False Invasion

by George Willson

  “I cannot believe this survived the devastation we have seen so far,” Rallafin said.

  “Engine rooms are important,” Blake said. “They get a little extra protection. Look for anything that could be a communications panel.”

  They split up and examined every panel in the room. Every one of the controls was dark and only lit up when it was touched, which forced them to touch nearly every surface in the room to identify where panels started and stopped. It was a convenient way to save power and keep the design sleek for someone who knows the place like the back of their hand, but for two people who knew nothing about any of it, it was a major task trying to locate the communications panel.

  System after system lit up before them, and it appeared that Rallafin understood the language or the layout well enough not to need assistance in figuring it out. Blake found engine status which was obviously worthless. Life support was not functioning. Artificial gravity was down. Shields were non-existent. There were even weapons systems, and it appeared that at least one weapon was still online though Blake doubted it would fire.

  “Here,” Rallafin called out. Blake walked across the room to find a panel labeled as communications lit up before his companion.

  “Any diagnostics?” Blake asked as he looked over the panel. Rallafin tapped the panel next to the one they were on, and it appeared to be part of the communication system as well.

  “Running communication diagnostic,” Rallafin said. A screen above the panel showed several readouts indicating the state of the components. Several things were offline such as long range, which was expected, but the base array was still in place, and it was connected to their present station.

  “This could potentially work,” Blake said. “It has enough power, and we appear to be online enough. Can you contact one of your planet's communication points?”

  “I will try,” Rallafin said. He typed briefly on the panel, and it showed a connection attempt. After a moment, it failed and show “No connection.”

  “How far away is your home world?” Blake asked.

  “We are presently in this system,” Rallafin said. “One planetary orbit lies between this world and mine.”

  “That's practically within shouting distance,” Blake said. “From a cosmic perspective anyway. We barely need the short range, and that shows in place.”

  Blake pulled out his scanner and set it to read the actual, physical connection to the active short range array, and it showed that it was connected which agreed with the diagnostics. A reading of the actual array showed a different story, however.

  Not available on the diagnostics was the physical state of the unit, and based on his scan, it was damaged. Badly.

  “What are the chances of fixing a physically damaged short range array well enough to make it get a signal out?” Blake asked.

  “I could do it with scuttle tape and a length of twine if I had to,” Rallafin boasted.

  “Hopefully, we can pull it off with whatever debris is lying around,” Blake said.

  “Where is it located?” Rallafin asked.

  “The top of the ship,” Blake said. “about seven levels above us and probably a hundred yards towards the front. One of us really should remain here, but without a way to talk to each other, how is the other to know he’s done any good.”

  “The diagnostics show that the internal communication system is operational,” Rallafin said.

  “Operational, sure, but how many communication points across the ship are connected?” Blake asked. “And not only to each other but from specifically there to here?”

  “We are left to try,” Rallafin said.

  “Well, you may be able to fix it with tape and string,” Blake said, “but I also wanted you here to talk to your people when we made the connection. In retrospect, maybe we should have had everyone come. It is what it is. I’ll make the climb since I can still use my scanner to hone in on it. Cross your fingers that we can talk to each other when I get there.”

  “I will keep them persistently crossed,” Rallafin said. He raised both pairs of his curiously circular hands to Blake and deftly managed to cross all 24 fingers in pairs.

  “Well, that’s a lot of crossed fingers,” Blake said. “Doesn’t get much better than that.”

  Blake exited the engine room leaving Rallafin to sit on a battered chair to wait for his signal. He walked down the tilted hall towards the front of the ship keeping his eyes peeled for any sort of path that might lead upwards. He spotted a broken elevator to his left and entered. The car was nowhere to be seen, and the shaft was wide open and dangerously deep. A ladder was set closely against the wall next to the door, so he swung himself around to it.

  The shaft was not open at the top, but fortunately, the scant lighting they had seen throughout the ship was present in this tube as well with work lights functioning intermittently throughout his climb. After five levels, the way above was blocked as the crash had displaced the rest of the shaft leaving what looked like part of a floor in its place. He looked around the shaft. Besides the obvious door to the current level, he hoped to find a maintenance shaft. The Voraster were too large to crawl through a human sized shaft, but as he was on his own, he figured it would be a decent way to get to where he needed to go.

  A few feet above the door, he found the hatch buried in the shadows between two functioning work lights. He pressed the button to open the door, but of course, the power to the door mechanism was out. The override was directly under the button, so he flipped that, and forced open the door. The maintenance tunnel was dark. Very dark. The work lights were completely out, so he reached into his pocket and pulled out his flashlight. Shining it into the tube, there were no obstructions, so he crawled in.

  Once inside, he checked his scanner against for his bearings. The short range array was still two levels above him but not too much further ahead. Maintenance tunnels tended to be more forthcoming with ladders and other passageways between levels. Public areas usually stuck to elevators. A short distance down the tunnel, he found a ladder that allowed him to move up to the level he needed. The rungs, however, were damp meaning that this area of the ship was more open to the elements, and he noticed that it was not as dark here as it was in other parts.

  He climbed up his two levels and found that he could not get anywhere up there. Surrounding the ladder on the level he needed was so much vegetation that it was impassable. Somehow, in these darkened tunnels, plant life had flourished, and he saw light peeking through cracks in the framework nearly everywhere allowing plenty of light into this area. He climbed down to the level below which was still open enough to travel.

  Once he got into that tube, he found there was a lot of light coming from somewhere down the tunnel, and it looked more like natural light than work lights. He checked his scanner for his bearings, and he had passed where the array would be. He needed to find a way out of the tunnel or perhaps a way to move up somewhere else. He continued down the tunnel to see where the light from coming from. At an intersection, he found one direction to be a possibility of getting somewhere, but the other way led right to the massive split in the middle of the ship.

  He inched carefully toward the edge to find a drop of over a hundred feet to the ground below with only intermittent interruptions by broken floors. One part of him sympathized with those who had gone through this frightening ordeal, but another reminded him that he would be one of them. He backed away from the drop and crawled down the tunnel leading back into the ship. He came against a hatch and opened it.

  He exited into a side room off the main hall, which maintained its state of being only intermittently lit. He backtracked to roughly where the array would be about a floor above him according to his scanner. From this level, everything was relatively intact for a half destroyed ship. He had hoped that somewhere close to this array there would be some kind of nearby access. He checked along the walls for any opening or hatches, and he ended up finding one about thirty feet down. It was a simple l
adder leading upward, and like the one in the maintenance tunnel, it was damp.

  He climbed to the level above and started to figure out where the problem was with the array. This level was right next to the upper skin of the ship, and not only was it battered on the way down, but this area had taken the brunt of the elements. The ceiling was completely collapsed, and the outer hull was cracked and split everywhere. Plants grew from the carpet on this floor between the bit of downed ceiling, and everything was hopelessly wet.

  He checked his scanner, and the short range array was only a few yards ahead of him. Off one side of the hall was a little room that was labeled “Short Range Communications Array,” and after a moment of searching, he found the door override to open it.

  The ceiling was still intact in this room though the plants had snuck under the door along the carpet. The short range array was a pillar in the center of the room surrounded by a semi-circle of dark panels that would be touch activated. The pillar had a variety of plates covering its internal components and what looked like eight arms leading from the bottom of the support directly up all sides and through the roof. Blake touched one of the panels to see what options he had. He touched another. And then a third until he found what he needed. He typed a few commands onto this third one.

  “Blake to Rallafin,” Blake said. “Did the finger crossing work?”

  “I believe it did,” Rallafin’s voice sounded. “I take it you reached your destination.”

  “I did,” Blake said. “Sorry, it took so long.”

  “You got there in this wreck,” Rallafin said. “That alone is commendable. What is the state of our array?”

  “It looks intact,” Blake said. “I haven’t run a local diagnostic yet though.” Blake pressed a button on one of the other panels and a red light flashed. “As could be expected, there was a system overload at one point, and it shut down. Must have happened after that attack seventy-five years ago. I’m going to reboot.”

  “Understood,” Rallafin said. “Standing by.”

  Blake pressed a couple of buttons, and a moment later, a blue light emanated from the base of the pillar. Blue lines spread up the central pillar itself followed by lines up the arms that led through the roof like it was being filled with water made of light. Blake pulled out his scanner to make sure it looked all right from his perspective, but suddenly, it shut down, and all was dark again.

  “What happened?” Rallafin asked. “I showed progress down here, but then it stopped.”

  “It shut down again,” Blake said. “Whatever killed it before is still here.” Blake reviewed the scan right before the short, and something prevented the flow of current from reaching its ultimate destination. He traced it to a problem inside the pillar.

  He walked around the post and removed a panel which was only accessible by shifting the arms out of the way. Hiding inside the structure was the remains of a plant which had grown for a time before it intercepted one of the cables that both shorted out the system and killed the plant. He reached in and very unceremoniously tossed the floral remains onto the carpet. Using his light, he reviewed the damage. The cable was merely severed, but he had no means to put it back together. He had an idea, but it was not pleasant.

  “Rallafin,” Blake said.

  “Here,” Rallafin replied.

  “I’m going to reboot the system again. There is a broken cable, and I’m just going to have to hold it together and hope to God the insulation is good.”

  “That seems a bit risky.”

  “Well, that’s why you need to make it quick.” Blake reached over and pressed the button to reboot the system again. Once the process was initiated, he reached into the compartment and pushed the ends of the cables together. The blue lights raised up through the pillar and arms. The interior of the component came to life, and he could feel a bit of a charge hit him now and then through the corroded cables. He did not care for it.

  “The system is live,” Rallafin said. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll live,” Blake said through clenched teeth. “Please be as quick as you can.”

  “Understood,” Rallafin said, and the channel went dead.

  Blake dutifully endured the charges of electricity surging through his hands. It was not enough to kill him, but he was not sure how long he could hold it. The power felt like someone punching him repeatedly at regular intervals waiting for him to succumb, and he could feel his hands and arms weakening. He had to hold it, however, until Rallafin confirmed he had made contact with his people. All this would be for nothing if he could not keep it together.

  Tears dripped from his eyes, and he struggled against the desire to let go and preserve himself. It got harder to stand. The insulation on the cable was definitely not what it once was. His fingers hurt as the power sparked around him. The longer he held it, the more power surged through it, and little bolts of electricity started zapping his fingers like the pillar was a tiny tribe of natives trying to repel an invader.

  He felt his hair stand on end and clenched his teeth tighter. He knew it had not even been sixty seconds, but it seemed like hours. He cried out in pain in an effort to quell the desire to save himself. He stomped his foot to redirect the sensations in his arms. He started shaking, and he knew he could not hold the cables together for much longer. He refused to fail though. He had to see this through.

  “It is done,” Rallafin said.

  Blake released the cables and stumbled back against the wall of the short range array room. He dropped to the floor as the system shut down once more. He cradled his hands against his chest nursing the pain that still surged through them.

  “Blake, are you still there?” Rallafin asked.

  “I’m here,” Blake said. “I’ll need a moment, but I’m here. How did it go?”

  “I was able to reach my people,” Rallafin said. “They are sending a ship immediately.”

  “Then we need to get back,” Blake said. He tried to get to his feet, but he slumped back against the wall. “I just need to sit for a moment. I know how I got up here, and I’ll just follow that path back. Once I catch my breath, I’ll be right down.”

  “Acknowledged,” Rallafin said. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure,” Blake said. He took several deep breaths to try and steady his heart and recover from the ordeal. He wanted to sleep more than anything, but he did not have time. After what was definitely not long enough, he crawled his way to standing and unsteadily made his way back the way he came to rejoin Rallafin in the engine room before leaving the Mirificus. They needed to make their way back to the rest of their people.

  The Voraster rescue ship was coming.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Perry and Janecia had moved around the crowd in the absence of Andersoppen and Rhysman to be closer to the town hall in case they did decide to bring the prisoners out for a public showing. They also wanted to be prepared in case he sent someone in to advise the killing be done in private. Either way, they needed to be prepared.

  During this lull in the proceedings where their leaders suddenly left, the crowd did not disperse at all. If anything, it appeared that word had spread, and the numbers had grown. It may have been the promise of more of the celebration, but it seemed equally likely that the threat of executions brought either the morbid or the protesters out of hiding. Regardless of reasons, Andersoppen would be playing to a full house.

  Eventually, Harold returned with Rhysman in tow. They appeared to be having a very heated discussion, but as they entered the stage, Harold took the mic. Rhysman seemed displeased.

  “My friends,” Harold began solemnly. “My family. My brethren. My fellow colonists. Today, a horror has been unveiled that will serve our doom. Somehow, the Voraster saboteurs made their way into our inner sanctum and set our beloved Terraformer to end its life.” Ripples of worry spread through the crowd as Harold took a dramatic pause to allow it. “Our scientists are, at this time, doing everything in their power to reverse this catastrophi
c development. We need a demonstration to show that we cannot allow saboteurs and those who would assist them to live. We are not a people who condone the taking of another’s life, but it appears that allowing them to live is too dangerous. We allowed them to live when we captured them before, and they escaped only to take this revenge upon us. How can we justify the risk?” He turned gravely to the town hall but ensured he was still speaking into the microphone. “Bring forth the prisoners.”

  The doors to the town hall opened like this moment was prepared. In the hands of the guards, Michelle, Drizdal, and Faraliv walked calmly across the expanse to the stage. Janecia moved to intercept, but Perry held her back.

  “I thought we were going to break them free,” Janecia said.

  “I suspect that we will do more good by making a bigger spectacle of ourselves on stage,” Perry said. “He is making a show of this, so we’re going to give him a plot twist he doesn’t expect.”

  Michelle and the Voraster reached the stage and trudged up the steps to be displayed before the audience. Standing side by side, the Voraster towered over Michelle and made Harold look small. The crowd murmured once more at seeing their “mortal enemies.” Perry and Janecia moved a bit closer to the stage.

  “Here are only a few of your enemies,” Harold said. “Look, even one of our own is here. She was captured as she assisted some of them in escaping. We cannot allow traitors to threaten our existence. What would we do? Preserve the lives of a few while sacrificing everyone we love? This is not something I can condone, so I am left with no choice.”

  Harold reached into his pocket and retrieved a device about the size of a small flashlight. He held it before the crowd.

  “This is a Krever knife,” he announced. “We all use these every day for cutting a variety of materials. All of us know what they are, but for the benefit of our guests, I’ll explain. When I press this button on the side, a little light blade pops out.” Harold pressed the button, and what reminded Perry of a tiny lightsaber blade emerged. Harold pressed the button again, and it disappeared.