by Paul Teague
At any one time she was processing hundreds of pieces of data. And now she could sense that this woman was trying to use a SymNode … to get to The Nexus. But this woman was not a Trooper, she was the enemy. Wasn’t she?
The small part of humanity that still functioned within her told that this woman could mean help. Salvation even. The Queen was fighting with every last drop of will that she could summon, but she was losing the battle, she was under Pierce’s deadly control.
But then she detected the woman trying to activate the Transporter on Quadrant 3. This woman could help her. She was not the enemy, perhaps she was a final chance of escape? She tried desperately to activate the SymNode authorization when the woman first touched the activation pad in the lift.
At the same time, hundreds of pieces of information cycled through her brain – from the Troopers, The Nexus, the Quadrants and from Doctor Pierce – and she urged herself to separate this information. She failed. The woman had tried again.
The Queen forced herself to fight the thing that compelled her against her will. She was losing her energy now, she knew that she was dying.
Then, a final chance, the woman had tried to use the SymNode a third time. She was persistent. The Queen commanded every last bit of free will that she could muster, and for a split second she was Davran once again. And in that moment she gave Amy access to The Nexus via the Transporter in Quadrant 3. It was a last act of rebellion from somebody who could no longer fight the evil things that had been done to her.
It was a desperate grasp at freedom, a final chance to escape the terrors to which she’d been subjected by her torturers.
Obsolete
Mike listened to the sound of the Transporter taking his wife to wherever she was heading and he made his way back to the Control Room.
A text update from Xiang told him that they’d just been granted a little more time to save Dan and Nat. About an hour he reckoned. An hour is such a short time normally, but now it was a matter of life and death for his children.
There had to be something on this SD card, why else would Nat have been so interested in it? Where was she now? And Dan? Damn these Comms-Tabs, there was no sign of the twins. At least they’d sent a text message, they were still alive. For now.
Mike delivered the helmet to Magnus, explaining what it was, and headed back to his work area. His tech team had nothing to report, just more files, more snippets of information including interesting notes about Dan, written by Harold Pierce, about his difficulties after Nat’s death.
Pierce knew exactly what it was of course, he’d already experienced ‘The Disconnect’ as it was known among the Zatheons. Although he could not tell Dan or his parents at the time, it was entirely normal what Dan was going through; he’d had to endure it – as had his brother – and so had Davran when she’d left her own sister. The symbiotic bond could bring so much strength, but at times, it also brought with it terrible pain.
There were a few more random notes which the team had flagged up, all very interesting, but nothing which helped to move things on. It turned out from a personal diary log that Harold Pierce’s tie had been a gift from Davran Saloor; she’d had it made from a Zatheon textile which had amazing properties. It was thin, light, beautiful to touch – yet extremely tough. The Zatheons used the textile for many things, including heavy industrial purposes.
Of course, the tie had deep scientific significance as well. Davran Saloor had given it to Doctor Pierce as a sign of friendship, because of the compassion and care that he’d shown to her whilst on Earth. She knew that the Zatheons had a friend in Harold Pierce, so she’d added something unique to the tie, a token of trust and kinship.
Davran Saloor would have loved the Zatheons to work more closely with Earth, the two species had so much to learn from each other. The Elders had resisted however, but Davran wanted Harold Pierce to know how much she cherished his friendship.
The symbol on the tie, which had amused and distracted Dan so much at his sessions with Doctor Pierce, was made of a unique substance created on Zatheon. Whenever a Zatheon was in proximity of the tie, it would change colour and the Zatheon would know that they were in the presence of a friend.
This is what Dan had seen, it had been the colouration that had intrigued him. If only he’d known back then that his birth mother had given him a message. She was telling him that Harold Pierce was a friend.
Mike sifted the new data and discarded it swiftly, it could all wait for later, it meant absolutely nothing to him, neither would it help the twins. He took the SD card out of his pocket, and started searching his terminal for a slot to plug it into.
‘You’re kidding?’ he cursed to himself.
He called over to Jen from the tech team.
‘Jen, where are the card slots in these things?’
‘Don’t need them, don’t use them!’ she replied. ‘It’s dead technology.’
This place was so hi-tech, they’d moved well beyond these old devices. Mike had encountered this issue already. It’s how he’d accessed the files that they were searching, they’d been encrypted using old coding systems.
He dared to wonder if this was the same thing again, crucial data hidden in plain sight on old systems. Almost defunct technology which any decent geek would dismiss out of hand. But how was he going to access it?
Of course! He had Amy’s laptop with him in the rucksack. It’s what Nat had been trying to use to get to the data herself.
Mike thrust his hand into the bag and drew out the laptop which he’d dismissed so readily when he’d been speaking to Amy in the MedLab. He regretted that now this old thing might hold the solution.
He put the SD card in the slot, fired up the PC and got ready to see what information Nat had been so keen to read.
Secure Connection
In the commotion, Zadra Nurmeen had slipped away, unnoticed. He’d not gone far, but he knew the patterns of behaviour with Pierce: he’d rant a little, get angry, hit or kick somebody – or both – and then do something unpredictable or erratic.
Nobody noticed that he was gone, except for Dae-Ho, who was dutifully attending to the task assigned to him. Keeping his head bowed, moving slowly but steadily, desperately trying not to provoke the man who’d terrorized him and his friends for so many years. And who sent a good friend out to perish in the airlock.
Zadra Nurmeen left the Ops Area for only a few minutes, but Dae-Ho saw it all from his console. He was speaking to somebody and he didn’t want Pierce to know.
Dae-Ho was too far away to hear what was being said, but he got the sense of what was going on. Zadra Nurmeen was hatching a plan. And it didn’t appear to include Henry Pierce.
Overheard
Simon and Kate had been about to make a move, when the alien had moved out of the room, right in their direction.
They’d flinched as Pierce’s fist had slammed into his brother’s bloody head, but the alien had taken this violence as his cue to make a sharp exit. Simon and Kate hung back in the shadows.
The alien was speaking to somebody, but it was in his own tongue, they could only make out snippets. It was almost comedic, every now and then they’d hear a word that they recognized – like ‘Pierce’ – for which there was clearly no alternative word in his own language.
Simon and Kate didn’t need to translate to get the gist of what was going on. They only had to read the body language. The conversation was hushed and collusive. Something was being planned.
The alien kept glancing at Pierce to make sure that his absence had not been noticed. Whatever was being said was not meant to be heard by anybody else.
But it was the final two words that both Simon and Kate recognized and would transmit back to Magnus minutes later when the alien had returned to his seat, still unnoticed by the angry Doctor Pierce. Those two words were ‘Lake Karachay’.
Chapter Three
A Sinister Address
My mind is working furiously – Pierce seems to have all the exits b
locked, I just can’t think of what to do next. We’re not going to be able get our birth mum off the ISOCell because it will self-destruct when we do so.
We can’t just replace her with somebody else. They’ll never be found again unless we reach them via the single Transporter link that Pierce and Zadra Nurmeen have set up.
This place is swarming with Troopers now, they’re moving out of the bunkers and into The Nexus, meeting at this big, sinister nest in space. It’s a hornet’s nest too, virtually everything here can give a nasty sting.
I’ve lost track of how long me and Nat have to go – to live. We could disappear in a puff of smoke any minute – I don’t know what will happen when our time is up – but I’d really like to know how much remaining time we have now.
I try to focus. Everything I’ve achieved since the bunker doors closed on me for the first time has been done through strategy and planning. I need to look around at what’s available, what I can use.
I can see our Comms-Tabs and weaponry placed on a work area to my side, but the Troopers are all around us, there’s no chance of getting to them. I’ve also seen a makeshift contraption towards the back of this room, it looks like something portable that has been brought in here. I have a hunch that I know what that’s for.
Harold Pierce is out cold again on the floor; Nat is unusually quiet, but for once, she seems to be using her brain, trying to figure out a way to break this impasse. Henry Pierce is about to get back in full flow.
I doubt there’s anything that he can tell us now that will surprise us, but I’ll bet he still has a few tricks up his sleeve.
Zadra Nurmeen catches my eye. He’d slipped out somewhere while all the commotion was going on, I wonder what he’s been up to.
Pierce breaks my train of thought. He’s got that look in his eyes and I brace myself for whatever is about to come.
‘I have one last incentive to help you make up your minds about joining my little project on Zatheon,’ he begins, with a horrible smirk that confirms this won’t be good news.
‘I need to make sure that I also have the full attention of our friends on Earth for this one,’ he carries on, addressing the holographic images of the world’s leaders whose projections circle this Ops Area.
‘We’ll also need our friends from the bunkers to be patched into this announcement,’ he nods to his alien pal, who presses a few switches on the console to his side.
‘Everybody hearing this?’ he asks Zadra Nurmeen.
He gets the confirmation that he’s after, and takes a breath, like an orator ready to address the crowd. They don’t seem to have anybody from the bunkers up on the screens, so I assume he’s doing what Harold did earlier when he addressed the bunkers via the main PA systems. Which means Mum, Dad, Magnus, Viktor … everybody should be hearing this. And Simon and Kate too I hope – what happened to them? It’s about time they showed their faces.
Henry Pierce begins to address his audience. We’re all ears, waiting for whatever evil plan he’s hatching next.
‘I’d like to begin by announcing to Quadrant 3 that I have good news for you – and bad news.
‘The good news is that we are presently evacuating the four Quadrants on Earth and within the next ten minutes, all of our Trooper friends will have joined us here in beautiful space, in The Global Consortium’s Nexus.
‘The bad news is, we have everything that you might want to save docked to this hub right now. The Consortium’s little ark plan worked very well ...’
He smiles, and surveys the faces of the world’s leaders.
‘I’d like to thank you all for sanctioning Unification – it will make it a lot easier to blow up The Nexus all at one sitting, so my eternal gratitude for that rather bad decision.’
Harold Pierce is coming round again now, and by the look on his face, I think he’d rather that he’d stayed out cold. He’s beginning to look like James did after he’d been interrogated – in urgent need of a visit to the MedLab.
The voices of the world’s leaders are on mute, but I can guess what they’re trying to say just by looking at the screens.
‘In fact I’d like to thank the Custodians of the bunkers for their help too, just like our lovely leaders, you too have given us some massive help today.’
Zadra Nurmeen turns around and presses some buttons on his console. Pierce waits for him to finish, then resumes what he was saying.
A Trooper takes the E-Pad just handed to him by Zadra Nurmeen and heads towards Nat.
Nat attempts to struggle, but another Trooper comes up behind her and restrains her. Between the two of them, they force Nat’s hand onto the E-Pad and it gives a beep.
The same then happens to me. I try to resist, but I don’t have the strength to stop them placing my hand on the E-Pad. There is another beep, I struggle free of the Troopers and they let me go, they’ve got what they wanted from us.
‘Earlier today Xiang, Magnus and Viktor sanctioned the launch of the nuclear submarines, and Dan and Nat kindly set that process in motion.
‘We could not have done it without you, and I’d like to thank you for your help just now ...’
Here it comes, what have we done?
‘Twins, you have just launched two hundred nuclear missiles to a series of destinations programmed in by me.
‘Those nuclear missiles are targeted at all four bunkers, which is why our Trooper friends no longer need to stick around.
‘Magnus and Viktor, I apologize, but I have overridden the preliminary coordinates set in by you.
‘How naughty of you to target the other Quadrants, did you think you’d have to blow us out of the ground to beat us?’
He laughs. I thought only baddies on cartoon shows did that, but he’s for real, he does it too.
‘We have also targeted some key installations around the globe, just to make extra sure that the planet is left with no viable form of government,
‘The White House, the Houses of Parliament, the Kremlin, Zhongnanhai … they’ll all be gone within the hour.
‘So if I were all of you, I’d start to do whatever it is you’d like to do before it’s all over.
‘The terraforming sequence has been programmed in; even if we hadn’t launched the nukes, there’ll be no habitable planet left for you in fourteen days, once TerraLevel 3 is complete.
‘And I’d like to thank the lovely Davran Saloor for that information – your mother kindly yielded the technical data we needed to mess up TerraLevel 3 … so you’ve all been very helpful.’
He pauses for effect, then breaks out into that horrible smile of his. ‘So we’re doing you a kindness really.’
I don’t like the way he used the word ‘yielded’, I can only guess at what horrible things he did to extract that information from Davran. Mum.
‘Oh, and Dan and Nat just set off the self-destruct sequence for The Nexus too – we’ll be departing shortly on a Helyion ship to leave you all to it.
‘So really, this is just a message to say farewell and wish you well. The first nuclear weapon will hit its target in roughly thirty minutes time.’
We’re all completely stunned, then all hell gets let loose.
The Ops Area fills with smoke and suddenly we’re immersed in Bedlam.
Fragmented
Simon and Kate had heard enough, they’d learned everything they needed to know to act. Pierce had sabotaged the nukes, everybody was on the final countdown and it didn’t matter now what form their resistance took, anything was better than nothing. It was the endgame for everybody, there was nothing to lose at this point.
They set off the smoke canisters procured from the Simulation Area, then began to shoot randomly into the air. They wanted to create as much confusion as possible, they were busting out Dan and Nat.
Kate knew that even if she was going to die on this day, the single thing that she would need to achieve would be to get the twins out alive, they were the only thing that could reverse this situation now.
She
needed to atone for her sins, she was struggling to get to grips with the things that she’d done whilst under the control of the monster, Pierce. It all happened very quickly.
Kate rushed in to where she knew that Nat was located. She took her by the arm and shouted ‘Come with me!’
Simon ran towards where Dan had been, but he wasn’t there. Through the dense smoke, Simon caught a glimpse of Dan.
He seemed to have a purpose, or a plan. Simon called to him, but in the commotion of Troopers, weapon fire and shouting, he lost him.
Kate called over to help with Doctor Pierce who’d been caught in the crossfire. He was wounded, but just about able to walk.
It was like the most dangerous game ever of musical chairs had just taken place. When the smoke began to clear, everybody was in a different place.
Dan had used the diversion to grab a Comms-Tab and make for the makeshift platform at the back of the Ops Area. He had a plan of his own.
Kate, Simon, Nat and Doctor Pierce were making their way along the corridor in a confusion of laser fire.
Loud and protesting alarms were sounding throughout The Nexus, they had been dropped into a terrible battle scene in just a matter of minutes. It didn’t matter though. They were fighting for their lives now. And for the lives of everybody on Earth.
Simon and Kate had the tracker. They were heading for the Simulations Area. On the way they were going to drop off Nat and Doctor Pierce in the Transporter, sending them back to Quadrant 3.
Dan should have been with them – they would try to rectify that later, once they’d dealt with the Troopers.
They made their way through the corridors, using the remaining smoke bombs to confuse and separate the Troopers at every intersection.
