrel was unfamiliar to him, but the weapon was clearly military issue. Probably stolen too.
John decided not to dwell on that one after a moment of contemplation.
“So,” He said, in hopes of striking up some worthwhile conversation, “What brings you people to these parts?” The commando looked at him in a curious manner, and then shrugged.
“Nothing you should be worrying about. I’d concentrate on staying alive if you had any smarts in that small head of yours.” It was a lightly veiled threat, and the supervisor saw that as an indication to the kind of trouble they were all in.
“I guess kidnapping is a common routine for people like you.” He said boldly. The woman stared at him in surprise, but held her next response in check. However, she let him know how serious she was, when the muzzle of her gun was only a centimeter away from his head as she leaned over.
“We’re not terrorists mister. So don’t start pointing the finger unless you know the complete truth in the matter.”
Eyebrows raised in mock surprise, John tried his best to act utterly appalled by the naked truth that was in her words.
“If that’s true then," He said after swallowing some hot coffee, “then why the arsenal of weapons? Clearly, you were after something.” A sudden twinge of pain in his leg reminded him of the vulnerable position he was in, and he stopped the stream of questions after that point. The woman noted his distress, and handed him a cold pak from her hip pouch.
“Here. Press this against your leg. You sustained a mild sprain in the lower region of your right leg. It’ll hurt for awhile, so don’t count on walking anytime soon.”
John nodded, and applied the cold dressing to the affected area, and took the chance to scope out his surroundings. Yes, he was only a good hundred feet away from what remained of the hover bus, and surrounded to boot by men and woman armed to the teeth with hardware that he had only read about in magazines. Stuff that was clearly in the experimental stage, but somehow liberated before they could be fully tested in real life. It looked like a well organized effort judging from the floodlights that surrounded the immediate area, and the bulky equipment on the hover carts. Machines that didn’t much sense to him, considering the media markings on some of the crates.
Why would they go through so much effort in getting this stuff? he thought as he spotted a few of his workers on the sidelines that were being tended to, and given something hot to eat and drink. But after a minute, he could only count twenty-eight people out of the fifty he had recalled that had boarded on the bus at the beginning of the trip, and he was extremely upset.
28 people.
“Where are the rest of the people that had been on the bus?” John shot the question directly at the woman who was still guarding him. Him and him alone.
That was odd.
“The remainder didn’t make it. Those few either died when our missile struck it, and they died from the wounds that they sustained despite the medical treatments that we were able to give them. Some of the injured contracted neutronium poisoning when it inundated the lower level where we found you two.” The woman slung her weapon on over shoulder, and walked back to the makeshift camp.
“Hey! Where do you think your going?” John demanded suddenly.
“None of your business.” And she continued her walk back to the brightly lit tents, leaving John to wonder what they were planning to do with them.
It was over in a flash. The blinding light. The pain that throbbed in his eyes.
Everything.
Or so the officer thought.
The next thing he knew was that he was bowled over by nearly three hundred pounds of pure psychopathic flesh, but it gave his gun the time to charge for another salvo.
The chance to use it came far too late as it flew out of his grip in an instant, and the air being crushed mercilessly from his lungs.
“K-kid–!” He wheezed, as he spied the boy.
“Lucky for you, I was watching the whole thing unfold,” commented the thirteen year old, as he struggled with some effort in pulling the heavy man off of the Enforcer. But then he thought of something.
“Got a crowbar?” He asked innocently, not realizing what he just said. Mac ignored the unpleasant memory that particular word brought fourth, and stayed focused on his current predicament.
“No. Just...” He sucked in some air, as much as his aching lungs would allow, and continued painfully. “Just get someone to come down here.” The boy looked in both directions of the empty corridor, and shrugged.
“Okay, but it may take awhile. I don’t really know my way around this place. Its my first time.” He admitted, and Mac smiled through his yellow stained teeth.
“Don’t worry kid. Pull the lever over there on the wall.” He indicated the direction with a jerk of his head, and found to his growing annoyance, that he couldn’t get his arms positioned so that he could just simply heave the man off with little effort on his part.
As soon as the boy pulled the lever, an alarm began to howl like a banshee, and then after that, the corridor which had been so empty of human life began to fill with heavily armed Enforcer personnel. One of them spotted the boy as he cradled his E-pulse blaster and immediately restrained him, confiscating his weapon in the process.
“Don’t worry, sir. We’ve got the perpetrator. We can also get this guy off of you as well.” A lieutenant reported with a satisfied look on his face, and the minute Mac was up and standing, he smacked the man in the back of his helmet.
“You stupid ass! That boy saved my life! Its this piece of trash that’s attacked me and my partner over there. So have decency, and give him back his blaster.”
“But sir! Having an unauthorized weapon in Enforcer HQ is illegal! The kid could be looking at thirty years at least if he’s caught with it.”
“Are you my superior?”
A shake of the head.
“Then give the kid back his weapon, or haven’t you bothered to check it?” The junior officer finally looked at the weapon and apologized profusely. “Sorry about that kid. I didn’t realize that you carried a Civilian 363 model E-pulse blaster.”
Jason put it back in his pack, and nodded.
“That’s okay.”
Mac motioned the boy over, and he leaned on him for a little support while the another officer keyed in the code that would open the steel blast doors up ahead.
“Schmuck face over there didn’t realize that your type of blaster couldn’t set off the alarms like that, unless you carried a booster pack or a modified silencer that went with that gun. Bunch of goddamn greenhorns around here I tell you.”
“So I guess this is the run-of-the-mill type stuff then, huh?” Jason inquired.
Mac winced when they reached to the top of the staircase, which extended upwards towards one of the medical bays. To the injured officer, it was like climbing a mountain without the benefit of any safety equipment.
“Nah....most of these rookies may have a top level education, but frankly I’m surprised that they don’t apply what they learned here with a little bit more effort.”
The teenager was strained a little from helping the other officer with his load.
“So your old fashioned then?”
The old man looked at the boy with mixed emotions.
“I guess. But I’m no fossil that’s for sure. I’ve been on the force for almost thirty years now, and I can still hold my own against the toughest perps on the streets today.”
Jason drew a deep breath of fresh air after the made it to the top of the stairs, and waited for the officer to tap in the code for the door's locking mechanism.
“My dad would say the same too, I guess, if he had chosen this line of work. But he’s a shift supervisor for the neutronium plant in the Toran Province.”
“Your father must be lucky to have you around.” Mac smiled with a sparkle in his right eye.
Outpost 42.
As always, the head cook was having problems with the automatic fry stations whenever the micro replication systems were off line.
“Damn piece of technology! Can never get the mother fuckin’ thing right in the first place.” He fiddled with a console for a second before the wall’s microcomp started to make some sense of the input that he was feeding it.
The kitchen’s double doors swung open, muffling the outside sounds as they shut.
“Chief? Any problems with the new systems?” His kitchen helper asked, carrying a load of dishes and towels.
A warbled sound came out of the wall’s microcomp, and everything shut down. Lights, power...
Everything.
Chief slammed a meaty hand into the thick padding next to the computer systems, and all that came out of this was mounting frustration was a dull thump! and mounting frustration.
“Yeah. Mechanics these days definitely don’t know a rat hole’s worth of shit. Automation has really taken over people’s lifestyles so much in the thirtieth century, that they forget how to do actual work. Robotics has taken its course in life of every Kamarian that has lived, and that goes for food as well. Everything depends on technology for our very survival.”
The younger man studied the wall as it went into a diagnostic mode.
“It seems to be working just fine to me.”
Chief looked at the console, and scratched his head.
“Well, I’ll be damned...” He muttered as the overheads flickered back to full strength.
Technician’s First Class Pete Mitchell wiped the grease off of his hand, and handed his buddy a sonic wrench.
“There. That should fix the glitches in the micro-comp’s main food processor unit. I don’t relish the idea of eating MREs for the duration of this tour, and that’s my opinion on the matter.”
His friend smiled despite being caked in hydraulic fluid that had ruptured from a conduit earlier on in the shift.
“Yeah, me neither.”
The night shift crew stared at the comm screen as Dr. Peters punched up the necessary information from a nearby terminal.
Clearly, from her point of view, this wasn’t going to be a very easy task.
“Its all there Commander. The numbers, the trajectory, and the size of the son of a bitch. Let’s face facts, Edward: Your fucked.”
Sanchez shook his head, still irritated at having to be awakened from a sound sleep, and the few erotic dreams that went with it.
“So what do you want me to do? Blow it out of the sky?” He was still pissed off at his own negligence.
The woman nodded.
Sanchez couldn’t believe that it was even remotely possible, given the firepower the station had in it’s main reserves.
“You have got to be kidding me. This station was built for the sole purpose of defending the system from outside attacks. Not go and destroy a piece of interstellar flotsam.”
Deborah disagreed right off, pointing to a diagram in the foreground.
“Not exactly accurate, commander. Your onboard fighters have sufficient firepower to knock it off by a few degrees, and maybe with a bit of luck and a prayer, the asteroid will miss Kamar IV completely.”
The small command center suddenly erupted a state of frenzied conversations, arguments, and various opinions on the subject.
“Your betting quite a bit on a theory alone, Doctor. It might not even work.”
In the background, Gordon Wuan had heard the entire exchange take place, and wasn’t about to take this lying down. He proved that by shouldering his way through two engineering techs, and one environmental control officer by the name of Calvin Mitchell, before he managed to join up with his CO. He stuck his face into the vicinity of the comm screen, and glared at the individual in question.
“Bullshit!” He roared before Sanchez could do anything to calm him down. “That’s bullshit!”
Debbie's cinnamon colored cheeks flushed a little darker, in response to his outburst, and partly because she was taken completely off guard.
“Excuse me?” She said frostily, an eyebrow raised in concert to the emotional turmoil she was feeling. It was bad enough that she had to take this kind of crap from her superior. “What did you say?”
The First Officer of Outpost 42 gazed at her with unbridled contempt. It was a fact that he didn’t like the government in general, and he deplored the scientific community even worse. They had to make a big fucking deal out of everything.
“You heard me, lady. Its complete and total bullshit from where I’m standing. You seem to forget that this station was originally built as a listening outpost nearly two hundred years ago, and then modified over the decades to include defense systems as well.” He brought himself up with an air of regality. “I'll have to agree with my commanding officer: This station isn’t equipped to handle such an emergency such as this one...”
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and found that it was Edward’s.
“Easy there, guy. The pretty doctor here was just pointing out some options that are meant to be taken up as suggestions, not orders.” He replied simply, gazing back at the screen knowingly.
Peters returned it without flinching. There was no way she was going to lose this conversation to this man.
“If you think that I was ordering you to do this, your dead wrong. I was calling originally to warn you, not cause a political infraction among the station’s crew.”
Gordon's cheeks colored in anger, his eyes reflecting the frustration he was feeling with the current issue at hand.
“Look who’s talking. For all we know this whole thing could’ve been cooked up by the Kamarian Government to incite a mass riot by something as insignificant as this.”
Debbie glanced at one of the other screens next to her, and stared back into the holo-cam’s video pickup.
“A Class Two asteroid is nothing to laugh at, Lieutenant. Unless you can find a way to stop it, that chunk of space rock will hit Kamar IV with enough force and momentum to completely destroy it.”
The command center fell silent as the scientist's words sunk into everyone's respective minds.
“Are you sure that this information is on the level?” Sanchez asked quietly.
“As of last night’s computer simulation: 100% accurate. I ran five other simulations just to be sure, and by my calculations -if unchecked-it should hit the atmosphere of this planet in nine months, and twelve days time.”
Before Sanchez could respond, a series of alarms beeped loudly. Everyone, including Dr. Peters; jumped.
“What was that?” She said tensely.
Lieutenant Gordon Wuan went over to silence the wailing noises, and checked the terminal closest to him.
“Proximity alarms just went off.” He looked at the glowing screen in earnest. “Commander? Sensors show a massive object coming into extreme sensor range at about 400,000 clicks.” He checked the console's readouts. “Analysis of the intruder reveals it to be 40% iron, 23% magnesium, 20% nickel, and the rest are trace elements unidentifiable by the station’s computer.” Gordon looked worried. “I think we found the good doctor’s visitor, sir.”
“Launch the Cominske R-7’s immediately.” The man ordered briskly, forgetting what took place earlier. He turned his attention back to the screen for a second, while people around him went into high gear, and prepared to go into battle against the stony monolith.
“Sorry, Doctor Peters, but I have to go.” He said apologetically, and cut off communications before she could say anything else.
Wuan gazed at his commanding officer in frank puzzlement, as he observed the data streams flowing across the large view screen.
“Why didn’t you have her alert the government?”
Edward shrugged.
“Because I don’t trust the government. They’ve been making a lot of wrong mistakes lately, and telling them of this, is just going to be another terrible mistake.”
“So you think that we can take this thing out without the government’s intervention then?” He asked.
Sanchez continued to monitor the screen.
“If we can’t, then no one else will be able to.”
Katherine Dawson studied the readouts from one of the monitors that were giving her a compilation of the day's news feeds, dropped a blank holo cube into an access port, and started to record the scenes that the micro-comp had gained access to from an unidentified source. She watched with satisfaction as the images flowed by at a steady pace.
“Good, good...Very good.” She whispered to herself, as the transfer continued on uninterrupted.
Then the door to her small cubicle flew open with a resounding crash! and a couple of Enforcers stormed in, accompanied by someone that she didn't recognize, and told them so in her own way.
“Hey! You can’t come in here with a pass, or entry chip! What the hell are you doing-?!” She demanded angrily as she rose out of her chair. But that was until one of the armed Enforcers slammed her butt down, and leveled a power cannon directly into her face.
The man in charge didn't bother to look at her as he went to the monitor screen.
“Shut up, lady. Your in no position right now to start making demands, so be a good girl, and let's not make a big scene out of this, okay?” He pulled out the holocube that was still recording, and the screen automatically blinked out.
“We have orders to confiscate the data that your contact provided for you a few days ago, that’s all.”
The same Enforcer raised his weapon once more as he finished his work, allowing Dawson to rise from her seat again, and she shot a question at the three intruders as they started to leave.
“What contact? I don’t have any such people like that! I work alone-” The man in charge stopped and looked at her carefully, his beady black eyes and stern expression betrayed very little about the true purpose to his unannounced visits. Even his rigid body posture revealed nothing as he marched out of the cubicle with his prize.
However, she did hear his steely cold voice as it echoed down the hallway, and faded even as she was in the process of accessing the wall console’s computer systems.
“Better keep that way, Miss. Otherwise, things could get very bad for you if your not careful in the near future.”
The large screen came alive in a flare of pixels and dilated colors. She was even more irate when she discovered that they had taken her only copy of the data that she had worked so hard for.
“Stupid fucks. You think that a little setback like this is going to stop me?” She muttered out loud. All she had to do was pay her contact a little more money to get herself another copy.
Harry popped his carrot colored head into the doorway, a look of concern on his freckled face. He was heavily muscled and barrel-chested, but he had a soft voice and a gentle heart.
“Something wrong? I heard some commotion, and thought I’d check up on you.”
The woman smiled bitterly to herself, but tried to remain cheerful nonetheless.
“It’s nothing, you big lug. Just dropped–” She paused, searching for the right words. “My purse behind the console again.” Katherine knew that it was a blatant lie, since there wasn’t much space behind the console to begin with.
The huge man gazed at her suspiciously, and casually eyed the area around the console.
“You sure there isn’t nothing that I can’t do to help?” He asked.
An idea came to the young woman's mind; even if it really was just a wild fantasy of hers.
“Yeah: If any more Enforcers come through the building unannounced, break their necks would you?”
Harry smiled conspiratorially, his white teeth showing.
“Sure. But where do you want me to put the bodies after I do such a disreputable crime?”
Chapter 5
Bruan Province.
The sun peeked its way through the drapes as the light cascaded around the room, seeking a way to wake its current sleeper.
Unfortunately for the sunbeams, Spot was already there, having slipped away a couple of hours earlier to comb the house of any possible treats that might’ve gone unnoticed by the mistress of the house.
The only thing that he could find was a couple slices of bread, and a chicken leg that somehow made its way out of the fridge door while it was being shut. Well, whatever the current circumstances, the dog was smart enough not to pass up a free snack.
So now, he lay there on top of his master, his ears tuned to even the slightest sounds. At the same time, he was also aware of the sunbeams that were creeping up slowly to him. The animal opened his eyes, watching with careful deliberation as they moved to and fro.
And then, they started to move again in his general direction.
The dog couldn’t understand why they would do such a thing, but he realized then, that they also wanted to wake up Jason.
Spot stretched, and then moved carefully up the bed until he was almost nose to cheek with the sleeping teenager.
Second order of the day was wake him up, because in his mind, it was still a school day. The dog knew on some level that Jason liked to oversleep during this part of the week.
But of course, Jason didn’t appreciate the loving sentiment that his dog was giving him.
“God, dog! Uggh! Chicken breath!” He complained mildly, as he wiped the side of his mouth with a free hand, while pushing the animal gently away. “Go into the bathroom and brush your teeth!”
Spot curled up on top of him, not fully understanding what he was saying, but judging by the reaction he got, it was satisfactory.
The canine wagged his tail in reply to the boy’s gentle banter.
“Goofball,” he murmured affectionately before he was hit by the sunbeams, and was temporarily blinded.
Stumbling out of bed, Jason blinked away the dark spots as he made his way into the bathroom to take care of some personal business.
When he returned, he found the dog sprawled lazily across the covers of his soft bed, with his head buried under the throw pillow.
Jason stood there for a moment, admiring the way the dog was trying to get his undivided attention.
“C’mon Spot,” he said at last. “I’ve got to go to school, and you have to stay and guard the house from potential burglars and stray cats.”
The dog’s ears perked up from underneath the pillow at hearing that last word, an his tail thumped on the bed in anticipation. Despite genetic engineering, there were still a few things that a dog held as a traditional past time.
Chasing cats was one of them.
“No chasing ‘em,” Jason commented lightly, knowing full well what the dog was thinking. Then he went to change into on some clean clothes, and dumped his dirty ones into the recycler. Then he took his red cap and put it on backwards, after he had slipped on his purple jacket.
“Let’s go, boy. Maybe Mom made some breakfast this morning. And if your good, I’ll give you some of it.” That statement wasn't entirely true, he knew that much. He always shared a little bit from his plate every morning since he was a puppy.
The dog jumped off of the bed, and raced downstairs ahead of him, and the boy followed soon after, soon as he retrieved his backpack.
The downstairs living area was unusually quiet since last night’s action over at Enforcer Headquarters. Jason remembered what had taken place after taking the Enforcer officer named Mac to the medical bay for treatment. He half expected his mom to chew him out royally when he was finally reunited with her after spending four hours in the medical bay.
But after being debriefed by the man's superior, his mother took him home. Samantha Scott was relieved to find that her son was indeed all right, but was startled to hear that he had actually saved another person's life.
She didn’t say nothing on the way home, and Jason thought that he was in serious trouble, probably grounded for life in his opinion. He was more surprised when they had gotten home--she made him his dinner quietly, and sent him off to bed much later than he was actually used to.
He checked the front of the house through a polarized window, and found that the family hover van was still parked out in the driveway.
“That’s odd.” He muttered quietly to himself, and checked the holo clock in the hall, and found that it was only 7:10.
The bus would come for him in less than forty minutes.
“Mom?” He called at the top of his lungs, but there was no immediate answer.
Strange, he thought. She’s normally sleeping at this time.
Spot didn’t seem to sense anything out of the ordinary as he waited patiently for his master.
After doing a full check of the house, he finally came back down the stairs, and then went into the kitchen where he found his breakfast in the fridge with a note taped onto the door.
It read,
Honey, I’m over at Mildred’s place. Heat your breakfast in the microwave, and head for school,
Love, Mom.
So where’s dad? He wondered as he stuck his eggs and bacon in the microwave, and went into the living room to watch the holo vid.
Yon-Ty Region.
Morning came, and John wished that he was some where’s else other than here. His brown eyes were red and heavy from lack of sleep, mostly from watching Kevin most of the night, and also keeping an eye on the terrorists all at the same time.
Soft, purring sounds roused him a little more as he struggled to keep from falling asleep, knowing that he probably didn't have that luxury at that point. Then a small shadow passed over him, and he caught sight of a small convoy of hover carts that were being maneuvered for unloading at the far corner of the street, adjacent from his tent. He was curious as to what they might’ve contained.
He waited quietly until one of his captors moved out of his way, so that he could get a good view of the cargo.
The woman attending to the carts moved out of the way, to give John Scott the shock of his life.
The cargo was comprised of holo cameras, a couple of video drones, and other expensive pieces of equipment.
What the-? He wondered, before he spotted what looked like a media insignia. One that was emblazoned with a miniaturized photo of Kamar IV.
“Wonderful. Don’t tell me that they managed to liberate some equipment from WNN’s main headquarters. What the hell do they want with something like that?”
Then the flap to his tent was pushed open abruptly as armed rebels stormed in uninvited, causing a lot of people to moan and groan as they were being rudely awoken in a sudden rush.
Then he found himself under the gun, sort a speak, as someone pointed hers at him.
“Get up.” She said harshly, cocking her weapon as an incentive.
“What for?” He protested weakly, as he struggled to get into his pants, being wary of the pain that was sure to shoot up his leg at any given moment. She prodded her gun into him for good measure, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out the rest.
“Okay! I’m getting up.” John answered quickly, gingerly standing on his injured limb. The pain was a little more bearable this time around since last night’s episode. A small part of him still felt like he was being used like a child’s doll, and being tossed carelessly away.
With the others milling and crowding around him, he was led to a small area that had been inconspicuously cordoned off by three metallic rods with metal tape strung up into a small circle.
Once inside, he leaned up against the metal tape, and felt it give just a little. John sighed. A second later-
“Ahh-!” He cried out, and the guard next to him smiled ruefully.
“I would’ve said something earlier, but I figured that you needed a little prodding first.” The lingering pun that floated in his mind was just as bad as the bile that had rose from the bottom most pit of his stomach; now sat in the back of his throat.
Nauseating and uncomfortable.
John sat on his butt, nursing his shoulder where he could still feel the aftereffects of the charge as it continued it travel through his body.
“So? What do you need this fence for?” He asked inquisitively.
“To keep you from escaping?” Another voice broke in before the other guard could respond. A well shaven man with sunglasses came forward, carrying what appeared to be a nasty particle cannon. He squatted down to the shift supervisor’s eye level, and cradled the cannon between his legs lightly with a careful hand.
“Precisely.” He finished in a low voice. “But in your people’s case, to kill you as well if you make the foolhardy attempt.” He raised his other hand towards the sky above him.
“But please, feel free to try anyway. My people have gotten rusty from the lack of sufficient target practice.”
John bit back his response, simply for the sake of his survival, and that of the others.
The man read the pent up tension in the man’s face, and reached out to pat his cheek lightly.
“That’s my good man. Now all I ask is that you prepare yourself, because you and all the others like you have an appointment with destiny.”
He rose and walked away, leaving him with the others. John Scott looked at the faces of the others, and could only recognize a few by their faces. Still, he couldn't locate Kevin right off the bat. But he did spy Todd Danvers. He was another close friend of the family, and he was sure that he could help out.
“Hey, Todd! You’ve seen Kevin McDougal anywhere?” The man appeared to be nursing a sprained hand when he looked up to see who was calling. He smiled briefly, before he walked over to his super’s position.
“No, sir. I haven’t seen Red anywhere. It’s possible that he was taken to the med tent over there for treatment, but I’m not completely sure. How about you? You okay?”
John blushed slightly, but nodded nonetheless.
“Yeah, I'm okay. Just bruised my dignity, that’s all.”
Todd leaned up against the mesh wire fence that had been strung up along the parameter, and sighed heavily.
“Yeah. I know what you mean. Things have started to get a little crazy ever since those jerks started hooking things up and then started to get us together like this.”
The man gazed at everybody, trying to imagine what they where thinking, but wasn’t liking the answers that he got back in return.
“So what’s going on?” asked John. The question was a moot one, considering the partial theory that he had running in his mind, while being herded over here.
“Don’t know for sure, but I think we’re about to be put on the air.”
“Air? As in the holovid?” He thought he had misheard that last part of the conversation.
“We’re being ransomed then?”
Todd looked around, and noted with slight satisfaction that the guard had left his post briefly to check in with the others.
He dropped his head down, and a little forward so that it would appear that he just dozed off.
But his tone said otherwise.
“I’m not clear on that man. What I do know is that this is no ordinary ransom.” He glanced up and found that the guard had returned.
“I overheard one them saying ‘Enforcers’, and that’s it.”
John was surprised.
“A political ruse then?”
Another guard joined the first, and started talking among themselves. Todd realized that any further conversation was dangerous given the situation that they were in. So he hurried as fast as he could.
“I’m not sure sir.” He added briskly, seeing that the two rebels had stopped talking, and now were looking in their direction.
Danvers acted like a sleeping man, and waited to see if playing possum would work, and the two guards would ignore them.
John Scott glanced in the other direction, to make it appear as if he was interested in the area around them. Once the other guard left, and the other walked away, they resumed their chat.
“As you can see, it’s not safe to speak openly, sir. You must be strong and pass on what information that I have given to you to the others in the group.” Todd was quiet before he finished. “But its good to see you again John.”
Kamarian Medical Institute.
The only way to create chaos was to start small.
Of course, that was the standard joke around the place, and rarely did anyone take it seriously.
With the exception of maybe one person that is.
Dr. Robert Colmain sat and waited in the darkened office that he visited from time to time in order to conceal his slightly illegal activities. Like before, he waited for the call to come in like it had in the past couple of months. He had been promised a huge amount of money if things were to change just a little around the place.
A small undetected breach in security, maybe some safety protocols that were overlooked...
The possibilities were endless in his opinion.
Unless-
The screen on his desk snapped on, abruptly startling the man out of his reverie. It de-rezzed as expected because of personal reasons, and Colmain didn’t want to know what they were. He was just interested in what his contact had offered him, and that's as far as the deal went.
No questions asked, no inquiries given. Just business, plain and simple.
“You have what I asked?” The mystery man asked right off.
“Yes. I have the merchandise available, and free for the taking. The question that is on my mind at the moment is: Is the money as good as your word?”
The shadow on his screen nodded.
“As per requests, I have dumped a generous amount of credits into your personal account that will, of course; be untraceable by any means, and therefore be yours if you finished your part of the agreement.”
Smoke and mirrors. Blackmail and deceit. Robert was beginning to get a personal thrill at beating around the provincial bush, as it were.
“Don’t worry,” He assured his contact in a slightly patronizing tone. “Everything’s being arranged and taken cared of at this time. In a few days hence, a crack team of viral specialists will enter the lower levels of this complex through the sterilization chamber, and procure a canister of Virus X that is scheduled for elimination. After that, you will be caught up on three years of research and development. Then you’ll have enough Virus X to turn into a nasty little toy to with as you please.”
Shadow man was intrigued.
“Is this a guarantee?”
“Absolutely.” Outside, Colmain was all smiles, and it did little to quell the rising anxiety in his stomach.
“Very well. In the two hours time, before the team is due to arrive, the money will be deposited in your account as promised. There will be no further communication.”
Robert nodded slightly.
“Of course. Have fun.” And he shut over to shut the screen off.
Enforcer Headquarters.
In Captain Westfield's mind, things were definitely not going according to plan. At least that’s what he thought.
The file lay open on his desk and poring over it did no good: there was nothing in the officer’s record to indicate any sign of foul play.
The man left his desk momentarily to get a cup of coffee from the dispenser. The without warning, the comm system blared to life; announcing a full blown riot taking place in the Reajaar province.
Reajaar Province.
The sounds of glass breaking against reinforced polymer echoed in his ears, disrupting the mayor’s concentration as he was preparing some important documents for tomorrow morning’s board meeting.
Boink! went one bottle as it rebounded back onto the streets below, and smashed onto the sidewalk below.
Rising from his desk, he went to the shatterproof window to take a look outside, and see what all the commotion was.
People were rioting all over the place. He saw litter, trash, and other unusual objects being hurled into windows that were quite shatterproof. He had them curse or scream as went a round, causing domestic disturbances on all walks of life.
Larson privately wondered if that's all that was left on their minds, but utter nonsense and mindless violence.
But he couldn’t be sure unless he went out there to view things first hand.
An idiot he wasn’t.
“Shit.” He cursed softly under his breath. “There goes next year’s elections.”
Then a soft rapping sound was heard on the heavy paneled door, and it interrupted his concentration again.
“Go away!” He yelled at the person in question, and started his visual search of any Enforcer personnel or squad units that might just happened into the vicinity, and quell the riots with their powerful weapons.
Only then, could he escape to safety if the situation called for it.
For right now, he was quite content to stay in his cushy little office.
He looked down below, and saw at least a hundred or so people milling about, holding signs that were clearly defamatory in nature, while others were obviously anti-government. There were even a few that were pretty much self explanatory.
Several of the protesters heaved wadded bottles of alcohol, and watched as they hit the solid oak door of his office building, and burst into flame. Others cheered this action on despite the fact that they would never get through.
Still, that stop many of them from shouting obscenities, while many others showed off hand held weapons of a more personal nature.
All in all, Larson was glad that he wasn’t caught outside in that huge mass of human flesh. He shuddered to think of what they would do to them if they did.
Another knock on the door, and this time it was a loud bang.
Not once.
But twice.
“What?” He said harshly.
Wrong choice of words.
A subtle hum, and suddenly the door blew inwards with enough force to make the balding man hurl himself to safety, as the last wood chips settled on the carpet floor.
Larson looked up from behind his desk, and saw-
“Hello, Your Honor. I bring a message from the people outside this very building: Your ass is grass.”
His secretary. Dressed in combat fatigues, and packing a small, but powerful imploder cannon.
“Matt! What's the meaning of this? Where’s Doyle?”
The former secretary came over and grabbed the terrified man up from behind the desk, and stared at him coldly.
“You mean your personal guard? Sorry, but I’m afraid that he was becoming most uncooperative to the matter at hand. I believe the last time I saw him, he was doing a flying swan dive out the nearest window,” he stopped to prime his weapon. “After I put a charge through him.” And then he propelled him towards the door forcefully.
“You sick bastard!” Larson snarled.
Another shove.
“Get moving. Where your going will be a cakewalk compared to what I have in store for those Enforcers that are coming.”
“Enforcers? Here?!?” The man couldn’t believe it. “But I didn’t see any.”
Another shove and he was out into an empty hallway.
“Keep moving, Mayor, your finally going to get the chance to meet your adoring public.”
12,000 kilometers from Outpost 42.
“Target will be in range in thirty seconds---mark.” Captain Jeremiah Freeman called out over the comm system of his sleek swept winged fighter, and began to home in on the monstrosity ahead of him.
“Roger that. All wings report.” His wingman commander ordered.
“Cobra Six standing by.”
“Cobra Three here. All systems go.”
“Cobra Eight. Missiles armed and ready to fire...”
Down the line, every fighter under his command called in, and Freeman locked his guidance systems in, and prepared to fire.
“Left wing: Start your run in twelve seconds.”
Affirmatives were heard, and Freeman glanced back to check something when a fighter de-cloaked one hundred yards away from him. For a moment, he thought that it was the asteroid.
But a quick check on his readouts indicated otherwise.
“Sorry about the scare, Captain.” Another voice cut in, and he watched as more and more mid-sized fighters de-cloaked and come up aft of him, and then to the front of his fighter. “But I wanted to make sure that you folks weren’t asleep at the stick.”
A small chuckle was heard over the comm system, and Jeremiah could feel his face turning a slight shade of red. He reached over, and opened a channel to the pilot.
“Dream on, Drake. My people are more alert that yours will ever be.” He responded with some dry humor. He glanced to his immediate right and was just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of one of the fighters’ tail aileron.
It was prominently displaying a stylized bird’s crest as it disappeared behind another.
That one had a stylized snake.
“Falcon and Viper squadron. That’s just my luck,” he moaned softly to himself. “Since when did Drake manage to get a hold onto a bunch of rebels like them?” He sighed, and checked his tactical screen, watching as the last fighter fell into an almost perfect triangle formation behind him. Then he checked the numbers to see if the were right.
Counting his own fighters, and the ones that just arrived, the number was now at forty-one.
41 Cominske R-7 star fighters versus the asteroid.
Freeman wasn’t sure that it would be enough to divert it away from Outpost 42, much less Kamar IV.
“Lock weapons on target. Once you have a clear shot, you have my permission to open fire.”
Once the pilots acknowledged the order, the man juked hard left on his flight stick, putting his plane into a shallow dive as he prepared for a run at the asteroid.
Coming up on the asteroid made the captain reflect on how things looked close up, and he found that it was slightly bigger than he had anticipated.
Banking sharply, he unloaded his flock of missiles at a spot that he assumed was the weakest link in the chain. With that broken, the asteroid would surely come apart, and the resulting pieces would either bounce off Outpost 42, or just burn up in Kamar IV’s atmosphere. Skimming across its craggily surface, he loosed some more high powered ordinance in the form of cluster bombs, and pulled up sharply to avoid hit a canyon wall that had just come into view; silently urging the little warheads to do their job and save the station from certain destruction.
A glance at the rear view screen told him a different story however, and fast discovered that despite the rich blue blossoms of neutron fire that chain reacted across its stony surface, it was for the most part, untouched.
Shock and then anger fought for supreme dominance over his remaining emotions as he peeled away, and watched other fighter pilots go through the same thing. As of that minute, the man checked his computer for the final results, and found to his dismay that no one in either squadron had scored decisive hits on the asteroid’s surface.
Not enough to deflect it away so that it doesn’t pose a significant threat, he thought sullenly.
So they tried again.
After three runs, and no permanent results, he had no choice but to relay the bad news back to Outpost 42.
“Damn,” came the cryptic response.
School was just as crowded since he got there, especially since it was only the beginning of the morning. But Jason wasn’t really looking forward to facing the rest of the day since his father had not gotten home yet, and his mom was upset.
Even sitting next to Caroline Taylor hadn’t helped improve his spirits, even though in the past, he was infatuated with her.
Right now, it just didn’t seem to matter now or then since his dad had gone missing.
“Mr. Scott?” A voice broke into his self imposed depression. “Would you care to explain as to why your not paying attention in class?”
The boy didn’t say much at first, he just stared into the surface of his desk. Caroline noticed the way he was acting, and leaned over to him within earshot.
“Jason, you’d better answer Mr. Carson. If you don’t, you’ll be put on probation again like the last time.” But the teenager ignored her completely. He wasn’t really listening, his mind was to full of thoughts about the fate of his father, or where he might’ve gone to.
“Jason?”
The teen took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.
“It’s nothing, Mr. Carson. I’m just having some problems at home right at the moment.”
The teacher relaxed some, privately relieved that he had gotten some reaction out of his student.
“I’m sorry to hear that, but you must at least try to make an effort at paying more attention during class. If you can do that, perhaps we’ll talk about it afterwards.”
Jason nodded mutely, but didn’t say anything afterwards.
Before Mr. Carson could continue with the class discussion, the door to the room opened, and another teacher came in; wearing a doleful expression on his face. Before he could say anything, the teacher leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Carson’s eyes widened before he nodded briefly, and the other man left.
Everybody held their collective breaths as Mr. Carson went back to his desk, and pulled a small box-like device from a drawer.
Carson's eyes were, for a brief time, full of fear, as he returned to the front of the class, and even Jason wondered what was going on; depression all but forgotten.
“I’m sorry to interrupt our classroom activities, but I’m afraid that something has come up that takes priority over what we were supposed to do at the moment.”
He pushed a control on the device, and the lights died out immediately. Then a holo-vid activated where the chalkboard would normally be.
Kris McFarlane tugged on his tie to test the hidden mike that he had placed inside the fringe of his collar, and cleared his throat a couple of times in an attempt to get rid of the nervousness and anxiety that he was feeling.
The overhead lights in the studio were a bit bright for his taste, and he cursed himself for not bringing the corrective lenses that would’ve blocked out most of the light, making the holo-cam's reader easier to see. A slight adjustment a moment later corrected the problem.
Kris stared into the holocam as his offstage assistant pointed at him, a clear indication that they were about to go live.
“Go.” He heard a voice echo in his earpiece.
The anchorman said a silent prayer, and launched himself into what he thought would be a good piece of constructive journalism.
And if all went well, maybe a better position at the station.
“This is Kris McFarlane for WNN news bringing to you a special report now unfolding in the Yon-Ty region. Reports so far are sketchy, but sources closest to the station say that a hover bus which as of last night had been transporting workers from a nearby neutronium plant, was apparently blown up under mysterious circumstances-” then someone on the comm link interrupted him.
“We’ve got an incoming transmission that is being broadcast on all known channels...” The voice stopped for a second. “And it’s coming from an undisclosed location-”
A sudden cut off made the man look up, as Kris heard Alfred screaming at some of the staff, and then running like hell out studio.
Whatever it is, it must be big.
He looked back into the camera.
“We...ah, appear to be having some technical difficulties folks.” He leaned out of camera shot and looked at his assistant.
“What the hell is going on? You want me to get fired-?” Suddenly, the feed to his desk console was cut out, and replaced with a grainy image of a holo-cam on battery power as it panned left, and then right.
And what he saw almost made all the blood in his body run cold.
John felt his stomach go numb as he felt the emitter of a rifle being jabbed into the small area of his back, and he rose to take his place among the few that were ordered to one side of the holovid equipment.
Another rebel came up, cradling an empty launcher.
“Okay. The minute the leader gets finished, each of you will state your name, and the place you live at. That’s all. No more information will be given, so don’t try to be smart and play hero.”
Butterflies....
Now it was more recognizable. Why didn’t know this before his stomach started doing somersaults?
Funny that he had to get that particular feeling now. It had been years since he felt that way since working at the plant. Or getting married, or the many other things that would cause the sudden sharp pains in his middle.
He watched the rebel leader start talking into a news drone’s audio/video pickup, could only imagine what he was saying. But judging by his body language, and many other factors, it wasn’t very hard to hazard at least a simple guess.
Kris couldn’t believe his luck. But he also felt sorry for the poor bastards that had to go through this kind of humiliation.
He was also surprised when someone crowded the viewing lens, wearing some kind of combat clothing, and sporting a very large cannon.
“....as you can see we are not bluffing, people. Are demands are simple: We want President Stevenson to come down here and personally denounce his ongoing reign of tyranny against all Kamarians, and publicly announce his resignation from office for impeding our rights for the last hundred years,” he looked away for a moment.
"And one more thing: We want next year's elections to be based on the freedom of choice without the Enforcers threatening our livelihood because we chose a different candidate for the Kamarian government. If these demands are not met, these people that are coming will most assuredly die a painful death.” He motioned to one of the guards, and the first worker came forward, followed by a second two minutes later.
When John Scott’s turn came by, he wondered if his wife and son would be watching. He tried not to think too hard about what would be running through their minds at this time. Not when he was trying like hell in figuring a way out of this mess. But there wasn't a whole lot that he could do. Not when he was a prisoner against his will.
All he could do was play the cooperation game and wait for an opportunity to open.
He stared into the camera lens, his mouth suddenly dry.
Maybe, it’s just the tension, he thought as he struggled to find the right words.
“John Arthur Scott,” He said in a clear voice, startled by how powerful and clear it sounded to him without the slightest change in clarity. “Bruan Province.” He was going to say something else despite the guard’s previous warning, but someone caught his eye.
It was Kevin.
He was happy that he was unhurt and well treated. But he was also sad that he might lose his life for something as dumb as this.
John held his tongue.
Jason Scott couldn’t believe what had just taken place. One minute he was feeling depressed, and the next, he was watching his own father on the holovid.
And by the way things looked, he was also being held hostage no less against his will.
He also watched the rebel leader make his demands quite clearly, and the boy felt the rage and turmoil that was surging through his mind and body. He couldn't believe that no one would be able to help free his dad, and the others. Even after the feed cut and returned to the anchorman, even after he announced that no further statements as of yet had come from Enforcer Headquarters, the teen had already decided that he had to do something.
He immediately got up from his seat and shouldered his pack.
Carson saw this, and asked him to return to his seat.
“Sorry, sir. But I....I can’t stay here. I’ve got to go and get my dad back before those creeps butcher him for no apparent reason.”
The teacher weighed his next statement carefully before replying to him.
“Son, let the Enforcers handle this. That’s what they get paid to do.”
Jason snorted.
“Do you think that they have a license to murder people without provocation too? Sorry, but that’s why I have to get there before they do. And you can put me on probation when I return.”
He proceeded out of the classroom before anyone could stop him. It was a minute later before he heard someone running to catch up to him.
Spinning around, he managed to get a hold of his E-pulse blaster within the dark confines of his pack, and prepared to draw it when he saw who it was, and relaxed his grip on the weapon.
It wasn’t one of the teachers, but Caroline Taylor. She was the last person he was expecting, and he shook his head in exasperation.
“Geez!! Don’t go scaring people like that, Carol! You nearly gave me a heart attack!” He expunged all of his pent up anxiety in one huge breath, and calmed down some. “Did you come here to try to talk me out of this?”
The girl’s emerald colored eyes blinked at him.
“No. I’m coming with you. I know someone who is one of those held hostage, and I want to help out.”
The boy grinned lopsidedly, and then shook his head.
“I’m touched, but I can’t let you do that. You might get hurt if you try.”
Caroline stepped closer to him so that he could smell the essence of her perfume, her fragrant smelling breath, and the captivating features of her youthful face.
“And you won’t?” She pulled away abruptly, seeing the diverse reaction she was getting out of him.
Jason coughed a couple of times to hide his growing embarrassment, and the resurging attraction he was feeling for the girl.
“Yeah, well, I’m still going and your staying. Is that clear?”
Apparently not.
Caroline still insisted on tagging along, and the teenager wasn’t about to force her to stay either.
His parents taught him better than that.
Chapter 6
Monster firestorms that raged across its surface had been dissipated by the cold vacuum of interstellar space. The tiny star fighters had failed in their objective to destroy the behemoth effectively. And now, because of that failure, the gap between the asteroid and Outpost 42 was shrinking fast.
City/State of Franoy.
Alma Province.
Fifth Continent.
The mayor and future governor-elect of the once great city sat in utter dejection, not sure what to do next. Already the now med buildings were filled and overflowing with dead people.
Citizens who would never walk the streets, or speak to each other again.
Karr stared at the blaster that he had kept in his desk drawer, and cringed. He had considered the option of committing suicide himself at some point or another.
But was he strong enough to carry out the act?
He looked out the scorch burned plexi-glass window, and traced the irregular pattern with his eyes. He turned and sank back into his cushioned chair, and sullenly recalled why his small territory was now a ghost town. More appropriately, a dead zone.
A zone of death.
He switched on a recorder that he was using to record his last moments as mayor of a once great city-state.
“At first, it was nothing but a cold, according to the representatives that was sent from Upper Quadrants Pharmaceuticals. Something that could be cleared up with Virellian. But in the long run, it failed to work,” His voice remained strong, although his inner sense told him that he was mortally terrified. It wasn’t from the idea of taking of taking his own life that scared him, but rather, it was from experiencing a death that was just as excruciatingly painful. He drew in a deep breath, and continued in the best way that he thought was normal.
“So one of the doctors that was attending, gave him a risky shot that was a modified version of Virellian combined with a light dose of the Venom derivative that was usually reserved for the hard luck cases; ones that didn't pull through in the first week.” He reached for a cup of water, and pressed it to his dry lips.
Then he stopped. If he was going to kill himself, there was really no need for the water.
Setting it down, he rubbed his eyes.
“If we had known what was going to happen, the medical staff attending to him would have put into stasis until it could be determined what the cause of his illness was. But as it stood, we didn’t have the facilities to do such a thing, so he was given a virus inhibitor and released,” Karr sighed, feeling the tell tale symptoms of a headache coming on that was a direct result from the lack of sleep. Or was it?
He continued.
“That was a mistake on our part. During the latter part of the week, he had been complaining of headaches, and even mentioned hallucinations. The type that make them believe that things are happening, when in truth, it was exactly the opposite. In the representative’s case, he claimed people were laughing at him. A report given later by the city’s chief medical examiner, revealed some unusual boils that had started to appear all over his body. But for some unknown reason, they were a lot worse on his back. Closer examinations revealed some sort of biological parasites that hadn’t been detected by earlier scans. Some of those boils had already opened. Alarmed, the man immediately placed the individual in question in quarantine.” He drew in a deep breath, and continued some more.
“Of course, there was no determination on how long or how many people had been in contact with him. But by then, it was too late. Once word had gotten out that a potential epidemic had spread -even one of this size- people all over the city started to riot. When details of the man’s affliction was released, events took a drastic turn for the worst. Whatever sanity, or reality was left, took a back seat as many started to kill each other, those that showed even the slightest signs of a cold. Virellian cured or not.” He played with the blaster’s settings for a moment.
“Most of the deaths were unnecessary, but the city itself didn’t seem to care anymore. Eventually, word of the representative’s death reached this office, but that didn’t stop whatever it was that ran through the city-state. People started to dropping like flies left and right, until it was me that was the only one left. Me, Maximillian Karr, mayor of a once fine territory. One person out of a population of a hundred and thirty thousand,” he laughed at that for no apparent reason. Then he checked the settings on his personal blaster one last time.
“Yeah, I know. It’s a bit ironic. You’d think it would be someone else. A worker, a teacher, or a baker. But it happens to be the mayor.” He paused for a second. “I guess there are some things in politics that don’t hold true in real life these days.” He sighed. “Forget the governorship that I’ve won fair and square in last month’s elections. I seriously doubt that I’ll ever get the chance to experience it, since I was also diagnosed with the disease.” Karr stared at the recorder that lay flat on his desk and picked up his personal blaster, hefting it slightly with his right hand. He eyed the barrel to make sure it was clear of any obstruction.
And continued.
“Anyone who eventually finds this will understand what has taken place, and then they can render an opinion for themselves.” The man charged the E-pulse blaster, and pressed the emitter cone to his temple.
Outside the closed office doors, a muffled boom! was heard as the point blank shot took his head clean off, blood flowing like a small red river down his chest, along his arm and down to his still twitching hand that held the blaster.
The recorder, however, caught the exchange and kept recording.
Bruan Province.
Samantha Scott returned home later that morning to find Spot in the house, and her son nowhere in sight.
She turned on the holo-vid to see if there was anything happening, and there was absolutely no image coming from the screen.
“What the hell-?” She said, and commanded it to go to the news channel. But unfortunately, there was no voice recognition capability at all.
The damned thing was dead.
The woman sat down on the couch, and contemplated the problem. But before she could come up with anything useful, a gentle knock at the door interrupted her concentration.
“Who’s there?” She called out, getting off of the couch to answer the door.
“It’s me: Mildred.” Came a muffled reply.
Samantha opened the door and was greeted by a familiar face. A face that was filled with apprehension and fear.
“What’s wrong?”
Outpost 42.
The report wasn't good.
“Get your asses back here on the double. And don’t--I repeat--don’t stop for anything.” The comm officer in the command center said tersely, and keyed in another channel.
“Commander? We have a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Sir. Weapons fire proved ineffective against the asteroid. Impact is imminent.”
“All right. I'll be right up. Alert the Core that we will be needing full power to the maneuvering thrusters immediately.”
“Aye sir.”
Down below, Lieutenant Hagman was monitoring a bank of readouts when the call came from topside for full power to the thrusters.
He was a bit surprised by the order, but complied anyway. He moved a couple of dials counterclockwise, pushed a lever as far as it would go, and finally hit a series of switches. He watched the energy indicators rise to maximum output.
“FULL POWER SEQUENCE INITIATED.” A computerized voice echoed in the empty spaces of the Core. The chief engineer watched another engineer one level below him grab onto a railing as the massive thrusters kicked in.
“THRUSTERS AT MAXIMUM.”
Personally, he wondered what in God’s name was going on up there. Further down, massive machinery that was fed directly into the Core, hummed loudly with each passing second, each piece seeking to gain mastery over the other as they struggled to draw the necessary energy.
The thing that it was, closed in on its prey.
It careened, it wobbled, and finally--
Impact.
Freeman couldn’t believe the immense size of the thing as he got closer and progressively closer to the outpost. But his angle of view was almost blocked by the outpost itself, as he searched for one of the hanger bays.
Then as he passed a little west of the outpost’s flank, and total darkness suddenly enveloped his vision; cutting him off from any measure of safety.
It wasn’t considered a direct hit. But then, it could’ve been.
Whatever passed for fate these days, or gods these days, must’ve been looking down at Outpost 42 with favor, otherwise it would’ve been pulverized in an instant. But the gentle budge it was given, was all that was needed for it to go spinning out of control wildly until the automatic maneuvering jets began to slow it down.
Aside from a shower of sparks, the asteroid continued on.
Equilibrium was the first thing to go as Edward Sanchez’s six senses went for a brief swim, before snapping back with enough force to make him feel nauseous while he struggled for balance in the turbo lift car.
Getting motion sickness while on duty was definitely not one of the Academy’s pre-requisites, he thought sourly as he waited for the car to stop so that he could get off without feeling the need to throw up.
The second it did, he wished he had.
The second he exited the lift, the asteroid struck with a bone jarring hit. Gravity winked out a second later as station after station erupted in a hail of sparks and fire. He could smell the sharp tang of ozone that came from insulated power conduits, as each suffered a massive overload from within.
Elsewhere, screens blew out, as gravity decided to pitch another curve ball at him. He heard screeching as the outpost scraped against the asteroid’s surface in a futile attempt to escape permanent destruction.
Bodies flew from their proper places, and even Edward wasn’t spared from either being thrown, or having someone being thrown into him.
A second later, something hit him from behind, and intense pain exploded up and down his back. He went down hard, hitting the hardened metal decking. He gritted his teeth, and tried to cry out too much.
When he tried to locate the villain responsible for the unwarranted attack, all his mind offered him was a picture of a runaway hover train hitting a parked ground car with crushing force.
If that’s all it was, I’m lucky to be alive.
Gravity pitched again for the last time before the generators failed, and Sanchez wasn’t spared from the final assault as he was thrown bodily into a wall.
Teetering onto the brink of unconsciousness, he was dimly aware of the blood red haze that now obscured his vision, making him wonder if he was going to die.
But things were about to get much worse.
In the kitchen, the big man known as Chief struggled to get back to his feet as the floor pitched out from underneath him. His assistant wasn’t spared either, and they both fell into a tangled heap of arms and legs. Chief struggled for a moment, before he rose to his feet, catching a fleeting glimpse of a still boiling pot of water coming straight at him, and he dived back to the floor again, and watched the thing crash into the wall, punching a medium sized hole in its passing.
Seconds later, he heard the clang of metal, followed by the hiss of water as it splashed across the floor. His helper clung to one of the oven’s legs in a pitiful attempt to keep from being tossed callously around like some loose toy. He yelped suddenly as more pots -empty ones this time-as well as pans flew around like birds before they ended up in either mangled heaps, or hit the padded walls like ricocheting bullets.
He even saw a couple of them fly right through the whole that the first pot made.
Then the lights failed suddenly as power conduits blew like crazy, sparks cascading all over for a brief moment before falling silent. The few remaining consoles in the kitchen erupted in flame and hot metal fragments, showering the two crewmen even as they huddled behind the oven for protection.
“Chief? What happens if the energy cells in the oven go?” He looked around to see if the coast was clear. “I mean, aren’t we going to-?” He trailed off once he read the pissed off expression on the man’s face in harsh glare of the emergency lights.
“No.” The man growled menacingly. He didn’t bother to elaborate any further until things started to calm down somewhat. But chaos was something that you couldn’t pin down no matter how hard you tried. Chief glanced around the dimly lit kitchen, taking stock of everything around him. When he stared into the general direction of the MRS, and the two consoles behind it, he was outraged. One was shattered, and the other one had fine optic wiring hanging out of one like a thin piece of rope as it moved slowly in lazy swirls along the smooth black floor.
“Shit! I just had that damned thing fixed!!”
The Core was in a state of chaos as Hagman came stumbling out of his booth, his hand pressed against his forehead in an attempt to stop the blood from flowing out of a gash he had received from hitting the edge of the console.
It hurt like a bitch whenever the salty sweat seeped into it despite his best efforts, as he tried to think of what took place only a few moments ago.
Alarms cried out for his attention as the engineer surveyed the damage to the main power converters, and was stunned to see green mist coming out a hairline crack on one of it's sides.
“This was all from activating the main thrusters?” He murmured, not sure if he was willing to accept what happened for full face value.
It was nothing that couldn't be fixed, but it was going to be a pain in the long run. He leaned up against the bent railing for better support against the throbbing that was taking place in his skull. Then he leaned over for a better look at the lower levels, and saw a different kind of mist billowing up from the bottom.
The Core~!
That last hit must’ve ruptured something in the energy control matrix!
Terrified, he ran for a nearby lift that would take him down to the lower levels, ignoring the moans and cries of injured personnel. It wouldn’t matter if the Core exploded.
He descended into the lower levels, and opened a commlink to the Medical Bay, but received nothing except a hiss of static.
Comm system must be down.
The lift jerked to a halt without warning, and Harman had to grab a hold of a railing just so he wouldn’t fall forward.
“What in the–?” He asked, a little puzzled. “That’s never happened before.” Then the doors opened, and the chief engineer thought for a second that he had descended into the depths of Hell itself.
Flames were running up the underside of some very large coolant tanks, and he felt the hand of another engineer brush past him as he went to secure something crucial.
“The tanks are gonna blow!” He heard someone running past him scream. Shouts for evacuation were being heard, but it was too late.
A second later, a powerful explosion shook the place like a baby’s rattle, causing the catwalk beneath him to tilt at random, throwing him off his feet. It was a minute later before he got back to his feet.
“Fuck--!” He swore as soon as ears stopped their ringing from being so close to the blast zone. He ran over to an unoccupied booth where the damage control systems were, and found all screens on the console in front of him lit up like a Christmas tree during the winter seasons. Lieutenant Hagman was floored right then and there. In his mind, what was taking place had only being remotely considered during simulation runs over hot cups of coffee.
But never actually experienced.
He scanned the readouts as quickly as he was able.
Judging by this, the collision had inadvertently created a series of feedback loops that surged back into the main computer system; causing them to short out and malfunction all at the same time.
He studied one set of diagnostics.
This would give any technician a monster headache, himself included.
Systems check? He tapped into the mainframe. The computer did it's best despite the damage that had been inflicted, and a minute later, a systems profile popped up.
He studied the various images, and cursed. The damage was far more extensive than he was led to believe at first. Not only were the few remaining hanger bays open to the cold and unfeeling vacuum of space, but several other decks, including this one; took a serious hit.
So much so, that structural failures were a good possibility. He studied the rest of the diagram, and found that most of the upper levels were still intact with some damage, but other than other that; everything looked okay.
He exited the booth, and went back to see if he could find another lift back to the auxiliary control booth he was previously at. He wanted to know if the thrusters were still operational, or if the Star Jumpers were still functional. Without them, they would be stranded in space.
As he passed another monitor screen, his trained eyes picked up an urgent message that was flashing in antic blue:
*Neutronium control regulators failed*
**Explosion imminent**
“Hel~lo!” He said with a sense of urgency, and ran down a stairwell as fast as he could. As he got down to the bottom, he jumped clear of some fallen support beams and landed on another catwalk.
When he was about to hop into a nearby turbo lift, he passed up another crewmen who was holding his arm, and walking around in a daze. Harman grabbed him by the wrong arm purely by reflex, but the catatonic man didn't respond at all. In fact, just by looking at him, he appeared to be in a state of deep shock.
“Where’s Ensign Price?” He questioned the man, but the crewman just stared at him with hollow eyes. The chief engineer looked him over and found that he had been badly burned over most of his body, his white suit ripped and tattered in some places, while the front of it had been torn open just a little.
He heard a slight sizzling sound of burnt flesh, and discovered exposed patches of his skin that were charred. He could see water blisters forming as he watched. Other sections of his work suit had been either blackened or burned away.
“Did you come from the lower levels of the Core?” He asked anxiously. But the man didn’t respond at all to his series of questions, and Harman checked him over carefully until his hand ran across a patch that was hanging limply off to the side. To his astonishment, he found that he was a G2 Core technician.
The engineer let go suddenly, a horrified realization dawning on him.
Section G2 was involved that explosion only moments ago, and then it hit him like a bolt of the blue:
That’s why the screen was flashing at me. It was telling me that something was terribly wrong...
He knew that without the regulators to process the volatile neutronium through the correct control valves, they would have a potential disaster on their hands.
Then the crewman started to speak to him. And from the way he was talking, it made it appear that he was actually holding a conversation with someone else, and not at him.
“S-sorry, sir. But Jerry hasn’t come up from Core Level One. Most everyone perished from the explosion, or the vacuum of space...” His quivering voice gave it away to some degree: The man was obviously rambling. It was probably a psychotropic response based on a verbal command that was given to him by a now dead superior.
Hagman wasn't the only nut buster around here.
He stared at the man once again, searching his blackened face for any clue that might come in handy. It would be a few seconds before the full impact of his words hit him, almost causing his heart to skip a beat: He had used Price's first name. That was a clear indication that he was still alive, and that gave him that last bit of hope that he had been looking for.
“Okay. Let’s get you to one of the medical stations on this level. After that, I’m going to go and look for Price.” The other man didn’t respond, and allowed the lieutenant commander to guide him along the debris strewn catwalk.
A minute later, he found a medical station inside a shielded alcove, and had the man lay down. After attending to his wounds the best he could, he made him as comfortable as possible with very little movement on his part. Then he exited the station, and entered a nearby lift.
Applying a little pressure to one of the panels in front of him, he continued his descent into hell.
Captain Jeremiah Freeman jerked hard right on his flight stick the instant the asteroid–or the station, he couldn't be sure–collided like a pair of graceful dancers. His plane alone barely cleared over the outpost's alloy surface, and then shot off into the void like a bullet; all engines flaring in pure desperation.
Then, as he was about to come around, he heard someone shouting over the comm system.
“Cobra Six! Pull up! Pull Up!”
He glanced out his cockpit window and watched as the pilot known as Cobra Six continued unabated towards the asteroid while the others in the squadron had managed to steer clear of the danger. From his point of view, it seemed that he was seemingly oblivious to what was in front of him.
But in truth, he wasn’t. Something was undoubtedly wrong here.
“Trying sir! I am reading a complete failure in the navigational control systems. She won’t respond at all to my commands!” The pilot responded frantically over the comm link.
“Manual override, dammit! Cut in the manual override...!” Viper squadron leader cut in urgently. Meanwhile, Freeman had a good line of sight as his fighter came into view of the helpless pilot and his crippled star fighter.
“Can’t, Captain! Something’s knocked that out too–!” Cobra Six came back, his voice filled with dread. Death was only seconds away if he didn’t act soon.
“Eject! Eject!” Freeman shouted into the comm, and applied full power to his engines while laying in an emergency intercept course. But he knew deep inside himself, he would come in too late for the assist.
Then Cobra Six was suddenly engulfed in complete darkness as the asteroid’s dark shadow passed over him, and the wing commander had to bank sharply in order to avoid falling victim to the illusion that were was enough room, when in fact there wasn’t.
“Good luck pal.” He said in a hollow voice.
Then the screaming started a split second later as Cobra Six’s wing tip snagged the crest of the canyon wall, flipping his fighter almost completely over in the process, and causing the man to lose control over his craft.
However, in the last few seconds before impact, the pilot managed to gain control of his plane by doing an inverted barrel roll, and brought the engines to full power for added thrust as he leveled out. Unfortunately, the angle at which he was in was far too great, and it was too late to correct the fatal mistake.
Even as he jerked his stick as far as it would allow– while at the same time grabbing for the ejection handle–his fighter hit another outcropping of yet another wall, and he nose-dived into the asteroid’s rocky surface–exploding into a raging fireball, before the cold caress of space itself snuffed out what was left of the flaming wreckage.
Cobra Leader closed his eyes for a brief moment, his mind too full to comprehend at what just happened. Quietly, he pulled his fighter into a hover over the crash site, and was just in time to see the few sparse fragments of a once great man and a good pilot go spinning off into the black void of space.
Kamarian Science Institute.
Peters looked on in shocked silence mute silence as the comm station’s monitor continued to show nothing but static, where mere moments ago, she was engaged in a hot debate with Outpost 42’s commander, Edward Sanchez.
But that had been fifteen minutes ago, you understand. Now there was absolutely nothing. Feeling a little defeated, she put in a call to her superior.
Moments later, the door opened to admit a very flustered Cassandra Noyen, whom was at that minute, was still running a comb through her wet black hair. It was apparent that when she had gotten the call, she was still in the process of taking a shower.
“This had better be good, Deborah, or you can simply find a new job some where’s else,” she threatened none to lightly, and plunked herself next to her own terminal. After which, she inserted her security card.
“I have better things to do than go running around acting like a chicken with its head cut off.” The computer cleared her for full access, and she brought up the new data sub routines that she had been working on earlier, feeding them directly in the complex’s mainframe.
The young woman bristled visibly by the woman’s attitude towards her.
“Well if you hadn’t been sitting in your ass all day, you would’ve realized that we had just lost all contact with Outpost 42 almost fifteen minutes ago.”
Noyen gazed at her coldly, but bit back the remark that she was going to throw back at her for good measure, and turned backed to her screen terminal.
“Are you sure? According to computer records, it was close to 45 minutes ago when you were engaged in a conversation with Commander Sanchez.” She smiled as she listened to the muted audio feed. “Sounds like you guys got a long just famously.”
Debbie colored slightly as she heard her own voice on the playback circuit.
“The guy pissed me off okay? It wasn’t like he had it coming or something.”
Cassandra placed her terminal on hold for a moment.
“So tell me about it,” she said gently, her anger all but forgotten.
The woman sighed inwardly.
Here comes the part where I’m always in the wrong, and she’s always right.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now.” She replied
Noyen nodded briefly, before turning her attention back to her station, and unpaused it. After a moment, she began the long process of bringing up data from one of the monitoring probes that sat out in the far reaches of the Kamar star system.
“Fine by me,” answered the scientist, and then got up to get something to drink.
Reajaar Province.
“Go!”
“Go!”
“Go!”
The armored transport opened up like a flower and disgorged its heavily armed occupants.
Lieutenant McDuff scanned the scene with a careful eye and began to hand out combat assignments to the Enforcers present.
“Sergeant Taggart, take a squad to Sector 5. Gamma pattern deployment. Energy weapons only, and set for heavy stun. I don’t want these people killed, only disabled. You get that?”
The man in green face paint nodded before he disappeared.
“Corporal Jenson, you and a squad will take Sector 7. Same as before, no people injured.” The man in the far back nodded, and disappeared as well.
McDuff glanced to the big curly man to his immediate right.
“Major Ulman, Sector 12. Same as the other two.” Another nodded, and vanished. He stared at the rest that had gathered around him.
“The rest of you, fall in around the surrounding area that are strictly that are here for backup or fire support. I’m going to take a few of you with me and check to see if anymore rioters are still alive, and maybe get a few to talk.” He snapped the visored faceplate over his eyes. “And maybe if we’re lucky; find out what the hell is going on.”
A few seconds worth of adjustments to his energy rifle, and he waved the rest of them on.
“Okay, you turkeys!. Move out!”
His thoughts were not well organized, he knew that much. Perhaps it was a lack of mental discipline that made him go astray as he led his team across the street, and down another. However, the only noticeable difference in any of the teams present, was that they didn’t stray too far from the armored vehicle for obvious reasons. He personally hoped that things weren’t going to be as bad as they had been in recent weeks.
But he could be wrong.
Yon-Ty Region.
Westfield and a small group of Enforcers landed in the deserted streets of one corner that led into the of the city of Pol.
He didn’t like the idea, he never did.
The idea of course had come from the chief commandant of the Planetary Defense Force, and he wasn’t to crazy about it all either. And for that matter, neither was his second-in-command, Lieutenant James McDuff. It was the old man’s idea to use lethal force against the terrorists and free the hostages, no matter what the cost. But he flatly rejected the plan right then and there in the commandant’s office an hour before he left.
The only option was to take the assignment, or you can find yourself a new job, the old man said firmly. Westfield bristled, but held his next response in check as he continued.
“We can always find someone else to do the job that’s required at the moment. It doesn’t take an Enforcer officer with a pair of Captain’s bars on his uniform to fulfill this mission. It takes a man who can see that there is a lot at stake, and will not hesitate to act accordingly with the good of all Kamarians in mind. If he can accomplish that much, he won’t have to question his morals or motives. He just gets the job done.” The old man wrote something down before he finished.
“No questions asked. That’s the traits of a good officer. And that is the kind of trust that I would empower in such a man to complete the task assigned to him.”
Westfield stared at him, and couldn’t believe the sheer stupidity that his superior was showing.
Does that justify killing people without due cause as well? Look at what happened in the riots at Kholar Province. Ackerson went crazy before he killed a lot of innocents and the men under his command as well? Are those also the traits of an Enforcer officer?
The commandant looked at him briefly.
“I looked into that, and so far we could only determine that foul play was a major factor in that incident. Nothing more.”
Terry was two seconds away from strangling him.
“Foul play, huh? Is that what we’re going to tell the next group of protesters when someone else decides to go insane, and starts to kill without provocation? Really sir, that alone would grossly undermine everything that we have stood for the last three hundred years.”
The Chief Commandant gazed at him coolly.
“So by telling me this, you are effectively refusing to carry out this assignment?”
At that point in time, McDuff stepped in on his superior’s behalf.
“No sir. He is not. He is just some questions about how the procedure should be carried out without shedding unnecessary blood. And if it looks like he is questioning orders, he has that right to do so as dictated by regulations.”
“Most don’t question their superior’s judgment either.” He pointed out succinctly.
“If he is, then he has good reason. May I remind the commandant on how bad things have gotten around here? It’s bad enough that the Kamarian government has been ethically and morally corrupted, but has that corruption extended to the Enforcers as well? Should we just go in with guns blazing, and not giving a care about who we kill?”
“This isn’t an interrogation, mister. I don’t need a damned lecture from the likes of you.” The man stated coldly.
“Who said anything about a lecture?” McDuff answered with surprise. “I’m just trying to get some idea of the position your on in regards to the use of excessive force. Otherwise people’s trust in the Enforcers is going to be diminished to a point we are going to be looked upon as the guys in the same context as the government.”
Terry Westfield held his breath, as he waited for the response from his immediate superior. He knew that the man was under a lot of political scrutiny, but he also knew when to shut up and follow orders, even if they didn't make any sense by today’s standards.
The chief commandant finally conceded wearily, all the fight taken out of him for the moment.
“Very well. Do what you have you must do. But if anything happens that isn’t part of regs, I’ll have both of your heads on a platter.”
Both men snapped to as he rose, and he saluted them both.
“You’ll leave at 0600 tomorrow. Is that clear?”
Both men nodded.
“Good luck, gentlemen...”
“Check point alpha.” Westfield blurted into the commlink, having totally lost track of time. He checked his watch, and found that only a few minutes had past. But in his opinion, it seemed like an eternity.
“Masterson here, sir. All clear.”
“Move the other teams into position, and exercise extreme caution. You don’t know what these people are capable of.”
The streets were deserted by the time the hover bus had the nearest checkpoint. It was close to where all the action was taking place.
“This is as far as I can go, kid. The Enforcers will be checking me in a few minutes. You and your girlfriend had better leave if you stand a good chance at getting by the roadblocks that they have set up ahead of the checkpoint.”
Jason nodded, understanding that the difficult part had been passed without any problems. Earlier, he had taken a great risk in discussing a little of his plan to the bus driver, and he sympathized with the boy.
“Good luck kid.” He said as he waved his hand, and then closed the double doors.
Both of them watched as the bus lifted off, and then disappeared completely out of view after a few minutes.
“Well, let’s go see what we can do.” Jason implied as he brushed off his red cap.
Kamarian Science Institute.
The smooth wooden surface of the table was partially obscured by strewn paper, blueprints of various kinds, and astrological charts.
And people as well.
At the rate things were going, Doctor Cassandra Noyen might as well have added stupidity to the growing tally.
Deadlocks in discussions were becoming quite a bitch to unravel, and for a few seconds, she felt like banging her head against the wall for all the good she was accomplishing so far. Especially when it came from dealing with a brain dead, high ranking moron of an official from the military.
“I don’t care what you think, Admiral. The outpost has been out of communication for over 4 hours now, and we have every reason believe that it is still up there, but unable to respond to our inquiries for reasons unknown to us. Other than that, there's no way in hell we’re sending someone up there to check up on it. The station isn’t due for a re-supply of foodstuffs for at least another six months. There shouldn’t be cause for alarm...” The flustered woman quickly ran out of breath while trying to persuade the old fart not to make any stupid mistakes based on his own -if slightly paranoid- judgment.
But it wasn’t proving to be an easy case.
For the visit in general, the admiral was dressed up in a standard fall issue, jet black uniform, bearing the circular patch of the Kamarian Planetary Defense Force; Space Division. (It was an insignia that sported five yellow stars--with one at each major point in the compass--another at the center; emblazoned in a field of gray.) He was privately hoping that such an appearance would jar some common sense into these people, but apparently it wasn’t working as well as he had thought.
Right now, amongst the small circle of scientists, his mood was just as dark. And he had good reason to be a little angry. But it was clear to Noyen that he either was blowing off some steam, or he was just blowing the whole thing out of proportion with regards to Outpost 42’s inability to communicate with it's parent; Kamar IV.
Which, in any case when dealing with the military, was the most promising evidence so far. Sure she was secretly hiding some reservations about the mysterious loss of contact with the outpost, but there was no definite leads; just theories and guesses.
None of which happened to fit the actual fact as it were, and that was just as frustrating to the woman who spent most of her life unraveling the greatest mysteries in the universe. However, there was one immediate problem that needed to be addressed.
“Admiral Jellico, what about the possibility that an asteroid might’ve come into contact with Outpost 42?”
“What? Nonsense!” He scoffed outright.
Noyen disagreed.
“With all due respect Admiral, our long range sensors and monitoring probes have tracked one heading into this system not too long ago. We’ve been keeping tabs on it just in case something happens.”
The heavy set admiral didn’t appear to be convinced at all by the woman’s hypothesis.
“Pure rubbish, doctor. Nothing can penetrate the armored hull of that outpost. It would take a lot more than a piece of space debris to make a dent in the station’s armor, or the surrounding asteroid surface it had been built into.”
The woman wasn’t buying it. Not one bit. She had always trusted in her instincts in the past when something major was in conflict, and rarely in common tradition.
Something else was going on that the old man wasn’t telling her. She could see the hidden fear in his eyes, and the anxiety that was betrayed by his own emotions.
Regardless of the way things have turned out, she wasn’t going to let the military play these stupid games with the institute, or with her in particular. It was no secret among her colleagues that she despised the military in general, and being in close quarters with the old man was no exception.
“Okay. So what we have is purely theoretical in the most common sense,” she admitted. “But what else do you have to go on? Ideas that the military scientists can up with? Or is it the plain truth that you don't enjoy being in the company of civilian scientists that have absolutely no military value, whom don’t measure up to your expectations?”
That last accusation stung, and the officer made no effort at all to hide what he felt at that point.
“When I want your personal opinion doctor, I’ll be sure to ask for it.”
“Feel free, Admiral. There’s no shortage around this place, I can assure you that much.” Noyen replied tightly.
This guy was fast becoming a real pain in the ass.
Outpost 42.
Red lights...? Where...? What...?
Scrambled thoughts swirled about him as he slowly awoke with just a slight pain throbbing somewhere in his aching skull. Even from where he was, his ears immediately picked up the distant sirens of hull breaches somewhere in the outpost itself, but for right now, his brain was too ill equipped to put two and two together.
Sanchez didn’t want to move right off, because even the simple act of thinking about it, made whole body ache from the impact. Going through the actual motion was probably going to be painful enough.
“God...dammit!” He cursed through gritted teeth, and continued to do so until he was able to get up without feeling it so much.
“Fuck!” He swore again as pain shot up his right leg as he hobbled over to the only chair that hadn’t been used as a missile or something just as deadly.
Ironically, it was still bolted down into the deck, right next to the body of a communications tech that manned the auxiliary comm station. Sanchez suppressed a shudder at the sight, and remembered that not everyone might not be lucky as he. For all he knew, he might be the only one left alive aside from the fighter squadrons that were sent to take out the asteroid.
But judging from the amount of damage sustained in the command center, it didn’t take long for Commander Edward Delomar Sanchez to piece things together and find that it looked a lot worse than it actually was.
That is, if he could see two feet in front of him with all the haze and white smoke hugging the floor and obscuring his vision.
“Shit.” He said in a low voice. “It hit us that hard?” He concentrated a moment on the pain that was throbbing like the dull beat of a drum.
“There goes the warranty on the damned thing, and my future commission towards a captaincy. The Kamarian government’s gonna take it out of my pay and pension for the next hundred thousand years!” He complained in a regretful tone. All of his hopes and dreams...smashed in an instant. But before he could say anything else, a loud tone sounded somewhere in the ruined command center.
“Warning! Core breach in progress!” An amplified voice boomed.
A column of light appeared in the center of the room, and Sanchez leaned over the comm station to take a look.
Despite the damage to the computer cores, a diagram of sorts appeared. As it continued to be refined by the image processor, realization set in for the injured man.
Looks like a schematic to me. He thought as the computer finished its task, and the slightly degraded image floated eerily in the air, powered by a holographic emitter buried in the floor.
Sanchez got up to take a look at it, being careful of his leg.
Whatever it was, parts of it was flashing in red, while a large section of it was outlined in yellow. It showed a blueprint representation of the Core, and where the action was taking place.
“Computer. What does this image mean?”
But the system didn’t reply, and Edward figured that the voice recognition and reply circuits must’ve been blown. As he stared at the image more and more, he got the sudden feeling that he had seen it before.
Then he knew.
It was a blueprint representation of the Core. Its skeletal structure was outlined in yellow. The red area was where the trouble spots were.
“Oh man...”
Core area.
Lift junction 6B.
When Hagman heard the general announcement in the lift, he swore.
“There goes the neighborhood.” He murmured to no one in particular.
He looked at the flashing by him, and he started wishing that the dammed thing would hurry the hell up.
Core area.
Level 16, section G4.
The technician held a smoking piece of machinery no bigger than the length of his arm. It was cylindrical, and had a juncture box at the end.
At one point, it was the most important piece of equipment in the Core.
“Well, that’s it. The power regulator’s done for unless we can get someone in that small passageway, and fix the bloody thing.” The man said in a resigned voice as he wiped the grime off of his hands with a handkerchief.
Another looked at the console displays.
“Can’t be done humanly, anyway. Why can’t we just jury-rig the entire assembly?”
The first tech waved the piece of broken machinery at him in mild annoyance.
“Because, you moron, the plasma injector set up needs to be re-calibrated for that to work. And right now it’s busted.”
A hand from the back.
“Yes?”
“What about one of the repair drones? It’s small enough to get in there and get the job done in no time flat.” The brown haired man offered. His white suit was smeared black in some places from having to take a swim in a tub of lubrication gel after Sector G2 exploded. It was probably the only thing that saved his life.
One of his friends gazed at him with a sour expression.
“Yeah, we only we could there from here to one of the repair bays.”
“Which....is...frag!” The first one cursed as his buddy went over to play with the console’s current settings, seeing if he could discover a way into the crawl space with minimal effort. So far....zip.
“Among other things.” His partner agreed.
Then someone new entered their midst, the front of his suit covered in dirt and blood. The man looked around in anger.
“What in the name of God is going on around here? Don’t you turkeys know that there’s a core breach in progress?”
“Thank god your here, sir!” The first technician saluted. “Arnie Lyle, Core technician--Second Class.”
Hagman walked past him, and went straight for the console.
“By the time you finish with that pre-Academy bullshit, this place will be nothing but a cloud of high charged particles.” He checked the readouts and frowned.
“Why hasn’t this connected induction coil been repaired yet? Has anyone thought about repairing it?!? No wonder the Core’s threatening to explode!”
Lyle shrugged helplessly as he watched the man fiddle with the console settings; the frown on his face deepening even more.
“We tried that sir. But the service compartment is too small for anyone to get in and effect repairs.”
Hagman looked around at the seven technicians who were crowded about him.
“Well fancy that! You turds are fatter than a Christmas goose! It’s a wonder how you guys managed to get into those engineering suits to begin with.” He turned his attention back to the control console, and shook his head.
“No go. The matrix subsystem is fused, and the plasma injector’s regular valve is jammed from within. If we could get someone in there, someone small enough...” Hagman’s voice trailed off as he spotted another man coming down the stairs from the adjoining turbo lift.
“Price? Is that you?”
The tiny man nodded as he approached the small group, and the other taller techs parted so that he could get through.
The chief engineer sized him up.
Ensign Price was at least five foot eight, maybe ten in his engineering boots. That shouldn’t hinder things too much.
“What’s the problem, chief?”
“Your the problem! Where the hell have you been?” The engineering technician pulled out a portable computer, and looked at the still glowing display.
“Up in G2 Sector, seconds before it blew. I managed to recalibrate the flow regulators before the place blew to kingdom come, and I’ve also managed to coax a full restart in one of the computer's control matrix.” He slipped the device back into his upper sleeve pouch. “That should stop anything overloading for now until we can get a repair crew up there.”
The lieutenant groaned loudly, feeling extremely exasperated.
“Then you must’ve missed something then, because the matrix subsystem is fused, we have a jammed plasma injector and a faulty induction coil somewhere,” he said as he pointed to the small crawl space that led into the shielded Core itself.
Jerry grinned.
“So in other words, you have a bunch of things that are broken, and you want me to fix it.”
Hagman was tempted to smack him one, but refrained.
“Quit being a smart ass, Price. You can gloat later; when -and if- it’s fixed.”
“Who said anything about gloating?” The man answered as he grabbed the repair kit that was lying next to the entranceway to the shaft, and shinned up it.
Hagman went back to the console, and kept a critical eye on the static pressure that was building up around the young man as he made his way further up the shaft. It would extend another seven meters before coming to a stop at the far end. That end being a shielded wall space. It was the only thing that was separating him and three or four million gigadynes of raw energy.
He looked at one of the techs in question.
“You.” He ordered with a finger. “Get over there, and make sure that he’s all right. And hand him anything that he might need.”
“Yes sir.”
Lyle stepped forward to offer his services, but the lieutenant just waved him away.
“There’s no point in any of you guys getting in the way of his job, so just continue with the repairs as best you can.”
Lyle stared uncertainly at the Core itself. The thing was essentially a large spiral shaped cylindrical tube that extended for at least fifty-five levels, or one and half miles up.
“And what if we can’t, sir?” It wasn’t a question of possible failure, but rather a statement of facts. With the way the Core was acting after the collision, anything could happen.
“We pray.” He said as he fiddled with the control settings some more. He was about to add something more, when a cool voice cut in, making the man jump just a little.
“Price here. I just stopped short of the containment shielding itself...God what a mess. I initiating repairs.”
“No dawdling mister, mister. All of us are counting on you.”
“Aye sir.”
The temperature was downright humid in the cramped confines of the service shaft, and Price wiped the building sweat from his eyes as he concentrated on the task at hand.
Why does it always have to be me? He wondered as he dug out a sonic destabilizer wrench to adjust something that looked out of whack from his perspective.
A sign next to him spoke the obvious truth:
DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE!
But the man wasn’t worried about that. His suit should protect him to a certain degree if he ever came in direct contact with any of the live connections that he was now uncovering.
After he finished with taking the cover off, raw energy surged through the lines as he parted them carefully with an insulated set of vise grips, and was offered a full view of the problem: A main plasma injector. So far, so good.
An automatic warning cut in; letting him know just how bad things were.
“Warning! Core breach in progress!”
He moved some power feeds around until he found a juncture box. Price studied the readings cursed under his breath.
“687 gigadynes above normal?” He reached back into his tool box and slapped a stabilizer pack into place. After that, he fiddled with some of its settings, and laid back.
“There. That should do it for right now.”
Then the box shorted out in a hail of sparks, and the LED screen flared once, and went dark.
Jerry managed to cover his face from the onslaught, and he thought for a second that the rupture would’ve caused an overload in the plasma injector.
“What’s the problem?” Harman’s voice cut in suddenly. “We’re reading a spike in the outflow release valve that wasn’t there a minute ago! What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing! Nothing at all!” He shouted back. “I’ve got--”
Then the plasma injector exploded in his face--colored smoke filling the crawl space in where he lay.
“Damn!” Jerry swore as his suit automatically sealed him up from the toxic gases were escaping.
“Jerry--?”
“All hell just broke loose in here! Is there anything that you guys can do to help?” His voice echoed worriedly inside his helmet.
Hagman worked furiously at his console.
“We’re trying!” He called out into the thin air, as he watched Lyle and his team run up the stairs and crowd around a huge access port. Seconds later, he heard the whine of servo drills, and the droning of induction motors as they began prying plates off of delicate machinery. Clanging noises were heard as they were being thrown aside without any further thought.
He studied the growing problem as more diagnostics came into play. He highlighted one that looked critical, and eyed it carefully.
“I’ve got a red light on one of the regulator valves! Is there any way that you can jerry rig whatever it was that exploded in your face?”
“I’ll try. But there isn’t much that I can do in here without one of those micron accelerator packs!”
The man tore up the stairs and went ten meters to his left until he hit a storage room.
Hagman spotted a box that was labeled, ‘Fragile. Handle With Care’; and tore off the top of it. Grabbing handful after handful of foam packaging, he threw the stuff to the ground, and then felt around for a familiar square shaped device.
After a minute of probing, he found what he was looking for, and raced back down.
“Got it!” He replied in a breathless tone, and squatted down at the entrance. In the uneven light, he could barely see the waffle-grained soles of the ensign’s engineering boots.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Throw it up here, and I’ll catch it!”
The lieutenant did so, praying that it would reach its intended target. His ears tracked it easily as the device bounced off the inner walls a couple of times, before landing hard on the upper platform.
He wasn’t worried about it the least bit--the thing had a shock resistant casing.
“Got it?”
“Yeah! But it’s going to take me a few minutes to get it calibrated and into place!”
Hagman stood up, and was confronted by Lyle.
“We’ve managed to reverse whatever was going on inside the Core for the moment, but there’s no telling how long the repairs will hold until Jerry gets out of there.”
Hagman nodded.
“Well, he’s a little bit busy for the moment, so why don’t you go and see if there’s an MRS working. I’m way past due for some coffee."
“Yes, sir.”
The old man went to check the results of the repairs, and found that the guy was right for once: All they did was delay the inevitable. Whatever Price was doing in there was actually preventing the Core from going belly over in two seconds flat. Now it was up to him to do the impossible.
And keep them all alive long enough to see it.
Come on Jerry. Do it right. Just this once.
Ensign Jerry Price cursed silently as a glob of lubricating fluid stained his front as he worked feverishly in order to stop whatever was going on outside.
He stared into the tiny screen of the anti-proton scanner that was built into his wrist cuff, and groaned slightly before he looked up into the guts of the plasma conduit that he had to rip apart in order to repair the junction box that was connected to it.
He knew that in the back of his mind that if he didn’t get this done soon, there would be nothing left of the station once the Core chained-reacted, and vaporized everything in a supernova style explosion.
But the young man wasn’t concerned at all about dying. That’s not weighed down on his mind heavily. He was trained well enough to ignore the personal fears that would normally consume the casual civilian, and just concentrate on the task at hand.
He drew in a deep breath, and began to study the problem from a completely different perspective.
Okay, so far nothing of serious consequence, but it looks like the energy regulator is jammed. Man, this could pose a problem...
He scanned the functional control panel next to him, and tapped in a request. The diagnostic screen popped up, and he gazed at it with professional curiosity, and then that changed to frustration.
“Boy, no wonder things are so screwed up. The manifold control chip is damaged.” That could wait for a little bit, even though he knew that it was one of the many critical pieces that guided the Core’s power supply. If that or the plasma injector wasn’t repaired soon, there was literally nothing that would be able to handle the Core's primary needs.
Another part of the problem also lay in the hyper drives which were summarily connected to the Star Jumper apparatus. A negative imbalance in any of the eight units would effectively strand them into space until the problem was fixed.
And by his estimates, it could very well be a year. Reversing a negative polarity wasn’t an exact science yet.
But then again it could be a number of things. Get this fixed and something else pops up afterwards.
Jerry gritted as he put in a little more elbow grease into his work as he loosened a valve that was connected to the plasma injector, and found to his growing annoyance that someone had turned the damned thing too tight.
Once he got it undone, some of the pressure would be released into the system, and all would be well.
That was until his wrench jammed into a tiny crevasse, and banging on it did no good. The thing was stuck.
“Shit!” Then looked at his handiwork. The micron accelerator pack that he had placed next to the plasma injector, started to beep intensely. He slipped off his helmet to take a peek, but he couldn’t find nothing wrong.
“Now what?” He muttered. “Don’t tell me that something’s broke again?”
Then an automated voice broke into his train of thought, and he had the sudden urge to rip out the voice recognition and reply circuitry that was buried ten meters below him. But that wasn’t going to help him accomplish his task any faster, so he listened to it as the shrilling continued to grate on his frayed nerves.
“Contam Alert Level Two. Repeat: Contam Alert--Level Two. Sector fifty-seven, alpha three. All non-essential personnel please evacuate affected area. You have ten minutes.”
Then his commlink buzzed, and he heard someone shouting at the top of his lungs.
“--get up there and get it fixed!”
Then-
“No dammit! I don’t care what you think! You slip your fat ass into that containment suit over there and get it fixed!”
Muffled protests erupted over the circuit, and Jerry heard what sounded like Lieutenant Hagman screaming some more.
“Who do you think I am anyway? Your fucking baby-sitter? Take Curly and Moe over there, and get that leak contained, or we’ll be pushing up daisies in the next five minutes!”
More voices were heard, but Jerry determined that they were apparently muted agreements.
Then silence.
“Sheesh! What a bunch of pansies. You'd think that people in the Engineering academy in Sharl would’ve sent some people better than these twerps. But nooo...would they listen to a lowly lieutenant?” He heard Hagman growl under his breath, and then nothing.
Price thought that it would be a good time to cut in.
“Is there a problem sir?”
“Nah. Just your average schmucks that’s all. They're actually afraid to fix something that monitor tells me is just excreted chemicals from a broken pipe six levels below us.”
“So we’re not going to die in five minutes?”
Laughter was heard on the other end, and Jerry found himself chuckling along side him.
“You heard me say that?” A pause. “Gullible aren’t ya?” Another pause. “Nope. Just a little something to get these lazy turkeys moving. Personally, I’d give all the money in the world to find out where they got their education at.”
“So would I....” agreed Price; watching the micron accelerator pack vibrate slightly. His sonic de-stabilizer wrench was still jammed, and there was no way that he could get it unstuck; short of banging on it a couple of times.
“How are things in there?”
Jerry sighed.
“Just peachy.”
Hanger Bay Four.
Freeman deplaned amidst a fallen support beam that hadn’t quite touched his left wing.
“Damn...” He said in wonder, not quite believing that this place looked worse on the inside than on the outside, even as he approached the hanger bay with all of his running lights on in order to see where he was going.
“I guess that means there will be no one here to greet us then, huh?” His second in command replied casually in the dark, his hardened face illuminated by his cockpit’s internal lights. Jeremiah watched him climb out of his fighter, and disappeared into the darkness. The only sounds that he could hear came a second later, as he heard the distinct sounds of metal being thrown aside as he started to clear a path to wherever he was going to go.
Whatever it was he was wading through, it had to be at least waist deep in some places. He sighed and climbed out of his plane, stopping only for a minute to chuck his helmet back into the cockpit, and shimmied down the ladder as fast as he was able. But he was equally surprised to find that he was still at eye level with his cockpit, and looked down to discover that his feet had not touched solid ground, but rather a large section of scaffolding which had come loose during the impact; now sat precariously at an angle.
“Okay. That’s new.” He murmured, and his pulse quicken as he checked over the rest of his ship. After a thorough examination, he discovered no appreciable damage, but he was stunned to find that he had landed in the middle of a junk pile; large chunks of stony debris mixed in with metal fragments jutting out from the darkness. He traced a craggily shape of what appeared to be a section from one of the walls, and whistled softly.
“Anyone else have any problems getting through?” He called out to the rest of his squadron.
“Do you want me to lie to you?” Responded a feminine voice somewhere in the darkness.
“Was there any problems, Tasha?”
The short brunette had her hands immersed in the engine manifolds.
“No, not yet anyway,” and tossed a piece of debris that she retrieved from inside the guts of the fusion drive. “I’m just clearing out some debris that got sucked into my engine’s intake valves.”
“Anyone else?” He repeated.
Aside from Tasha, no one else reported anything unusual, just apprehension and muted shock. A moment later, his second came back with some bad news.
“All the exits have been blocked off by rocky debris.”
Freeman sighed, his voice growing slightly hostile.
“That’s just great. Did you see any survivors along the way?”
“None that I could see.”
Jeremiah stared into the darkness.
“Okay, Tony. Here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to take that section over there, and check for possible survivors. You and the rest will follow in a circular pattern; sweeping from left to right. Holler if you find anything, okay?”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” He vanished again into the darkness, and then heard him climbing back into his cockpit a moment later, and he wondered what he was up to.
Two minutes later, a beam of harsh light cut into the darkness, and jumped around as soon as he got back out.
Hand lamps. Good thinking, and went back to retrieve his.
Soon, the hanger bay was speared by the occasional flare of white light, as each pilot from Cobra Squadron checked the mountains of debris that popped up here and there at random.
Then his commlink beeped.
“Freeman here.”
“This is Captain Drakes of Falcon Squadron.”
“You have anything to report?” Asked the man as he passed his light over a wall of mangled steel.
Nothing here.
He was partially hoping that there would be a few bodies caught up in that mess, but at the same time, he was relieved when there wasn’t any.
Jeremiah felt that he didn’t need the added stress to an already tough job.
“Mostly debris from some ceiling mounted equipment and more debris. Nothing serious as of yet.”
“Any survivors?”
“Not that I could tell. We did come across a few bodies though. But they were so far gone that identifying who they were, is going to be next to impossible.”
“What about Viper Squadron? Have they seen anything?”
“Ashley says that she hasn’t spotted anything out of the norm either. But she’s going to have her people check extra carefully just to be sure.”
Freeman improvised path brought him up to the center of the hanger bay, and at the lip of an overhang that was inadvertently created by the rocky debris that had come down from the overhead ceiling.
Then he heard something faint.
“H..e...l...”
Freeman walked around a large support beam, and carefully tread his way down to the bottom of the pile.
“Hello?” He called out tentatively.
“Is there a problem, Captain?” Drakes asked over the commlink.
“Not now. I think that I’ve found someone.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Fine. But hurry up just in case.”
“I’ll run like the wind.” She answered, and a second later, the link was severed. Then he heard it again.
A sound.
No--a voice.
“Help...”
The man stopped for a moment when the disembodied voice called out for a third time, and this time his sharp hearing homed in on the sound’s possible location. It was vague, but he judged from where he was standing, that it couldn’t be too far away.
Walking around slowly, he finally spotted a hand that was waving weakly from beneath a pile of rubble that had him obscured from view.
He ran over, and began heaving off support struts that was pinning the man down. Freeman received his first shock when he had finally got him uncovered, because the person in question was literally crushed under the dead weight of a ceiling mounted holo projector. He figured that by the way it landed, it had either been shaken or torn loose from its moorings.
As he looked around the blocky object, he discovered friction burns on one side of it, where the lens housing used to be, but didn’t make much sense to the fighter pilot. Jeremiah remembered the hangers being built a few decks aft of the Core, so that any damage that was sustained would be minimal.
But what if the asteroid had struck us from another angle?
That would pretty much explain why there was so much damage here.
Moving the holo projector was out of the question, because the machinery weighed at least a good five hundred pounds, and there was no way in hell that he was going to do this by himself.
He bent down to examine the pinned man, and couldn’t see his face at all. He shone his light off to the side to get a better look, and was taken aback by a truly horrific sight.
Aside from the tattered uniform, (which was unidentifiable from where he was standing), he saw the man’s exposed abdomen, and almost lost it right there from being so close, as his nostrils registered the sharp, acrid smell.
Entrails had spilled out from a rupture that the machinery had opened in him as it came crashing down on him; still pulsing weakly from the body’s attempt to keep him alive. He also saw the man’s partially exposed stomach.
And the red blood...
The blood continued to pool next to his left leg, which had been lacerated badly.
“Hey....quite a sight....eh..?” The brown haired man said with forced breath, his voice sounding broken. The change in his speech was unmistakable though: It sounded like he was drunk. But by the way the critically injured man was moving his head, he knew that he was deep in shock.
Or quite possibly, he knew that on some level that he was dying, and he was just waiting for it to happen
But Captain Freeman took pity on the man, knowing what it meant to die a pointless death, or at least an agonizing one.
He recalled Cobra Six’s final moment’s before the asteroid struck: his fighter spinning out of control, and there was nothing he could’ve done to change his fate. Not even in the last second in which he managed to regain control of his craft. But by then, it was too late.
He could only imagine what the crew were going through inside the outpost. He wondered if anyone besides this poor soul was still left alive, or hanging by a single thread.
He thought a great deal on these things.
“Yeah. How are you feeling?” He asked gently, trying to look for a way to free the man from his tight confines, but there wasn’t much that he could do, not until more help arrived.
The injured man coughed up a great deal of blood for seconds on end, and sometimes violently too.
But when he spoke, his voice was getting drastically weaker. Jeremiah knew that time was running out.
It would only a few more moments before death finally claimed him.
“Funny. You should ask that.... I’m feeling....fine– ” His voice faltered momentarily, and the faded away. His head lolled forward, and the fighter pilot knew that he had come too late to save him.
Head bowed in sorrow, Freeman closed his eyes briefly, and started to pray silently for the man’s soul.
The overpass was laden with fallen debris, and Jason wasn’t sure if he or Caroline could get by it without attracting the wrong kind of attention.
So far, nobody else was around the streets when they finally got back, and that may have been good, or just plain dumb luck for what happened next.
After walking only two blocks in a sectioned off part of the city, and Jason thought he saw someone walking across from them wearing gray combat armor, and carrying a very powerful auto shot plasma cannon at his side with the safety off. At this distance, it would’ve been impossible to miss, but the teen wasn’t entirely positive that the they were the man’s primary target.
Caroline saw him to. But before the boy could do anything to stop her, she started waving her arms at him wildly, and calling at the top of her voice.
“Hello!” She yelled at him.
Jason grabbed her by an arm, and started to drag her along until he was sure that they were out of sight.
“What are you doing? Are you trying to get us killed?” He said in an hoarse voice.
To his surprise, she laughed.
Laughed.
“Most certainly not, silly. I was going to ask him for directions, that's all.”
Jason rolled his eyes, and peered out from behind the corner of a partially demolished building.
To his dismay, he found that the man in the weird gray plated armor had heard her, and was presently looking for the source.
He peered closely at the man’s choice in clothing, and groaned--sagging against the wall in the process.
“Oh wonderful. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. You had just called attention to ourselves by alerting an Enforcer...”
Caroline spun around the corner, and looked both ways. There was nobody to be found.
“An Enforcer? Where?”
In reply to her question, the masonry above her head exploded like powdered chalk, showering them both in a fine red dust. Seconds later, a sonic boom echoed throughout the empty streets, and the boy cringed.
“Damn! He must be using a range finder on that sucker!” He slipped off his pack in a hurry, and fished through it before his hand came across the E-pulse blaster that his father had given him. He pulled it out.
He checked off the safety, and risked another look.
“That Enforcer!” answered the boy, pointing to the man that had reappeared again; cradling his cannon with both hands and calling out at random.
Caroline looked out, and then retreated back into the shadows.
“Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Well now you do.” Jason retorted as he turned to walk the other direction. But in the process, he tripped over something, and stumbled forward--crashing into some garbage cans.
Caroline went over to help him when a flash of light illuminated them, and his ears picked up a concave boom! as the officer fired on their position again. Even though his aim was a little less than perfect, it did have the desired effect. The shot imploded against the upper portion of the wall, causing a good portion of it to come crashing down upon their heads, and crushing the air out of them in the process.
Two more shots followed in perfect synchronized order, slamming into the already weakened structure, causing more of it to come tumbling down on top of them.
But it was too late for Jason to do anything about it. All he could remember was Caroline’s screams as she was buried even deeper under the debris.
Alive.
Chapter 7
Kamarian Government.
Stevenson tapped half heartedly on the keyless pad in front of him, staring mindlessly at the billions of characters that zipped past him at unimaginable speeds. They of course could’ve only come from the information streams that floated hypnotically inside the safe confines of a virtual screen that hovered in the center of the room.
At a glance, it appeared buried in the far room, but that actually depended on the person’s perspective. If he/she walked up to it, they would soon discover that it wasn’t there; that it was actually a holographic projection set directly into the reality of one person’s mind.
And illusion.
But at the moment, Stevenson wasn’t interested in the magic behind the screen’s wondrous technology. He was more interested in the stack of files that had grown exponentially on the virtual screen. It looked to him like someone on the Net was busy adding something on the streams of data, and it was getting bigger by the second.
He watched with disinterest as the virtual files continued to get bigger and bigger, as more and more information was added.
And more.
It had finally had gotten to a point where he just put the damn thing on hold, and stopped to rub the strain from his eyes.
A chime sounded in the large empty office, and the doors opened automatically.
“Sir? This just came in.” His brown haired secretary replied as she covered the short distance to his desk, and placed a reader chip on its flat table surface.
“Thank you Joanne. Let me know if anything else crops up.” She nodded, and returned to the other errands that she normally ran on a daily basis. The old man waited patiently until the doors closed softly behind her.
He picked up the square shaped chip and placed it inside the portable holo-cam that sat at the edge, and tapped in his personal identification code.
“Decryption in progress. Please wait three minutes.” A toneless voice said. While the chip’s information was being processed, he took the small amount of time left to him to pull open a small drawer, and take out a small compact box.
On the top bore the label MEDKIT marked in bid red letters, and he popped the lid open to retrieve a hypo full of a light green liquid. After rolling up his sleeve, he put the circular point to his skin, and pressed it home.
Almost immediately, the drug flowed through his bloodstream, instantly counteracting whatever it was that was making him feel fatigued.
Seconds later, he felt more energized than he had in recent days, his mind even more clearer than it was before, and he was able to think with an unmistakable sense of clarity that he hadn’t felt since he was a young man.
“Decryption complete.” A computerized voice reported, and the chip was promptly ejected into waiting hands of the old man. Stevenson held the chip up to eye level with two callused fingers, and imagined what the wealth of information that was contained in its nano circuitry. It was the type that he knew could propel or possibly empower his seat of government to a new age of greatness not seen since the Reformation.
But personally he also knew that this chip could also contain the ability to bring the political wheel crashing down on them should it fall into the hands of his liberal opponents inside the Planetary Congress.
Stevenson pondered that one implication for a moment and wondered what should be done to prevent such a catastrophe. Bribery and murder weren’t far from his mind, and any other options that he had on the table were severely limited. He knew that much from watching the holo-vid.
But he was also the President, and that title in itself carried a lot of power.
A lot of power indeed.
John woke again with a splitting headache, and he wondered who the hell had let the drum section of the orchestra into his woefully, overtaxed brain.
Then someone decided to drive that point home with a sharp jab to his leg that came from the butt of a fully charged pulse rifle.
“What the--?” He cursed, and was unceremoniously dumped from his cot and onto the ground by the same person who whacked him in the leg earlier.
“Karen--?” He ventured in a puzzled voice. The woman quickly covered him with a blanket that had fallen off of his cot, and then his face as well. He tried to rise, but she held him down with an arm.
“Stay down you idiot, ‘less you want your head taken clean off your shoulders!” She yelled over the din of the explosions that thundered nearby in concert with the backlash and concussions that came from the detonating of heavy ordinance.
John Scott shook his head, trying to clear the ringing sensation that reverberated in his ears, and realized with growing fear that the noises he heard wasn’t a from the drum section at all.
Before he could do anything else, the woman propped herself up on the overturned, and returned fire at some unseen enemy. Then she ducked as someone on the other side of the street answered her in kind, and John watched semi-transparent globs of green energy sail directly over his head.
“What happened to the tent?”
“Blown away by an imploding shockwave,” Karen answered distractedly, keeping an eye out for the one who took a shot at them. “You were damned lucky that you weren’t killed when it happened. Many others were the first time around, as were some of our own. But we caught the bastards flat footed anyway.” She stopped talking long enough to fire off another salvo, and hauled him to his feet.
“Come on!” She urged as a series of hits stitched across the broken pavement before erupting in a ball of fire.
John Scott allowed himself to be dragged away, and then broke into a run when she did, cutting loose as she hopped across the curb. Bolts of deadly energy sprayed out of her rifle which saturated the spot she was firing at, but there was no way to tell if her aim was accurate enough.
When they finally got under some cover next to a hover car, John glanced at her.
“What the hell is going on?” He demanded as another ranged shot exploded near them, throwing up dirt and pieces of debris. His nose picked up the unfamiliar sharp tang of ozone, and coughed.
That shot came from an ion cannon! he thought with shocked surprise. But who carries that kind of firepower?
Certainly none of the rebels that he had seen while he was being held against his will, and maybe that’s where the mystery lay: It was someone else with unrestricted access to high tech military hardware, and the means to use it.
But who?
Then a sudden and almost swift movement caught his eye, and it was gone just as quickly. But in that brief second, he could’ve sworn that what he saw was the familiar predatory bird crest of the Special Forces Division.
But he wasn’t sure if the Enforcers had a hand in all of this madness which was unfolding faster than he could cope with. But he recalled vaguely that some years ago, the Kamarian government had formed the SFD as a prelude to what had happened after the bloody riots in the Tonaria Province. He remembered seeing the faces of his parents as they died in the riots, and those of his friends as they were unsuspectingly caught in the middle of someone else’s sloppiness.
One person who thought power and greed would catapult him to new heights of glory in such a way that he cared little for his fellow man.
As a result, he was one of the few survivors caught in that mess. And when he was old enough, he found that things weren’t what they seemed when he started to do his own investigating into the Riots as they had become known then. The truth was finally revealed before he even married, through years of painstaking searches and persecution from his peers. When he found out who was responsible for the blood bath, he wanted to hunt down the person responsible and kill him for the sake of revenge. However, that was not to be as he discovered the person responsible had died mysteriously while in exile.
It took him awhile to stop mulling over the lost chance he had, and get over the obsession that had consumed him for most of his young life. Instead, he used that obsession to focus on the other things in his life, and continue on. But he would always carry the stark memories within him as a reminder of the past.
The sounds of fusion grenades going off close by broke into his personal reverie, and he found himself in the line of fire once again as the woman dragged him out from behind the car just as another grenade hit, blowing the vehicle clear off the road and up against a chain-link fence.
A second later, he found his friend lying on the sidewalk with a deep gash in his left shoulder. With Karen covering him all the way, he ran to his friend’s side.
“You okay?” He asked in a distracted voice; his attention torn between his friend, his injuries, and the battle that was being waged close by. So far, it proved to be an even toss of the coin. But in his personal opinion, the odds were definitely not stacked in their favor. In the end, John was absolutely positive that they would lose in the end.
It was just a question of when.
Kevin nodded.
“Aside from my shoulder, I’m just fine.”
Karen fired off a few more salvos at an unseen enemy, and glanced at the both of them--smiling.
“Rough day at the office.”
John groaned. “Gods...”
Kevin returned her warm smile, but gritted as the pain finally caught up with him, and he instinctively put a hand on his injured shoulder. His friend pried it away carefully, and stared at the open wound that pulsed weakly in time to the young man’s heartbeat. He could pick out the torn red muscles that extruded from within, and the white of his exposed fatty tissue as it mixed in with his blood.
“Not good man. It looks lacerated from here.” He looked at the woman who had been putting her life on the line for him. “Karen? Do you have a med-kit handy?” She nodded, and produced a small box that had a red cross emblazoned on it.
“Standard field issue. Everyone has one.”
“Even those that have already died?” Kevin asked succinctly.
The woman glanced at him sharply while cleaning her rifle before finally nodding.
“Yes.”
John opened the box, and began taking out a few small bundles of white, and laid them carefully out on a patch of grass. Afterwards, he pulled out a hypo and a couple of syringes that were loaded with antibiotics.
He pressed one to the uninjured part of his arm, and looked at him.
“This is going to hurt, so don’t hesitate to cry out at the slightest bit of pain.”
Kevin nodded numbly, and gritted his teeth instinctively as the cone shaped tip ejected injected a bio-degradable needle into his flesh, and he screamed out.
The woman watched him, momentarily concerned for his well being.
“Let me help,” she blurted out and lay her weapon on the ground.
John stared at her in astonishment. Kevin looked baffled.
“What about the war?” He bit out while his friend wound the gaze around his shoulder. John looked up from his work to add, “What if someone spots us?”
Karen White shook her head and reached over for another roll of gauze.
“I wouldn’t worry about that. Most of the fighting has been contained two blocks away from here.” She finished cleaning off the dried blood, and applied the hypo next. Kevin felt the cool touch of the drug as it relaxed him somewhat, and then passed out.
“Morphine?” His companion ventured.
The woman nodded.
“With a regenerative compound mixed in. It’s designed to help speed up the body’s natural healing process while I work on him.”
She extracted a small box and dumped its contents into the palm of her hand.
John peered at it briefly.
“That looks like a needle....and thread?” He said with unmistakable awe.
“But that’s archaic!” He protested while she threaded the needle through his bloody flesh with precision-like movements. Then she had John hold his friend still while she repeated the procedure over and over.
“It works for me.” Karen said simply, and continued her operation.
“But what about proto-plaser treatments?”
The black haired woman looked up from her work, her green eyes blazing with sudden anger.
“Unlike you people, we have to make do with what we've been given. We can’t afford high tech luxuries. So we have to go low tech.” She felt her mouth twitch with the beginnings of a wry smile, but somehow, she managed to force it down by a simple act of will power alone. “So far, it’s been working.”
“Won’t that leave scars?” He asked.
“It will, when it’s healed. But once you get him to a medical facility, proto and plasmatic re-combinators should take the scarring away.”
“The doctors are going to wonder where it came from.” John pointed out.
Karen stopped.
“Look. Right now, I’m doing you a service by putting my ass on the line, and getting you and your cute sidekick here patched up. So don’t belittle me with these lame excuses, because frankly, I’m not in a caring mood. And do you want to know why?”
A shake of the head.
“For all my life since I could remember, I had to watch people that I was close to and cared about deeply, die a needless death. And all I came hearing from the mouths of others that it was all in the best interests of the Kamarian government. I had to grow up on those words and feelings that others immersed me in, until they smothered me completely. I was also taught the harsh lessons of life, because no one was there to teach me the morals and values that was once part of another, simpler, lifestyle.” She sighed, and started again. Her hardened hands were already stained red from the younger man’s blood. But she didn’t seem to notice.
Or care.
“So you can imagine what kind of a person that I’ve turned out to be, because of that. It was one of the primary reasons why I had joined the Steel Knights when I was offered the chance. I wanted to change what was going on, simply because no one else could. And that’s why we didn’t kill you right off. We figured that you’d be a good bargaining chip, and that in turn would force President Stevenson to deal with us on our terms.”
John sat back, floored by the woman's revelations. He couldn’t believe the startling similarities that both their lives had in common.
But the only difference lay in the fact that he had chosen to go on with his life in the most ethical way possible.
While she...
She was still caught in the circle of hatred and bitter vengeance.
The man shuddered visibly, and Karen noticed his reaction to her story.
“I take it that you find this...disturbing?”
“Unsettling is more like it,” he admitted quietly.
“Get used to it. There are people in this world who are ten times worse than me. And their methods, are-how should I put it?-uncivilized.”
“Oh.” He was quiet for a minute before he asked another question. “So you people don’t kill wantonly?”
Karen’s mind flashed back to a point in the past when her leader shot Higgins for being incompetent.
“No.” She lied smoothly. “We don’t kill unless we absolutely have to.” That was at least half truth. But what made her wonder how much of that was actually left in a world that was virtually on the edge of self-destruction.
“How comforting.” John replied, not entirely convinced.
What seemed like an eternity, was actually thirty minutes according to his watch.
Thirty long minutes of wondering if he was dead, or in heaven.
Hell would've been a more appropriate term to describe the situation he was in. It wasn’t that often that he got to experience what it felt like being buried alive, and actually get the chance to tell another soul.
As it stood, Jason figured that he was the only one left alive, his mind recalling how the shot impacted and blew apart the wall above their heads. That sent an avalanche of dirt and debris on top of him and Caroline Taylor; a beautiful girl that had come along with him to rescue his father...
His eyes ached from keeping them closed for so long, he wasn’t sure if he should open them.
But now?
Slowly he did.
It wasn’t as bad as he thought.
Aside from the darkness that he was immersed in, he had enough space to breath and turn his head slightly, but he was still trapped.
“Caroline?” He whispered hoarsely.
“Down here,” a small voice returned faintly. “Between your legs no less.”
The boy felt his face go beet red, and he was glad that the dark kept her from seeing how embarrassed he was.
He tried moving his legs, but the girl protested that action.
“Hey! What are you trying to do? Get me killed, or mess up my hair?”
Jason stopped.
“Sorry. So what do we do know?” Breathing was becoming more difficult, probably because of the buildup in carbon dioxide.
“Have you tried moving around?”
That thought hadn't occurred to him.
“Let me try.” He volunteered, tensing every single muscle in his body, and...pushed.
To his surprise, the dirt and other pieces of debris fell away with ease. Once he got his arms free, he dug himself out. He did the same for Caroline and then began to brush himself off.
Caroline glared at him.
“Thanks for nothing.” She half accused, shaking her head in attempt to dislodge the bits of soil that managed to muss up her jet black hair, and then started to brush herself off as well.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jason replied in a hurtful tone. “In case you’ve forgotten, I just went and saved your life. Shouldn’t that at least count for something?”
“And what do you want in return? A cookie?”
Before Jason could say anything, a stray shot smashed into the already shattered masonry wall above them, causing small pieces of dura-plaster chips to rain down on them.
“No,” he answered by grabbing her by the arm. “But running would be a could start.”
They did.
Jason pulled out his blaster just he heard the Enforcer calling them to stop.
Dumb they weren’t. However, Jason was understandably curious as to what would happen if they did surrender.
The frustrated officer continued to fire blindly as the two teens managed to make it to another deserted alley that had seen better days.
“At least the walls are in better shape than the last ones.” The girl quipped. Jason threw her a poisonous look in her direction, but the girl just shrugged.
He turned his attention back to the problem at hand, and found that the officer was nowhere in sight.
“Lost ‘im.”
“That’s what you said the last time before that mountain of dirt came down on top of us,” Caroline retorted mildly as she sat on top of a recycling bin, and patiently waited for him to make up his mind. “When is it going to click into that thick head of yours that the Enforcer isn’t going to stop pursuing us until we’re captured or worse-”
Jason turned and faced her.
“Dead? Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too. From what I’ve experienced in the last few years in the Bruan Province, that’s never happened to kids like us. I mean the part about being dead anyway.” He walked over to here, and smiled.
“Besides aren’t we supposed to be concentrating on a rescue or two?” The girl smacked him playfully across the arm, and hopped off the bin. Then she walked down the darkened alleyway, and disappeared into its shadows.
Jason stood there for a moment, massaging the sore muscles in his arm, remembering the pain that came from protecting her.
What came to his mind wasn’t exactly the knight in shining armor that he hoped he would be in Caroline’s eyes. He wasn’t sure if his past actions would count for anything in the long run. Even if they did, he wasn't sure as to what that might entail.
“I guess that means that you either agree with me, or your trying to tell me to get moving.” He called after her, and ran to catch up to her. Even as he was, he could still hear her melodic voice.
“Both actually.”
Jason was about to add more to the conversation, when a shadow fell across both of them; grabbing Caroline in the process. She let out a scream of surprise as she was being dragged forcefully out into the streets.
“Got you! Thought you could escape me, eh?” Said a triumphant sounding voice as the girl put up a struggle in order to escape. Jason bolted out of the dark alley way, and into the hot sunlight. He couldn’t see his assailant right off because of the glare in his eyes, but he could hear the commanding tone in that person's voice.
“Put the pop gun away kid, before someone gets hurt.” He motioned with his rifle. Jason had no choice but to do as he said. He lowered the E-pulse blaster slowly, letting it dangle loosely by his fingertips.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid. You always follow what people say? Or are you just that brain damaged?”
The boy shrugged.
“Depends on your point of view, I guess. But then again, I’m not the gun totting moron out to frighten little kids with an overpowered water pistol either.”
The man grinned.
“I see your smarter than you look. That’s good. Did your parents teach you to mouth to your superiors too?”
Jason gazed upwards briefly, and spotted a rusty beam that was dangling over the Enforcer’s head.
He looked at the officer, and smiled.
“Only the ones that are total zeroes.”
“Such words are only wasted on the mindless ones, and to the people that have no mutual sense of justice being served.” He waved his gun around in an arc, but never strayed to far from the boy.
Jason crossed his arms.
“You mean your pals in the Kamarian government, don’t you? I’ve heard that they’ve been getting their collective butts kicked by a bunch of poorly armed rebels.” He tapped the empty air for a minute, apparently deep in thought. “Correction: I meant to say yours, but the exact word must’ve slipped somewhere in the back of my mind. So sorry.”
The man's jaw muscles worked in tandem to one another, probably trying to decide whether or not to blow him completely out of existence.
He almost gave in to the urge.
But just barely.
“You should be careful about speaking like that out in public. The government doesn’t like anti-social behavior spreading among its citizens.” He warned.
“Then I guess that means you’ll be out of a job if that were to happen, huh?” He taunted openly.
The officer tightened his grip on the stock of his weapon.
“Don’t piss me off kid. I’ve had a rough day as it is.”
Jason brought up his blaster, deciding to put an end to this stand off.
“Well, it’s about to get even more interesting,” and fired over their heads before the Enforcer could bring his own weapon to bear.
Sparks flew everywhere as the charge hit at a weakened spot in the steel girder, and it sagged with a groan of tortured metal as part of it disintegrated almost instantly; dropping it on top of the man’s armored head.
Caroline sensed what was coming, and in the space of a few seconds, she managed to wrestle her way out of the man’s steel vise grip in time to jump clear. The Enforcer fell to the ground; out cold, and bleeding from a cut to the head where his helmet had cracked in two. The beam rang loudly a couple of times as it bounced to the hard pavement along with chunks of permacrete gouged clean from impact.
Jason stepped over the steel beam, and examined the man.
He was still breathing.
“Whew!” The girl breathed, her young heart still pounding from the adrenaline rush that was still surging through her body. She went over to him and stared at the unconscious Enforcer. “Cutting a bit close aren’t we, Jay? But good timing though.” And she planted a quick kiss on his cheek.
Flushing slightly from embarrassment, Jason Scott went searching for something to tie up their unwanted guest with.
Caroline followed close behind.
Outpost 42.
With things the way they were, Price didn’t even need to look at one of the instruments to know that the static pressure in the release valve was a bit high for his taste, not when he could just look at the micron accelerator pack.
He was dismayed to find that it had begun to vibrate again.
I just had that damned thing fixed-! He thought with mounting frustration.
“Contam Alert Level Two: Canceled. Effecting repairs to damaged systems.” A familiar sounding voice echoed throughout the Core.
“That’s nice to know,” Jerry replied while fighting with the sonic destabilizer wrench once more in his third attempt to dislodge it.
Thing was still stuck.
He finally gave up, and left the device in place while he finished with the repairs to the plasma conduit.
Once completed, he began to inch his way out slowly.
A moment later, Harman was there to greet him along with the rest of the damage control party whom returned from the upper levels of the Core.
“Great job man! Great job!” He clapped the grime covered ensign on the back, and the others joined in.
Weariness setting in, he smiled.
“Thank you, sir.”
Kamarian Naval Academy.
Two hours later.
Admiral Turner glanced up at the large monitor that currently displayed the far side of Kamar XI, and the distant point of light that was highlighted by a set of red brackets.
“That’s it, ladies and gentlemen. Right there is where we lost all contact with Outpost 42 only seven hours ago. According to the recorded transmissions we received from the Kamarian Science Institute, it appears that they had come into contact with what one of their scientists had confirmed as a Class 2 asteroid. After that, transmissions from the outpost was terminated unexpectedly.”
“What about the automatic distress beacon?” A lieutenant-commander asked.
The man turned from the display, and went over to a large table with a holographic tank set in the middle. Consoles of different shapes and sizes were imbedded into it’s lacquered surface, and Turner reached out to touch it. A screen came on in response to his caress, it’s numerous data streams zipping by at unimaginable speeds.
“Negative. According to computer analysis, the automatics abruptly cut out two hours after transmission to the Science Institute.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that whatever took place out there, hit them with so much force that the outpost was most likely destroyed.”
Silence fell as the other three representing the different branches of the military quietly digested the impact of this bit of news.
“Doesn’t mean nothing, sir.” The woman said after a moment's consideration.
“Nothing?” Turner replied with utter astonishment. “You call losing billions of credits in space equipment and hardware, nothing?” He shut off the screen, and looked at her.
“This may come as a potential shock to you, Commander, but have you stopped to consider the consequences in losing that outpost?”
The woman shook her head.
“Then let me outline it for you then: There is a Class 2 asteroid out there, and it looks like it's heading in our direction in a matter of days, if not months. And with Outpost 42 out of the picture, there is no way we can deflect this thing away from this planet. On top of that, we don’t have the necessary resources to initiate a full scale planetary evacuation. So you sit there and think about how this is going to impact on your personal life. Then after you tell me what that is, your more than welcome to join the rest of us.”
“Yes sir,” she said in a small voice.
Gazing at her for a moment longer, Turner walked over to the large screen, and had the desktop computer display the last known position of the asteroid.
A schematic overlay of the Kamarian star system came up, and shifted slightly as the computer was being updated with the latest stellar information collected so far. Then the view shifted vertically, and zoomed in on the target area.
Beep!
A new set of brackets pinned down the asteroid’s current position, and the admiral turned and addressed his small audience.
“As you can see, the asteroid has passed within tracking range of one of the remote probes near Kamar Eleven. And since all we are running on is speculation in regards to the outpost’s destruction, we are going to have to come up with a substitute plan to stop that asteroid from coming close to hitting Kamar IV.” He looked at the rest of them, three men and one woman. All military, all dedicated to the cause at hand.
“Options?”
“How about using some of our inter solar missile batteries that are seeded throughout most of the inner planets’ defense spheres?” The lieutenant-commander offered up front, not willing to be silent no longer. “With pin point accuracy, we could envelope it from all sides to ensure a clean hit.”
“Right. Like that’s going to work. Squadrons of our best fighters didn’t fare any better, according to the telemetry that was received from the station’s main computers.” A representative from the Army piped in.
The woman shot a hard look at the man who was dressed in a dark green uniform, laden with medals and ribbons that he had won or received from past assignments or conflicts.
“I suppose that you have a better plan, Corporal?” She responded icily, her demeanor hardening out of years of habit. Her hazel eyes burned with suppressed anger at having been outlandishly insulted in front of her superior officer. She knew that it would be hopeless in the long run. Men like him were always stubborn, and sometimes not so bright either.
“As a matter of fact, I do.” He replied, rising from his seat and going over the main screen. He called up a graphic representation of Kamar IV, and the surrounding space that intersected its two small moons.
“At the time when Outpost 42 was being drawn up for construction, some people in the government came up with the idea of constructing huge battle platforms in orbit around the planet, and a few on the two moons surrounding it. The proposal then was to use to have these platforms armed with a fantastic array of weapons of the time: Particle lasers, photon cannons, and a cluster of missile batteries. The idea was that when an unknown contact came into the planet’s own defensive envelope, the battle platform computer systems would track it, and fire all weapons– thus destroying the intruder before it had a chance to do serious damage to the planet itself.”
Laughter was heard in the small office, and the corporal’s head snapped around to identify the source of the disturbance.
“I don’t see your idea being given any merit, Commander Faulkner!” He snapped.
Faulkner stopped laughing, and looked at him while wiping the tears that were running down her cheeks.
“That’s because I don’t go burying myself in holes when danger arises, corporal.”
The man stuttered momentarily, shocked by the woman's accusation. But before he could reply, Admiral Turner stepped in to put an end to the bickering with a firm hand, and shot a stern look at her while she sat next to a Marine. The man had been sitting quietly throughout the entire exchange. His maroon uniform was the only thing that stood out among the dark blues and sharp greens of Navy and Army. His expression anything but one of total concentration at what was being said.
While Faulkner and the Army corporal continued to give each other dirty looks, Turner shot him a question from behind his desk.
“Major? What are your thoughts on this issue?”
Both representatives of the Navy and Army stopped eyeing one another long enough to pay attention to the major.
For a second, he appeared withdrawn from all reality, before he answered the admiral’s question.
“It may not be my place to say so, but as a liaison to the Investigations Bureau, I must urge you to act with all possible haste in coming up with a plan to get everyone off planet as soon as possible.”
Turner had considered that, but found that he had run into the same road block like everyone else: Resources.
“Anything else?”
“Yes,” the man replied. “If you can get one ship equipped with a pair of Star Jumpers, you can use it to get to Kamar Prime, and reactivate the Telaris. With that massive station in operation, we can employ the use of its tractor emitters to pull it off course.”
Turner was stunned.
“The artificial moon? We don’t even know if that thing still works!” He exclaimed. But in truth, that thought hadn't even occurred to him. It seemed a bit risky considering he knew very little about it in the first place. And what information that he did have came from reading history tapes when he was a child.
He tapped in his access code for the National Archives in Merquae Province, and waited for the computer to clear him.
Caught off guard by the whole thing, the corporal approached the admiral, while the woman remained rooted in her seat.
“What the hell are you talking about? I don’t know anything about an artificial--” He began, but was cut off by a simple wave of the hand.
Red faced, he returned to his seat in utter humiliation. And by the time he had gotten enough courage to sit down, he felt like a complete idiot.
Why wasn’t I informed of such matters before hand? Must everything be kept a tight secret?
He craned his neck slightly in Faulkner’s direction, and was privately relieved that she had no clue as to what went on.
Small world.
He turned his head and watched the admiral fume by the time it took to clear him at the first level.
“This is a classified document of the Kamarian Central Government, circa September 7th, 2643. All users must have a Level Four security clearance or higher in order to view the following data. Failure to comply with proper procedures will result in severe consequences.” The computerized voice recited from it’s memory banks. Then it scanned the man in front of him.
“Turner, Michael W., Admiral. Kamarian Naval Academy. Security clearance: Blue–Level 6.” Then the voice stopped abruptly as the computer began to compare it’s current data with what was accessed. The whole process took less than a few seconds.
“Thank you, Admiral Turner. You are cleared to view the information.” The same voice faded once again, and the center of the room suddenly lit up with a holographic image that made the woman gasp as she saw the sheer magnitude of the object before her.
Even the normally temperamental corporal was at a loss for words at what he was seeing with his very own eyes.
“Holy...god...” He whispered almost reverently, while he waited for his mind to make sense of the stimuli it was receiving.
Turner pointed to an image of a real time picture of the artificial moon as it was being serviced by some ancient looking space shuttles from a bygone era. Each person in the room watched as people in slim space suits danced around its skeletal framework, attaching curved plates of ablative armor, and welding them into place. But the process was painfully slow by today’s standards. Turner couldn't believe how crude it was back then. He saw that most of the technology that was used to construct the moon differed only slightly in some ways from what they were using today.
“Meet Telaris. Almost three and a half centuries ago, the government launched its most expensive--and perhaps the most ambitious--project known to mankind. The sole purpose behind the project was to construct a mobile defense platform that would seek out and destroy anything that considered even remotely hostile to us.” He paused to access more data. The image shifted to a more naked schematic of the moon itself, and pointed to one section of it.
Missile batteries of gargantuan proportions laid side by side all around the inner hull of the moon, along with laser cannon arrays, and photon torpedo launchers that dotted along its smooth egg white surface.
A closer examination revealed it to be a slight variation of gun metal gray. Almost colorless. Almost featureless.
But a thing of monstrous beauty nonetheless.
“What you are seeing here is what was once considered to be the most advanced weapon systems ever developed of that time, and comparable to ours I might add,” he said with a hint of pride in his voice. “In conjunction with the advanced weaponry, it was also conceived by many to be a test bed for a new style graviton beam projector that had as many as three hundred thousand different emitters. These emitters were partially responsible for dragging the asteroid that would be eventually incorporated into Outpost 42...” He paused again to change the view back to the ongoing construction that was already centuries old, and sighed.
“Unfortunately, the project was mysteriously abandoned after the completion of the outpost. Later documents showed that there was a severe cost overrun that threatened to bankrupt the government. However, exact details were never released.”
“So it sits there...completed then?” Faulkner wanted to know, hope creeping into the back of her mind. The moment she laid eyes on the station, her curiosity full blown. The stories that she had only heard about, dreamed about, were vague to say the least. And the books that she had from her childhood didn't reveal anything of significance.
The man just shook his head.
“I’m not sure. These records are so old, so forgotten that no one really has any definite as to its functional status. But as far as I know, it sits there; unused and deserted of all personnel.”
“Has anyone used it recently?” The corporal wanted to know.
“Nope.” Turner answered as he went back to his desk, and changed the settings on the holographic viewer.
“Sensor scans from ten years ago revealed about an inch, maybe two of space dust that had collected on the moon’s surface.” He crossed over to the center, where the hologram floated serenely, and silently; as it spun on it's axis. Below it, small data modules displayed the technical readouts on the other parts of the station. But to Faulkner, the damned thing still looked like a giant white-gray ghost against the black of space. Even with all it’s systems turned off, the stars reflected its hidden, underlying nature:
Eerie.
The brunette shivered, feeling her small, compact body shake uncontrollably for a second.
“That is if we can get it operational in time.”
Turner returned to his desk, and opened a drawer.
“We will.”
“Sounds reasonable enough.” The major said in an almost jovial tone. “I’ll alert the government of your plan.” He rose and walked towards the nearest wood paneled door. When he got close enough to open it, he heard a distinct click! as it locked. He jiggled the handle of the large door, and found that he couldn’t open it.
Confusion set it in, and turned to address the admiral.
He was quite stunned when he found a military style E-pulse blaster pointed straight at him. The gun was slightly larger than it's civilian counterpart, fore it had a longer, more tapered barrel. But the square shaped stock remained the same.
“W-what is the meaning of this?” He managed to get out.
“Nothing that you should be worried about, Major....Truance.” Turner replied in an unwavering voice.
The liaison to the Investigations Bureau glanced at the others, and found that they hadn't moved a muscle.
“This act alone is treasonous sir! You should at least reconsider the consequences should someone at the IB find out that I haven’t reported in yet!”
The man’s grip on the blaster didn’t waver.
“I have. And I can’t allow you to go back. Not just yet anyway.” He clicked the weapon to full power, and trained it on him again.
“And why not?” Truance challenged openly. “Are you afraid that my forthcoming report will have anything negative in it?”
“No. It’s just that I don’t have any solid trust in the government these days. It is a mockery to all those who once had a stern belief in the system, and a monster in the face of modern politics. I can’t allow for something like this to be jeopardized by the Kamarian government's inapt stupidity.”
“You can’t be serious!”
Turner smiled.
“I am serious. What you have in store could very well jeopardize our survival as a race, and I’m not about to let that happen. Yes, I’d admit that what I’m doing could amount to treason. Can you pin a credit amount on a person’s life? Or his soul?”
No answer.
The admiral nodded in understanding. Some words are better left unspoken, but others...
“There’s an old saying from long ago, that goes, ‘If you can’t be a part of the solution, than your obviously part of the problem.’ ”
He upped the charge again just for good measure, feeling the thing vibrate slightly in his hand.
The corporal sprang forward, but the man shoved him back with a surprising show of strength. The officer stumbled backwards into his chair, and forward onto his face.
“But sir!” You can’t kill him!” He pleaded.
Admiral Turner fired at point blank range, a halo of blue fire enveloping the man, with energy contrails snapping at anything made of metal. Truance’s last expression was one of pure shock, and then surprise as he crumpled to the floor.
Michael blew the smoke off of the still warm emitter, and just stared at him.
“Can’t I?” He said pointedly.
Faulkner went over to the unconscious man’s side and placed a manicured finger at the base of his neck.
“Still alive,” she confirmed with unrestrained relief evident in her forest green eyes.
The Army corporal looked like he was ready to puke, his own face drained of any color that had been there previously.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” He croaked weakly, wondering if he could take any more surprises for one more day.
Turner understood, returning the blaster to it’s original case in the top drawer of his desk.
“For what its worth, I can’t kill people in cold blood despite the fact the guy was working for the Kamarian government. If he reports what went on, everything that the Navy had worked hard for the last century could come undone.” A slam of the drawer made the woman jump.
“I’m not about to let that happen again.”
Kamarian Science Institute.
Cassandra Noyen stood around a holographic table that was crowded with people from the institute’s other science divisions. At this point in time, the conflicts of interests and the ongoing arguments were far from the norm when dealing with a potential crisis.
“I don’t give a shit what you turkeys think! That! Won’t! Work!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, and Donald thought for a second that he had lost his hearing, and thrust a finger into his ear in order to clear up the ringing, and then shook his head.
Nope. Not yet anyway, He thought.
This whole thing started after they had received a communiqué from the Naval Academy, and the proposed idea that had been given some serious consideration.
Crisis indeed.
The very notion was enough to give anyone a serious migraine. The actual planning and careful deliberation over the fate of an entire civilization was more than any one person could take, and by his calculations, his superior had just about reached her level of patience. Not to mention the mental endurance that came with going without rest for the last twelve hours or more.
The man could easily pin the blame on the one source that was the cause of everyone’s grief: The asteroid.
Of course, he could also blame the government for getting this whole shit started in the first place, but where would it end afterwards?
He turned his head up at the screen, and saw the admiral’s bearded face react to Noyen’s venomous attitude.
“Well what do you expect me to do? I had to use a stun blaster on a liaison for the Investigations Bureau...It was the only thing left that I could do in order to keep him out of the way long enough so that the government doesn’t gain wind of this. Not until we could discuss this problem properly. So don’t stand there and debate me on the various ethics of my job, when you still have yours to do.”
Cassandra bottled her anger for the time being, while punching up some observation data on the massive gas giant which almost covered the entire view screen. Then she made a few corrections, shrinking it down to an acceptable level, and the focused a sensor remote on it.
“Hell I don’t have problems with what you did, Admiral, but I hate to tell you...” She checked the information that was being fed back to her, and nodded slowly.
“Yep. That confirms it. The Telaris is far gone than you could’ve possibly imagine.” She brought up the picture that the computer had given her, and watched Turner's reaction.
His dark hazel eyes opened wide with disbelief as he gazed at the real time image of the space station. The thing didn’t resemble what the archive records had shown him.
He turned to consult something.
Then he glanced to his side, and then faced the room with anger.
“Damn! Those were fuckin’ blueprints! The administration down at Archives swore to me that they were the real thing!” Cassandra heard him issue a few more colorful metaphors the she was positive that she hadn’t heard before, and left the camera pickup for the moment. When he returned, he had a look of defeat on his face.
“That’s it then, we’re sunk. With Outpost 42 out of commission, there’s no way we can evacuate even a small portion of the planet’s 23 million inhabitants.”
“We still have a six months left. Maybe eight if the asteroid slows down to a considerable degree. Maybe we can still mount some kind of defense or another viable escape plan in the meantime,” Cassandra said in an almost soothing tone. But she knew that she was just grasping straws.
Admiral Turner stared at her for a full second. “In the meantime, what do you propose that I do? I can’t hold off the government for long if word of this leaks out. I’m only an admiral in the Kamarian Navy, not the Minister of Planetary Affairs.”
“But you have some influence don’t you?” She countered evenly, crossing over to a data terminal. She tapped at the keys absently, as if trying to coax a solution out of the computer. But she knew that it wasn’t going to be easy.
And after a few minutes of trying, her efforts were proving futile.
“As I said before, not much. But I’ll do what I can. Turner out.”
“Transmission terminated.” A disembodied voice said as the holovid shut off.
In the meantime, Debbie Peters called up a schematic of the asteroid, and studied it for a moment. Then she ran some comparisons on it.
“Mmm...”
Donald approached her and gazed at the holographic representation of the monster that was hurtling towards them at a frenzied pace. The asteroid’s small mountainous range was only visible for a second before it disappeared from view, vanishing like some ghostly apparition. Its left side appeared and they both could see cavernous canyons, small valleys, and even a few impact craters.
“It is a few miles shy of being classified as a Class One asteroid, but nonetheless it poses a significant danger to this planet,” Peters outlined in a purely scientific manner. Her long manicured fingers pressed keys, and turned the dials in front of her, while her face tensed as she pursed her lips in total concentration.
Noyen shook her head.
“We've gone over that countless times already. What makes you think that you know something that we don’t?”
Slap! It was back to the same attitude, and the same cold heartedness that the doctor had always treated her with in the past: Not as an equal, but more like a subordinate.
To top it all off, she could feel her patience with her growing mightily thin. But she knew that this wasn’t the time to start banging heads, so she turned her attention back to the terminal in front of her, and magnified one section of the asteroid.
“I began thinking of how it hit the outpost, and why the sudden impact didn’t affect its momentum or trajectory. Then it hit me: Part of it could be artificial in nature.”
Donald snorted in disbelief.
“Right. And I’m a peace loving Enforcer.”
Debbie elbowed him in the ribs while her statement sunk it’s way into the minds of the others.
“Prove it.” Cassandra said.
The woman enlarged the magnified area nearly tenfold.
“I believe the main reason why Outpost 42’s main defenses couldn’t penetrate it was because it was protected by a sheathing -that is in many respects- similar to the ablative armor that was incorporated into it.”
“That’s unheard of,” Noyen was commenting thoughtfully. “Why would an asteroid be protected by a shield?”
“Probably to protect something?” Donald threw out helpfully.
“Maybe.” Debbie postulated, as she tied in the computer’s long range scan scanners into her terminal, and began to run a scan.
A minute later, her efforts paid off.
“Just as I thought. There’s an EM dead zone in the center of that thing. It runs a couple of miles down, and at least fifteen miles in diameter. I wasn’t able to determine an exact fix on whatever’s inside that zone."
“Does the sheathing protect the area in question?” Noyen asked.
Peters checked.
“Yep.”
Donald sat down heavily.
“So that’s why the asteroid couldn’t be destroyed right away. With that ‘armor’ in place, the asteroid was basically shrugging off their attacks with relative ease...”
“And there’s something else that I’ve found out as well, while you guys were talking over the commlink.”
“Good news or bad?” The other woman ventured.
“Bad I’m afraid.” Debbie confirmed. Then she looked up from where she was sitting. “From a technical perspective, what I’m about to say could also be considered a mystery. One that I’ve been unable to solve. One that I’ve been unable to solve.”
“What’s that?” Donald asked, his mind still trying to comprehend the possible fate that was held in store for their entire world.
“Along with the theory that this thing was partially artificial in nature, I had run another scan for any energy traces, and I came across something extraordinary.” She tapped in a request into her terminal, and the computer magnified another section of the asteroid.
“These faint energy signatures that I’m reading would lend to the idea that this thing -at one time- had once been part of a much larger planetoid mass that was surgically cut away, and catapulted by an extremely large device of unknown origin.”
Both of them stared at her disbelievingly.
Before her assistant could say anything, Cassandra jumped in first.
“Are you saying that someone launched this thing at us?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“But why?” Donald asked, feeling a different kind of fear well up inside of him. The concept of someone on the outside doing this deliberate act of willful destruction was way to mind boggling to fathom; let alone grasp.
“I don’t know. But I reviewed Cassie’s logs for the past week, I discovered that she was having a problem in determining the asteroid’s exact point of origin. When I duplicated her efforts, I failed as well. And there’s a reason for that.” She called up an overlay of the arm of the galaxy they were in and could see only sparsely populated stars. Not dense as its irregular center was, but more spread out. She had the computer highlight the section.
“Aside from our star system here, there is no inhabitable planets for a good four thousand light years distant from Kamar IV. And between us and that–” She had the computer zoom in on an almost invisible spot; purple upon black, all being sucked in by a huge vortex of crushing matter. Beyond that was a maze of stars.
“– is a Class Ten gravitational anomaly.” She called some more charts, and various pictures and vid transmissions of the thing was shown.
A what–? Cassandra mouthed to Truman, puzzled by the reference. The man just shrugged.
“New term for an old cosmic oddity that scientists in the past used to refer to as black holes.” He supplied off hand.
“Oh.”
“Anyway, I speculated that that’s where the asteroid had come from, because there are no asteroid belts in the vicinity of this star system or anywhere else for that matter. So it had to come from another galaxy altogether via this black hole--a transit gate as it were. Or better yet, a conduit linking one point to another.”
“In other words-?” Donald prompted her gently, knowing that she liked to carry on. Debbie took the hint and finished up.
“In other words, someone from another galaxy cut this monster out a much larger mass and hurled it into deep space.”
“By that large device no less.” Cassandra muttered under her breath.
“Possibly,” Peters continued unabated. “But when I originally discovered the trace energy signature, I also found a faint grove in the sub strata of the asteroid itself. Not a straight line, but more like a gentle curve. It seemed to me like someone was using some kind of weapon in order to cut into the rocky area itself. Afterwards, it was blasted away by a series of incredibly powerful charges. I’ll admit though, I thought it was done by natural forces in deep space, or created by tectonic fissures that had been prematurely induced by the gravitational fields of different stars. I figured that whoever was doing this had a specific purpose in mind.” She took a deep breath. “But what struck me was the fact that not only did this area have those energy signatures, but the entire ridge. So I asked the computer to do a compositional analysis of the asteroid’s base material, and I found that the entire thing the same energy traces that are present here." She pointed at a bare spot on the asteroid.
“I asked the computer to do a check on all known weapon signatures past and present in our database, but it came up with zip.”
“Which automatically means that its definitely alien in origin.” Noyen replied with a triumphant smile on her face.
“No, not quite alien, but something more familiar.”
“Huh?”
Another composite diagram popped up, and Debbie pointed at it.
“I ran a sub-harmonic base scan on those energy readings and discovered that they were similar to a pulsar gun that was used by the then Kamarian Central Government almost two and a half centuries ago, According to archival information, it was primary used for the deep space defense platforms. But the match was still negative in every way, so I figured that it was done by a powerful cutting laser or something ten times more powerful that could cut through an asteroid that was primarily made up of dense iron and nickel. Maybe their original purpose was to create a massive space going starship out of it, or possibly a base like Outpost 42.”
“But Outpost 42 was mounted onto a passing asteroid that blew through here centuries ago,” interjected Donald. “How could that have any bearing on what this discussion is about?”
“Let’s ask.” The woman scientist offered, and began typing.
Beep!
Another diagram popped up along side the holographic image of the asteroid.
Donald’s eyes almost bugged out from what he was seeing.
“What...what did you do that for? That’s Outpost 42!”
“I know that silly. I asked the computer to compare the makeup of that asteroid to anything that the Kamarian government has, and this is what popped up.”
Cassandra studied the new findings and frowned.
“Their both the same-? But that’s impossible!”
The junior scientist shrugged, and watched her superior get up and leave the terminal. Noyen walked over to the main view screen, and pulled up a copy of the woman's results. She started to change the results little by little, trying to figure out if there had been a mistake somewhere along the line.
But no matter how many times she ran it through the computer, Cassandra realized that she had been right all along.
How can they be the same? She wondered silently.
Just out of earshot, he could hear the others arguing.
Chapter 8
Kevin woke up just as the members of the Steel Knights were about to take another head count.
He could hear a few of them whispering among themselves, each of them talking in low voices, but he couldn't make out a word of what they were saying.
He also found that he was lying on top of a stretcher.
“What the heck...?” He murmured, still trying to remember what happened in the past few hours, and where he was.
A shadow fell across him, and he looked upwards.
“Hi there big guy. How is the shoulder?” A clear feminine voice said quietly. The woman stood over him like his own protective, guardian angel of sorts. Her raven black hair falling over her slim shoulders, and dark brown eye made the image almost complete. Instead of concentrating on the feelings that he was beginning to have the beautiful woman, he concentrated on his left shoulder. But to his dismay, it felt like it wasn’t even there.
“I can’t feel nothing if that’s what you mean.”
Karen White sat down carefully and undid the blanket that was covering the injured limb She checked the field dressing and the bandages that covered it, and found the white soaked in red.
“Not bad. But you shouldn’t try to move it very much. The sutures and thread won’t set in otherwise.”
“You stitched my shoulder shut?” He said, horrified. “Why would you do something as stupid as that?”
The woman gazed at him with a hurt look on her dirt smudged face.
“Because you would’ve bled to death if I hadn’t.”
“Oh.” He was quiet. Karen stared at the ground. Before he could continue, a second shadow fell across the both of them, and it to be one of the Steel Knights.
“Tyler wants everyone front and center. It seems like he’s called for the meeting of the minds.”
She got up, and looked back at Kevin.
“I’ll talk to you later.” She said, and left him to his own private thoughts.
The young man lay there for a moment, wondering what was going on. He craned his neck a little in order to get a better view of people that had gathered in a tight circle around some equipment.
From what he could deduce, it didn’t take much to figure out.
Karen stared at the figures that were handed to her.
Being second-in-command didn’t offer much in the way of privileges, but it did give her the reason to complain.
“These numbers don’t match the previous count that we took a couple of hours ago! What gives?”
“We lost a few hostages during the attack yesterday, when the Enforcers surprised us. It was bound to happen sooner or later.” Tyler answered as he inspected the bulky equipment to make sure that it was in order.
“Damn!” Karen pouted. “Then all of this has been done for nothing.”
He turned on one of the machines, and watched the colorful diagnostics play across the large screen.
“It’s no use getting mad at someone who was just doing there job, Karen. My god, its not like we’ve lost anyone that important.”
The woman was still troubled, and he looked at her carefully, before someone came up from behind them, and saluted.
“All clear, sir.” He said in a firm voice.
“Excellent Graph. Stand by for a moment would you?”
The other Steel Knight nodded, and studied her for a moment.
“What’s bothering you, Karen? This isn’t like you at all.”
“I know that, Ty. But what you said about not losing anyone important...” Her voice trailed off. Tyler immediately picked up on what she was saying.
“I see. Your attracted to one of the hostages aren’t you?”
Karen nodded cagily.
The man sighed softly. “Well, this puts an interesting twist into the matter at hand.” He checked the terminals to make sure that they weren’t damaged by the fighting.
“Who is it?” He asked.
“Kevin McDougal. He was the one that I had to treat rather abruptly before coming back to the camp.”
Tyler was quiet for one long second, and the woman could feel her heart pound in fear in combination with the adrenaline rush that was leftover from the recent battle. She wondered if what she had confessed to would result in severe consequences.
Then the memory of Higgins getting killed for making the mistake in checking for proper identification, entered into the back of her mind, and Karen figured that she would share his fate as well.
But would he someone who’s fallen in love?
Tyler activated one of the machines’ holo emitters, and a holographic image snapped into being.
Karen waited for a response from him.
No. Ached for one.
“Ty?” She ventured cautiously.
He turned to her.
“When people like you or I are born into this world, there are very few things that cannot be ignored instinctively. Emotions, I believe, are one of them. If love is one of those emotions, then there is no reason why I should punish you for that. It is one of God’s given rights as a human being, and I can’t tell -order- you not to stop loving someone because it might interfere with your duties as second-in-command of the Steel Knights. That wouldn’t be right, and it would be unfair for you.” He went back to tinkering with the control settings,
“If you love this Kevin person, then you don’t need my permission. I’m not accustomed to hold people’s hands and guiding them through the rough spots in life,” he made last check. “You catch my drift?”
“Thanks Ty. That mean a lot coming from you.”
He smiled.
“Just don’t make a habit of it, okay?” Because in the long run, I’m going to be needing you more than ever.”
Karen White stood at attention for a brief moment.
“You can count on me, sir.”
The man nodded.
“Good. Now get the rest of our people together, because I want to show them something important.”
Seconds later, everyone was assembled.
“I realize that things haven’t gone well in the last couple of days, but I felt that you needed to see this.”
He turned to the operational media terminal.
“Freeze cell 7-B-6-S. Extrapolate from all current data streams on or off the Net, and put volume filters at 75% of standard norm.” He instructed it, and the machine did so, and soon the entire street was hearing at full octave of the day’s current events.
“This is Frederick Corsairs bringing to you the evening news for September 8th, 2983.” The view shifted briefly as a nearby holo-cam zoomed in on his position, and never strayed until someone offside gave the signal to do so.
“Fighting continues to be a problem in the city of Boran, and in the distant Yon-Ty region as Enforcer personnel tried unsuccessfully to usurp a group of well armed terrorists that had taken a bus load of people hostage. The results were deadly for them, as many of them were killed in the fighting leaving many people to wonder if there should be any continued Enforcer presence in that region...”
“Serves those bastards right.” Karen commented, her voice full of frustration and anger with just a touch of fear mixed in as well. It wasn’t like she had taken this whole day’s episode lying down. Hell, she had her ass pinned down from the intense fire going on, and she just managed to get in a few random shots before taking cover behind a dumpster. But that was before she rescued John Scott and Kevin McDougal.
“Cool it Karen.” Tyler said, his voice all business now. “There is no point in getting worked up over something as dumb as what happened. We all took hits trying to keep our prisoners together.” Tyler motioned with his pulse rifle.
Karen was tempted to show the man the massive welt on her arm that she got from a plasma burn credited to an E-pulse blaster that had been modified for close range fighting in tight quarters. She had been stupid enough to leave her arm exposed while trying to get some distance between her and the Enforcer that had pursued her and Jake. Jake wasn’t as lucky as she was when a photon grenade blew him clear into next week. All that was left of the young man was his combat webbing and his right boot. The concussion knocked her on her butt, and slid ten feet in the wrong direction, catching a glancing shot to her arm. The effect was more like having acid directly poured into her arm, and it hurt like a friggin’ bitch when she tried to scratch it.
Tyler killed the feed just as things were getting interesting, and a few of his men grumbled at the unexpected action, but the man shut them up with a glare from his blood red eyes. His face was smudged with dirt from having to kiss the ground one to many times during combat, something that everyone had to do if they wanted to survive the inferno.
That was the way combat worked these days. It is either that or sport a suicidal eat-shit-and-die attitude.
“I know how you all must feel after yesterday’s little encounter, but this isn’t a joyride or a rec outing. This is life and death people. You, me, and about six hundred thousand Enforcers that are just waiting to plant the provincial daisies on our respective graves. So suck it up, and continue fighting like you don’t have another day to live. Because that may come soon for most of us if we don’t put our collective heads together and start fighting for the rights of those that have been wrongfully accused or used by the Kamarian government to get what they want. Many of us have joined this elite unit of vagabonds and renegades who are just trying to make a difference in their corner of life, and those that they consider friends and family,” He stared at each in turn before sweeping his gun arm to include the prisoners as well. “Even these poor souls have a life, and its up to us to make sure that they get the better deal. Even if that means blackmailing the planetary government in order to get it.”
Kevin wasn’t entirely sure if he liked that idea at all. And after listening to this lengthy conversation, he wasn’t totally sure that he wanted to be somebody else’s personal shield if things got exceedingly hostile either.
If the evidence wasn’t clear enough, it sure was now.
Jason and Caroline were stunned by what they were seeing with their own eyes as they continued down the deserted streets, hoping that they would be able to rescue some of the people that had been captured by the Steel Knights. But so far–and by the looks of things–it didn’t appear to be a warranted decision to commit themselves to the task at hand without having some serious firepower for backup.
Still, it was a god awful mess.
“Christ! These were trained Enforcers–” He looked at a few of the armored bodies that bore huge holes in their fronts, sides, or backs.
“And they fell under the gun.” He checked another that had slumped to the ground, and peered at a small circular hole that had been drilled neatly into his head.
“Looks like this one was taken out by a sniper at long range, judging by the size of the hole that its in his helmet, and the crap that exploded out the back of it.” He went into the middle of the road, and turned over another dead Enforcer. His gray-blue armor was shattered in the center, with tiny fragments embedded all around the impact site.
“This was hit by something resembling a grenade launcher with frag capabilities built in.”
Caroline gazed at him suspiciously.
“How do you know all this?”
“From my dad’s database back at the house. Since the Tonaria Riots, he’s been collecting any information on the weapons that had designed, made, and issued between the Kamarian government, and the Enforcer Headquarters.”
“Impressive. Your father must be quite a guy.”
Jason felt his cheeks warm up a bit from the pride he felt towards someone whom he considered a role model, “Yeah,” he replied. He was about to say something else when Caroline spotted someone trying to move weakly away from all the carnage that had taken place. Afraid that he would be next if he didn’t hurry by the looks of things.
Then he collapsed.
“Jay! Quick! Over here!” She called, and ran to the injured man’s side.
The teen kept his weapon out for just-in-case emergencies like the one they had earlier, and pulled out a small med-kit that he kept with him at all times.
He jumped the curb to where Caroline was, and knelt down to take a look at the injured man.
From his point of view, he looked bad.
Literally.
The young girl turned away when they finally managed to turn him over, and she got a good look at the man’s face. Right then and there, she almost lost whatever lunch she had eaten earlier.
Even Jason barely stood his ground, but he drew on some much needed strength, and pulled out a hypo, which he then injected into the man’s upper arm. He was careful of where to place the point of the device because of the severity of the man's injuries.
But his movements woke the man rather abruptly, and it startled Caroline badly.
“Thanks...” He whispered groggily, the strips of hanging flesh from the left side of his face sloughing off a little as it touched the white sidewalk.
He stared into the eyes of both teenagers, and realized that he must’ve terrified them both.
“I must apologize for my outward appearance. My face feels like its been turned into oatmeal after hitting the pavement head on.”
“Among other things.” Jason agreed tentatively.
The man sighed, his breathing starting to become shallow by the minute.
“How do I look?” He managed between breaths.
“Do you want the truth, or should I just lie?”
“Lie.”
“You look great.” The injured man tried to laugh, but what came out sounded badly garbled.
“Truth?” He asked after a minute.
Jason gazed at his entire body for a moment, seeing the blistered, discolored flesh on his legs, and the weird star shaped mark on his lower back. Most of his clothes had been painfully seared away in some places. He could only see strips of denim that might’ve been jeans, or could’ve been slacks, or anything.
His brown shirt hung in rags over his blood smeared shoulder, and bits of metal that might’ve been a necklace of sorts were fused into his tanned skin.
“You look like shit. And I don’t mean that personally either.”
He closed his eyes.
“That’s okay. I know what your trying to tell me. It probably means that I don’t have long to live at any rate.”
“Do you have a name that we could call you?” Caroline asked politely, finally getting over the shock of seeing a severely injured man. “It would at least make the conversation go a little smoother at any rate.”
“Max...Max Witcolm.” He murmured.
Jason Scott stumbled backwards, and fell on his ass.
“Oh, no...” He moaned softly. “Not you...”
Caroline Taylor was confused by the sudden change in behavior.
“What’s wrong?’
Jason sat there; numbed to the core.
“That’s my father’s brother-in-law...”
“I’m sorry,” Caroline said gently. “I didn’t know.”
The boy shook his head sadly.
“Neither did I.” He gazed at the man who used to come over on those rare occasions during the winter holidays, arms laden with all sorts of gifts. Jason smiled fondly at the memories he had as a young boy. He checked to see if he was still awake, and to his surprise, he was.
“Hey, Max. How are your feeling?”
The man’s right eye opened slowly, his left swollen shut from injury. It took him a few minutes to figure out who was actually talking to him.
“J-Jason Scott?” He chuckled, his voice scratchy and raw from coughing up blood. “What in heaven’s name are you doing here, boy? Aren’t you supposed to be in school at this time?”
The pretty young girl with black curls falling over her right ear said, “He chose to skip out today because of his father.”
Max struggled to sit up, but was finding it increasingly difficult because of his injuries.
“John? What happened to him?”
Jason hunched over him, and began to bandage the man’s bloodied arm, using the sterile wrappings that he had in his kit.
Caroline glanced at Max, and then at Jason.
“He was taken hostage. As was my mother’s boyfriend, Earnest Weller. But my mom calls him, ‘Ernie’ for short.”
“Ah, so your Michelle’s little girl. I didn’t know you two were neighbors.” He tried to laugh, but his battered lungs abruptly seized, and he started to cough in fits.
“We are.” She commented.
Jason sat back, and gripped her by the arm.
“He shouldn’t be talking. I’m no doctor, but I’d say that he’s got some serious internal injuries. He may be bleeding for all I know.”
Max reached out a placed a trembling hand on the boy’s shin.
“That’s okay, Jason. I don’t mind. But I think it would help if I told you what happened here.” Caroline looked at him for a moment before she nodded. Jason relented as he listened to a dying man tell his side of the story.
Max gazed up at the sky, and watched the sun slowly set in its zenith, and he wondered if he would be given the chance to watch it again one last time. But even he knew that it was an impossibility, not with death slowly creeping up on him. Even amid the haze and pain that constantly wracked his body, he struggled to get the proper words out.
“I can’t tell you a whole lot. We had just gotten off of our shift at this region’s only neutronium processing plant, and we were heading home..” He drew in an experimental breath. Not a deep one, he cautioned himself, and continued on the only way possible.
“When all of the sudden, our bus was hit from behind by some radical group that was calling themselves the Steel Knights or something. You see I couldn’t quite hear what they were saying because I was still half deaf from the explosion...” He ran out of breath prematurely, and he stared skyward in a daze. His eyes picked out the stunning colors of purple and gold as the dying light hit the clouds at soft angles, and he felt his heart become heavy with regret. But still, the pain that was infused in his broken and battered body was much worse then he could’ve imagined.
Then, for some unknown reason, he felt unusually giddy, almost light headed even.
His consciousness waned for a moment.
Probably due to the hit that I took when he Enforcers came to get us...
In his mind’s eye, he could still hear the yelling and cursing of grown men and the anguish that followed them mere minutes after the battle had started. He could still hear their sharp cries of pain echoing through the air as man after man fell to the ground, victims of the very weapons that they had once held in their sweaty grips.
Distinctively, he could still remember the sharp tang of ozone as numerous energy weapons discharged, as he felt suffocating heat of the various weapons blasts as they homed in on his position; feeling the shock that coursed through his body as his insides seem to explode with a certain fury having been so painfully ripped apart by opposing forces.
And then he recalled the way he fell forward, his entire body embracing the unforgiving pavement. Nothing much to remember after that, considering very own consciousness left him in a bloody hurry.
Then...nothing.
I guess I did get hit by that stray shot after all. Or maybe it was several. I can’t be sure anymore! I just want to die...
Depression weld up inside of him like a steely mist.
But the kids–! His mind howled with a certain desperation, and was unexpectedly pulled from the brink of total collapse, and awoke again, his consciousness bringing him back into the present.
“Uhhnn...” He moaned, blinking away the harsh light that shone in his face, but no matter how hard he tried, it wouldn't go away. He squinted, ignoring the searing agony of his left eye, and discovered that he was moved right underneath the glare of a street lamp.
“Your all right,” the pretty girl reassured him in a gentle voice. “You were out cold for about an hour.”
The boy was gone.
Heart racing, he craned his neck left and right so fast that the tortured muscles protested by seizing up on him.
Squeezing his eye shut against the mounting pain, he waited for it to subside a little while before he attempted to speak again.
“Where is he? Where’s Jason Scott?” He said in a terrified voice.
“Right behind you. Don’t move yourself too much though,” he cautioned. “I had to go get something to make you more comfortable.” Then he felt a pillow being propped beneath his head, and his nostrils could pick out its mustiness that was laced with the smell of garbage. He also discovered that he was covered by a tattered red blanket.
“Sorry about the hasty accommodations. But that’s all I could find in a place like this. Everything else was either damaged or destroyed.”
Max suddenly felt warm all over despite the growing chill in the air, and he nodded his thanks to the boy carefully.
“You’ve been a big help to me, Jason. I think your father would’ve been proud for what your doing for someone like me.”
“Thanks, Max.” Jason replied.
The injured man stared into the darkened sky, and saw a few stars blinking back at him weakly.
“But I’m afraid that all you’ve done was useless. You see...I’m...dying.” Max smiled when he said that, and judging by the teenager’s expression on his freckled face, he saw that he was puzzled by the statement.
“But why?” He said at last. “Your not that badly injured. You just some cosmetic surgery, and maybe a couple of artificial implants. You’ll be good as new in no time.”
Now the coughing had begun in earnest, and Max made the conscious effort to quiet the tickling feeling that he felt growing in his lungs.
“It’s okay.” He said in a raspy voice. “I really don’t care much for that synthetic crap they have at the hospitals these days. It makes you feel less than human after a while, and that’s after they take out all your good organs I might add.” Again, he tried to push himself up momentarily, but found that he didn't have the necessary strength to after what Jason did to his arm. He sank back down slowly, carefully, gently, and gazed up at the starlit sky. “Dying isn’t that bad. Just think of it as another learning experience.”
“What about the bus? What happened to the people on it?” Caroline Taylor wanted to know, a hint of desperation settling in her voice.
Max breathed deeply for the first time, finding that the pain had somehow subsided.
“Yes...the bus...” He began. “It was badly mangled from being hit consecutively by what looked like missiles. In the process, many good people were killed, but at the same time, many more managed to come out alive; including myself. But what I didn’t know was that some of the survivors were severely injured.”
“And my dad? What happened to him?” Jason replied tensely, worried sick to his stomach.
“John is still alive if that’s what's got you concerned, Jason. He and his friend Kevin McDougal are still being held prisoner by those shit faced terrorists. And as stupid as I was, I thought that I could escape to warn someone. Unfortunately, I was cut down before I could get to safety. Some Enforcer thought I was one of them seeing the commandeered rifle I was carrying. Asshole probably doesn’t even know the full truth in the matter...” He fell silent again, trying to ward off the darkness that was closing in on his soul.
“What’s that?” Jason was the first to ask, hoping that something would give him a real clue to the matter at hand. As much as he hated the way things were going right now, he hated mysteries even worse. They were so time consuming.
Max gathered all of his remaining strength to say the last words that filtered through his mind. He was right after all about one thing though: Dying wasn’t as bad as most people had thought and feared for most of their lives. Just a quiet shutdown that his body was preparing itself for.
And what was more astonishing to him, was that it was actually painless.
“The Steel Knights are after something else, or they wouldn’t have defended us with so much zeal. It’s apparent that the prisoners are more important to their cause than the government fruitcakes gave them credit for...” Max died after uttering those exact words, his final breath escaping in a soft exhalation of air.
Jason sat there in shock, unable to come to terms that a close friend of the family had spoken and died in front of his very eyes. But it was Caroline Taylor who brought him out.
“Come on,” she said softly, after she drew the blanket over the man’s face. “We still have a long way to go.”
The boy drew in a deep breath in order to compose himself, to calm the shaking that he was feeling at that very minute.
“Yeah, let’s go.” And they left the area that spoke of death, and carried with the underlying hope that things would start to improve.
Outpost 42.
The place still looked like shit even after ten hours of cleaning out most of the damaged decks of all the garbage, strewn objects, smashed bulkheads, and the like.
The broken bodies that were once part of the crew, were now laid horizontally along the corridors in order to save space for the others that were still alive, and trying their best to patch the place together. The only way to tell them apart were in the holographic dog tags that were still attached around their necks. In a few cases, they were placed inside the dark green blankets that covered them simply because there were no heads at all.
Edward Sanchez sat numbly at the commlink station where Patrick Bellows occupied only hours before the asteroid hit with incredible force. And even while he sat there staring at the useless equipment, the now fading memory of the whole incident still had enough power to shake him to the core.
So he sat there for a moment to contemplate his future.
It was up to him to tell the others what had taken place once they reached home, because nobody would know for real because of the fact that the log recorders where destroyed as the result of the hard impact.
Anger boiled deep within him.
The system’s only functioning outpost in two hundred years, suddenly taken out by a piece of space rock.
He slammed his fist in anger, cursing himself for his own sheer stupidity for not seeing this sooner.
But who could accurately predict the path of intermittent chaos?
Edward certainly couldn’t. His first officer couldn't, but that was a moot point now. He found Waun’s body beneath the remains of a shattered console.
Just like his young life: Ripped asunder in an instant. No chance of even saying good-bye...
Another officer came through the open hatchway with grease and grime painted on his face and exposed arms.
“We have minimal power to thrusters. All other major systems are still off line though.”
Grunting, Sanchez rose from the tattered seat he was perched on..
“Hell, it’s better than nothing.” He took one last look at the ruined command center, and joined the man inside the partially functional lift. From the looks of things, the doors were dented from god-knows-what, it’s red paint scratched in numerous places from flying debris and the many bodies that were carelessly thrown about during the sudden failure in the station’s main gravity generators.
“So what is working?” He said tiredly. The lift doors ground shut in a shriek of scraping metal that set the man’s teeth on edge. A press of the button, and the car started it’s journey down the shaft, jerking occasionally in the process. During the next few minutes Sometimes during the ride down, Sanchez could hear the soft clang! of metal pieces bouncing off the top of the car, only to take a spiraling ascent into eternity. A moment later, the sound of tortured metal was heard as the car continued it’s decent. Other times it was just a tinkling sound that was quickly followed by the booming noise of broken steel coming to rest at the bottom of the shaft.
He gazed at the man questionably.
“Repair crews are still working on some of the upper decks,” he said in a way of an apology.
“I figured that out. Anything else working around here?”
“Not much I’m afraid. Main power is a no-go. Whatever hit the Core’s power generators screwed things past the normal stages of recovery and repair. Hagman says that it might take a few months before we see any solid propulsion capabilities.” The officer watched the indicators above him float in large holographic numbers, ticking off the levels that were still accessible by turbo lift. “For right now, the only thing that we could manage was auxiliary power. Zeke had to pull some people from all over the station who had a Class Four rating in mechanics, and had them work on some of the equipment in order to keep it working.”
“What kind of equipment?” Sanchez inquired as the lift started to slow down unexpectedly. To his astonishment, the doors didn’t open on command like they had in the past. After a few seconds delay, the car started to move sideways and then dropped down an adjoining shaft. Finally it continued on, the luminescent numbers counting up instead of down.
“Sorry about that. A couple teams of technicians had to reroute most of the service lifts in order to clear out some hazardous debris.” He was quiet for a second. “I was told that some of the shafts had crumpled like tissue paper, and at least one was completely open to hard vacuum.”
“Gods...” He breathed quickly. With all the damage sustained so far, he was surprised that they managed to come through at all. “You were saying about the type of equipment?” He added as an afterthought.
The officer looked at him blankly.
“Oh yeah!” He said, snapping his fingers in remembrance. “The kind that prevents us from becoming tomorrow’s headlines,” he pursed his lips and simulated what he thought would be a loud explosion, and then threw his hands up for added effect.
“Perfect. Nothing more melodramatic than having the entire deck vaporize beneath your feet.” Edward replied with a touch of sarcasm.
His companion grinned wryly.
“You should hear my version of a broken plasma conduit after all this crap is finished. It’s a riot.” He said.
Sanchez chuckled before returning to the discussion at hand.
“What about damage to the outpost itself?”
“Surprisingly little. Structural integrity systems are in still in operation throughout most of the sectors. With the exception of bent and buckled Duralite armored plating around the Core and a couple of other places; we’re in pretty good shape.”
Commander Sanchez held the final question for last.
“Dead?”
The man breathed in and exhaled slowly, forcing himself to dredge up the numerous reports that he collected so far.
“Medical indicated in their last report that out of three thousand personnel, they’ve accounted for almost eighty percent of them. But they say that we have at least 200 dead, and 65 confirmed missing and presumed dead.” He shook his head in a futile attempt to clear his memory of all those names that had been placed in the MIA and KIA columns.
But it wasn’t easy.
“A while ago, I came across a report from Captain Jeremiah Freeman, leader of Cobra squadron. In that report, he indicated that in his failed attempt to destroy the asteroid, he lost one of his men in the process. He also reported that upon returning to Hanger Bay Four, he discovered a crewman that had been crushed by a falling holo-projector. Medical says they haven’t been to identify him yet. But I suspect that he might’ve been a reserve pilot for any of the squadrons. As I speak, cleanup crews are still in the process of clearing out the debris in HB4.”
Edward sighed.
“At least it’s not a total loss. But I still can’t get over the fact that I should’ve seen this coming sooner.”
The tech gazed at him.
“Sir, its pointless in continuing to blame yourself for what happened. It is not your fault. Hell, it must’ve been a million-billion-chance that Outpost 42 was slammed by this monster. But we can’t go on condemning ourselves for a lax bad in judgment. Everyone on this outpost is human, and we are always prone in making mistakes these days. It wouldn’t be right for you to continue to make more by incriminating yourself day in and day out. So my advice is to make the best of a bad situation, and get this oversized bathtub back in working order.” He stopped talking when a bell-like tone sounded inside the lift, indicating that they were about to come to a complete stop. He watched with growing distaste as the doors opened halfway, and then jammed in a sudden shower of sparks. He placed his hands on one side and motioned to his commander to so the same. In position, the two men tested their collective strength on the corroded metal.
“Shall we?” He invited, and gritted his teeth; physically preparing himself for the task ahead.
Edward copied him.
“On three.”
“One...”
“Two...”
Enforcer Headquarters.
Three hours later.
Westfield still couldn’t believe what had taken place.
Of all the crazy ass shit going on in the world, the raid was perhaps the worst thing that could’ve happened.
Could’ve happened.
Should’ve never happened, he corrected himself angrily. The Chief Commandant had probably already gotten the information on the botched assault. That would fit nicely on his record.
Failure to uphold government policy....
Utterly disgusted with himself, he got up to get another cup of coffee. His third cup already a casualty from hours of paperwork.
Then a lieutenant burst in, a pale look on his face.
“Sir! We’ve got the reports that came in from the Fifth Continent– ” He stopped talking long enough to flip through a small wad of sheets that he had in his hand. “Ummm...epidemic spreading through sectors Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. It states that an unknown number of people have died from a strange affliction, and one city/state has been confirmed as completely wiped out. The mayor there indicated in a personal recording that some of the local health service representatives had brought back something contagious that eventually spread through the entire city like wildfire.”
Westfield snatched the hand copied reports out of the man’s hands and scanned them quickly.
“How did we find out about it? I thought the Kamarian Medical Institute would be notified first.”
“They were. As you see on page 15, there’s something there...” He pointed to the left half of the paper. “It was reported as ‘medical probes detected massive drops in said population. Vital signs bottomed out after five days.’ End.”
He looked on as Terry continued to read.
“Kamarian Medical had already sent out some people to investigate by the time these reports were transmitted in the clear.”
“Any indications as to where these reports had come from?”
“No sir. We’re still looking into that.”
Terry stared at the hot cup that was sitting in respectful silence inside the machine’s slot. Waiting for him to come and pick it up.
He looked at the scribbled writing on the thick sheets of paper.
Looked back at his cup.
Looked at the paper.
Looked–
“Let’s go.” He said abruptly, propelling the man out the door with a push of his hand. As he closed the door behind him, his mind flashed back to the coffee that was still sitting in it’s small receptacle, and the mountains of paperwork that he had to accomplish by day’s end; daring him to ignore what his duty was as head of the Enforcers.
At this point, things were suddenly more important than just being a paper pusher.
Things like death.
The nightly news was about to start again, and Katherine Dawson thought that she had everything in order when a passing technician dropped another cube into her waiting lap, and disappeared without explanation.
The woman picked it up and looked at it curiously.
“Hey Ted! I thought that I had all of them–” The man in question glanced back at her with a distracted look on his face, and shook his head before disappearing into the shadows of the back lit studio.
Katherine blew out all her breath in apparent exasperation, and plunked the cube into its reader port, and waited for it to do a quick scan of the object’s contents.
“What the hell?!?” She replied in a stunned voice as her brain tried to male some sense of what she was seeing.
Anger started to build up within compact frame like a volcano as she got ready to blow with each passing moment that she spent studying the monitor.
Flicking off the screen, and yanking the cube out of its port, she stormed into her boss’s office with murder firmly planted on her mind.
Chapter 9
Samantha Scott didn’t know what to do.
She had spent the previous night over at Mildred’s place watching the holo-vid.
Watching as her little part of the world crumbled like a deck of cards on an unsteady table. The images that she saw were almost unbearable, and before she knew it, she was this close to breaking down as she saw her husband announce to the rest of the world that he was being held against his will. Perhaps the biggest blow to her was getting a call from the school; informing her that her son had unexpectedly taken off from school upon the news of his father’s abduction during class. And what was more surprising to her was the fact that another student went with him willingly. When the principal told her who the other student was, she went ashen, and then hung up after a brief good-bye.
Samantha sat there only moments after the link was broken, trying to figure out why her son would do such a thing. She knew how much Jason took after John, and how much he loved him, but why go to these lengths? His record to date had been perfect at school, and there was no reason to be involved in this.
So why drag her into this? She kept asking herself even when the comm link buzzed again for her undivided attention.
“Yes?” She answered distractedly, presently in the midst of sorting out her problems.
But the person on the other end had ones of her own.
“Sam? Can I talk to you for a minute?” The woman asked herself tentatively, her forest green eyes red from having to fight the grief and the insomnia that racked both her mind and body, her face still tear streaked from hours of crying herself to the point of exhaustion.
“Sure, Michelle. What can I do for you?”
“I received a call from the principal down at the school. Why is my little girl skipping school with your son all of the sudden? Is he trying to pull something stupid?”
Samantha stopped short of lashing out at the poor woman. She understood what kind of pain she was going through, and it wouldn’t help matters much if she started screaming now. Like Mildred, she had known her since her last divorce, and she knew that she was plainly upset by whole situation at hand.
“No, I’m sure that my son has a perfectly good reason in dragging Caroline along with him. I don’t believe that their skipping school just to play hooky.”
“Maybe that’s it. Or maybe your son has a thing for my daughter.” She accused flat out.
Samantha Scott stared into the monitor with smoldering fury.
“How dare you insinuate that my son is that type of person, Michelle!” She responded icily. “For your information, he is very gentle, and would never force himself on any girl, even Caroline.”
“Even if he had a crush on her?”
Samantha almost laughed, but somehow managed to contain it.
“Even if he did, that’s perfectly normal for a boy his age. For Pete’s sake, Michelle, he’s thirteen...almost fourteen years old! Give him a break, will you?”
The woman was quiet.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t...I mean...I...” She faltered.
“Michelle, please... everything’s going all right. If my son is out there with your daughter, he’ll do everything there is to protect her. He has his E-pulse blaster with him, so don’t worry.”
“I am worried. I’ve been calling everyone that I know the last two hours, asking for the whereabouts of my sweet Caroline. Trying to find out if anyone has seen her. But so far, I haven’t received an answer from anyone. Not on the public or private comm channels.”
Samantha was amazed that she would go to great lengths in ensuring her child’s safe return to her, and the hope that she desperately clung to in conjunction with finding her daughter alive and unhurt.
Deep down though, she knew that it was all for naught. Nobody she associated with in the past would give her same assurances if it was her that suddenly went missing, because from their point of view, there was really nothing that they could do to stop what was transpiring in order to do what was deemed acceptable by society’s standards.
Terrorism in any form was something that was not so easily dismissed by any means. In fact, as she recalled, it was heavily discouraged from ever taking root. Law and Order in the thirtieth century law had gotten to a point where a person couldn’t even steal candy from a baby as it where. But she knew that the world she had grown up in wasn’t the idealistic utopia that the Kamarian government had once proclaimed it had always been. There were always those gaps– chinks really– that rebellious citizens found so enticing, and so would always use that leverage to strike back in the name of solidarity and freedom from certain oppression.
Oppression from a now tyrannical government, and solidarity from the rumored brutality that the Enforcers and others like them had meted out with an iron fist. All in the name of justice.
And now things have come to an inevitable crossroad, the two most important people in her life were caught up in the middle of it.
Samantha didn’t doubt the grief that was etched into her lovely features turn into anger, then rage, and finally bitter hatred.
It took her a moment to calm the raging fire that she was feeling inside of her, and then she turned around to face the screen.
“Easy now, Michelle. I’m sure that things were miscommunicated somewhere along the line,” she said in a mollifying tone; trying her best to soothe the enraged woman. But there was no denying the firm tenacity of the human spirit.
“Try telling that to my daughter. Or to my boyfriend who’s one of those being held hostage. They’re out there somewhere, and there’s not a damned thing that I can do about it!” The woman started to cry again, all the pent up anger finally giving ground to the underlying hurt that she felt throughout through whole ordeal.
Sam looked at her calmly.
“You can at least have the courage to pray for their safe return. Don’t forget that my husband and son are out there too, and I haven’t given up all hope either. So don’t you dare lose your faith on this.”
Michelle gazed back at her, a pensive expression on her face.
“I won’t, but just remember that when they start executing every one of them because their petty demands weren’t met in the end. Then we’ll sit down and discuss personal point of views.”
Before Samantha could respond, the feed was cut from the other end, leaving nothing but static that was thickly ingrained with white pixels which danced around like fleas.
Kamarian Medical Institute.
Dr. Jenolan tidied up his lab area before shutting off the lights, confident that the earlier code lockout would remain secure until he could find a way to dispose of the Virus X sample properly without endangering the needless millions in the process.
He still thought–despite his thirty years of experience–that genetic engineering was still a finite piece of work. A very delicate procedure all in the name of science.
Of course, the results of years’ worth of work involving the most powerful viral strain known to man was never supposed to have gone pass the development stages either. But somewhere, somehow, somebody finished what he had started nearly 25 years ago.
He glanced towards the general direction in which the canister lay, wondering if the recently improved Duralite casing would prove adequate enough. He had his own doubts about the whole thing, wishing that it would just vanish into thin air, like the rest of his life had while trying to develop the damned thing.
Sitting there at his desk, he wondered if it wasn’t already too late to burn his notes that contained all of his research, knowing full well that it probably couldn’t be duplicated ever again.
He thought back to the days when he crafted it thing out of a virtual reality model. The time when he caressed it with his own hands like a lover in the open confines of cyber space as it lay there.
A finished piece of work.
A glorious wonder to behold to the naked eye.
He recalled sitting there in the meeting room with all the various department heads of the Kamarian military, explaining to them the finer points of his crowning achievement, and getting nothing but adamant praise from those around him and who delved into genetics from time to time.
He also listened to the promises of the Kamarian government, and to President Garris.
Alexander Jenolan listened to them all.
Now, at the age of 73, he wondered the exact same thing as he got up and walked over to the small vault that was buried into the wall where he had placed the canister in. He stared at the rolling numbers that flowed across an LED screen, each number twisting and turning; others tumbling like slow falling rocks, and then finally vanishing from the screen only to start all over again.
“How can something so beautiful and yet so deadly, manage to escape my attention so quickly?” He thought out loud as he waved a frail hand over the numerical display, automatically interrupting the flow that the computer interpreted as an access gain.
The forest of numbers disappeared as the screen waited patiently for him to enter the correct sequence to allow him access to it's dangerous secrets.
But as he was about to enter the last numbered sequence, his hand froze abruptly above the touch pad, leaving him to stare hopelessly into the monitor. Then it dropped to his side in an act of rejection.
“I....can’t.” He sobbed quietly. “The world’s had enough pain to deal with. I can’t let you loose on countless innocents. It would tear me apart.” Quickly, he entered the last number that would open the vault’s door, and unlocked the canister from its housing. And despite the absolute zero temperatures that were biting at his exposed flesh, he managed to pull it free. He regarded the thing with hollow sadness, a sudden feeling of pure emptiness which threatened to overwhelm him at any given moment.
“But you...you are my life’s work.” He spoke in a soft tone of voice. “And I cannot allow you to fall into the wrong hands ever again.”
He closed the door to the vault and calmly walked out of his lab, the canister tucked under his arm.
Unknown to him, he was being closely watched.
And followed.
Captain Westfield was in the process of snapping his gray pectoral body armor on, someone came barging in unannounced, demanding to know what was going on at the top of his lungs.
“Ah, Mayor Tuttleman.” He bowed slightly. “Your Excellency. What can I do for you?” He queried politely while hunting around for the yellow biohazard suit. Once he located it, he began to pull it over himself. But the mayor stopped him with a beefy hand.
“No, Captain. You won’t be needing that.”
“What?” He said in stunned disbelief. “But we have to! There’s an epidemic raging on the Fifth Continent– ”
The fat man in the pinstripe suit just shook his head.
“I’m having looked into right at this moment by some....ah...experts in the medical field.”
“From the Medical Institute?”
“No. Let’s just say that their freelance, and leave it at that. In the meantime, I have a new priority for you.”
“And what might that be?” Westfield asked in a slightly hostile voice.
Tuttleman drew out a long cigar that the captain swore was a cheap replica off of the ones that were made by the Eighth Continent’s cigar refineries. But the smoke he blew in his direction of his face after lighting the thing convinced him otherwise.
“It would seem that a good friend of mine at the Reajaar Province has gotten himself into yet another fine fix again. I was wondering–?”
Terry stripped the suit off in half concealed disgust, and then went over to a weapons locker, and retrieved a J-025 light assault rifle.
“Riots again?” He sighed in defeat. Whoever this person was, was apparently pretty well known to have gotten himself into something as trivial as that. However, something in the back of his mind told him otherwise.
With the ongoing energy crisis, anything was possible.
The sounds of a door opening reached the man’s ears, and he turned his head. He caught sight of McDuff waltzing in, all dressed up and ready to go. His smile was so wide, that Westfield thought his face would split. And to top it all off, he was singing!
That in itself was as much as he could take for one day, and he proved that to a fault by grabbing the man by his arm as he passed.
So fast in fact, that the sudden momentum threw him off balance, and he landed on his butt.
“Uggh-!” Came a distorted voice from inside the helmet. “What’d you go and do that for?”
“Sorry about that ol’ buddy. But the mayor here has kindly changed my orders to something just as exciting.” He glanced at the man who was puffing quietly away on his cigar. “Or something stupid.” Terry made no effort to hide the annoyance he felt for the over privileged political retards that sat in an overtly cushioned office, while people like him put their lives on the line in the name of peace and prosperity.
Tuttleman looked at him nonchalantly, but saying nothing about the offhanded remark that was directed at him.
McDuff was a little stunned by the sudden change in orders.
“Your kidding right?” He asked hopefully while he pulled off the helmet, and laid it next to him.
“Nope.” The mayor replied, then took another draw on the cigar, and exhaled slowly through his nostrils; the smoke forming a semi-transparent veil in front of his face. “I’m not.”
“Shit! There goes my chances of ever traveling abroad,” McDuff mourned, mockingly depressed.
Reajaar Province.
The city was in chaos.
Mayor Larson thought he would never see the light of day if he ever lived through this one. People that used to be loyal, law abiding citizens, were in the process of breaking things or creating a public nuisance by joining some crazy outfit bent carrying out their brand of world order.
But as things stood, he couldn’t see things clearly. Not when he had a laser pistol pointed directly at his face while he was being pushed forward. The huge crowd that tagged along for the ride, parted for the gun totting mob, permitting him to pass unmolested.
In the back of him, what remained of his office was now a funeral pyre as it was being razed to the ground by fire.
Larson walked in silence, his eyes darting nervously about as he eyed the bodies of slain Enforcers, most of them stripped of their armor and hardware, while a couple that he could see was being gnawed on by hungry dogs.
The gruesome sight turned his already frail stomach, but somehow he contained the urge to puke his brains out in front of these angry people that used to be part of a larger community only a week ago.
Privately, he wondered if there was something that he did wrong that would warrant this kind of treatment. But nothing up front suggested that actually suggested that he did. The only viable conclusion that he could come up with was that he was quite possibly the only accessible political figure that could be used as a hostage.
But as the mob drew closer to their destination, the terrified mayor saw something come rearing out of the past that sent an arrow of fear right through his heart.
The gallows– ! He thought timidly. Why in the world to they want to hang me? At least my secretary could’ve done was shoot me right on the spot earlier and be done with it. That would’ve been quick and easy– ! As he was being led up the steps, he saw a rather large and homemade noose that was fashioned out of Duralite wiring. He judged the thickness to be no more than an inch thick, but large enough to fit snugly around his neck.
He wondered if he would be able to get in a last word before they hung. But it didn’t look like that was going to be an option in his case, so he whispered a couple prayers that promised deliverance from the evil that men did to each other, and closed his eyes in anticipation of the pain that would surely follow.
The crowd below roared their approval, as another man walked up the stairs, carrying a large proton cannon in his pudgy hands. He slung the weapon on his back, and then dug into the back of his pants pocket. Unfolding the note that he withdrew, Jack could see the hastily scribbled words on it, and listened as the man spoke; his words sounding like raging thunder to his ears.
“For failure to perform your duties as the elected head of government, the noble and kind citizens of the Reajaar Province hear by find you guilty in the most severest degree. It is therefore decreed that you be hung in compliance with public execution laws 473, and 476, in accordance given by the city’s charter drafted in the year 2713.” He looked at his captive.
“Any last words?”
From his point of view, there was no avenue of escape. Each possible route of flight was blocked by men and women wearing various pieces of armor taken from downed Enforcers. Even the faces of dirt smudged children were present, and that shocked the mayor beyond words. But he could see the same anger that was in the adults, and a few brandished blasters that were much too big for them to carry, let alone use.
The anger. The grief. The terror.
Even fear.
He read all of these emotions buried in their expressions. Such motivators, the man knew, could give them the necessary strength to do the impossible.
“Well?” The man persisted. “What’s it going to be?”
The mayor sighed and looked up at his captor, reading the mixture of fear and courage that was buried under the man’s steely gaze.
It was some time before he spoke.
“You can do what you will of me, but it won’t change the fact that what your about to do is terribly wrong. Killing an innocent man won’t solve all of your problems in an instant. In fact, they could get worse than you can possibly imagine.”
The self proclaimed leader of the mob man chewed his words silently, his jaw muscles moving back between anger and...pain?
“You may be right. But at least it’ll get rid of this damned headache that I’ve had to carry with me all day.” He signaled to someone behind him, and the man felt the sharp bite of the wire as it was placed around his neck. A quick jerk of the wire was all it took to bring Larson to his feet in a rather big hurry.
Jack figured right then and there that he had been wrong about a great many things.
The question resonating through his mind was: Why?
“Ready....?”
“Yes sir.” The Enforcer marksman replied through his mouthpiece as he brought his targeting scope into play, sighting something that was less than a millimeter wide.
And a half mile away.
“Take them out then.”
“Gladly sir. Fire one.” His massive hand squeezing the trigger of his snub nosed sniper rifle.
Globs of pure energy spewed forth in a smooth arc, and then vanished into the fading light of day.
At this range, he couldn’t possibly miss.
Larson soon realized that he was going to die. That much was a given as he felt the wire go taunt, biting into the first layer of his tender skin.
Then his hearing picked up an odd whistling noise, and suddenly, luminescent orbs of eerie green light blew over the heads the would be spectators. One cut right through the Duralite wire like it had never existed. The thin man dropped to the platform like a puppet with its strings cut, bruising his face, and knocking the wind out of him in the process.
The others all around him looked around in utter confusion, not sure how this happened, but were suddenly convinced that someone from outside of their ranks was wholly responsible for interfering with their rights of vengeance.
His captor spun around slowly, his weapon pointed directly outwards, scanning the perplexed crowd with beady eyes, checking to see who it was that was the obvious traitor that robbed him and everyone of their much deserved victory.
But he could see no signs of deception in anyone because they were much in the dark as he was.
Then he gazed out towards the distant horizon and saw to his growing disbelief: glowing orbs of light...
Coming right at him.
“What in the name of God...?” He wondered openly before a fusillade of cannon fire cut him down.
Then more of the same appeared and showered the tiny square with devastating explosions as they came pouring down like rain on the unsuspecting crowd of people; blowing holes into the permacrete and tossing people around like tenpins.
Thunderous concussions rooted the mayor where he lay. And Jack Larson was positive that he was going to die right then.
Amid the clamor, and the screaming and shouting, he found the notion of being hung much more appealing than all of this craziness that was taking place right at the moment. Then out of nowhere, a human body flew straight at him like a bullet, before sailing over his head at the last possible second; plummeting over the side with a resounding crash, and the sounds of splintering wood as it crashed into a loosely stacked pile that had been previously placed below the gallows after it was hastily constructed.
Pure lunacy.
He saw more shots being fired from a distance, and he wondered who was doing the shooting.
Was this a rescue or a massacre?
Chapter 10
Kamarian Science Institute.
Along with the many department heads in the huge complex, Drs. Peters and Noyen met up with some of the other elements of the planet’s main military branches.
And right at that moment, the lot of them were engaged in a serious debate over the survival of the planet’s current inhabitants.
The same conference table that they had used only days before while hosting a meeting with Admiral Jellico, was now littered with used paper cups, hastily made sketches, and numerous diagrams.
Noyen stared at the senseless equations that hardly made sense to her, and glanced over to where Deborah sat and watched as she scrutinized some recently declassified information on a portable holo-projector.
And sighed.
From her point of view, this place was beginning to look more and more like her apartment.
Donald was only a couple of seats away from her, and she could already see how bored he was, by the way he was twiddling his thumbs. She surmised that he was waiting like she was while the military officers across the room hashed out possible contingency plans on an overhead screen.
The woman could feel the beginnings of a monster headache coming on from listening to them talk up a storm that would make a politician envious.
Pulling open a hidden flap on the right side of her white lab coat, she took out a concealed hypo full of Virellian and jabbed it into her upper arm, feeling the rush of cold fire surge through her veins, as it attacked the problem head on. Within seconds, she started to feel more alert than she could remember.
And maybe that was a side effect of the drug, but she didn’t care. What was more important was that the meeting produced something that her people could use, and fast.
Projections of impact had drastically improved since the monster was discovered, and the indications so far gave them nine months. Much better than the two or three that she had earlier predicted.
However, it wouldn’t do them a damned bit of good if current events continued to run their course the way they had in the past week.
Outbreaks of riots and senseless violence had already claimed two of the seven major continents, and then there were the rumors of plagues running rampant on the Fifth Continent.
In her personal opinion, the planet would destroy itself long before the asteroid reached it.
Cassandra didn’t exactly look forward to that particular day when the world would finally come to an end.
But the arguing over at the computer terminal had risen up a notch or two in volume, and interrupted her train of thought. Noyen glanced up to see who it was that was yelling at this time.
“Admiral Larry Kinkaid. I should’ve known he was going to poke his fat two sense into this issue...” She moaned softly. And to think that Jellico was bad.
As she listened to the senseless debate, Admiral Turner walked up from behind her quietly, and took the empty seat next to her.
“Bad day at the office?” He joked lightly, seeing the way she was holding her head. Her hair was already a god awful mess, and she quickly solved that problem by pulling out the silver beret out of her dark brown hair; allowing it flow freely.
“Who could tell with the way things are going right now? Every member of the military absolutely believes that they have to be the only one that comes up with the permanent solution.” She answered in a tired voice.
“Should I tell them–?” The admiral hinted, but Noyen shook her head.
“No. They would just think its a desperate fantasy concocted by a very exhausted scientist. I tell you, they have not a grain of imagination in those heads of theirs.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. Some of us have a lot of imagination.” Turner cracked wryly. Noyen looked at him for a moment.
“That reminds me– how did that liaison of yours take to being stunned and shoved into the janitor’s closet?”
The man grinned openly, showing off his white teeth.
“Not very well, I’m afraid.”
Curiosity piqued, she pressed him for more details.
“And...?”
Turner leaned back in his chair.
“And...? Nothing more. He’s bound and gagged as far as I know. I haven’t checked since yesterday.” He glanced over at her conspiratorially. “But I can very well imagine that he’ll be quite pissed off when he wakes up.”
Cassandra fidgeted.
“Do you think he’ll tell anyone at the Investigations Bureau when he gets out?”
Michael shrugged.
“If he gets out. He has to decipher the code on the door first.”
Noyen chuckled lightly.
“Your certainly not making it easy for him are you?”
“Nope.” He said, while the others around the table continued to listen to the proposals that were put forth. Some were taking it seriously while others sat there, shaking his or head in disagreement, but not venturing an opinion on the subject.
“That’s the government for you,” Turner reflected, watching the whole thing from where he was sitting. “First you say something that could be considered valid, and then they turn into something that speaks of pure foolishness.”
Noyen looked back at him with a hard glint in those gray colored eyes of hers. So far in her book, the Kamarian government had done very little to help with the energy crisis, or the riots, or the impending asteroid strike. It seemed like the government officials reveled in the chaos surrounding it. But what could President gain from such disorder?
Then it hit her.
“Like instituting laws that forbade public gatherings, or the freedom to speak your mind openly without the fear of reprisals or persecution?”
The admiral’s face turned red for a second.
To her, it was a subtle indication that he was also involved in all this craziness on some level.
“Well?” She pushed.
The man coughed lightly, trying to cover up his growing embarrassment at having been caught off guard by the sudden rash of questioning by a woman who was supposed to be scientifically minded in her work.
But the expression on her face told him otherwise.
“Ah...yes...Well, you see...” He cleared his throat again, before he continued.
“You see, the current government has had a funny way of keeping things in order. Most of what’s been going on in terms of politics can be traced back to the last major conflicts that began after the colony ships landed on this world almost six centuries ago. At that time, someone realized that in order for all of them to survive, stability had to be reinforced. So the Kamarian Central Government was created simply out of preservation of such an ideal. As I remember in my past history lessons, things went well at first. The colonists were just used to getting on with their own lives, and nothing of consequence didn’t surface–wouldn’t–surface until much later.” He stared at the table’s smooth surface for a second, mentally dredging up any information that hadn’t been classified since the Reformation.
“But some ideals never died out since the destruction of the Blue World. In the long run, many of the colonists felt that having a central planetary government was just a repeat of a more distant time when there were many such governments. Fifty years after the initial colonization, many of the former colonists rebelled against the newly established seat of government, plunging the planet into one of the bloodiest conflicts in known history.”
Cassandra snapped her fingers as a dim memory flooded into the back of her mind.
“The Palen Wars!”
Turner nodded.
“That’s right. Your pretty well educated, Doctor. I’m dully impressed.”
“Thanks.” She said sheepishly.
“Well your right. It was the one war that started everything down the road to tyranny and oppression. If you look hard enough, you can trace today’s society to that one incident. But even then, when the Enforcers were formed to combat the uprisings, their ancestors were no better off even with that current head of government. I can’t tell you when one honest man once held the President's position long enough to make a noticeable difference. Not because the people believed that such an attribute ever existed in the souls of men, but mainly because they fear that it’ll only make things worse in the end.”
Noyen mulled over that, imagining what would happen if something like that actually did take place. Kamar IV would be ushered into a new age of peace that hadn’t been experienced in recent memory. And the Enforcers--they would be turned into something useful.
But she shook off the wishful thinking, just as a ham-sized fist rattled the table.
“No! It won’t work! Don’t you see? The planet’s going to be destroyed in a matter of months, and that doesn't leave us much time to pussy foot around other petty issues. I still say that evacuation is our only answer!” A huge man thundered, one that the doctor didn’t recognize.
“Captain North, that will be all. Please keep in mind that your voice will be heard when we finally decide on the proper plan of action.” A fat man dressed in navy blue replied in a firm voice. His chest was plastered with ribbons and medals from ancient campaigns and from tours of duty.
“But sir-!”
“That will enough! If you didn’t like what we have been discussing, than you shouldn’t have come at all!” He bellowed, and then proceeded to clean his end of paper and littered trash.
North’s demeanor quieted a bit as the tall man realized that there was really no point in arguing with someone who was his superior.
“Yes sir.”
“Who let that asshole in here, anyway?” Cassandra’s voice reverberated softly in the empty space formed by having her arms tucked over her head.
“You say something, Doctor?” Turner whispered.
She unfolded her arms, and raised her head.
“Jellico. Who let him in here?”
He appraised the thickly jowled man sitting downwind from him.
“Himself I guess. I’m actually more curious about how he could fit into that uniform of his without popping all of the buttons in the process.”
“Or rip his pants in the process?” The woman ventured quietly.
“Chalk it up as the latest miracle of technology.” He murmured
Noyen picked up a piece of scribbled paper and turned it over thoughtfully.
“Mmm...I wonder.”
Deborah Peters sat there at the terminal at the other end of the room, unusually quiet throughout the entire meeting.
She didn’t add a whole lot to the briefing that was going on, mainly because of the fact that she had her attention was glued to the monitor in front of her, watching the real time image of the thing that had become a painful symbol to everyone’s mounting anxiety and human frustration.
She marveled at the way the asteroid moved and couldn’t help feeling the growing astonishment that kept creeping into the back of her mind. The way the monolith had almost single handedly destroyed Outpost 42. But sketchy reports from amateur telescope operators confirmed that the outpost was still there, but pretty much dead in space. Personally, she was relieved that those thousands of brave people had survived up there, but there wasn’t much being said or done on the matter, it suddenly stank of yet another deliberate cover up by someone within the Kamarian government.
Debbie wasn’t sure who that person was. However, she hated the very notion that people’s lives were being placed in grave jeopardy because of that person’s greed. Or perhaps it was the bare fact that he was trying to grab as much power as he could possibly get.
And money?
That was absurd.
True, money still existed in form or another over the years, but in the thirtieth century, people nowadays had everything practically handed to them on a regular basis. And even though certain individuals still worked for that little extra to support themselves or their respective families, it was no longer considered the driving force in people’s lives. Wars were no longer fought over such insignificant things these days.
But the energy crisis was a different thing entirely, and it was just as nerve racking. No one here bothered to address that one, or come up with ideas that would eventually lead to a potential solution.
By looking at the 28 or so people assembled here in the conference room, it appeared to be a moot point when the idea of having the world end right before your eyes was fast becoming a stark reality.
Peters recalled some ancient texts that have been written by people from centuries past. People who installed a sense of fear into others simply because of a number. She knew that in seventeen years, the next millennium would be fast approaching, and she wasn’t exactly looking forward to seeing to what might place as a result of the new change in numbers.
She stared in Donald’s general direction, and was surprised that he was the least agitated of them all. Certainly Doctor Noyen was, simply by glancing over at her. But she could tell that she wasn’t entirely happy with the growing situation either. Not when the scientist had to deal with a bunch of power hungry morons. And just by looking at each of them, she figured that half of them hadn’t been involved in any war, conflict, or skirmish. Not with the way their medals were so prominently displayed on their chests. She even overheard one them quietly commenting on how he had gotten this particular medal in some past conflict.
Boasting. That’s all their doing, thought the woman angrily. While the world goes to hell in a hand basket, they’re all standing there trying to out do each other in a pointless bragging contest.
Debbie looked over at Captain Oliver North. He appeared pensive, just sitting quietly by himself. She watched as he tried to say something meaningful, but Admiral Jellico had shot him down before he could finish.
She did take notice that there were fewer number of medals pinned on the left breast of his dark blue uniform.
Probably the least experienced of all these stuffed shirts, she thought with just a touch of sarcasm, relishing the word that was normally reserved for those who were seeking to win friends and influence their enemies by smothering them death.
Politicians were such a breed.
So was the military.
In this case, it seemed to fit those that were here now, with the exception of the captain and the admiral whom she had seen Noyen converse with earlier. And that left the remaining science staff who were presently locking horns with the military brass. Their voices now carried over to her area, and she flinched involuntarily.
Personally she couldn’t see how arguing could help speed the problems at hand. Nothing that they could come up with so far was going to anyway. As she recalled from her history lessons, all the interstellar space technology that they used to get here was cannibalized and eventually lost after the first wave of human refugees had landed on the surface of Kamar IV. Nothing was said at that time of having to prepare for the seventy year journey that had most of them asleep in their hyper sleep chambers. Still, as far as she could remember from her studies, a handful of those people still died on the various ships that managed to escape the Blue World’s destruction, and the war in deep space that took place close to their new home.
After Deborah Peters had grown up, she entered the profession as a government certified scientist, and started working at the Institute soon after. In her first year there, she accessed the archives for further information on the elusive subject, and found to her astonishment that all the events that led up to the present; had been locked away by someone who apparently didn’t want anyone to pry up old events.
Eventually after a couple of years of searching, bending rules and regulations, she managed to get the files she had discovered earlier unlocked.
And what she had learned–
“This session will be under the most strictest classification measures available,” a voice broke into her personal reverie, and it turned out to be North who was just on his way out. The rest of the military were already long gone.
“I don’t need to remind anyone of the consequences.” And disappeared out the door. The woman was understandably confused.
Had I zoned out for that long?
A quick check of the clock, confirmed it: half an hour had elapsed.
Each of the scientists present had strained look on their faces. The woman could see that now.
“Debbie, I want to talk to you after everyone leaves, okay?” Noyen said in a tone which made her sound more serious than it actually was.
But Peters couldn’t tell the difference because her mind was now cotton, and her ears were ringing from a headache that started to begin like a pounding hammer inside her skull.
“I-I'm suddenly not feeling very well, ma’am.” Was about the lamest excuse she could come up with. But it was also the truth.
“Headache?” Noyen asked gently.
“Y-yes.” She replied weakly.
A hypo full of a blue colored substance appeared and was slid across the table in her general direction. Debbie looked at it blankly before she went over and picked it up with trembling hands.
“There you go. Now press it against your arm directly over the main artery, and depress the trigger.” The woman instructed briskly, obviously having a lot to deal with right now.
She did so, and immediately the symptoms of pain and discomfort started to fade like magic. In many ways, the drug was like that, having been vastly improved over the centuries since the days when common pain relievers had proven to be ineffective against most of the severest cases.
She dropped the hypo back on the table, and Donald immediately grabbed it from her and did the same thing. In seconds, the tension and pain melted from his already hardened face as he started to relax some in his chair. It was the same chair in which he had been forced to sit for six hours non stop with frequent bathroom breaks in between talks.
He opened his strained eyes and gazed at the bare white ceiling.
“Better than old fashioned aspirin.” He commented, and pulled out a pack of smokeless cigarettes, intent on having one. Then he pulled out a compact lighter of sorts, and touched the end of the cigarette. The tip glowed bright for a second before it burst into flame and then was immediately snuffed out by the cigarette itself. touched the rolled cylinder of synthetic tobacco, and a black spot formed and then burst into flame which was immediately snuffed out by the cigarette itself.
Donald puffed away merrily.
The others copied him in their own ways, and very soon the atmosphere was a relaxed one.
“Looks to me like you’ve just had the best sex of your life, Donald. Care to share the details with us?” Cassandra replied teasingly.
Donald glared at her for a second, and then shook his head.
“You wouldn’t be interested in what I’d have to say anyway. Too boring.”
Chuckling was heard around the table, and Donald shrugged. “It would. Honest.”
Laughter bubbled up among the few that remained behind, and Debbie grinned slyly. “I don’t know, Donald. I wouldn’t mind hearing about it.” Her comment evoked some catcalls and cheers among the others at the table. Noyen was momentarily startled by the woman’s sheer audacity.
Cassandra elbowed her in the ribs.
“Way to go, girl. Way to go.”
“So what’s going to happen?” Another member of the team interjected warily. His expression suggested that he was just as petrified as anyone in the room after what had taken place earlier.
Cassandra took one last draw on her cigarette before stamping it out in the ashtray.
“Nothing I’m afraid. Those goons will go back to their respective bosses, and report the progress that we’ve made. Theories will run abound, and plans of action will be drawn up and submitted; but other than that, I don’t believe that nothing can be done.”
“So we’re fucked either way?” The same person asked.
“Not quite. Admiral Turner was kind enough to tell me that he has an idea that will probably save this planet, and all of us. However, it all depends if the thing in question is still functional.”
“Outpost 42?” Donald suggested.
“No. It is an artificial space station that was constructed well over two centuries ago. In theory, its supposed to protect this star system from an outside attack, but the project was soon abandoned supposedly because of proper funding, or some other government bullshit.”
“So what good will that do us?” Debbie asked subjectively.
She stared down at the table for a moment, trying to come up with something plausible, something that she could take and draw strength from. But in truth, nothing came to mind.
“I don’t know.” She finally admitted. “I seriously don’t really know.”
Reajaar Province.
Explosion after explosion rippled across the area as the Enforcers started showing themselves after a moment’s hesitation. Each man shouldering special weaponry that would be used to repulse attack after attack with.
Personally, Terry Westfield couldn’t believe the hostile brutality that had been inflicted on the squads of Enforcers which were under his direct command, but he was damned determined to show them who was the boss as well. The first attack on the makeshift gallows was a complete success as he ordered fire upon fire to rain down on the unsuspecting gathering that had come to witness the public execution.
He wondered why they didn’t just shoot the bastard like they had done to so many of the others that now lay dead and broken in the deserted streets.
His boot crunched on some broken shards of glass as he raised his weapon to a suspected threat, one taking a bead on someone that was half concealed in the shadows. He gazed into his laser scope, made some small adjustments to the lighting, and fired.
A soundless concussion was felt in his hands as the gun recoiled slightly from the discharge, and he watched with grim satisfaction as the shot slammed home; punching a hole in the man’s chest and sending back into an overflowing pile of garbage. Wisps of smoke could be seen where the shot had impacted, leaving nothing but a dead man and charred flesh.
Another shot rang out, and Terry turned to see another would be sniper topple over the side of the building without a sound, and a few passing Enforcers heard a resounding crash echo in the confines of the street.
Nothing to get upset about, they would keep telling themselves as they continued to pick off their attackers with precision like hits from a great distance. Their just in the wrong as anyone else who is trying to be a hero to the cause.
But being a hero was far from anyone’s mind. While Terry was caught up in his own thinking, a massive shockwave ripped up the streets in front of him and the other Enforcers; throwing them off their feet. Another picked Westfield up and neatly slam dunked him into the windshield of a parked ground car that sat close by.
Thank....uh...thank god for combat armor, he thought groggily as he made the effort to get off the vehicle’s windshield. His helmet still rang after he smashed his head against the shatter resistant glass.
The man shook his head to clear the whistling noises that were passing through his brain, only to find out that it was not his imagination, but something far more real.
Another explosion blossomed right in front of him, showering his battered and bruised body with chunks of permacrete and rocks.
He managed to dodge another one before he finally found its most unlikely source, and returned fire. Moments later, another body dropped to the ground from ten stories up.
“Asshole.” He said darkly, wiping the dirt from his re-breather mask.
Katherine Dawson slammed an open palm on the smooth, wooden surface of her boss’s desk, Alfred Hitchcock. Her anger so far had reached a climax, and was considered as reaching way past the boiling point. Even now, she fought tooth and nail with her emotions in order to keep herself under control. But what he told her then, infuriated her to no end.
Alfred regarded her with a curious look on his face, the thought of a woman scorned running through the back of his mind even as she screamed at him.
“I...I can’t believe this!” She finally let out after drawing in another lungful of air in preparation for another verbal assault.
Alfred wondered if his ears would be able to hold off the frontal attack that this fiery red head was determined to follow through with. So he let her continue.
And prayed.
“The shit you pull over my eyes wasn’t bad enough, but this–” She pointed a trembling finger at a seemingly innocent holo-cube that had gone–for the moment–unnoticed. “This is about the purest bullshit I have ever heard in all of my days as a reporter and respected journalist! You don’t honestly believe that your going to sit there with that stupid look on your face, and expect me–me!–to sit in front of a holo-cam tell millions of viewers that a saboteur planted a high density explosive on Outpost 42 during its last supply run; which was almost four months ago, and now you want me to lie to them saying that it just now went off?!?” She banged her fist against the door so loud that it startled the secretary on the other side.
“Forget it. I won’t do it. I won’t be a part of something that’s been politically cooked up for someone else’s pleasure just because it doesn’t happen to fit the facts.” She drew herself up, and waited for her boss to do something.
Anything.
But nothing came.
Alfred just looked at her coolly, and retrieved the holo-cube that she had so callously dumped into his lap.
That just served to piss the woman off even further.
“Well? Aren’t you going to fire my ass for insubordination?” She challenged openly.
Hitchcock plunked the cube into a reader port and looked at it for a second, before turning off the monitor.
“Why should I? It’s nothing that you should get so visibly upset over. Hell, Corsairs was reading me the riot act the day before yesterday. So don’t get bent out of shape for something such as this.” The cube ejected itself after being wiped clean and then Alfred reloaded it with something else. After a moment of recording, the cube popped back out, and held it out to her.
“C’mon. I’m not going to bite your head off the very second you step out of this office, so don’t get your panties in a wad over this incident.” Katherine closed her hand over the cube, and felt its slightly sharp edges biting into the skin of her palm.
“Yes sir.” She replied, greatly relieved.
“Now go on. Go back to your news desk, before I turn Frederick loose on your ass.” He said in a playful tone, shooing her away in the process. “Go.”
The woman calmed down. “Thank you sir. Thank you very much.” And closed the door behind her as she left.
The director of WNN chuckled to himself.
“Amateurs.” And started to laugh as the memory replayed itself in his head. The more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t stop laughing.