Project Solaris 2: Hero Rising

by Chris Fox

  "Okay," she said, her expression all concern. She scanned the area where we were standing, unable to see us thanks to Jillian's ability. "Will you be safe while I do that?"

  "Hopefully," I whispered. "We'll stay invisible while you investigate."

  "Give me the crystal," Jillian whispered. "I'm lighter on my feet. I assume all I have to do is put it on the pillar in the center, kind of like the one where we found Ra?"

  "That's it exactly," I said, nodding. Then I remembered she couldn't see my nod. I fumbled about until I found her hand, then pressed the crystal into it. Mom disappeared as soon as I stopped touching the stone.

  "Follow me, but slowly," Jillian said, her voice already receding as she moved away from me.

  I crept after her into the main chamber, freezing against the wall when I saw the others enter the room.

  "Do you guys have a minute?" Summers asked. The others paused, watching her. "I wanted to discuss David's behavior."

  Summers walked towards the control room, disappearing with Marcus in tow. Kali and Janaki followed, seemingly unaware of my presence. I stood there holding my breath for long moments, wincing when a flair of bright, green light came from the central obelisk. It disappeared after a moment, and I reached into the station's system to see if it had worked.

  I'm in, Mom said, her voice echoing hollowly in my head. So you know I'm not so good with this tech stuff. How do I find out what Ren has been up to?

  Envision the ship's system like a library, I instructed, knowing how much she loved libraries. The data you need is in books, and the card catalogue will help you find it. If you envision it ,your subconscious will take care of the heavy lifting.

  Okay, give me a minute, she said.

  I kept the connection to the station open, but focused on my immediate surroundings. I couldn't see her, but I could tell something was moving to my right. "Jillian?"

  "Yeah," she said. "Hopefully that worked. Now what?"

  "I guess we see what the others are discussing in our absence," I replied, already creeping toward the doorway they'd disappeared through.

  I'd only made it a few feet when I staggered. The ringing was back in full force. If anything, it had redoubled in intensity.

  David! Mom's voice was frantic. You're not going to like this.

  What happened? I thought.

  Ren has reactivated ALL the station's systems. The first one he turned back on is some sort of internal broadcast. Something called an inducer. I'm not sure I'm reading this correctly, but it looks like some sort of brainwashing device.

  I went cold, forcing myself to cross the last few feet to the doorway. Jillian's hand brushed my back, her touch reassuring me at least a little. Marcus, Summers, Janaki, and Kali stood clustered together. Ren's holographic form was nearby, watching silently.

  "I'm concerned about David," Summers was saying. "I think he's going to get himself killed fighting the grey men."

  "You're probably right," Kali said, her voice anguished. "But how do we convince him to stop fighting? He believes they're evil. He doesn't understand them, not like we do."

  "So how do we convince him?" Janaki asked, hugging herself and biting her lip. "He's a good man, even if he's misguided. I don't want to see him get hurt."

  "Are we sure he's wrong?" Marcus asked. His eyes were glassy, and he raised a hand to his forehead. "I just...I don't know if we're doing the right thing. We've been fighting the grey men, because they want to colonize the Earth. They experimented on us. Now they're the good guys?"

  "Forgive me for interjecting, but yes. Serving the Builders is the correct path. They created this station, and the Ark Network that safeguards this planet. They preceded your species, and have guided your evolution," Ren said. Marcus' eyes narrowed as he stared at the hologram.

  "Marcus, look at me," Summers said. She placed her hands on Marcus' shoulders and stared him in the eyes. "I love you. You know that. I'd never lie to you. Trust me when I say serving the grey men is the right thing to do. Osiris duped us, and he's still got David duped. We need to fix that, before we lose David and Jillian both."

  I felt something emanate from Summers. Something I'd seen from Dick, and had used myself. She was reaching into his mind, subtly nudging his decisions. That was further reinforcing whatever the station was causing, and who knew how long she'd been at it? That terrified me, but not nearly as much as the revelation that followed.

  "She knows we're still here," I whispered to Jillian.

  "How do you know?" she asked, the words barely more than a breath.

  "Because she's using my abilities, and she can only do that when I'm close."

  Power welled in me of its own accord. It was an unfamiliar power, one I'd only triggered a couple times, and never consciously. Time slowed around me, and I saw events begin to flow. I was seeing the future, just like I had back in Cairo.

  "They're here! Stop them!" Summers yelled, her voice a ghostly echo.

  One version of her turned to point in our direction, while the real version of her stood there, holding Marcus. The spectral version's hand came up, and a blast of super-heated white flame washed through the doorway where we were standing. I could hear Jillian's ghostly scream, and could feel the phantom pain of the flesh boiling from my bones. I was sick to my stomach, even more so than the ringing had caused.

  "They're here! Stop them!" Summers yelled, this time her voice normal.

  I didn't think. I just acted, tackling Jillian and carrying her out of the doorway.

  Chapter 25- Attacked

  Heat pressed down around us as we crashed to the ground, my entire back lighting up with pain as the shirt burned away. I fought past the pain, shoving Jillian forward.

  "Move!" I roared, even as we shimmered back into view. "Get to the teleporter."

  Jillian sprinted across the main chamber, phasing through one of the smaller obelisks as she made a beeline for the doorway. I ran low and fast, juking around the same obelisk as my chest heaved. Footsteps pounded behind us, and my stomach sank as I realized we had nowhere to go. The teleporter was still offline, so far as I knew.

  Another gout of flame bloomed behind me, but I dove through the doorway into the teleporter room in time to dodge most of it. My jeans were burned away over the left leg, and the flesh was raw and pink. The same way my chest had been when I'd been shot by the grey men back on the mothership. I knew it would heal, but that didn't help with the immediate pain.

  "David!" Jillian cried, dropping into a crouch next to me as she examined the wound.

  We only had seconds, and the haze of pain made it difficult to think. "Do you have enough juice to get us back to the mothership?"

  "I don't know. I can try," Jillian said, glancing through the doorway. The footsteps had slowed, which didn't surprise me. Summers was being cautious.

  Jillian's back went rigid and her eyes went glassy. It only took me a moment to understand what was happening. Summers had figured out what our most likely escape route was. She knew if she could incapacitate Jillian, then we were trapped. If we were going to survive this, I had to break Summers' hold over Jillian.

  I crawled back to the doorway, peering cautiously around the lip. Marcus was crouched near the closest pillar, watching me. His eyes met mine, and I saw the anguish there. Whatever control was being exerted by Summers and the station hadn't fully captured his will. He wasn't on my side, but least he wasn't attacking.

  Janaki and Kali were further back in the room, watching. Neither had approached, which I took to be a good sign. They'd been brainwashed, but they still recognized Jillian and I as friends. If that hadn't been the case, I was positive we'd already be dead.

  Summers, on the other hand, stood boldly in the center of the room. She glared in my direction, a single bead of sweat trickling down her brow. In that moment I knew the awful truth, or a part of it at least. Summers had to be the spy. I didn't know how that was possible, but I had a pretty damn good method of finding out.

  Adrenali
ne surged through me. I gritted my teeth, and grabbed ahold of my anger. This bitch was going down. I thrust myself into her mind, plunging past her defenses. The world disappeared, and I found myself floating in a vast, empty sea. Distant stars glittered all around us, memories that were too far to reach. It was eerily familiar, though I didn't know why.

  Your interference has been costly. A voice thundered. A figure appeared in the distance, slowly growing larger. It wasn't approaching. It was somehow changing in size. But that interference is at an end.

  Realization hit me in the face like a bucket of ice water. The figure was a grey man. Not just any grey man, but the leader I'd faced inside the mothership.

  What have you done to Summers? I roared, using my anger to strengthen my defenses. I still remembered the struggle against the grey man intelligence, and I remembered losing that fight.

  The one you knew as Summers died when she confronted me. I unraveled her mind, the grey said, its flat, black eyes still somehow conveying emotion. It was gloating. I cobbled together fragments of her psyche into the puppet you so foolishly placed your trust in.

  Recent events snapped into sharp focus. Summers' odd behavior since waking from her coma suddenly made sense. I'd never really suspected her as the spy, because the spy's activities had begun while she was still in a coma. The grey man must have woken her periodically while we were asleep, then quietly returned her to her resting place. We'd been oblivious the whole time.

  If Summers is dead, then I have no reason to keep you alive. I can kill you this time, and you'll have nowhere to run, I thundered, launching my first attack. I sliced at the grey's mind, but it easily rebuffed the blow.

  Kill me? The grey seemed even more amused. It made no attempt to attack, simply hovering there in the blackness of Summers' mind. What you're interacting with is merely a shard I left behind, planted with a specific purpose. One that is about to come to fruition. You have delivered your world into our hands, hominid.

  Terror crept a bit further up my spine as I realized what the grey probably meant. I needed to end this confrontation, and end it quickly.

  If you're just a shard, then you're probably a lot weaker than the grey I faced in the mothership. You're just a copy. I galvanized myself, hurling my mind at the grey with a roar. I launched blow after blow, struggling to unravel the creature's mind.

  At first, the grey man parried every thrust, but it seemed unprepared for the raw ferocity of my attacks. I was untrained and inexperienced, but I was also desperate. A blow slipped through, and the grey man grew somehow less substantial. Its defense became frantic, and I scored another blow, then another.

  You've achieved nothing, the grey man taunted, even as its form began to fade. You destroy a toy, nothing more. It's purpose is served. Your end approaches.

  Chapter 26- Clash of Wills

  I snapped back into my own body, and the flood of pain returned. I hadn't felt it when I was mentally projecting, but it was back full-force now, strong enough that my eyes teared up. Summers' eyes glazed over, and her body fell to the floor like a puppet whose strings had suddenly been cut.

  "What the hell did you do to her?" Marcus roared, stalking toward me. His hand flashed up, aimed in my direction.

  I suddenly flipped through the air, slamming painfully into the wall above the teleporter behind me. Something cracked in my right arm, adding a new layer to the pain. I screamed, my body pinned to the wall as Marcus approached. His eyes were ablaze with fury, tears streaming out.

  "You killed her!" Marcus snarled. Pressure tightened around my throat. I wanted to stop him, but black spots danced across my vision. The pain was too intense. My powers were just out of reach. "I believed in you, and you fucking killed her!"

  He never saw Jillian. She glided silently to her feet, free of Summers' mind control. Jillian seized his right arm, snapping it down and across her knee. White bone jutted from Marcus' arm, and blood shot from the wound. He roared in pain, and the pressure holding me disappeared.

  I staggered drunkenly to my feet, struggling to react to everything going on. I could see Kali and Janaki approaching the doorway, and I didn't know how they'd react. I didn't know if Jillian was about to kill Marcus, or what I'd do if she did.

  David, Mom's voice sounded in my head. We're in trouble. Ren just fired off a message to the the grey men.

  We were out of time. I focused past the pain, past the anguish of seeing my friends fight each other. Past the knowledge that Summers had been dead all along, past knowing what that would do to Marcus. I focused on the teleporter behind us, willing it to draw on the energy of the station. White light welled around us. It flowed off the platform, engulfing me, Jillian, and Marcus. There was a feeling of weightlessness, then we were back aboard the mothership.

  The absence of the ringing helped more than I'd expected. I felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off my back. That allowed me to react before Marcus, and I thrust my mind into his before he could get to his feet. He gasped, eyes going wide as I shared the memory with him. He saw what had happened in Summers' mind, saw the truth of what had been happening at the station. I felt him recoil in horror, experiencing his emotions as if they were my own. Both of us began to sob, and I gathered him into a hug.

  "Oh man," he murmured, sobs wracking him as he leaned against me. "Oh man. Why? It's not fair. It isn't fucking fair. I loved her so much."

  "Marcus?" Jillian asked, tentatively.

  Marcus disengaged from me, turning slowly to face Jillian. He wiped his good arm against his face, clearing his eyes. If his broken arm phased him he didn't show it. "Yeah. I'm back. I'm sorry about back there. I just thought...Summers. I saw her dead, and I assumed..."

  "It's okay, man," I said, quietly. "No one blames you."

  "I blame me. I should have seen this, should have realized she was behaving differently. Part of me knew she was off, but I couldn't face it. I was just so happy to have her back," he said, shoulders slumping. He sat heavily on the edge of the platform, blood dripping heedlessly down his broken arm. "I can still feel it, the voice slithering through my head. Telling me that the grey men are gods. That serving them isn't just the right thing to do, it's the only thing."

  I eyed Jillian, nodding at Marcus. She gave a quick nod and sat down next to him.

  "Why don't you two sit tight here? We're about to have a whole lot of company," I said, slowly merging my senses into the mothership. "I'm going to go let Suresh know we're back."

  That last had been for Jillian's benefit. Marcus wasn't paying attention. He just stared at the ground between his feet. Not that I could blame him.

  "Give me your arm, Marcus. I need to set the bone," she said, gently taking his arm. I winced, turning away. There was a sharp crack, and I was thankful I hadn't seen the process.

  I walked into the forest of obelisks, picking a path toward the little house I'd set up for Suresh. She was waiting when I got there, pacing back and forth as I approached.

  "What happened?" she asked, clearly anxious.

  "I don't have a lot of time to explain. Follow me," I said, starting back the way I'd come. "We're gathering near the teleporter. It might be our only means of escape."

  "Escape from what?" Suresh asked, brushing a lock of dark hair from her forehead. Her glasses were smudged, and one lens had a bloody fingerprint on it. She seemed not to notice.

  "From the grey men. They're coming for the station, and we need to get out of here," I said, quickening my pace.

  My back itched terribly, a sure sign that the healing had begun. Not that it would matter if we ended up having to engage the grey man fleet.

  Chapter 27- Space Battle

  "Oh god," I muttered, freezing as I became aware of what was happening outside our mothership. A shimmering field formed near the Black Knight station, a field I was all too familiar with. A mothership de-cloaked. Then another. And a third. Then a fourth.

  It was possible I might have been able to best a single one, though after batt
ling shuttle-to-shuttle when we'd rescued Janaki, I seriously doubted it. The grey men knew their technology better than I did, and that gave them a serious advantage. Multiply that advantage by four, and that meant certain death.

  So I ran.

  I flung my senses fully into the ship, unaware of what might be happening around my body. I'm sure the others had questions, but I wasn't in any position to answer them. Our only chance was fleeing. I willed the mothership to maximum speed, angling it low so it hugged the Earth's atmosphere. The planet blurred by beneath us.

  Three of the four ships zipped after us, each perfectly matching our pace. The giant pyramids all but disappeared against the backdrop of space, holes in the night sky that threatened to swallow us. They were far enough back to be out of firing range, but that wasn't much comfort. We could run, but we couldn't hide. I had no idea where the rest of the fleet was, but all they had to do was follow us until they could arrange to have us run into more motherships.

  Worse, the fourth ship had remained behind. It was likely docking with the Black Knight even now. In retrospect, I should have destroyed the station, even if it meant killing my friends. Now, I'd lost that opportunity. Blast it. I couldn't run, I couldn't fight. So what the hell could I do?

  Resolve tightened around me like a fist. I could fight, I just couldn't win. But I could go down swinging, which was far better than being captured and forced into slavery.

  The lead ship suddenly accelerated, which caught me off guard. I was going at maximum speed, and if their vessels were the same as mine, how could they accelerate? The lead vessel fired a stream of green blasts, which played across my shields in multicolored ripples. They didn't do any damage, but they momentarily drew power away from propulsion, slowing me. The lead ship dropped back a little, but the other two closed the gap. I suddenly understood the tactic.