by David Brush
Zoe shifted towards the younger man. “Now, if you’re ready, Mr. Nightrick, let’s head out.”
He nodded, following the duo as they walked back across the grassy field. The sky overhead darkened as a black cloud slowly eclipsed the sun.
Halfway to the jeep, Colonel Bismuth turned towards the young man. “When we get to Dovaruss, keep your wits about you. The city is full of cutthroats, and sometimes the worst of them will be on our side of the fence. Don’t trust anybody there. And most importantly, if you get into trouble, you come find me and I’ll get you out of it.”
“You think there’ll be trouble in the capital?”
The colonel shrugged. “The whole world is falling apart, and Dovaruss is no exception. Don’t worry about it too much; no one is going to lay a finger on you while I’m around. From here on out, you’re under my protection.”
John gave the colonel a small nod, and then reached out for the door handle of the jeep. He climbed into the backseat while the two officers took their places up front. The engine hummed to life as a hearse drove by, carrying another lost soul to some empty plot up the lane. Another ending, another beginning.
As the jeep traversed the winding road leading out of the graveyard, John took one last look back at the swaying tree that stood guard over his fallen family. He leaned his head against the pane of glass and, for the first time in years, felt a single, warm tear glide down his cheek. Wiping it away, he realized at last what the haunting feeling in his stomach was. He’d felt it before, some five years ago when he’d lost his brother. Dread. He closed his eyes as the jeep passed through the iron gate and out into the world beyond.
Dr. Nightrick opened his eyes, squinting through the haze. He looked up at the figure hovering over him. The drooping, black helmet of melted alloy regarded him coldly. The doctor pushed away the sensors hanging over his skull and pulled the empty IV line out of his right arm. With an unsteady thrust, he sat up on the rough bed.
“What are you looking for?” he asked, rubbing his throbbing forehead.
“Truth and reconciliation. Surely you can admire your own compound’s utility.”
“My own compound?”
“Yes,” said the Dread Lord, picking up the empty glass vial sitting on the workbench adjacent to the bed. “Serum V. Well, a slightly reformulated version of Serum V. It’s amazing what you’ve managed to lock away within that mind of yours, Dr. Nightrick. So much suffering… and yet not nearly enough. You’ve done little to hide your fears. It’s obvious to me now why you’ve done the things you’ve done. You seek immortality, but you’ll never truly obtain it. Only I will transcend this plane of existence. You? You will rot with the rest of your brethren and share in the only true birthright of man: death.”
“If you keep poisoning me, you’ll knock me into such a deep stupor that you’ll never get the Anomaly working properly. This has to stop. The human brain isn’t meant to withstand this much exposure to Serum V.”
The Dread Lord wheezed. “Trust me, Dr. Nightrick, I know exactly how far to push you before you break. You’ve nothing to fear yet. When the time comes for you to truly pay for your crimes, you won’t be granted the mercy of leaving in a stupor. Now get up. I’m granting you and Dr. Mudaw access to the power relay surrounding the spire. It’s time to stabilize the Anomaly.”
Commander Denova sat on her throne aboard the bridge of the Eternity, looking out at the scaffolding world before her. The planet appeared barren, covered in brownish dirt across the entirety of its surface, save the well-lit starports and the bases that housed them. She let her eyes trace the planet’s rough terrain for another moment before tapping open the comm line on her chair. “Lieutenant Commander Tang, what is your team’s position?”
“We’ve cleared three of the supply camps, but not a soul to speak of so far,” came the reply.
Denova frowned. “You haven’t been able to locate the necessary parts in three different camps?”
“No, ma’am. We have everything we need except for the thermal stabilizer. I wanted to avoid cannibalizing any of their equipment if at all possible. I know the second we yank down one of their life support modules it’ll send an alert straight back to their Central Command on Sphandaria. If we can’t locate a loose one at the next camp, we’ll just have to ‘borrow’ the one keeping the base stabilized.”
“And you’re sure that you’ll be able to use the equipment you’ve obtained on one of our ships? The parts aren’t exactly interchangeable.”
A moment of silence filled the bridge. “Look, the Eternity isn’t going to be winning any beauty pageants for a while, but I’ll get us back into warp space without a problem. Trust me: no one understands sphingian technology like me. I’ll jerry-rig a few things together and we’ll be on our way.”
“Oh good, jerry-rigging is exactly what I’ve been hoping you’d be able to accomplish. It’s just the reactor after all. Slap it together and don’t sweat it.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, if you’re not comfortable with the solution, we could always ask the sphinxes for a lift back to Earth. I’m sure they’d be happy to help.”
“Those fuckers would probably tow us right into the star over there,” said Denova, tapping open the makeshift map of the planet that Turing had made using the ship’s deployable cartography probes. “Which installation are you heading towards?”
“Four, should be center grid. It’s larger than the other complexes we identified. We’re approaching the facility as we speak.”
Tang watched the dirt rush by from the cockpit of the inter-atmospheric transport that her small team had deployed on. Overhead, the partially obscured star still managed to project enough light into space to keep the planet from experiencing eternal night. She felt two of the craft’s four thrusters ease down another degree, hurtling them across the abandoned wastes. There before them, teeming with light, sat the sprawling base camp they’d been searching for. A wide command center sat in the middle of countless gigantic storage bays, all connected together via one large tram network. Scattered across the terrain around the base were a million mining platforms, tunneling deep into the planet to harvest the world’s raw materials.
“Take us down near the central structure there,” she said into the headset of her black helmet. “That’s our best shot.”
The engineer clenched the stability bar running just above her head a little tighter as the craft descended vertically, landing gently on the clawed feet that folded out underneath the cabin.
“Alright people, let’s make this quick,” she said, shouldering her way out of the transport. She stepped down off of the ship’s loading ramp, looking up at the three-story construct in front of her. As the small recovery team finished filing off of the transport, the lieutenant commander marched into the dark foyer of the command center. While the exterior of the base camp was well lit, the inside of the building was pitch black. The running lights overhead activated all at once as the team entered, illuminating the open room.
“Another abandoned camp,” said Tang, swiveling her head around the empty lobby. “Sure looks like everyone left in a hurry. They didn’t even clean their desks out.”
Behind her, the doorway leading out of the structure slammed shut. Her team reflexively raised their coil rifles, scanning for the source of the disturbance.
“Hello?” she called. “We don’t mean you any harm.”
Silence. She raised her gauntlet, signaling the team forward. The group pushed down the hallway to the right, keeping their rifles ready as they swept from room to room. After what seemed like a million empty offices, they finally approached a large double-door.
“I’m not getting any biological heat signatures,” she said, tapping her HUD. “Breach.”
The two black-clad soldiers in front of her nodded, pushing the door open and sweeping into the room with their weapons up.
“Holy shit…,” said Tang, rushing in behind them with the other soldier. “What the hell happened here?
”
In the center of the room sat a massive furnace. Off to the side, a pile of some thirty-odd sphinx corpses was stacked neatly, as if arranged with great care. The fire burning in the heart of the oven flickered, sending wisps of black ash out through the metal grate in the door. The rotting sphinxes had become discolored, taking on a greenish tint. Yellow pus covered a great deal of the visible skin, appearing wherever one of the large boils that dotted their bodies had popped, spilling its contents out.
A voice emanating from seemingly everywhere at once thundered through the room. “Containment Protocol 894 activated.” The double door slammed shut again, locking behind them. “Plague assessment analyzing.”
“Look,” Tang started, swiveling her head around the room. “We just need to borrow…”
“Plague assessment: negative. Species of origin: human. Threat level: zero. No known human transmission.”
“My name is Lieutenant Commander Ta…,” she cut short again as the tubed doorway at the far end of the room slid open. A bipedal droid stepped out of the chamber, standing a full head over anyone else in the room. Tucked behind its back were two massive metallic wings, similar in style to the sphinxes who had built it. Its face was vaguely humanoid, with two eerily dark eyes that seemed to be capable of taking in everything at once.
“You do not belong here, humans,” said the robot, taking another step towards the recovery team. “Why have you entered the exclusion zone?”
Tang frowned. “What do you mean exclusion zone? I thought this planet was a scaffolding world for the Dyson Sphere you’re building overhead.”
The robot regarded her. “It was once and will be again. That is the nature of all things.”
“You mentioned a containment protocol. There was an outbreak here?”
“Yes. One-hundred percent casualty rate. I have been deployed here to keep this planet under quarantine until such time as the Plague poses no remaining threat. I am the Warden of System Sixty-four. My primary directive is Plague containment and eradication. I am designed to destroy all sources of the infection.”
“So you burn the dead?” asked the lieutenant commander, staring back at the pile in front of her.
“Of course. Incineration in this facility’s crematorium is the safest way to dispose of the bodies. There have been many waves of infected brought to this planet for containment and destruction. We cannot be too careful in combating the Plague!”
“I’ve never seen any infected up close before. Looks like they drown in their own pus.”
The Warden walked a few steps closer to the group, gesturing towards the bodies. “The boils, pus, and discoloration, while the most notable physical symptoms, are not what actually kill. Death comes from blood loss, as the affliction melts the organs within its host. An adult’s eyes will begin to bleed about two days after infection, and within a week they are losing tremendous amounts of blood through their stool. A mere two-to-three weeks later, death finally claims the host. Of course, with children the process is the same, but faster. I then burn them here, to ensure that the pestilence cannot spread any further.”
Tang nodded, raising her eyes up to the black sockets of the robot before her. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. We landed on this planet because we need to borrow a thermal stabilizer. Can you help us?”
“Negative. I have alerted Central Command of your presence here. You will be dealt with accordingly. You are here in violation of the Treaty of Sphandaria.”
The engineer felt a bead of sweat roll down the side of her forehead, despite the climate control of her exosuit. “We come from Dawn and we’re trying to return. We were part of a joint effort between the Xarkulthian Empire and the Human Empire to discover a cure for the Plague.”
“Scanning,” replied the robot. “Fleet Ten, under the command of Fleet Commander Zarnok, deployed to Dawn three weeks ago. Contact with fleet: lost. Statement: verified. Primary directive: overriding human aggression clauses. I will grant you your stabilizer, human, under the condition that you take me with you to Dawn.”
“Why? I thought you were the warden of this system. Leaving isn’t against your programming?”
“Fleet Ten is experiencing a communication disruption of some sort. Fleet Commander Zarnok’s repair droids must have been damaged in whatever accident knocked their relays offline. Given the extremely taxed resources of our empire during this trying time, no further ships can be spared to reinforce the battlegroup. I am designed with the capability to repair almost every object within our empire’s technical understanding. I can produce self-replicating machines that will fix whatever damage Fleet Commander Zarnok has experienced. Given the nature of Fleet Ten’s mission, mending the battlegroup is my overriding priority.”
Tang sighed into her open mic, waiting to see if Commander Denova had anything to add. After a long moment of silence, the engineer tapped off the open comm line. “Grab the stabilizer then and let’s get the hell out of here before anyone else shows up.”
“In a moment,” said the droid, pulling open the oven grating. It walked over to the pile and picked up one of the limp bodies with its powerful metallic claws. “First I must finish eradicating the afflicted. We cannot leave a single trace of the Plague behind!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
James pushed the sappy branches aside, bending them like rubber as he peered out towards the metallic construct looming in the valley below.
“You’re sure that’s it?” he said, glancing over at the small datapad Haley was fidgeting with.
“It’s the source,” she said, sliding the machine back into her rucksack. “Let’s go.”
The duo descended into the valley, moving carefully across the steep incline that led down from the forest. A tall metal wall encompassed the spattering of buildings below. Though the flora surrounding the base ran thick and wild, it seemed to avoid crossing the barrier. On the other side of the partition, metal paneling lined the ground, lending the construct an almost menacing look, resting as it was in the shadow of the valley. Once they reached the outer wall, they walked along its duration, pausing finally in front of the gate, which appeared to be just wide enough to permit the passage of a single vehicle. James ran his hand along the unlit touch panel off to the side, wiping away the dust. As he made contact, the screen lit up, glowing a soft blue.
“Please wait,” came a voice from the screen. “Initializing. Verifying.”
A dull light emanated from the panel, tracing the contours of his form.
“Welcome to Outpost Delta, Dr. Mercer,” said the voice as the gate slid open. Haley peered into the base for a moment before walking through the opening, followed by James.
“Smaller than I expected,” he said, looking around the abandoned courtyard.
“I’m guessing the bulk is subterranean.”
“Let’s find out,” he replied, gesturing towards the doorway leading into the structure at the center of the enclosure. As they approached the door, it slid aside, revealing a staircase that led down into darkness.
“Hmm,” he said, staring into the black. “AI, lights.”
“Yes, Doctor,” came the voice from within. All at once, the fixtures running overhead ignited in a brilliant flash, casting out the darkness.
“What’s your name, AI?” asked Haley as she started down the staircase.
“My name is Doudna, Dr. Hall.”
Haley nodded. “And tell me, Doudna, can we access the planetary defense grid from this location?”
“Yes, Doctor. Dawn’s defensive installations can be brought online from any of the core hubs. Shall I prime the automaton army?”
“Yes, bring the entire system online.”
“As you wish. You will have to finalize the activation from the control room.”
“Alright,” said Haley, stepping off of the staircase a few stories underground. “And where is that?”
“I will send the coordinates to your datapad, Dr. Hall.”
“Thank…” Haley winc
ed as the ground shook around her.
“What the hell was that?” said James.
“The base is under attack,” replied the AI. “The invaders appear to be xarkulthian in origin.”
Haley glanced up. “They know. They’re coming for us.”
“Doudna,” said James, starting down the hall. “Hold them until we can activate the defense grid.”
“As you say.”
The sound of gunfire from the courtyard rang softly down into the hallway as the duo raced along the winding path that Haley had pulled up on her touchscreen.
“Doctors,” said Doudna. “Our defenses are holding, but a small team has managed to infiltrate the bunker. They are heading down as we speak.”
James stopped, causing Haley to turn back towards him. She shifted impatiently. “Come on. We have to hurry.”
“We’ll never get the army online before they get to us. Go. I’ll keep these feathered freaks off of you long enough to take command.”
Haley stared at him for a moment then nodded, turning to continue down the hall alone.
“Doudna,” said James. “I need a weapon.”
“I am afraid this is a research installation and not a military installation, Doctor, but there is a modest armory up the hall.”
“How long have I got before they catch up to me?”
“Ten minutes at the most.”
“Then guide me, and hurry up. We have to keep them away from the command center.”
Under direction of the entity, he made his way to the armory. Two shelves sat against the back wall of the closet-sized room.
“Are you kidding me, Doudna? This isn’t a modest armory, it’s a glorified janitor’s closet.”
“I am afraid this is all we have, Doctor.”
James sighed. “Of course it is. How many feather-fucks made it in?”
“By my count, three combatants entered the bunker.”
James picked up an old coil rifle and checked the clip. He unslung his rucksack and filled it with as much ammunition as he could carry.
