Dean blew on it and reattached the rear panel. It beeped, and when he pressed the power on, it was fully operational. Jules threw her arms around his waist and squeezed. “You did it!”
“We did it.” He grinned and took a deep inhale. “Here goes nothing.”
There was no red light indicating a match to Carolyn’s DNA marker. “I guess we were wrong. Doctor Yeera is just weird.”
A chime sounded at her main desk, and Jules crossed the room, seeing another communication notification arrive. “I saw one earlier too.”
“Can we read it?”
“We don’t have the password.”
“I thought that all communication was out.”
“Outgoing doesn’t work during these whiteouts, but the odd incoming slips through.” Yeera’s voice startled Jules, and she almost dropped the Locator. She turned it off behind her back and slipped it into her pocket.
“Can we try for Sarlun?” Dean asked.
“No bother. I already sent him a message when I was out there. I broke through the storm for a moment and took the chance. It was successful. I asked for an extraction for you two tomorrow after lunch. The storm should be at its lowest then.”
This was good news. “Did he respond?”
“Not yet, but I’m sure they’ll be here for you right on time. Are you two done being nosy yet?” Yeera smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
She might not be a match for the Locator, but the woman was odd, and her mannerisms put Jules on alert. “We didn’t mean anything by it. We’re just curious. I thought you were heading out?”
“No problem. I forgot something. Who wants to come with me to see the other Catoleel nest? Dean?” Yeera went to her desk, and Jules grabbed her tablet, recording the woman as she sat. She hid behind Dean, pretending to be reading something as she zoomed in on the keypad. The passcode. She had it.
Jules flipped the tablet off and set it down with shaky hands. Yeera was none the wiser. She used the computer for a moment, scanning over maps, and Jules glanced at it, seeing a few blinking points across the region. “What are those?” she asked.
“Those? Other Sub-Bases.” Yeera’s voice lifted, and Jules thought she might be lying. But why would she? “Dean, meet me in five.”
When she exited, Jules grabbed Dean’s hand, tugging him close. “I don’t like this. Something’s off.”
“She’s not the one we’re after. She’s a little eccentric. You would be too, if your only friends were slimy egg-laying ice creatures.”
“They aren’t slimy…” Jules waved her hand dismissively. “Never mind. Be cautious. I’ll investigate while you’re gone.”
“Okay, but nothing too obvious. We’re leaving tomorrow, remember?”
“Are we?”
“You think she’s lying?”
“We can’t take the chance.” Jules hugged him longer than normal before he finally slid out of her arms.
Dean limped away, heading for the bay, where Doctor Yeera waited for him. Jules kept thinking of one phrase.
Divide and conquer.
Sixteen
Sleep was elusive for the first hour, but eventually, I drifted into a comatose state, the day’s events exhausting me far beyond what I was used to. Slate was sprawled out across the floor, arms at his sides, straight on his back, when I finally woke.
I checked my suit’s chronometer, seeing I’d been out for ten hours. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept that long. I felt rested and sat up, checking the screen’s image.
We weren’t even moving. “Slate, wake up!” I shouted, shaking his boot.
He instantly came alert, his hands flying for his pulse rifle. “What is it?”
“You don’t need that. We’ve stopped.” I pointed to the screen. “We’re docked.”
“Can we change the camera angle?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Want me to try?”
“I can.” Slate grumbled as he stood and reached for the crab-claw controls. He closed his eyes, using his mind to attempt a connection, and the image shifted on the screen.
“It’s working,” I told him, and his eyes blinked open. The view showed that we were attached to an arm of a space station. “There have to be a hundred of these things.” Numerous rows of drones were fastened to the station, reminding me of big mushrooms growing from the sides of tree trunks in the forest behind my farmhouse on Earth.
“Maybe more. They go on forever.” Slate was right next to me, his shoulders slumped. We were on the trail of his personal mystery, but this didn’t feel like a solution. I had no idea how to leave this drone and find out our location. I felt lost, and so did Slate, judging by his posture.
“We’re going to deal with this.”
“I know.” He continued to grasp the ship’s controls, and the image zoomed in on the drone affixed next to us. Below the vessel, a section of the station’s arm connected to the underside. “That’s it. We have an exit.”
Slate snatched his helmet, sealing it with his suit’s collar, and passed mine over.
“How do we open…” I stopped asking as the hatch in the center of the drone opened. Slate let the control go and started for the exit, gun in his hands. I copied him, ensuring I was secured in my spacesuit before following him into the space station.
We landed below the craft and found the walls and floor to match the material of the drone’s interior. “The same race, obviously,” I said.
“We made it here quickly. These drones can haul ass. How many hours were we out?” he asked.
“Ten.”
“Judging by my estimation, we traveled a light year an hour. Impossible, right?” Slate’s voice was timid.
“Nope. Everything is impossible until it’s not. I used to think that the Yankees winning forty pennants wouldn’t happen.”
Slate took the first step, exiting the confined space into a corridor. It ran in a straight line for what looked like miles in either direction. “They use these to access the ships. But where are they?” Slate asked.
“Maybe it’s all automated?”
“Then why have access points? Why build the station for beings to walk through corridors?” Slate checked both ways and began walking cautiously. “This was the direction of the central hub.”
He was correct. We’d seen the mass of the station’s center to the right on the screen inside the craft. Our movement echoed through the empty space, and I couldn’t help but feel alone here. It was silent. I heard no hissing of air vents. No chiming of computer systems. No chattering of workers. Just silence and our steps.
I checked the air outside of my suit, detecting elements of nitrogen, oxygen, and some unknown compounds. Clearly alien. We walked by thirty other connection points to drones, each of them occupied by an unmoving craft.
The corridor ended, and Slate touched the wall, sending a doorway open. He had to duck to enter, and I barely fit, the top of my helmet brushing against the frame. Whoever had sent the drone was shorter than us.
The room opened up, with twenty-foot-high ceilings and large windows showcasing the space around the station. Seeing the countless station arms jutting in neat lines from this central hub was impressive from this angle.
A collection of computer consoles was gathered at the middle of the room. “This has to be central command,” Slate said.
“For what?”
Slate walked for them, answering as he went. “The drone fleet, I guess.”
“What’s the story? These aliens send their fleet across the universe and implant something inside the abductees? There have to be thousands of people like you, Slate. Look how many drones they have.”
“And we don’t know how long they’ve been in business for either,” Slate said.
“Maybe we’ll find out.” I stopped at the consoles, which were boxy units, reminding me of old arcade games from the eighties. I saw the red lights turn on at our arrival, resembling glowing eyes, and found the recessed arms with the familiar claw handles. I tugg
ed them free, using the controls as the monitor flickered to life.
“Be careful, Boss. We don’t know how this works.” Slate set a gloved hand on the unit.
“I’ll think of something.” I watched the blank screen. A tiny green light like an underscore sat in the lower right, as if awaiting instructions. It all seemed archaic. “I asked it before to send us where it came from, but this is just a space station. We need to determine who built this place and these drones. That’s the solution.”
“Why did they abandon this venture?” Slate asked.
“We’re going to learn why.” I held the controls, asking for details on the creators, for their race name, and home planet location. The unit vibrated, and data began to appear on the screen.
“We can’t read this.” Slate ran a finger across the lines of information, and I assumed he was trying to translate it with his HUD. I did the same and found it returned without results.
“Damn it. There must be something.” I refreshed, asking for a star map of their home planet. The random symbols wiped from the monitor, replacing with a pixelated drawing of a 3D star map as requested.
“How do we find it?” Slate started to pace around the room, his steps hurried and frantic.
“We hop into our drone and ask it to bring us there,” I told him.
“Then what? This is messed up, Dean. We’re in over our heads. How far are we from a portal world? Can we even get home from here? What if this modification kicks in and I go berserk?” Slate was losing control, which meant I had to talk him down from the ledge he was perched on.
“Slate, we’ll make it home. We always do. One thing at a time. For now, we use this map and instruct the drone to carry us to the destination.”
“What about all of these? Shouldn’t we destroy this station? Prevent more abductions?” he asked.
I liked the idea but expressed my concern. “What if the drone is linked to the network, and we kill our chance of it carrying us to the homeworld? We can’t risk it. Plus, all of these abduction drones are sitting here idly. They probably aren’t even operating any longer.”
Slate nodded grimly. “Fine, but you have to keep an eye on me. I’m feeling a little off. Maybe it’s already happening.” He frowned at me through his visor, his expression fearful.
“You’re tricking yourself into thinking that. It’s a natural response.”
He appeared to relax slightly and stopped pacing the room. “You’re probably right. Sorry, but this whole mess has me on edge.”
“I don’t blame you. Imagine if all of the drones set off to fulfill some old programming?” The entire station shook softly as I said the words, and realization spread through my body. I glanced at my hand, seeing the controller in my grip. “Oh no. I think I…”
“Boss, the drones! They’re powering up.”
My heart hammered in my chest as I saw the arms full of sleeping crafts come to life. “Slate, the ship!”
He didn’t hesitate, running for the door we’d entered through. I counted as we passed the activating vessels, and one by one, they began breaking free from the space station’s docking pods. When I counted thirty, we jumped to the space below the ship, Slate leaping up to pull himself into the craft. The drone trembled as it attempted to break free as well, and Slate’s firm grip wrapped around my wrist as I stared up at my friend. His face turned red as he hauled me into the drone a split second before it departed. The door sealed behind us, and I lay on the floor panting.
Slate was already at the controls, holding the claws and closing his eyes. “I’m telling it to bring us to their creator’s world. I pictured the map. I think it understands.”
I jumped to my feet, watching as hundreds of the once-dormant drones flew away, flat and round abduction crafts, and I hated myself for what I’d inadvertently done.
I’d accidentally awoken the entire drone fleet.
We had to stop them before they ignited chaos.
____________
Once Jules was certain Dean and Yeera were well on their way, she sat at the lab’s primary desk. She set her tablet up, watching the footage of the doctor using her passcode. She had the initial five digits down, but Yeera had shifted her shoulder for the last one, blocking it from sight.
“Great. Now what do I do?” she whispered to herself. Jules plugged in the five, tapping her finger on the desk as she stared at the keypad. The password seemed random, and she pressed a key. It could be anything. She was rejected with a flashing red alert, and it reset.
Jules re-entered the correct partial sequence and tried to decide what to do. “Maybe it’s her birthday.” The Shimmal keypads were far different than the human ones, but they were similar enough that she could decipher the numbers and lettering system. They seemed arbitrary at first glance, but she smiled as she realized a pattern. She pressed a sixth symbol, and the same error message appeared again. She tried a few other options, and all returned with the same fault.
“One more attempt before it locks up.” She blew a curly hair that had fallen over her eye, and concentrated. Yeera was a doctor, a scientist, which would mean her passcode could be completely randomized. She had no method to determine the code if that was the case, but Jules had to try.
She let out yelp as a noise carried from across the lab. Jules stood, closing the console’s password prompt, and slowly walked out of the room. There it was again. A humming. It was coming from the room with their cots in it.
Jules pressed her ear to the door. The gentle hum still lingered. She opened it, trying to determine where the sound came from. She only counted two packs, their personal smaller ones. Gone were the cache of weapons Dean and she’d taken from the Gatekeepers’ storage unit. Had Dean hidden them, or was it the work of Doctor Yeera?
A light pulsed through the fabric of her bag, and she stepped closer, kneeling beside it. “What is going on?” Jules’ fingers lingered on the zipper. With a tug, the entire bag opened, and she saw the source of the humming. It was the sphere, the one Sarlun had gifted her from his room of antiquities.
Jules reached into the bag, holding the sphere. “What do you want?”
It finally went silent, and a symbol appeared from a hidden projector. The ball pushed a hologram from the outer jeweled edge, catching her off-guard.
Jules nearly dropped it but caught the ball before it struck the floor. “Are you certain?” she asked.
The sphere just continued to show the symbol.
I must be losing my mind. I’m out here in the middle of an ice continent, talking to a ball.
“Is this the last key for Doctor Yeera’s passcode?” Jules felt foolish asking the question, but she’d seen far crazier things in her life. Nothing happened for a second, and she thought it might have all been a random coincidence. Sarlun hadn’t known what the sphere was, and neither did she.
The symbol vanished and reappeared, as if this was a confirmation of her query.
Her hand trembled as she stared at it. “This better work.” Jules took the device with her, running to the lab and sitting at the desk, setting the alien ball down.
Jules brought up the access box and keyed in the first five symbols. She glanced at the symbol still glowing on the sphere, and she copied it, pressing the “confirm” button.
She was in.
“You did it!” The ball hummed, and the hologram dissipated before powering off completely. It was once again blank, adorned by the shiny gemstones.
Jules had full access to Yeera’s files, and she opened the radar application. The five lights Yeera had claimed indicated the other local Sub-Bases appeared, and she clicked one, zooming in. It showed nothing but snow-capped mountains. She tried another, and there was no sign of a Sub-Base, not like hers. Maybe they were under snow from the recent weather system, but Jules doubted it. Not completely. A dot began to move on the screen, approximately ten kilometers inland, which was far from a Catoleel nest. Jules had been told those were all along the coast.
Doctor Yeer
a had Dean, and she was taking him somewhere remote. Jules followed their trajectory, seeing the Snow-Tracker was heading for one of the five markers on the map. “Dean…”
Jules had never felt so helpless in her life. Maybe Yeera wasn’t bad. Maybe she’d gotten turned around in the storm. Or… A thought crossed Jules’ mind, and she checked the communication network. One of them was directed to a Doctor Selen, and she opened it, translating as she read.
Hello Darling,
You said you’d be home next week, but I was wondering if you’d return sooner. I miss you, and can’t believe you’ve been forced to stay out there for over a year. It’s time you came home where you belong. Please reply when you can. I see there’s a horrible storm coming and I worry for you.
Your Faithful
Jules sat upright in the chair, elbows perched on the desktop. She scrolled through, retrieving a bunch of messages being sent under Selen’s name, some of them as recent as five days ago.
But Yeera had claimed her assistant had left last year. Jules doubted another doctor would act as her assistant. Had it been Yeera pretending to be Selen? If so, what had happened to the man?
The dot referring to the Snow-Tracker stopped at its destination, and Jules clenched her jaw. She hopped to her feet, determined to find the weapons Yeera had taken from them. She had to help Dean, and her gut told her the sooner the better.
Jules used the system to track down the Gatekeepers’ office, and fired off a message just in case Yeera had been lying about the storm blocking the communications. She sent one to Sarlun’s personal contact as well and hit send. They were churning through the network when she exited the lab. The camp wasn’t big, with only a handful of rooms. She moved to Yeera’s bedroom, expecting to need to break in, but found the door unlocked as she tested the handle.
It was plain. A bed. A tablet on a nightstand, and a closet. She checked there first and found a half dozen outfits. Nothing else.
The next room was a secondary storage, one with equipment behind the lab. Jules scanned the shelves, finding everything Yeera had claimed was there. Samples of the area and Catoleels. The floor clunked under one of her footsteps, causing her to pause. The spot was adorned with a utilitarian brown carpet, and she tugged at it, dragging the heavy wound fabric to the side. Under it was a trapdoor.
The Survivors | Book 15 | New Beginning Page 16
