“And I could use it?” I said. I’d never dealt with stasis before I was put in a cryo-chamber. My knowledge on the subject outside my specific situation was limited to gossip about people who wanted to stay young.
The Hive nodded in unison. “Yes. We can take you to our facility.”
I looked to Wards. She shrugged and said, “Sounds like a plan. I’m not going to know anything about these particles until we get them back to a lab.”
My desire to do some sightseeing in the Sol System had evaporated. “Well,” I said, clapping my hands together and turning to leave the small building. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
Chapter Ten
I took a deep breath and looked at the five cryo-chambers in front of me. Their design was different from the one that I had slept in. Through a small viewing portal one could see inside to the occupants, who looked to be in peaceful slumber, but if you watched them long enough they never moved. There were no mouth smacks or twitching nose or fluttering of eyelids. If you were unaware you’d think they were dead.
“Why can’t we wake them?” I said.
“The chambers they’re in aren’t designed for keeping someone in cryo for extended periods of time,” said The Hive. “The chamber, in order to keep them alive, has been systematically shutting down all non-vital bodily functions. If they were to be taken out they’d die almost at once. The chambers are the only thing keeping them alive.”
I looked down at The Hive member. It wasn’t one that had been on Mars, but it spoke of the actions we’d taken on the planet as if it’d been there. I had to keep reminding myself that the individual hadn’t been with me but the mind had.
“So their brains are alive?” I said. The Hive nodded. “And only I can speak with them?”
The Hive nodded again and motioned for me to sit in a chair next to one of the cryo-chambers. After I settled into the chair another member put a small skullcap on my head. I looked over my shoulder and saw bundles of wires leading from the cap to the chambers.
“Why do I have to do it?” I said. The skullcap and the wires worried me. I wasn’t altogether sure my brain wouldn’t be fried because of some kind of miscalculation.
“I’ve checked all the circuits,” said The Hive. “If it doesn’t work your mind will still be intact.”
“But you still haven’t explained –“
“The cryo-chambers have what is best described as a translator, so that one can speak with the chamber inhabitants,” said The Hive member behind me. It fiddled with something on its computer board. “The translator wouldn’t work for me. It couldn’t figure out my brain makeup.”
The skullcap started to feel warm on my scalp. My head started to tingle. My brain, as best as I could describe, felt like it received a massage. “Why didn’t you try it with someone else then?” I said.
“I didn’t want to reach out to just anyone,” said The Hive. “I was weighing my options, but you showed up, so I decided you’d be the best fit.”
“So it could have worked with -” I started to say, but the room tilted hard to the left then everyone in it melted away. I gripped my chair’s armrests as tight as I could but they disappeared along with the room as well.
The world went black then faded back into view with a soft, white glow. I continued to sit in a chair, but the place I sat in had no depth. There were no walls or ceiling or floor. It continued on as far as I could see. There was no texture. It just was.
“Hello?” I said. My voice came out weak and wavery. I repeated my question a bit louder. Wherever I was the atmosphere seemed to suck up noise.
Five people appeared in front of me: three men and two women of varying ethnicities. I recognized them as the sleeping colonists. They sat in their own chairs and looked to be dressed in the same clothes they wore in the cyro-chamber: a jumpsuit. All five sat with their backs straight, hands folded in their lap and feet flat on the floor.
“Hello,” said one of the women. She had black hair bunched together in ponytail. “Have you come to wake us?”
“Uh,” I stammered for a bit. “No.”
“Then we are to remain,” said one of the men. His mustache bristled and moved like a walrus when he spoke.
“No,” I said. “Well, yes. I can’t wake you because if you were to be taken out of the cryo-chamber you’d die.” I hoped they didn’t have any in depth questions because I’d have no answer.
“Oh,” said the other woman.
“Why are you in the cryo-chambers?” I said.
“Admiral Kaur left us behind,” said the woman with the ponytail. “At a designated time we were to awaken and begin an independent search.”
“A search for what?” I said.
“A prison,” said one of the men. His voice was deep and he drew his words out.
“What prison? I thought Kaur was going to colonize out of system worlds,” I said.
“We were,” said the other woman. “But to do so we needed to keep Kaur’s end of the bargain.”
“Admiral Kaur had struck a deal with an entity that would help us travel faster than the speed of light,” said walrus mustache. “It contacted her during the testing phase. If it allowed us free passage through its domain we had to help it find one of its compatriots imprisoned in our dimension.”
I rubbed my temples. They sounded nuts. So far they weren’t anything like the other colonists, but they were still nuts.
“So why didn’t it just find its friend?” I said.
“It needed a connection to our dimension,” said the deep voiced man. “It said that it couldn’t search without something to allow it into our dimension. Its compatriot had been ripped from their realm into ours. By sending items into its dimension, Kaur allowed it to speak with her.”
“She then became its vessel,” said the woman with the ponytail. “Through her it directed our search.”
“So what about Augustine?” I said. “Do you know what happened on Masirah?” My voice started to rise. “You weren’t searching. There was wholesale slaughter going on.”
The five looked from one to another then back to me. The woman with the ponytail said, “Executions needed to happen. There were those who were mutinous, who wanted to go back on our deal.”
My mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. “Executions for mutiny?” I said. “That wasn’t executions. That was sacrifice. How do you explain that abominable bone structure?” I screamed. The thought of it made me want to cross this space and throttle all of them. If that didn’t work I’d wake up and throttle them in their chambers.
“At Augustine we left a marker for future colonists,” said the man with the mustache. “Kaur believed that when we returned we’d take it down. Until we did so the additional colonists would come to Masirah and help us look for the imprisoned one.”
“Our debt must be repaid,” said the woman with the ponytail.
My hands balled into fists. My teeth ground together. If I’d known how I would have left them right then and there.
“Something went wrong,” said the final man. His voice was quiet and timid. It sounded like he was hesitant to speak. The other four shot him dirty looks but said nothing.
“What went wrong?” I said.
“Admiral Kaur,” said the man. “She went wrong. She lost her mind.” He gestured to the other four. “And we went along with it.”
I sensed the animosity between the four and the final man. He kept his head down and didn’t look at them. He took a big breath, started to speak then shook his head.
“Do you know about the sacrifices?” I said.
He squeezed his eyes closed and scrunched up his face. Tears started to form at the corners of his eyes.
“What about the symbols?” I said. I tried to keep my voice, calm, even, like I was trying to coax a confession out of a child. “I saw colonists with them carved into their skin.”
“It was Kaur,” said the man. His voice registered barely above a whisper. “At first we trav
eled to possible colonial sites, but whenever we were out of our dimension there was always something in the back of your mind.” The man sucked in a breath and continued speaking with a quavering voice. “It gnawed at you. Its words, those symbols, would always be wavering at the edge of your vision, like whispered words you just couldn’t make out.”
“He talks nonsense,” said the man with the mustache. “He’s delusional.”
“He attacked a fellow colonist,” said the woman with the ponytail.
He patted his chest. “She attacked me,” said the man. His words were cut with sobs. “People started speaking in a language we couldn’t understand. They started carving those symbols into themselves. They became violent. Some of us petitioned Kaur to stop on the next possible colonial site. Make that our home.”
“Mutiny,” said the deep voiced man. He pointed at the other man, but faced me. “This is why we had to have the executions. They wanted us to renege on our obligations.”
“And Kaur executed people?” I said, blocking out the other four and focusing on the lone man confessing.
“Yes,” said the man. “She drew it out.” He bit his lip hard enough that if it was in the real world I was sure it’d start bleeding. “She made a spectacle of it. She said it was demanded of her.”
“Why did Kaur leave you behind then?” I said.
The man with the mustache sat up straighter and puffed out his chest. “We were to be a separate search party. At a designated time we were to be awoken.”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why not just drop you off? Why put you in a cryo-chamber?”
“I was to be a sacrifice,” said the confessing man. He wrapped his arms around himself. “Rather than searching for new races we were to be awoken when a new space faring race found us. When that happened I would be sacrificed. It would pinpoint where the other four were. The new race would then be brought into the fold.” Snot ran down his face and tears rolled off his cheeks.
“You were to be sacrificed because you were part of the ‘mutiny’?” I said.
He nodded.
“Why destroy the Sol System though?” I said. “Why not take them in?”
“We did,” said the man. He spoke in halting tones, stopping mid-sentence at times to wipe his nose or clear his eyes. “Those who didn’t join us were destroyed. Kaur laid waste to the system in order to quash any hopes of returning. There would be nothing to return to.”
“Good thing no one found you,” I said, sneering to the other four. Their faces didn’t hide the hostility they harbored. “Are all the potential colony sites possible prisons?”
The man nodded and said, “Kaur knew about them ahead of time. The entity labeled them for her. It was never about humanity colonizing other star systems.”
I looked at the five of them. If I wasn’t afraid that Kaur could somehow find them I would have recommended pulling the plug. Put the confessing man out of his misery and punish the other four. It wouldn’t be fair if they got out of the chambers alive.
“I want to leave,” I said. The Hive hadn’t told me how to get out of here. Most likely they didn’t know, but the world started to fade. The last thing I saw was the four colonists’ glares.
The Hive’s facility faded back into view. Wards and Chare stood at my feet. A member of The Hive removed the skull cap. My jaw felt tight, and I had a headache.
“They’re going to the colonial sites,” I said. “Kaur’s looking from some imprisoned entity.”
“We know,” said Wards. She nodded to a speaker hanging above my head. “We heard everything you heard.”
I tried to push myself out of the chair, but my arms felt weak and jelly-like. Chare grabbed my hand and hefted me into a standing position. My legs wobbled, but I held myself upright.
“Be careful,” said The Hive. “You expended a lot of energy.”
My stomach grumbled. A big meal didn’t sound like the worst thing in the world right now.
“So,” I said, “looks like we need to decide where to head next.”
Chapter Eleven
We sat in small debriefing room. It surprised me that the Omanix had enough space dedicated to having a table, chairs, projection system and nothing else. Baron told me it was meant for officers to convene away from the enlisted, but she almost never used it. I could understand why as her large frame took up almost half of the table space and three chairs.
Wards dimmed the lights and brought up a 3D representation of a moon. It floated in the middle of the table and spun slightly. Twilight-strength light from it glowed and lit everyone’s face. It reminded me of the light and shadow cast from a campfire.
“Using Terran records we have narrowed down the number of colonial spots,” said Wards. “Based off of data gathered from a cooperative effort between the Confederacy and The Hive we were able to determine that seven potential sites do not have detectable levels of the heavy particles associated with a ship traveling through a trans-dimensional rift.”
Baron motioned to the moon floating in front of us. “Why are we heading towards this moon?”
“Because,” said Wards, “this moon is in disputed territory between the Vantagax and the Confederacy.” She glanced towards Baron who had leaned back in her chairs, arms crossed over her chest, seams on her uniform straining. “Three of the sites are within Confederacy space, two within The Hive’s sphere of influence, one within Vantagax territory and,” said Wards, gesturing at the moon floating in front of us, “this one in disputed territory.”
“At least you aren’t planning on having us head into an enemy system,” rumbled Baron. “Even though I’ve been ordered to assist in any way possible it’s still my ship.” She leaned forward. Her chairs groaned with the effort. She put one forearm on the conference table. It too protested. “Why are we headed to a moon in a zone where we might get into a firefight?”
Wards nodded towards Chare who cleared his throat. He opened his mouth then closed it when Baron turned her gaze from Wards to him. He put his fist in front of his mouth and cleared his throat again.
“Based off of our readings taken throughout the Sol System,” Chare said, “and the study of the particle decay combined with…“ Chare trailed off and gulped as Baron tapped one of her claws on the tabletop. It made a small indentation that caught the light from the representation.
“We’ve detected a stream of heavy particles,” he said, motioning to the spinning moon, “that I believe are precursors to a rift opening.” He wiped his brow and gulped again.
“We’re monitoring the other sites just in case,” said Wards. “We feel that this moon is our best chance to catch Admiral Kaur and her fleet entering our dimension.”
“And what happens if Kaur shows up?” I said. We were one ship, and I knew Kaur had left with colonial ships but who knows what they’d been modified into during their time in the other dimension.
“We alert the higher ups. We sit back and assess the situation. We don’t contact them. We don’t get involved,” said Wards.
“And if we’re attacked?” said Baron.
“We run,” said Wards. “We aren’t in this for a fight. We already know Kaur’s fleet is dangerous, and I can guarantee you we’ll be outgunned.”
“What about Vantagax?” said Baron.
Wards shrugged. “There wasn’t a specific direction, but we’re at war heading into disputed territory. We have orders to be there. Use your discretion, Captain.”
Baron nodded. “Good,” she mumbled and stood. Her chairs fell backwards, but she didn’t seem to notice. “That is an arrangement I can live with.”
The rest of us stood. I took a deep breath. This was the closest I’d been to the colonists since being put into my cryo-chamber. The anticipation of finding them almost outweighed the anxiety of what we might find.
The ship pitched.
I went sprawling over the table, landing in a heap on the floor as klaxons blared. The lights went off then red emergency lights repl
aced them. I had just long enough to think it was a funny coincidence that the Vantagax and Confederacy had the same warning system before something sent vibrations shuddering through the room.
Baron had slammed the claws of one hand into the wall. She anchored herself in spot and spoke in a calm, authoritative tone. “Report.”
I pulled myself up from the ground as another round of vibrations came through. Crew members could be heard yelling outside the door. Footsteps thundered past.
“A Vantagax vessel has attacked, Captain.” The reply came from the room’s speaker system.
“We’re in Confederacy territory,” said Baron. She spoke with a mix of anger and disbelief.
Wards and I exchanged looks. She grabbed my arm and began pulling me towards the room’s exit. “It’s General Braxa,” she said. “It’s got to be.”
The smell of smoke began drifting into the room through the air circulation system. Chare pulled himself up from the ground. A large gash across his forehead spilled blood down his face.
“We’ve lost engines.” The speakers crackled and popped. The sound of an explosion and screams came over the intercom system.
Wards pulled me to the doors. They didn’t open. She threw open a panel along the wall and pulled a lever, cracking the doors apart a fraction of an inch. Baron slammed her claws into the gap and levered the doors apart enough to stick an entire hand through. With a grunt she slammed the door open.
The hallway filled with smoke. The fire suppressant system sputtered and failed to put out any flames. I saw vague shapes in the smoke. Some were hunched over and moving along the walls. Others were on the ground, still.
Wards pulled open an emergency hatch. She reached inside and tossed me a suit. Without hesitating I put it on, trying to avoid breathing in the smoke as much as I could. I fastened the suit’s helmet and with greedy gulps sucked in clean air. Wards had her suit on, but Chare struggled to get into his. He couldn’t fasten it around his midsection.
The Terran Representative Page 7
