Harbinger

by Ken Lozito

  He remembered the first time he'd seen New Earth and its rings. He'd been aboard the Ark and had just been brought out of stasis. He’d thought the whole thing was an elaborate hoax, but he’d been wrong. Ending up here wasn’t anything he could’ve imagined. The journey to New Earth had taken over two hundred years, and everything he’d known before was gone.

  The combat shuttle didn’t actually have any windows since they were structural weaknesses that didn’t belong on a combat ship. Sensors and cameras created the images that appeared on the holoscreens. The New Earth landscape stretched out away from them, and he realized that even though he'd explored a large portion of the area they were flying over, no one had explored all of it. They'd been on the planet for almost fourteen years, but there hadn’t been time to search the entire continent.

  The New Earth landscape was similar to Old Earth. There were mountain ranges, vibrantly colored forests, wide-open plains, and the ruins of alien cities. Some of it reminded him of Old Earth. He’d grown up on military bases on both Earth and space stations. Most of his childhood had been spent in the heart of the North American Alliance, which was comprised of old nation-states, with its core being the United States, Canada, and Mexico, but also included Great Britain and Spain. The NA Alliance had been around for over a century before Connor was born, and most of the culture and individual societies that stemmed from the nation-states had merged by then. However, the Ark Project had been funded by more than just the NA Alliance. The Asia Pac Alliance, containing parts of Europe and individualist nation-states, had also contributed. Over three hundred thousand colonists had gone to sleep on the Ark and awakened two hundred years later on a planet they hadn't been heading for. And even though it hadn't been their destination, they'd made a home here.

  Connor inhaled deeply and sighed. Now, they had a population of over six hundred thousand. The Vemus—believed to have wiped out all mammalian life on Earth—had followed them to New Earth. Connor and the rest of the Colonial Defense Force had been able to stop them, but it had nearly cost them everything. The Vemus was an alien symbiotic virus combined with bacterial infectious agents that had been targeted at mammalian life. The scientists who'd worked to cure it had also used it to target humans in order to consolidate power. It was that genetic modification that had made the Vemus hunt humans to the exclusion of all else and also what had driven the virus to find New Earth.

  Sometimes Connor wondered what Old Earth looked like now, but maybe not knowing was a blessing. He imagined it was a place of devastation—cities destroyed and all the people gone, new animals rising up to fulfill a niche in the absence of humans. And the Vemus might still be there as well. The New Earth colony had sent probes back to Earth, but Connor would be an old man before those probes transmitted data back to them. Earth was sixty light-years away from the colony, and the probes they'd sent back, even traveling at relativistic speeds, would take at least sixty years to get there, but it was probably closer to seventy years. The probes needed time to slow down and assess the situation before moving into the system. Then, after that assessment, they'd begin transmitting data back to the colony.

  Until recently, Connor had assumed that any data would take at least sixty years to reach New Earth. Given those timetables, the soonest they could learn about what had happened to the people of Earth would be about a hundred and forty years from now. He was sure the scientists could narrow it down to specifics, but his calculations were good enough for him. However, those calculations had been hypothesized before they'd been able to use subspace communication. Even in its limited form, they could potentially learn about Earth much sooner than they’d originally anticipated. The probes were not only equipped with scanners and powerful communication devices, but they also had an auto-factory with 3D printers capable of producing what the probes needed, including a subspace communication transceiver.

  “Attention. We’ll be approaching the landing pad in ten minutes. General Gates, transport has been arranged to bring you straight to the Colonial Administration Building,” the pilot said.

  Connor switched the viewpoint on the holoscreen and could see their approach to Sierra, one of New Earth’s major cities. Construction of the pylons had begun for the regional maglev trains that would connect all the cities, and one of those branches would be coming to Sanctuary. He’d been aware of the project but hadn’t thought it’d gained so much traction. It had been over six months since it was first proposed. Well, that’s not exactly right, Connor thought, silently correcting himself. It had been proposed when they’d first established colonial cities, but it had been delayed because of the imperative to reallocate resources to the Colonial Defense Force. There'd been a need for sacrifice at the time, but now, many of the projects that had been put on hold were getting the green light.

  Connor understood the reasoning for this, but at the same time, they needed to prepare for the possibility of a Krake invasion. Something else they couldn’t have been prepared for when the Ark arrived was the fact that New Earth hadn't been as unoccupied as they’d originally thought. There was an intelligent alien species living there who called themselves Ovarrow. When the colonists first started exploring New Earth, they’d found remnants of a vast civilization—abandoned cities and alien structures but also impact craters, which indicated signs of an orbital bombardment. Connor had had plenty of opportunity to study the alien ruins because his wife, Lenora, was an archaeologist.

  He didn’t know much about establishing a colony. He knew about space stations, military installations, and hunting shadow organizations. What he didn’t know about was making a new world a home and who would be best qualified to help achieve that. There were the obvious choices of biologists, chemists, and engineers, but he’d never thought about an archaeologist. It seemed foolish to him now that this would be overlooked, and Lenora had more or less shoved him into that realization very quickly. How else would they learn about the world they were going to make a home on?

  New Earth had layers upon layers of discoveries waiting to unfold—from the intelligent species like the Ovarrow to the animal life that lived here. Even the plant life was strangely familiar and yet quite exotic. Lenora had often said to Connor that they could spend the next century here and still wouldn’t have unlocked all of New Earth's secrets. She liked to think of mysteries as secret stories yet to be unlocked. However, the more they learned about New Earth and the Ovarrow, the more that gave way to a general unrest that was felt by most colonists.

  The Ovarrow were bipedal, with various shades of brown, pebbled skin like that of a reptile. Pointy protrusions stemmed from their shoulders and elbows. They had long arms and large hands with four long fingers, from which stubby black claws protruded. Their severe brow lines stretched to the backs of their wedge-shaped heads. They were lean and strong but had a bit of a stoop that made their heads bob when they walked.

  Lenora and hordes of other scientists were working to put together the Ovarrow's history. Connor had stumbled onto another secret of New Earth when he’d discovered that the Ovarrow had hidden in bunkers, using a primitive form of stasis. The Ovarrow had fought wars among themselves, and it was later learned that they were defending themselves against an invader they called the Krake.

  Connor remembered the NA Alliance first-contact protocols that had been refined for hundreds of years in the event that aliens came to visit Old Earth. They'd never had to use them. It had always been assumed that aliens would cross vast distances between stars, but that hadn't been the case with the Krake and New Earth. The Krake were a species that lived in another universe and had the technology to cross between universes. They explored and cataloged, but at some point in their history, they'd decided to experiment on and manipulate the Ovarrow they found. Based on appearance alone, the Krake and Ovarrow seemed to share a common ancestor, or maybe they were different branches on the same evolutionary tree. The colonists lacked DNA evidence to support it, but Connor knew it was only a matter of time. The Kra
ke were going to return to New Earth one day, and Connor was determined to find a way to stop them.

  He'd found evidence of the Ovarrow's attempt to reverse-engineer the technology that allowed the Krake to traverse between universes. The Krake had built a massive arch, and even though colonial physicists and engineers hated the phrase, Connor thought of it as an "open gateway" to another universe. Colonial scientists had had even more success with making the Krake technology work for them, and that had led to discoveries Connor suspected the Krake weren’t aware of, but they still didn’t know much about the Krake themselves. So far, their best intelligence about the Krake was that they were a highly advanced civilization that exploited societies from alternate universes for scientific gain. They practiced a strange form of ruthless scientific pragmatism, looking to predict the outcome of everything.

  Learning about the existence of the Krake had given Connor many sleepless nights. He didn’t require the standard seven to eight hours of sleep civilians needed because of his specialized implants. Most nights, he only required a few hours' sleep. The only reason most colonists didn't utilize his particular type of implant was a lack of long-term studies of the effects of fooling the brain into thinking it had gotten the required amount of rest that evolution had decided the human body needed. Connor had already had the prototype implants in him when he'd gone into stasis. They'd since been studied by colonial scientists, and a variant of them had been engineered for use by select colonists, mostly those in the CDF.

  The combat shuttle landed on the CDF base at Sierra, and Connor got off. He was then transferred to a civilian aerial transport vehicle, commonly referred to as a C-cat, which was smaller and meant to carry only four or five people. He was soon heading toward the Colonial Administration Building. He’d been there only a few days before and hadn’t expected to be summoned back quite so soon.

  The flight to the administration building only took about fifteen minutes, and after they landed, Connor walked off the landing platform and headed inside the building. The last time he’d been there was when Meredith Cain, the former head of the Colonial Intelligence Bureau, had been arrested. This was in no small part due to Connor hunting down a rogue group that was terrorizing the Ovarrow. They'd made the mistake of bringing civilians into their crosshairs, including his wife. Connor had organized operations using unarmed Spec Ops soldiers to monitor and coordinate with Field Ops, but they were also ordered to detain key suspects until Field Ops could arrive. Many government officials viewed Connor’s actions as an extreme abuse of power. The result was a political crap storm, and he was still waiting to see where the pieces would fall. His actions had been necessary, but he knew there'd be a cost. There was always a cost.

  Connor walked through the halls of the Colonial Administration Building. There was always an influx of people walking the halls, either going to or coming from various meetings, often speaking with people over their personal comlinks. At four inches over six feet, Connor’s broad shoulders often commanded a natural pathway through groups of people. He was difficult to miss in a crowd unless Samson with him, who was the human version of a Nexstar combat suit heavy. Connor wasn’t heavily muscled, but he was extremely strong and maintained a high level of fitness. It was just a natural part of who he was and was also necessary for his overall strategy to do things like keep breathing. On more than a few occasions, he’d needed all his strength just to survive. He’d seen soldiers who let their fitness go, to their own demise. This was something the Colonial Defense Force could not afford, whereas the militaries of Old Earth could indulge when they had populations numbering over fourteen billion people to draw from. There was plenty of fat to trim with a population that large, but not on New Earth. The CDF was lean, and so were its soldiers. Most colonists were physically fit. He wondered if that would wane as the years went on and people chose to stay in the cities they’d built rather than roam the countryside.

  “Excuse me, General Gates,” a woman said.

  Connor turned toward the woman, and she smiled. “Hi, I’m Rebecca Kent. I’m one of Governor Wolf’s aides. I was sent to inform you that the meeting has been moved to her office.”

  Connor nodded and gestured for Rebecca to lead the way. There were clusters of people gathered outside the governor’s office. A few people glanced in his direction as he approached, and conversations became hushed remnants of what they'd once been. Connor ignored them as he walked by.

  Rebecca waved at the receptionist/gatekeeper to the wing of offices where the governor and her staff worked.

  “Seems a bit busier than normal,” Connor said.

  “This is the new normal,” Rebecca replied, voicing the first hint of weariness at all the activity.

  Given the extent of how many people had been implicated in the rogue group’s activities, he shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was.

  “I know the way from here. You can move on to whatever else you have to do,” Connor offered.

  Rebecca checked her wrist computer and regarded Connor for few moments. “Good luck,” she said.

  She turned and left, and Connor frowned. Why would she wish him luck? He strode to Dana Wolf’s office and unceremoniously opened the door, walking inside.

  Connor saw Nathan standing off to the side. He gave Connor a crisp nod, but his brow was furrowed in concentration. Dana Wolf stood off to the other side, speaking with Bob Mullins. Connor’s neck stiffened with a flash of annoyance. Mullins’s short-cropped, curly hair had an oily shine to it. He stopped speaking, and his piggish eyes narrowed a little as he looked at Connor.

  Dana smiled warmly and waved him over. “Connor, thank you for coming down here again on such short notice.”

  “Nathan said it was important.”

  “He was right. We just finished meeting with the Security Council,” Dana said and gestured for them all to sit on the couches on the other side of her office.

  Dana and Mullins sat on one side, while Nathan sat in one of the plush chairs. He didn’t look happy. Nathan was as even-tempered as they came. This was one of the reasons Connor had recruited him into the CDF and also one of the things that made him an excellent leader. He wasn’t prone to impulsive actions, and it took a lot to get under his skin.

  “Did I miss anything important? I know the meeting today dealt particularly with the prosecution of everyone involved in the rogue group’s activities,” Connor said, then sat down and waited.

  “It did, and Rex Coleman and his team are working on interviewing all the detainees,” Dana answered.

  Connor nodded. They were detainees until they were proven guilty.

  Nathan cleared his throat, and Connor glanced at him for a moment, but Nathan kept his gaze on the governor.

  Connor looked back at Dana and saw that Mullins was watching him with the focused intensity of a hungry wolf.

  “This is about me, isn’t it?” Connor asked.

  “We are implementing changes in the CDF,” Dana said. “These changes will affect you specifically, Connor.”

  Connor had been expecting something and kept his gaze on Governor Wolf. “I understand.”

  “I’m not going to beat around the bush about this. We’re making Nathan the head of the CDF. The Security Council has voted.”

  His first thought was that they were taking the CDF away from him. He glanced at Nathan, who didn’t look happy about the situation.

  “I didn’t want this,” Nathan said.

  Connor softened his gaze and nodded. He’d created the Colonial Defense Force for the purpose of defending the colony from the threat of invasion. He’d been involved in every aspect from its first inception until he'd retired after the Vemus War, although "retired" was a bit of a misnomer because his exposure to the Vemus meant he might’ve been compromised. When he rejoined the CDF, he and Nathan had split their duties, but Connor knew there needed to be one person in charge.

  “All right, what else?” Connor said.

  “It’s all right to take a f
ew moments to take this in. We’re all aware of the sacrifices you've made to create our defenses,” Dana replied.

  Connor felt a spike of irritation at feeling like he was being jerked around. “I don’t need a moment. I need to know what you intend to do with me. Is my commission canceled?”

  “No,” Nathan said firmly.

  “It’s undecided at this time,” Bob Mullins said.

  Connor swung his gaze toward the man and then looked back at Governor Wolf.

  “For the time being, you're still part of the Colonial Defense Force,” Dana said.

  Connor leaned back in his chair and gauged the room. He felt like he was attending the aftermath of an all-day debriefing that had probably been all about him and his actions.

  “The CDF is more than just me.”

  Bob Mullins inhaled explosively. “You say that, but do you really mean it? We spent most of the day discussing the very actions that brought us into this situation. You treated the CDF as if it was your own personal army to do with as you saw fit without checking with colonial leadership. This makes you almost as bad as Meredith Cain. I know you think what you did was necessary, but it was no less damaging, and the repercussions will be felt for a long time.”

  “Bob," Connor said, "if you were any good at your job, you would’ve known what Meredith was doing and you would’ve stopped her. It’s people like you who let a situation get to a point where someone like me has to do something to stop it. I don’t regret anything I’ve done. Not one bit. I’d do it all again. You allowed that group to fester and infect the entire colony. What would you have done if I hadn't been here?”

  Mullins leaned forward. “If it was up to me, you wouldn’t be here. You’d be out of the CDF.”