The Ghost Fleet

by Trevor Wyatt

  I swallow hard. I remember the information my nanites hacked out of the Temple’s computer systems. High Cleric Szaad had been meeting with the Master Merchant. Maybe this was what they were discussing…The destruction of the Sonali people.

  “High Cleric Szaad?”

  “Yes,” he replies. “He dropped the Terraformer in the Industrial Layout, crashed his ship in the thick of the Industrial Estate and then ran away.”

  “Can you send someone to go track him down?” I ask.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t,” he replies. “My duty is to Terrans living in peril in Sonali Prime right now. The planet is slowly suffocating. People at Ground Zero of the Terraformer were the first affected, but if that thing is Terran, then that beast isn’t going to stop till it fucks over the entire planet. I don’t know what that Terraformer is turning this world into, but I sure as hell know if the entire population dies then we’re back at fucking war.”

  I stop. There are chills going through my body.

  I’ve killed people before. It comes with the job. But this is too much.

  “That’s 12 billion Sonali, Eric,” I say, breaking cover. I know it’s unprofessional. But I can’t fathom...

  “I fucking know, Anika,” he says back to me, and there’s a pause. “I’ve arranged for a ship to take us off out of the planet,” he says, “do whatever you have to do, but we’re leaving this place soon, and we’re not waiting for no one.”

  I can’t believe my ears. “So you’re just expecting me to leave?”

  There is a brief silence.

  “Oh, you misunderstand me, No One,” he replies. “It is not your duty to leave. It’s your mission to stop this because if you don’t, the Terran Union will be drawn into another war with the Sonali. And this time? With the destruction of Sonali Prime? You can bet your fucking ass that they won’t stop till they’ve glassed fucking Earth. So, do whatever you can to stop this. But if you can’t, know that we’re leaving with or without you.”

  I want to be angry right now because of the way this desk pusher is talking to me. Nevertheless, I am too much in awe of the terrible sight before me that I don’t respond harshly.

  “Okay, but do one thing for me,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Track down that fucker Byuren,” I say. “He will answer for all this.”

  “Roger that, No One,” he replies. “I’ll contact you as soon as I have a location on him.”

  “Computer, end transmission,” I say, and the line goes dead.

  I swoop down to street level and head on to Gresh’s lab. Along the road, I can see people scurrying to safety. I see many holding their necks as their difficulty to breathe increases. I begin to realize that the Terraformer affects different areas at different rates.

  I get to the lab and park right on the street. I enter the lab, which is still open.

  “You’re alive!” I say with relief the moment I walk into the first floor and see Gresh standing over the dazed assassin.

  He says, “This part of the lab is hermetically sealed to preserve the atmospheric composition, especially moisture, to prevent the artifacts from decaying at a much faster rate, so yes, I’m alive.”

  I feel an urge to hug the Sonali, but I refrain. I’m really glad he’s alive.

  “What’s causing all of this?” he asks.

  “Master Merchant Byuren somehow managed to get his hands on a Terraformer,” I say.

  Terror flicks through Gresh’s face. “Terraformer?” he whispers, breathless. “That changes planets?”

  “Dude dropped it in the center of the Layout and turned it on,” I say. Then I march over to the assassin and smack her right in the face. She jolts to consciousness with a furious look, which immediately melts when I ask her if she knew about the Terraformer.

  “If I did, do you think I would have gone ahead with it all?” she replies.

  I shake my head in contempt, “That’s not good enough. If you can kill your commander, whom you swore fealty to, I wouldn’t put anything past you.”

  My words seem to slice through home. The assassin’s eyes flutter to a saddening close even as she bows her head, finally broken. This is when I feel sympathy for her.

  “I knew the High Cleric was meeting with Master Merchant Byuren, but I didn’t know they were considering destroying the planet,” she says.

  I draw close to her so she can feel the heat of my breath on her skin. Then I whisper, “Oh, they are not destroying this planet. They are changing it. Making it inhabitable for any Sonali life. Everyone here will suffocate to death. A slow way to die.”

  She whimpers.

  I act before Gresh can react. I grab her out of the chair and dash for the stairwell where I fling her down the stairs. The shield flares as she slams through and out into the slowly toxic atmosphere of Sonali Prime. She crashes into the opposite wall, falling onto the landing with an audible thud.

  The reaction is immediate. She begins to thrash and scream. Gresh stands, rooted to the ground by terror. He can’t see her because he’s still by the workstations, but he can hear her scream. Slowly, her resistance is mitigated by her slowly ebbing life. When all the air is expunged from her lungs, she lays still in death.

  I go back to Gresh. The moment I’m standing in front of him and about to speak he says, “Why did you do that?”

  “We have to stop this,” I say.

  “Why did you do that!” he roars, his face contorted in anger.

  I double back, instinctively pulling the assault rifle that hangs on my back. My aim is on Gresh.

  He stares defiantly at me. His entire being trembles with rage.

  “She deserves to die,” I reply, simply.

  “You don’t get to decide that!” he roars, taking a threatening step towards me, his hands balled into fists.

  I take an equal step back, tightening my grip on the weapon. It’s not set to stun.

  “She assassinated the Noble Marshal,” I say, “she connived with the High Cleric to destroy the Sacred Temple and blame us Terrans. Even if she wasn’t aware of the Terraformer, she’s anything but innocent. Thousands if not tens of thousands of innocent Sonali are already dead. All because of an event she willingly help set in motion.”

  I pause.

  “Hell yes, I get to decide that she dies.”

  Gresh holds my gaze. I can feel he’s about to do something stupid.

  “Look, Gresh, you can shout at me all you want. Heck, you may even feel you can take me, and I’ll just have to put you down. But all that isn’t going to stop the Terraformer from destroying your homeworld, which is what I’m trying to do. I’m not the enemy. Byuren is. If you need someone to be angry at, be angry at him.”

  Gresh heaves a sigh and backs down. He’s still furious at me though. I know I can live with that.

  “Incoming transmission,” the computer says in my ears.

  “Go on,” I say, looking away from Gresh, so he knows I’m not speaking to him at the moment.

  “We’ve located Byuren,” the Armada Intelligence agent, Eric states. “He’s on the other side of the Capital Grid. He’s about to escape.”

  “Send his location to Gresh’s wrist device,” I say, “I’m sending a code from it right now to you and reply back to it and update it in real time.”

  “Roger,” the voice says as I punch a series of keys in Gresh’s communication device that immediately sends a message to the Embassy.

  As soon as the transmission is cut, I look back at Gresh. “I need your help in stopping this thing. The terraformer is not far from here,” I say, “but Byuren is far away.”

  Gresh nods, frown still on his face.

  I hand over the assault rifle I snatched off the High Cleric’s body. He refuses to take the weapon.

  “I’ve never handled one of those before,” he says.

  “And how do you want to defeat Byuren? With fists?” I say.

  “I intend to defeat him fairly,” he replies, naively.

 
“I didn’t know naivety was one of the effects of not ascending,” I retort.

  Gresh flares up.

  I raise my hand to shut him up.

  “Take the damn weapon,” I say. “Because I can assure you, Byuren isn’t unarmed.”

  Gresh reluctantly takes the weapon. I also hand him my breather and a communications device that helps him keep in contact with me and Embassy Intelligence Command in case they needed to give him any vital piece of intelligence regarding capturing or killing Byuren.

  I lead Gresh outside to where my air car is parked by the lab.

  “Take the car,” I say. “I’ll just walk.”

  Gresh doesn’t say anything until he’s inside the car.

  “I know we don’t see eye to eye on many things,” he starts, “but I wish you well, Rosaline. Be safe with that Terraformer.”

  “Are you saying that because you really care about me or because you don’t want me screwing our only chance at saving Sonali Prime?”

  This causes him to chuckle. And for a moment, in spite of the chaos and death all around me, Gresh and I truly connect.

  He shuts the car and zooms up into the air. I turn on my heels and break into a run towards the Terraformer. My nanites kick in, causing me to run at twenty times the speed of a normal Terran.

  Ahead, I can see a storm of sand, ruble combined with sparks of electricity and pulsing flashes of colored lights at the base of the Terraformer. I can see the whirling tentacles, slicing through the air. I can feel the vibration on the ground getting stronger.

  And I see the electrical storm. An unnatural sight, it was never meant to be unleashed on populated worlds.

  Dear Maker, bless and forgive humanity. For the weapons we have created and brought to the galaxy may one day extinguish all life.

  At the edge of the geo-storm, I stop. A moment of hesitation as I see the maelstrom I’m about to get into.

  Two words.

  Fuck it.

  I leap into the air, sailing to a height of a hundred yards. I shut my eyes and flap my hands like a swimmer. I slam into the stormy cloud of sand, dust, and electricity, which is the Terraformer’s only defense against interruption.

  I am propelled through by my forward momentum even though I buffeted on all sides by rubble.

  I hit the ground and bounce off like a ball. It happens three times before I settle down. I am near death, my entire bones broken. There are open wounds all over my body, and I am bleeding profusely. The only thing I see is the green lawn of the Industrial Layout and one of the towers of the Terraformer next to me.

  I shut my eyes and go into a brief hibernation as my nanites begin to restore my body. I am not sure how long it takes, but when it’s done, I feel an electric jolt that brings me back into consciousness.

  I strain to a sitting position and take in my environment. I’m in a wide corridor that winds around the three legs of the Terraformer. This corridor separates the uniform flood of laser that descends from the underside of the Terraformer to the ground from the outer protective geo-storm.

  I’m in the eye of the storm—the safest cordon anywhere near the Terraformer. I try to stand and feel a sharp pain that blurs my vision and makes me scream. I crane my neck to look over my shoulder. Sticking out of my lower back is a thick pike of iron that has pierced through my spinal column.

  Tears from the pain fill my eyes.

  “Computer, what’s my health status,” I say.

  “You have lost your ability to walk,” it replies.

  “Can’t the nanites fix it?” I say, speaking through the incredible pain.

  “Not until the foreign object is extracted from your back,” it says as I feel a sharp shard of metal jutting out of my back. “Recommended protocol states that a surgeon must—”

  I yank the object out. The pain is so intense my body is sent immediately into shock amidst the alert the computer interposes in my vision.

  I come to later, and there’s no pain. The Terraformer is still active. I try to move, but my legs are still immobile.

  “Computer, how long was I out?”

  “Ten minutes,” it replies.

  “Can I walk?” I ask.

  “Not for the next three hours,” it replies.

  I growl. I don’t have three hours. I look over at the Terraformer’s leg. It’s about five yards away. But the controls are up. I can only reach it standing.

  “Computer, can you hack into the Terraformer?” I say. “Our proximity should make that possible.”

  Terraformers aren’t exactly built to be hack-proof any more than guns are built to be hack-proof. Perhaps, Terraformers are made for uninhabitable planets. There weren’t going to be hackers in uninhabitable planets, would there?

  Add to that fact that they were built to create and sustain life—not create the conditions for genocide.

  “Affirmative,” the computer replies. “I’ve engaged the shutdown protocol.”

  “Why isn’t it shutting down?”

  “Manual override of the shutdown is required,” the computer responds, and I roll my eyes at the unhelpfulness of it.

  “Where the fuck is the shutdown override?” I ask.

  “Shutdown override for Terraformers is built into each leg of the tripod stand.”

  “No kidding,” I say. I see one close to me. A few yards away.

  I drag myself to the leg. The pain I felt earlier is all but gone. Still, I can remember the shock I felt when I yanked out the iron in my body. I was sure I was going to die.

  At the frontal surface of the nearest leg, I look up to see a small screen. I can even see the shutdown button on the screen.

  I call up my nanites then place my palms on the wall of the Terraformer’s leg. They stick like a magnet on magnet. I begin to climb, using strength from my upper body—strength that the nanites afford me. As soon as I am high enough, I tap the shutdown button, then fall back to the ground out of sheer exhaustion.

  The result is immediate. The laser flood ceases. Followed by the vibration. Followed by the whirling and lashing tentacles as they retract back into the Terraformer’s head. Finally, the geo-storm ceases.

  Sonali Prime then descends into an eerie silence. Before I pass out, I wonder how Gresh is doing.

  Gresh

  I’m piloting a car that I would have died to possess when I was younger. Now all I care about is that its dashboard is so complex that I have a hard time understanding it. But I would rather think about that than the ominous-looking assault rifle sitting on the seat beside me.

  My palms are sweaty on the steering grips. What am I doing here? I’m a scholar, not a warrior. Though I received some basic military training when I was younger, as all Sonali do in wartime, I’ve always been a man of peace. I barely remember how to hold a weapon like the rifle. But I find myself about to face a dangerous enemy, so I had better remember as much as I can.

  “Computer,” I say to the car as we float past a cluster of tall office buildings.

  “Sir.”

  I peer at the readout of the wrist-comm given to me by Rosaline—or whoever she really is. “Take me to these coordinates.” And I reel them off for the machine.

  “At once.”

  “Full emergency power,” I add.

  “I cannot comply, as we are within the city borders,” says the machine. Stung, I respond with a crude biological directive.

  “I am unable to comply with your request,” says the computer.

  “Just give me the maximum available velocity, please,” I growl.

  It’s silly to take my frustrations out on a computer, but I’m angry and afraid. How could I have allowed myself to become entangled in this madness? For a moment I am consumed with rage against the Terrans, but my fury quickly burns itself out. The Terrans are not the ones to blame for what has happened here in my beautiful world, other than indirectly. No, it’s those who are seeking to profit from the misery of the war who are responsible.

  I am ashamed to admit that they are
Sonali, like me. Well, not like me; I am not looking to make money from the sorrow of innocents. I am seeking to understand how it ever could have happened in the first place so that it will never happen again.

  It is men like Master Merchant Byuren who are guilty. He is a traitor, and worse. I must stop him from escaping if I can, and make sure he is brought to justice for his crimes.

  The car arrows through the clear air, and as I see the sunlight glinting off the buildings around me, I think that I have never seen a more perfect day. There is barely a cloud in the sky. Below me on the sidewalks I see people going about their lives; women hand in hand with children, young men walking with their loved ones—for today is a festival day, and the lower floors are decked with bunting and flowers.

  But then my eyes clear, the vision dissipates, and I see the reality: smoke and fumes from the looming terraformer, polluting the air. Drifting clumps of filth and a rain of grit. This is what Byuren and his fellows have done, all in the name of profit—they have set themselves against their fellow citizens, they are raping their own world. I can’t let it continue. Even if No One is successful in her attempt to cripple the horrible device, I have got to do all I can.

  A part of me was wondering why the Sonali Navy or the planetary defenses don’t just blow up the section of the city. But now I see with the machine at work how it would make things even worse. It would eradicate most of the planet.

  The fact that the Terrans use this for peaceful exploration baffles me.

  Now the aircar is descending. The emergency enveloping the city has sparked a flood of cars seeking to escape the horror. There is very little cross-town traffic, making it easier for me to get through air-lanes that would otherwise be crowded at this time of day. Now the levels are all but deserted as the black clouds curdle the sky above me.

  I am approaching the commercial district. I know exactly where Byuren is: it’s his own company’s warehouse. I’m not sure why he’s there, because once inside he’ll be trapped. My car settles to a landing, and I climb out, clutching the rifle. I switch it on, and it hums to life in my hands.