Starship Invasion (Lost Colony Uprising Book 2)

by Darcy Troy Paulin

  “We have some volunteers for the first jump. I'll count it down,” he said into the radio.

  He switched the radio functions. This time when he spoke, the sound of his voice filled the park from speakers on drones above the crowds.

  “Quiet!” he said, and waited for the command to be followed.

  The crowd hushed, intrigued by the omnipresent voice.

  “Step back from the perimeter, cover your ears, and pay close attention to the strips of fabric in places around the perimeter,” Carrack said. “I'm serious about covering your ears. It's going to be very loud.”

  He set his mic so he would be heard on the network as well as from the drones. Then, starting at ten, he began counting down. A few of those within the circle made a run for the perimeter, but most stopped moving and just stood there. When he reached three, there was a communal gasp from gathering as a tug jumper folded quietly into existence within a fenced off area at the inner edge of the circle. It'd had been hastily but firmly attached to the bare rock. When his count reached one, he covered his ears. When he arrived at zero, he said, “Jump.”

  The people within the perimeter disappeared, but there was no excited gasp of amazement. Instead, Carrack was violently ripped from his position near the perimeter of the circle, and dragged forcefully into it. He was not alone. In an instant, the mass of tight packed bodies around his were packed even tighter, into the smaller space of the circle, and Carrack's head hit something hard.

  Chapter 36

  Chaplin was gone, and everyone else was now sleeping. Every single one of the Na Char refugees, with the exception of Quin, was dead to the world. Sleeping is what the commander called it. It was more like some sort of coma, or hibernation. Only he and Greta were not sleeping, though they had little to say to each other. Not for the first time, Quin wished it had been Chaplin that was chosen to join him as duty crew.

  Though they were packed in with the big ball of sleepers, they weren't really sealed in. As the commander had told them, though the door was locked, they held the key. They just weren't supposed to open it, and they were to stay at a readiness level of zero minutes notice as requested. That meant remaining inside and ready to go until such time as they'd actually gone.

  The TV's live footage currently showed a band of colors and a steady tone. Quin stood up from his seat. “I'm going to take another walk around…” he gestured out to the hallways of the giant concrete ball that was their vessel. He opened the door and looked down the narrow access hall. The already narrow halls had been made narrower thanks to ranks of pods lining their walls.

  The tone from the 'television' was replaced by a voice. Quin returned to his seat as Greta increased the volume. The voice was that of Commander Carrack, counting towards zero. The screen showed a huge crowd of people forming a very large circle, held at bay by a much thinner ring of people. Within the circle was a much smaller, less dense crowd. A few people, mere specks on the TV, fled from the circle. It was hard to read the emotions of those that stayed, but they showed no sign of urgency. Something changed at the edge of the circle. Before Quin could figure out what, the picture changed to a close up view of a barricaded area at the very edge of the circle. There was a small clear dome in the barricade, big enough to fit one person comfortably. The picture changed back to the previous view in time to hear the commander say “Jump.” Then all hell broke loose.

  Quin had barely registered that the people in the circle had gone when the crowd on the perimeter surged towards the center of the circle. He realized quickly that they hadn't rushed in of their own accord, but rather were pulled in, headfirst, by a sudden wind all around them. The bare rock of the circle was now littered with bodies, though there was a conspicuous slice of the circle that was empty. The barricade that had held the strange domed vehicle had stood firm against the wind and the sea of bodies. Quin had no desire to see the consequences of those people being dashed upon the barricade. The picture changed again as the cameras focused in on Commander Carrack, who'd been dragged with the rest. He lay unmoving, half-buried by others.

  The picture moved away from Carrack and seemed to survey the scene. The picture moved so smoothly over the crowd that the cameras seemed almost to be flying. People began moving into the circle, first one or two cautiously, then a whole secondary wave of people rushed into the circle, to help or witness Quin wasn't certain. Quin heard movement, then a groan from the TV. The commander’s mic was still on.

  “Whaa…” came the commander’s groggy voice, “What happened.”

  The picture changed again as the camera panned back to find the commander’s position. The small dark-skinned man pulled himself from under the body of an as yet still unconscious woman. He stood finally and looked around.

  “We're going to need a wider perimeter,” he said as he dusted himself off.

  Chapter 37

  Snow watched the operation from her tug jumper nearby. The first evacuees had arrived. A tug jumper appeared directly into the middle of the Welcome bubble with a group of SoCharians. Unsurprisingly they were shocked, and some of them were screaming. There were fewer than she'd hoped for, but she was confident things would ramp up from here. The people, a hundred or so of them, floated in the center of a two-hundred-meter diameter bubble made of a comparatively thin sheet of plastic. A tapered passage at the “bottom” began to open, leading to a smaller bubble that was less than one hundred meters to leave room to spare. Together they looked like an upside-down Snowman (from Snow's perspective) that had lost its head. The evacuees were drawn down towards the ring, as the higher pressure in the large Welcome bubble sought an exit to the lower pressure of the small bubble. The screams continued.

  Snow imagined the terror they must be feeling at the sudden jump, and it set her own stress levels spiking.

  “It's all going to be okay,” she said, piping her feed through the speakers of the Welcome bubble. “This is all going according to procedure. Just imagine you are floating gently down a river on a raft. You'll drift into the next chamber where you'll be safe.” I-hope, she didn't say.

  The words had some effect. There was still some shouting and Snow realized that not all of the noise came from a place of fear. Many of those brave enough to enter the circle were brave enough to shout in excitement. She recognized something of herself in those people. Though it was a very small something.

  The evacuees were approaching the bottom of the bubble and she switched her attention to the Sleep bubble. She meant for Sleep bubble to be a placeholder name, but so far no one had found the time to be bothered by her ad hoc labels. She watched the evacuees on screen as they moved through the ring that separated the two bubbles, noting their change of expression as the gas took effect. The shouts, the talking, the murmuring, it all ceased. The expressions, of fear, of joy, of confusion, all faded from their faces.

  The first effect of the sleep gas was obvious, given the name of said gas. Any subject that breathed it would rapidly be rendered unconscious. Next, oxygen would be sequestered, cell by cell, and the body placed into a stable hibernation. That the second phase took much longer to come fully into effect was not a problem. The evacuees continued to drift weightless, now napping in the Sleep bubble, waiting to be joined by others. So very many others.

  “That went well,” she said on the local coms channel.

  “Ah… I guess you haven't been watching the surface feed.” said a voice that was probably Margret's.

  Snow switched over to the surface. Oh crap.

  Chapter 38

  The Dee-Dub sat on the ground of the Tawnee Expansion Zone. Max looked to the wall in the distance. He was half expecting to see his buddy and for a time pride mate, Anthony, waving his razor-sharp scissor shear claws in Max's direction. But the yigrit was, unsurprisingly, nowhere to be seen. Max hoped that wherever the little monster was, that he was safe and prosperous, and perhaps leading a pride of his own.

  Max and Linda (with Doozer cooing encouragement) had finished markin
g the evacuation sites for New York. On the advice of the bruised and battered Commander Carrack, the sites were placed, when possible, in areas with in-situ barriers to entry, to assist later organization. One site was within New York's walls, at the center of a park Max knew from his life there. The park sat on a rough outcropping of bedrock. The local militia, The Watchers, had agreed to clear the park so Max could quickly jump prep the area. But most of the sites were outside the city gates, on the bare rock shores of the Beldorath. Patches of them were truly bare now. And though they were technically open, the pass leading to their location would allow the area to be controlled. Max personally understood the reason. He, after all, was the first to lose a limb through jump sphere proximity.

  So now he was at the next stop on his list, Tawnee. Unfortunately, his sensor survey from space confirmed his fears. Tawnee had no natural surfaces suitable to the current evacuation system within the city. The massive city sat mostly upon reclaimed forest or swampland. Here in the expansion zone he'd found a few rocky high points. But given the uncertainty of how far the new Akoronite cores would stretch, he was reluctant to waste the jumps if the sites were unlikely to be used.

  “Bob, this is Max,” he said over the local network. Though he couldn't bring himself to add “good buddy”, he still felt a bit like an earth trucker from in the movies.

  There was a short wait before Bob responded. “Max. I just saw your handiwork on the news. Three dead, eighteen injured. Nice job buddy.”

  Max, who had been about to congratulate Bob for the good work with the network felt the words sour in his throat.

  “That's a load of hooey!” Linda said, quick to come to his defense.

  Just as he was thinking they might be able to treat each other as normal humans. He opened the channel. “Good job with the network, Bob,” he said, failing to think of anything both justifiable and hateful in the moment.

  “I was only joking, Max,” Bob said. “No need to go all civil on me.”

  Max was again lost for the correct words to say, so he said nothing.

  “I've seen a lot of people die around here recently. I've begun to suspect it may have desensitized me a bit.”

  “Ya,” Max said.

  No one spoke.

  “Ah… so you just wanted to say hi, then?” Bob said.

  “There are no good evacuation sites in your city,” Max said. “Can you get people out to the Expansion Zone? If so, I have a few sites I can set up.”

  “As far as I know Max, you are the only one in history to have ever gone to the Expansion Zone voluntarily,” Bob said, “but as you've pointed out, I did a pretty good job with the network. I'll see what I can do.”

  “Here,” Max said, and transmitted a simplified and slightly scaled up copy of the concrete ship plans. Scaling it up had been the important part, something Linda had accomplished in the blink of an eye. “Build that and your people won't have to leave the city.”

  There was a pause as Bob examined the plans. “That's pretty big. If you gave us these a month ago…Maybe,” Bob said, “but ya…It sure would make things move a lot quicker wouldn't it.”

  But they did have one. That was the worst part. If only the existing ship had been a bit bigger it would be perfect. Forget that it had been purposefully built smaller, for the precise reason that it would fit into a jump sphere…

  So why did that have to be a problem…couldn't they bolt the thing in place? Max smacked his forehead. If they hadn't all been going at a million miles an hour since the loss of the Longissima, someone might have already thought of it.

  “Gotta go, Bob, it’s been nice talking to you,” Max said. “I'll send you the bookmarks when I get your sites set up.”

  Even as he jumped the Dee-Dub, preparing the sites for Tawnee, he messaged Snow with his plan.

  Chapter 39

  Quin's first task was to release Cailin and Jayleen's pods. With Greta's help he dragged them out of the ship. The pods had been placed near their small quarters, at Quin's request, and so that first task was quickly accomplished. He'd thought Greta might object, but she was surprisingly sympathetic. Next, he searched the computer for the instructions to cycle the pod into waking the occupant. Only when Cailin and Jayleen were both awake, each of them wearing the only items of clothing at hand, poorly fitting coveralls, did Quin think about fulfilling his orders.

  “Are we in space?” Cailin asked, yawning a groggy yawn, and stretching in his oversized coveralls.

  “Sorry Cay, there's been a change in plan,” Quin said. He turned to Jayleen, an array of apologies on his lips.

  She was looking down at her clothing. The earthling sized coveralls were too short for her and so had to be cut in two to fit. While they were still loose fitting, the legs and arms were both too short. The wardrobe’s shortcomings were highlighted by the stark whiteness of the pod body suit on her forearms, calves, and waist. She looked up at him. Her mouth said nothing, but her expression said, Why-did-you-do-this-to-me?

  “I need your help. All hell is breaking loose up there.” He pointed in a random up-ish direction. “So, they left this to us.”

  Jayleen plucked her body suit from a spot on her arm and allowed it to snap back. She gave the suit a very slight, but approving, smile. Then turned back to Quin as though she'd forgotten he was there. Cailin leaned his head on her shoulder, still sleepy.

  Greta arrived with two steaming cups and handed one to each of the two sleepyheads. They were cafe lattes from the food-making machine. Quin wondered what the pair would think. Quin had grown to like it by the end of the first cup. But the beginning of that cup was less impressive. It had smelled delicious right from the start though.

  “Drink it,” Greta said coldly. “It will wake you up.”

  They each smelled the drink and smiled. Jayleen raised her eyebrows approvingly. They each took a sip and made a face that spoke to the bitterness of the drink. They each took another sip, that spoke to the sweetness Greta had wisely chosen to add.

  While they drank their coffee, Quin explained what needed to be done. The pods needed to be released from their mounts and all the doors had to be left open. Why? No one had bothered to tell him that. There were thousands of pods, but thankfully, they were attached more to each other than to the ship. It was an easy job, but it required a lot of running around. The ship was big, taking up most of the one hundred meters of diameter that the jumpships could move around. The tug cradle, a notch into the side of the otherwise perfectly spherical ship, was adjacent to the crew quarters. Quin knew all this from reading the ship’s specifications on the computer. There had been little do during their long wait but walk the halls and read. Now all that information allowed him to understand the enormity of the task he'd been given. A task they now had less than two hours to complete.

  “Cailin and I will start at the top and work our way back here to the middle,” Quin said. “Jayleen are you okay working with Greta from the bottom up?”

  “I can't believe you woke me up to do work,” Jayleen said.

  Greta looked somewhat dubious about having to work with a cranky, half-awake Jayleen, but she said nothing.

  “Sorry,” Quin said, “but I really do need your help. It's easy work but there's a lot to do. If we finish on time, we can have ice cream.”

  “I don't want ice cream, I want to sleep,” Jayleen said. But her eyes showed a touch of curiosity.

  Quin popped his hand into the bag he was carrying and popped it out with two freezing cold food packets. He popped the lids off the square containers and handed a box each to Cailin and Jayleen. Jayleen poked at the contents with her finger. Then, gingerly, she picked up the ice cream cone with two fingers. She sniffed it and looked at Quin, unimpressed. Cailin who had been watching her, decided to take matters into his own hands. He pushed her hand holding the cone the rest of the way to her mouth, mashing the ice cream over her face.

  Jayleen squealed in surprise. She pulled the cone from her face and mashed it into Cailin's l
aughing mouth.

  “Mmmm, that's good!” Cailin said. He grasped her cone and proceeded to eat it.

  Jayleen licked the ice cream from her face. Her expression changed to surprise. She lunged at Cailin's cone. He leaned back, just evading the attack. Then she slammed her hand down on his leg. When she lifted her hand again, it contained Cailin's ice cream cone.

  Quin didn't have to tell them to hurry. In less than a minute they'd each consumed the small ice cream cones and moved on to cleaning their faces.

  “And like I said, if we finish on time, we can have more.”

  The two ice cream eaters were up in a snap and ready for work.

  Greta, still unimpressed by the change in plans, which had lowered prospects of escaping the surface of Grailliyn, gave him a quick look that could have been admiration.

  It took more than three hours to complete. Cailin was a champion unstrapper, as Quin had known he would be, turning the ice cream energy boost into work at an impressive rate.

  They were eating their reward when they received a surprise visitor who brought a genuine smile to Quin's face. Chaplin had returned, carrying a heavy load. Two packs, stuffed to near bursting hung from him, one in front and the other to the back of him. And propped on one shoulder was a sort of broad cannon of sorts, like something out of the theater.

  Cailin jumped to his feet. “Chaplin!” he said, his tongue coated in creamy dessert.

  “Cay,” Chaplin said, in greeting, “You are awake. It is for the best. The world is improved by your energy.”

  “That's what I said!” Cailin said. Which was near enough to the truth. The words he actually used were The-world-needs-me!

  “Hello Quin. It's good to see you again,” Chaplin said. “I've come to assist in your efforts to anchor the ship.”

  Chapter 40