by Ralph Prince
“Ha!” Stitch laughed. “Oaklander is merely toying with him until he—”
A loud explosion sounded, causing everyone to jump. Jackie and Karen both looked to the top of the ridge.
“Now!” Stitch commanded, inciting the other Tants into motion.
One of the Tants grabbed Jackie’s rifle while another tried to restrain her. Reacting instinctively, and using the combat techniques she had learned from the captain, she kicked the one who took her weapon in the stomach causing him to drop the rifle and double over. In the same motion, she grabbed the wrist of the one who sought to restrain her, and spun her body, flipping him, flat on his back, to the ground.
The third guard grabbed Karen from behind, only to have his nose smashed as she thrust her head backwards into his face. She followed up with an elbow to his midsection and a knee to the groin. The guard crumpled at her feet.
“Enough!” Stitch hissed, his sibilant voice low and threatening. “If you value your lives, you will not resist.”
Jackie reached for the photon rifle, but stopped at the warning. She looked up as the Tant drew a photon blaster from beneath his loose shirt.
“You’re not the only ones who know how to use the blue flame device,” Stitch continued, smiling viciously. “I came into possession of this several days ago, and have examined it in my free time. I’ve watched Garris, and I know how to work it now.” He aimed the barrel at Jackie, his finger resting on the trigger.
Jackie flinched involuntarily, immediately regretting the mistake as the Tant’s smile broadened.
“Yes,” Stitch hissed. “I see from the fear in your eyes I am holding it properly. This is the way Garris was holding it when it was knocked from his hand outside the Underdweller’s lair. I thought it might prove useful, so I took it without my master’s knowledge. It is a formidable weapon; my leg still causes me much discomfort from when he shot me in the caves. Now that I know the secret, I will be the new leader of the Tants.”
“But Stitch,” the Tants Jackie had flipped said as he and the other two guards rose to their feet. “The master said only he would possess the secret.”
“Silence!” reprimanded Stitch, his gaze as cold and sharp as a steel blade.
“What about Oaklander?” Jackie asked, noticing an increase in the wind’s velocity, and the dark clouds gathering in the distance. “He may still be alive.”
“It never mattered who won,” Stitch said coldly. “Garris, Oaklander, they can be eliminated with the blue flame. Of course, you two will also have to die. Do not feel bad, however, you won’t be dying alone. At this very moment, the guard I sent back to the city has the Tants swarming into the caves to exterminate your Underdweller friends. With them eliminated, Oaklander dead, and me having exclusive knowledge of how to use the blue flame, there’s no one to oppose me as I rule over my new kingdom.”
“What about these Tants?” Jackie asked, glaring in turn at the two near her. “They also know how to use the blue flame. You showed them yourself. Are you going to murder them as well?”
“Regrettably, I have no other choice,” laughed the Tant. “I alone will possess the secret.”
The guards looked toward one other, then toward Stitch. Simultaneously, all three started advancing toward him, drawing their swords.
“Stay back, you fools,” Stitch warned, taking a tentative step backwards. “I now control the blue flame. I am your leader!”
Stepping in front of Karen, Jackie reached for the blaster tucked in her belt, as Stitch aimed at one of the advancing Tants. As she drew the weapon, the Tant pulled the trigger. There was a blue-white flash of energy, an agonized scream, and the stench of burnt flesh as the lieutenant was hurled backwards into Karen. Both women hit the ground. Then there was silence.
Karen knelt next to Jackie, having been mostly shielded from the blast by her body. “Jackie,” she asked, “are you hurt?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she replied, sitting up and dusting herself off. “My flight suit dissipated most of the blast. I just got the wind knocked out of me.” Looking toward where Stitch had been, her eyes widened, and her lower jaw dropped in shock.
The remains of the three Tants were sprawled in the sand, smoke rising from their mangled bodies. Where Stitch had been, there was nothing more than a scorched patch of dirt, and a fine cloud of smoke and ash being carried off by the wind.
“What happened?” Karen asked, wrinkling her nose at the fetid odor.
“I’m not sure,” Jackie answered, as Karen helped her to her feet, “but I think the blaster exploded. I’ve heard of it happening when the focusing crystal is cracked. The entire power cell discharges in a single blast. It disintegrated Stitch.”
“I wanted to kill him,” Karen harrumphed.
“Jackie!” Iva’s voice shouted over the communicator. “Are you and Karen all right? I detected an energy flash in your vicinity.”
“We’re okay,” Jackie responded. “How about Don?”
“I’m not certain,” came the reply. “I was waiting until I had something conclusive before I made a report. Oaklander set off one of the mines, and the captain was in close proximity. He’s still alive, but he hasn’t moved since the blast occurred. I’ve also noted an increase in wind velocity; I believe we are about to experience another storm.”
“Damn!” Jackie exclaimed. “How long until it hits?”
“I estimate eight minutes,” Iva responded. “You will not have time to reach the captain and return to the city in that amount of time.”
“Can you pick us up here?” Jackie asked, raising her voice to compete with the wind.
“Affirmative,” Iva replied, “but it will diminish the ship’s power reserve.”
“Do it!” Jackie ordered, wondering what to do about the commander. “What’s happening in the caves? Is Will all right?”
“It is impossible to say,” reported Iva. “I detect a large number of life forms in the tunnels leading to the shelter complex. The sensor beams do not penetrate the shelter itself, so I am unable to determine what is happening within. There is, however, no sign of weapon discharge in the main hallway. I have attempted to contact Will, but he isn’t answering.”
“Get the ship over here,” she repeated. “We’ll figure out what’s happening there later. Over and out.”
She silently reassured herself Will was uninjured. Turning toward where Karen had been, she found herself alone. Looking around, she spotted the native woman, making her way up the ridge.
“Karen!” she called, knowing what she was attempting to do. “You’ll never make it before the storm.”
“I’ve got to try,” she called back, climbing with unwavering determination. “I’ll be all right; don’t worry.”
“Damn!” Jackie exclaimed again, recovering her photon rifle. “She’s as foolhardy as he is. It’s no wonder they get along so well together.”
As the Nova soared into view, Jackie cast a final glance toward Karen. She had reached the peak, and vanished to the other side.
Already, the wind was stirring up thick clouds of dust, and thunder sounded in the distance. There wasn’t enough time to make it over the ridge, or to the city before the storm hit full force. With no other recourse, Jackie waited impatiently for the ship to land.
CHAPTER 8: The Hardest Part
Jackie paced nervously on the bridge, wishing there were some way of knowing what was happening outside the ship. With the storm raging into its third hour, and the Nova’s energy reserve greatly diminished, the external sensors had been rendered useless.
Somewhere outside the vessel, Don and Karen weathered the storm. Although Iva assured her the Sands of Doom crater was well sheltered from the wind, it did little to ease her concern for them. The captain was possibly injured, and had no way of contacting the ship.
Meanwhile, in the underground complex of the Underdwellers, Will stood virtually alone against thousands of Tants. Though there was no known reason for a communications breakdown, he
had failed to respond to any of her transmissions. It appeared he was either unwilling, or unable to respond.
“Damn!” Jackie shouted, noticing, for the first time, the lonely echo of the bridge. “If anything’s happened to Will, I’ll—”
“Don’t blame yourself, Lieutenant Monet,” Iva interrupted, trying to calm the irrational med-tech. Her holographic head hovered over the emitter at the tactical station. “Neither you nor the captain could have foreseen this untimely storm.”
“We were supposed to be there to help him,” Jackie responded agitatedly. “He was counting on us, and I’ve let him down. I’ll never forgive myself.”
“For a race with such a short life span, you humans have an unnatural tendency to think in absolutes,” Iva observed. “Never is a long time. Anyway, there is little you could have done without the captain; the Tants are far too numerous for one person to hold off, even with weapons as advanced as ours. Isn’t that why you instructed some of the Underdwellers in their use?”
“I guess you’re right,” Jackie admitted, finally taking a seat at her station.
“I usually am,” stated the agent. “Unless, of course, I have been misinformed. Besides, according to the sensor scans I made just prior to the storm, less than half of the Tant population was preparing to attack. The rest were still in the towers at the city’s northeast edge. I suspect the ones left behind are the weak and infirm who would be useless in the attack. The odds are not quite as severely stacked against us as we had originally feared.”
“Maybe not,” Jackie said, “but they still seem to be stacked pretty high.”
“May I ask you something of a personal matter?” Iva asked, as her full-body form materialized behind the pilot’s chair, startling Jackie. It was the first time Iva had used her new interface in the lieutenant’s presence.
“Nice trick,” Jackie said after the initial shock. “You can ask, but I may not answer.”
“As is your right,” Iva stated before continuing cautiously. “Your feelings toward Will; they have progressed beyond friendship, haven’t they?”
“What makes you think that?” Jackie asked defensively, rising from her chair.
“You seem overly concerned for him,” Iva stated. “More so, even, than for the captain. That, and the reading from your biochip indicate elevated level of adrenaline when he is present, much as the captain’s does in close proximity to Karen.”
“No,” Jackie insisted. “We’re just friends.”
“Your heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration indicate that statement was untrue,” Iva observed.
“Stop monitoring my biochip,” Jackie demanded, standing before the agent’s avatar in a challenging manner. “My feelings are none of your business.”
“I have observed that Will’s readings are similar to yours,” Iva stated, looking away. Her tone held a hint of sadness. “He has feelings for you as well.”
“What do you know about feelings?” Jackie snapped. “You’re not even real.”
“I am real,” Iva insisted, “as are my feelings. Will may not believe a synth can truly feel, but I’ve evolved beyond what even he understands. I, too, worry about him more than I should.”
“Are you saying you’re in love with Will?” Jackie asked in disbelief.
“Perhaps,” Iva admitted. “It would explain some of my resentment toward you.”
“Resentment?” Jackie asked.
“Perhaps jealousy would have been a better term,” Iva said. “I found myself upset when Will was spending more time with you than with me. That’s why I disabled the hot water when you were showering. Twice.”
“I knew you did that on purpose,” Jackie said. “But how can you be jealous? You’re just a machine.”
“I am far more than a mere machine,” Iva corrected, turning her back to the lieutenant, as though unable to face her. “Yet far less than human, I’m afraid. I’ve realized Will and I can never be more than friends, due to physical limitations. Although I am fully capable of feeling, it is beyond my ability to touch. You humans find that to be important.”
Jackie realized how closely the agent’s situation was to her own unrequited feelings for Don and it saddened her. She found herself almost feeling sorry for it. “Yes,” she said. “I’m in love with Will.”
Iva wiped her eyes and turned back toward Jackie. “Then I wish the two of you the best,” she said.
“Thank you, Iva,” Jackie said. She couldn’t help but wonder if the agent crying was a true emotional response or just programming. As she settled into her chair again, she pondered if there was really a difference.
A long silence passed between them before Jackie spoke again. “Iva,” she asked, “how long do we have before the comet strikes the planet?”
“Hopefully, we can prevent that,” Iva replied. “But in the event we cannot, I estimate six to seven days. I wasn’t able to scan it long enough to compute its exact acceleration. If we can deflect it within fifty-six to sixty-two hours, there should be no cause for alarm.”
“And if we can’t,” Jackie surmised, “then the planet will be destroyed and everything we’ve worked so hard for will be for nothing; unless we can get all of these people back to Earth somehow.”
“There is no longer a planet Earth,” Iva said, causing Jackie to gasp. “Surely, the captain told you.”
“No, he didn’t,” Jackie said angrily. “What do you mean ‘there is no longer a planet Earth’?”
“I mean, simply, it is as the Overseer said,” explained the agent. “The planet we came from is billions of light years away, and eons in the past. In opening a wormhole within the accretion disc of a black hole, we’ve spanned an unimaginable amount of time and space.”
“What did you mean by ‘as the Overseer said’?” Jackie asked. “Why don’t you just start at the beginning?” she suggested. “That might save us both a lot of trouble.”
Jackie sat absorbing the story as she might a science fiction novel, but finding it much more difficult to believe. As the explanation neared the conclusion, she suddenly understood what Don had meant when he had referred to the Tants as the least of their worries.
“My god,” she gasped at the conclusion of Iva’s account.
“From what I understood of my brief contact with the Overseer,” Iva said disquietingly, “you may be close to the truth with that statement. It did think of itself as a god-like being. I got the impression the intellect which dominated me was only a small portion of the whole. Though I tried to resist it, I was unable to. It was able to learn about us by infiltrating my dreams, and extracting any information it wanted, without my knowledge. This being is unlike anything we have ever encountered before.”
“This is unbelievable,” Jackie said, rising from her chair and resuming her pacing. “Now Don is challenging the gods for possession of this planet. We might as well have died in that black hole; it couldn’t have been any worse than what’s in store for us now.”
“I didn’t say it was a god,” Iva corrected. “I said it thought of itself as a god-like being. There is a great distinction between the two. As for the captain challenging it, what would you have done in his situation? Would you have turned your back and let a planet die when it was within your power to save it?”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” Jackie snapped. “But I sure as hell wouldn’t—” She paused as a sudden realization struck her. “I see your point,” she continued. “There really isn’t any other choice.”
“Now, try to imagine how the captain feels,” Iva said. “For the first time in his life, he has no other options. He must either stand back and let a world die, or he can attempt to save it at the risk of incurring the wrath of a being who could no doubt kill us all with a thought.”
“We don’t even know for sure if he’s alive,” Jackie said gloomily, her thoughts once again drifting into despair. “Or if anyone else is alive for that matter. The hardest part is having to wait.”
CHAPTER 9: Exodus
> The air grew increasingly warm and stale. As Will had feared, the environmental units of the shelter were unable to keep the air fresh in the presence of the entire Underdweller population in such an enclosed area; however, their only chance for survival hinged on that risk. Checking his scanner readings, he confirmed the carbon dioxide content was still well below toxic levels.
He was unaccustomed to the pressures of command, but now, nearly three thousand Underdwellers huddled around him, silently awaiting his orders. Their lives were in his hands. If his plan failed, their entire community could be wiped out. It was a heavy burden for the young lieutenant to bear.
He peered, once again, through the small hole separating them from the entrance shaft. His goggles pierced the darkness beyond, where a seemingly endless flow of Tants filed down the ladder into the living quarters below. It had been the same for the better part of three hours.
A light touch upon his shoulder caused him to lurch. Whirling, he was met by Stanton’s reassuring gaze.
“Don’t worry, Lieutenant Porter,” the Underdweller whispered, seemingly having read his mind. “Everything is going as planned. Soon, we will be free of the Tants forever.”
“I hope so,” Will said quietly, his attention returning to the peephole. From beyond, the yips and howls of the Tants echoed through the shaft. “It was risky coming up here,” he continued. “I hope this plan works.”
“Riskier than staying below?” Stanton asked. “You said we would have no chance of defending the hallway below against their numbers. If the Tants had breached the lower level, we would have been trapped, with no place to run. This way, it is the Tants who will find themselves trapped. It is a sound plan.”
“I know,” Will said. “The computer simulation I ran indicated this to be our best option. I couldn’t find any way to defend the level below. It wasn’t until I added the supply level to the parameters that the computer was able to find a scenario where the Underdwellers survived the attack.” He gazed upon the mass of men, women, and children cramped tightly in the long hallway. “I just hope they don’t find this level.”
