by Jane Brooke
Audrey Hepburn, in the pouring rain bouncing off of her tan trench coat in the alley with her lover George Peppard had just found their beloved dog, DOG.
It was a happy ending and Adray knew so seldom in her world there was any hint of happy endings left anymore.
Allowing the love story to gather in her data banks, she sniffled twice, and then ejected the silver disk from her hologram machine.
Placing the disc next to other past century love story discs, a time when they still made movies with human beings, instead of computer generated actors, she sighed deeply.
After a few moments, she stood and placed her hands on the console. Her eyes lifted and she stared out of the meter thick glass, massive domed bubble into deep space.
There were billions of stars and many planets struck as golden balls of a glistening necklace of lights in the void of deep space.
Standing and surrounded by computers, lights, machines and other things the transport shuttle needed to move towards British Moon, she felt a-sadness deep in her heart.
She had been alone now for close to four years as the shuttle pilot of the small transport and of course after the carnage with King Mohammad many things had changed.
Krull had survived his almost mortal wound, at least at the physical level.
E-VACED out from Zone 35-56, and with the help of state of the art Bio-Engineered Cloned technology they had brought him back from the brink of death.
After he had stabilized the Medical Department had Bio re-engineered a new arm for Krull. It was now bionic and stronger than the old one. Thus, now more than ever Krull was closer to being like Venus. He was through his courage and fate, now a bionic constructed man, part machine.
With the capture of King Mohammad and Central Command needing a hero and also a reminder that if you fucked with them you got a toe tag or life in a prison gulag, they had exploited Krull, again.
Already a hero from the wars, and now one again, they had splashed his image, he being dressed in his new black Captains uniform across every monitor in The Zone as well as The Bubble Worlds.
It was the last thing in the world Krull had needed or wanted, but it had served a purpose in the end.
Swallowing her pain, mostly from being away from Krull for almost four years, Venus looked at her image reflecting back at her from her space window.
Staring back at her was the still same Platinum clad female. She was now outfitted in her new skin tight black Captains Pilot Uniform. There we’re now gold Captain bar’s on her lapels. She looked more exotically beautiful than ever.
With little fan fare back on earth about her role in the take down of King Mohammad, she had covertly been promoted to Captain. That had happened because Krull had given Central Command and all or nothing proposition.
She either gets what she deserves or get-yourself another fucking hero.
There was more to the story, but now just a month out from landing at British Moon she needed to make her rounds.
Walking to her Captains chair, she sat before banks of computers, digital feeds, levers, buttons blue, green, red lights all glowing on the multiple consoles monitoring the life blood of the small transport.
With an IQ almost twice the size of Einstein’s, she began scrutinizing the data being fed back to her from the flat screens.
After a half hour and finding the computers were doing what they had been built for she stood, turned and walked across the control room.
The transport was a small one and its cargo though sparse, was a valuable one.
Moving down a small glass tubular space walk, with the stars, moons and planets glistening off on the horizons, she passed a half a dozen blue space suits hanging with their helmets on a wall.
Below them were oxygen tanks and blue heavy space boots.
Next to them was a large, red carbon and titanium constructed EJECT BUBBLE sitting in a small reinforced orange colored bay. In one wedged shaped panel of the room that was in the shape of an octagon, there were two reinforced titanium doors, facing space.
Above them were the letter printed in red:
EMERGENCY EVAC BUBBLE.
In front of the EJECT BUBBLE was a console with a simple red button on it with large red letters on it:
ABORT...3 Minutes
Once passed the emergency life boat, she turned left, passed the ships kitchen and dining area. Everything was stainless steel, ovens, freezers, counter tops, blenders, utensils etc.
Adjacent to the kitchen, was a large dining area, chair, tables and coffee machines, etc. On one wall was a huge flat screen monitor.
Stalling at a carbon steel octagon shaped door leading out of the area, Venus hesitated watching the live feed video coming out of the monitor.
She groaned and immediately felt a heated hatred begging to boil in the blue blood in her veins.
There she was the same beautiful British female that was spewing her enticing message out to the worker Villages in her seductive velvet voice. There were the images again of The Bubble Worlds with their All American Families playing, and Venus winced hearing them.
“You deserve this our hero’s working on British Moon. You’ve earned it and now soon you will be coming home to us....”
Venus felt as if she were going to vomit, for she knew something now. It was something she had discovered on her second year out and that would be a game changer if she would ever have anything to do with it.
Swallowing her bile, she now had something else on her mind. Something more important than life it’s self.
Hitting a wall button with her palm, she hesitated as a silky computer generated voice said.
“Venus, Captain. Enter.”
“Thank you Jane.”
“You’re welcome, Captain Venus.” The computers voice replied.
The Octagon door slid on rails into the wall. She quickly walked through it. The door hermetically sealing shut behind her.
Walking for a few moments through banks of computers whirling in the main computer room, she moved through another door. She repeated the same process. The door opened and again it sealed shut behind her.
Everything in a deep space shuttle was compartmentalized. Meaning if one section was compromised by a small meter shard, or asteroid rock it then could be vacuumed sealed off until repaired.
Moving into a small room with banks of computers in it and with the highest technology for its functionality possible in it, she stalled next to one of two, Cryogenic, glass domed sleep chamber beds.
Above the two sleep chambers, were glass vessels hanging above them. One had a pink liquid in it and the other had a blue solution inside of it. Leading from computers there were power cords and life support cables, all feeding life support information back to the computers.
Swallowing her pain in a deep gulp, she smiled as she laid her palm on the dome, staring in love at Krull, the man she loved.
In Cryogenic Stasis for now over three and a half years, he looked little different then when they had left Earth. Wanting to push her hand through the glass, simply to touch him, to feel his skin again, she did not.
As she stared at him, she began to think of the days that bled away after Krull, with now new bionics attached to his body, had after two months returned home to their warehouse.
A hero to The System, great fanfare had been exhibited by Central Command. They wanted a poster boy to show the elite in The Bubbles and more than that, the vermin in The Zone that they were in control of these worlds.
Krull wanted nothing to do with it. What does a hedonistic Super Power do with a reluctant hero who every time he opens his mouth does little to promote their agenda’s; a fucked up lunatic that won’t cut ribbons at super market opening in The Bubble Worlds?
The answers would soon come, yet Venus had entirely diffe
rent ideas for her wounded soldier.
Once he was back in their loft she could see immediately that he was spent. Obviously he now was burnt out and his health, never that good to begin with, mental and physical was now diminishing.
Monitoring him on an hour to hour basis, she saw a small tumor on his lungs, and his heart muscles were deteriorating and he had other various slowly growing illnesses inside of him.
None were terminal at the moment, but within a few years they would be.
More frightening was his mental state.
Within an entire life time spent in war one way or the other, and even though none held more courage in their great hearts then he, she could see that his sanity and mental state was also diminishing.
He was depressed and morbid about their future on Planet Earth. He seldom smiled, and his interest concerning anything of passion held no image of the once robust man he was before his battle with King Mohammad had transpired.
Then, one night as rain and lightening exploded through the pollution, and black water drops slammed their sky lights she had made her decision.
Lying in their bed, Krull was in and out of his dream world. As he often did, struck by nightmares he never spoke about, he talked as he slept as his body jerked from some kind of horrid nightmares he was reliving in his mind.
Within these months Venus never slept, always monitoring him, touching his face, his lips, getting what data she could from him when he slept.
As dawn was still hours away she made her final decision of what she would do.
It would be a life or death decision. But, since she had no life without the man she loved, it wasn’t really that difficult for her to make it.
Either it would complete the moment her life with Krull, or she would be shed like a blue tear from her eyes which she felt gathering on her high cheek bone.
She waited for sleep was so dear to him.
An hour passed and the storm had increased. A-lightening strike sparked somewhere in the sky and light flashed through the sky light illuminating his face and he awoke.
“NO...No More.” He had blurted out.
“Krull, Krull darling. It is fine my love...It’s Adray...calm darling.”
Disorientated, Krull looked at her and his eyes focused on her face. She reached out and softly touched his face.
“You...I was dreaming, of a life with you...So...Somewhere mo...” He went silent.
“Yes darling, I know...I need to talk to you now, of something important. The matter of us.“
He smiled and reached up and touched her face.
“Yes, of course...I love you, you know.”
“Yes I know my darling. That is what I must talk to you of now.”
He nodded to her to continue.
Marshaling up every ounce of love and courage, she then over the next half hour exposed her plan and what she had been doing for over a year in the sewers.
He was stunned.
At first, because it was almost outrageous the scope of her plan, he could not absorb it fully.
With his weary brain trying to absorb her outrageous plan for their salvation, and above all her complete selflessness of existing further on the planet, he was hesitant of any of it.
Yet she continued, and, then he had agreed to at least see what she had been building almost a kilometer below them within the sewers.
Dressing in their Silver Reflector Skins, and armed to the teeth, for any time in the sewers was perilous at best, she began to lead him across the loft.
Once across the loft and, then under the green houses, Adray Venus stalled before a wall. She looked at Krull coyly, winked at him. She got a curious smile in return.
Pressing her palm against a small wall panel, Krull gasped as the door slid back on rails and opened. She took his hand and walked through the opening.
Now in a small cavernous room, Krull shook his head looking at various jack hammers, shovels, picks, a laser welder, helmets, and other implements miners might use to toil below the earth. Leading away from the cave she moved to heavy steel sets of sewer support beams and to a closed massive iron door.
Opening it, she waved for him to follow.
It was the entrance to the sewers below. The slanted down hallways were lit with various lights struck to the wall. It was damp and pungent and the sound of water dripping and flowing from somewhere down below made the atmosphere feel eerie to Krull.
A low level stench of offal, excrement, corpses and the rest of the filth of The Zone reeked in Krulls nostrils.
Moving downward and along the tunnel they walked for some twenty minutes, deeper, and, then deeper still.
Finally, almost a kilometer deep, Venus stalled before a heavy Iron door. It had no rust not mold on it and to Krull it looked newly constructed.
Taking a large key from her belt, Venus inserted it into the lock. She twisted the key. Opened the door and stepped back as it creaked open.
Turning to Krull, she smiled and almost beaming said. “Come, you’re going to love this.”
Wanting to throw her to the filth of the alley floor, and savage her with kisses, he chuckled and followed her through the door.
In total darkness, she hit a wall button. A string of lights illuminated the cave like room, sending Krull back on his heels. The amount of labor and passion to construct it seemed even more impossible to his mind.
The room was a fortress. It had Carbon and Stainless steels support polls reaching up to the four meter high ceiling that appeared to his mind to be struck of thick, stainless steel roof plates. The walls were reinforced with more stainless steel heavy plates. But, that was not held him in such awe.
Centered in the cave were various machines and he, mostly from their conversation knew exactly what they were. There were two sealed carbon constructed red boxes, with the words Ridnium stenciled on their sides.
Beaming, perhaps in pride Adray then gave him the one dollar tour.
Over the next half hour she explained exactly what each machine did and how they would function if her plan came to fruition. With great worry on her face, she said:
After the great explosion she was planning, that there was a seventy per-cent chance of success, she did not know.
She of course had calculated every scenario, and her numbers were strong, she felt.
Needing no more explanation, Krull had looked at her, nodded his approval. He walked over to her and stood before her.
“You did this for me?
Feeling a blue tear, she swallowed her pain. Through a broken smile she whispered. “I did this for us.”
Feeling his own tears welling, he leaned and kissed her as he felt her hands wrapped around his failing body.
Breaking away from her, he held both of her hands in his own and whispered. “OK then. We do it.”
Venus broke in a smile. She leaped into his arms and peppered his giggling face with her kisses.
He calmed her, stood her before him, smiled, and taking her hand, he led her out of the tunnel.
Once back to the loft, they went to bed and for the first time in so long, he made tender and savage love to her. She was in his mind a female that would sacrifice her own Earth existence to spend perhaps a century with him.
WITH HER palm still resting on the glass dome of Krull’s Cryogenic Sleep Chamber, she moved it away. She took a few steps over to the other domed sleep chamber and peered at the man inside of it.
Like Krull, King Mohammad was deep in Cryogenic sleep and that made her think of the days after her exposure to Krull of her plan.
Everything changed of course when Central Command had come up with a plan to get Krull out of the hair forever. He was a pain in the ass. Thus, they had concocted up some kind of Hero Plan, one that would get Krull Off Earth finally and forever
.
With great fanfare, they had promoted him to Colonel and had given him what appeared to be an award for his courage and duty. They gave him the job of Warden, on The Off-World Penitentiary Colony of British Moon.
At first this had stunned Adray Venus, for her work down in the sewers was still a month away from being perfect in her mind. Instantly her computer brain began to suss out everything, especially the offer from Central Command.
Then the proverbial Ridnium powered light bulb ignited in her brain. She then knew that a golden plum had been given to them. She was a chess master, and saw all the future moves inside of her dome clearly.
She had set Krull down and told him exactly what he and she were going to do.
It was of course complicated, outrageous reall and took place in deep space. But with a thirty per-cent chance of failure on Earth with her present plan, and an almost zero per-cent chance of failure once out there, he saw her brilliant reasoning. He agreed immediately to it.
Then, because he held all the aces in his poker game with Central, he had demanded and got two things from Central Command.
One, they promoted Venus to Captain. Two, and because they wanted him gone, way gone, they bowed to his demands and gave Venus the commission of Off World Captain Shuttle Pilot.
Once in deep-space, Venus new that anything was possible. She felt that her plan was so tight; well it had brought her to the moment.
Krull had even black mailed Central to giving them the small almost private shuttle they were now cruising through space in.
With much show and fanfare, Bubble people cheering, and video of it all beamed on earth and off earth they had aborted them into space and awaiting them on British Moon would be more.
Still a month away from passing Central Commands Satellite Bubble Monitoring (CCSBM) ship and then docking at British Moon, she needed something. She needed something very bad. She would take care of the pressing need within the moment.
Over three and a half years in deep space counting her Platinum toes a bright girl with the computing power in her head of a Cray Main Frame, well a girl can sneak around a lot.
