NEBULAR Collection 1 - The Triton Base: Episodes 1 - 5

by Thomas Rabenstein

  »What happens if just a single logistician malfunctions and continues dividing, from let’s say a mutation?«

  Banduk displayed a painful grin.

  »Then the shit hits the fan and your terror scenario comes true.«

  An officer approached them.

  »Mr. Arkroid, horrible news has just reached us. There have been many deaths among our soldiers in Antarctica. Many have committed suicide, others have thrown away their weapons and wandered to the Stinger. They stand there outside, all around the object. If they don’t get into a protective shelter soon, they will all die.«

  Arkroid closed his eyes.

  »That could be our situation before too long. Nobody in this station will have free will if that psychic field reaches us. I hope for all our sakes that your nanobots complete their job, Banduk. Otherwise, we can kiss our asses: Good Bye.«

  Servants

  I feel powerful, superior! Energy flows through my body. My … body? Or am I a machine? The mental impulses seemed confused for a moment, then cleared again. No, I am both! As I remember this, the energy swells, my strength grows. The Progonauts’ spawn will suffer my full rage, every last one of them! I will subjugate these creatures and prepare them for the arrival of the Masters. Leave them at the Masters’ mercy! It is a pleasant thing to play with their weak minds, reveal my power, show them that their lives and deaths are at my whim. This is what a god feels like! With their own kind as hostages, assembled around my body, they will not dare attack me. They lack the will to sacrifice their own, even to save themselves. They are mere action bodies, left with just enough of their own will so they can understand that I am their master! It will not be long before I am the master of the entire planet, as was my destiny from the very beginning.

  Symbols appeared on his screens and reported the actions of his subordinates. The Globuster Lord replied by demanding that his minions destroy the bases on the other planets.

  Yes, my children, eradicate them wherever you find them … not only on this world; all Progonaut-spawn are subject to my rule. You’ve waited for eons but finally, you can follow your instincts, revel in the hunt!

  The Globuster Lord transmitted stimulation-impulses that would motivate his subordinates accordingly.

  Subordinates? No, you’re simply my servants!

  Deadly claws

  Both Globusters had suddenly appeared in the Star Hall and held heavy weapons in their claws. Their heads turned back and forth and they seemed to be getting their bearings. Maya Ivanova bled from wounds on one arm, above her forehead and on one leg. She had been caught in the impact that had suddenly atomized the Star Hall dome. Luckily, the fragments hadn’t penetrated or pierced her space suit. The air had escaped the ruptured hall in seconds. Several soldiers were sucked out of the dome, among them Banoma, the proud Maasai.

  The commander had no time to mourn. The enemy was already invading the station to hunt the survivors. Many of the DEA specialists were unable to tolerate the sight of the beasts and fled in panic. The commander faced the looming battle with only a handful of despairing troops. Explosive grenades struck the Globusters’ body shields from several directions, but even direct hits only seemed to enrage the creatures further. The attackers picked their victims at will.

  Bill Davis had already lost five Hawks from his squadron, and many comrades. The Triton-Hawks found themselves in retreat. Their daring maneuvers irritated the Globusters in the beginning, but now they hardly had any effect at all.

  The enemy ships kept their distance from the Shenzhou and the Ryan. At the first approach of a Globuster ship toward the Ryan, the Shenzhou had intervened and fired a prepared probe armed with the only remaining fusion warhead. The explosion was devastating, hit the enemy and threw it off course. Although the lens ship was still intact after the ball of fire dissipated, it began to spin and fall toward Triton’s surface, where it impacted and exploded near the former IRS. The first blood was drawn by Humans, the result of a desperate act.

  Donald Day saw the end approaching. The men wouldn’t be able to defend the base for long. He was leading his last command.

  The battle noises in the corridors came closer to the control room. Day ordered his officers to prepare their weapons and close their helmets. Suddenly one of the terrifying creatures simply broke through the steel of the central’s airlock, crushing one of the men and trampling him. The officer died horribly, and then the monstrous creature towered before Day, bleeding from various wounds with a yellowish liquid. It must have had an encounter with Ivanova’s commandos before coming to the central. The commander stood paralyzed within easy reach of the deadly claws, then the Globuster was struck from behind and opened its jaws in pain. It fell forward in slow motion. Day, breathing heavily, could only avoid the beast’s body by smartly sidestepping.

  Ivanova stood at the entrance, slowly lowering her weapon, looking at the terrorized faces of the men and women in the room.

  Ivanova looked exhausted. She could hardly hold her Globusterfist with both hands.

  »Fight for your guwna lives! There’re more out there!« she yelled via her helmet comm.

  She turned around and ran back into the corridor, and a moment later it shook from heavy explosions.

  Fatal function failure

  At first it was only a flickering, then the dimensional tear closed with a violent discharge. The beam that fed the continuous energy supply to his body was terminated instantly.

  The Globuster Lord could not determine what unexpected error had occurred. He seethed with rage. His body couldn’t be allowed to fail, not during this decisive hour! Angrily he reviewed the critical functions of the Collector that he had so painstakingly configured and activated.

  Point to point test of Collector regulator – function failure!

  Backup module dimensional tunnel control – function failure!

  Mental amplifier energy regulator – function failure!

  The Soulwalker called on his assistants, all of which were part of his body – subroutines – but didn’t get an answer. The robots that had dominated the terrain for hours seemed to have disappeared. The Stinger’s master seized control of one of the Progonauts who stood outside in the snow. The man was still conscious even though his body was almost frozen stiff, but that didn’t bother the Soulwalker. He led the half dead Progonaut descendant inside his body and used the man’s eyes as visual receptors. Unusual and unsettling events were occurring, and an unacceptable number of the controls indicated function failures. This area was not a vital one for the Soulwalker, but the malfunctions couldn’t be allowed to get out of hand. The Globuster Lord ordered his action body to remove his helmet. An unmistakable, biting, overwhelming stench met his victim’s nose. A fine mist hung in the air and fine dust covered the consoles everywhere.

  The Globuster Lord led his action body to the central shaft and looked inside it. The transport field had failed and the shaft was dark. Further below, he noticed more of the fine fog. He used the emergency escalator system to take his action body to the lower levels, and stumbled over the remains of some of his helpers. The black robots were completely destroyed. What remained looked like mechanical skeletons. Something had perforated the housings and disintegrated the metallic innards.

  What is going on here? the Globuster Lord thought with growing panic. He tried to reach the lowest level through a tube connection, ignoring the mental pleas of his host.

  As he entered the vault, he encountered petrified Progonaut remains. Their legs splintered beneath his feet. They had striven to destroy his body until the very end. These fools! They hadn’t succeeded! They had put him out of action for a time but had never seriously endangered him. That was millennia ago, and there was nothing left of them than the bone fragments of their dead bodies. In his rage, he kicked a round, golden shield to the side. One of the dead Progonauts must have worn it on his body. He had survived all of them, and still lived!

  The Soulwalker’s glance fell on an ugly organic clump
that was encased in a transparent container and still alive and growing. The repulsive form twitched as in pain, and that somehow awakened memories. Do I know this thing? The action body was near death. The Globuster Lord was forced to expend more energy to keep his host alive. The heart of the subjugated man beat wildly; his chest rose and fell in pants.

  Stay alive, you worthless being! You’ll die soon enough, but I still need you for a while.

  He moved the man’s shaking hands and touched some of the controls. The readouts caused the Soulwalker additional alarm.

  Life support system – function failure!

  Biostimulators – function failure!

  Provisions for original body – insufficient!

  Original body? What does this mean? Why can’t this twitching body obtain sufficient provisions any longer?

  The Soulwalker led his action body up close to the thing’s container, where he noticed for the first time that large patches of the living cell clumps were beginning to change their color to a dark gray. It was slowly dying!

  How can this be?

  His host suddenly collapsed to the floor. He couldn’t revive it. His only choice was to leave the dying body where it lay.

  Damn you, Progonaut-spawn, and your puny constitution! He attempted to jump back to the Collector and select a new victim but was violently surprised. His essence was painfully thrown back and deflected.

  The Soulwalker only had time to be angry for a moment, then he felt extreme pain flowing through his new body. Unlike with his action bodies, he couldn’t block this pain. He had forgotten pain, but he was reminded forcefully. He realized that he had been thrown back to his original body, and something was wrong with it. The Soulwalker issued a silent mental cry, then rallied and forced himself to open his eyes.

  He could only gaze in terror: directly in front of him, head leaning against an invisible barrier, the dead action body stared back at him with broken eyes.

  That look, those eyes, this pain!

  The Soulwalker finally understood that he was inside the twitching, ugly clump of cells that must have been his original body. He strove despairingly to reach the Collector, but the only response he received was – function failure.

  The Globuster Lord collected his power and reached out blindly for another action body – but the pain disrupted his concentration. Full of panic, he observed that the apparatus that kept his body alive had completely broken down –fatal function failure!

  The final bit of data to reach him was a warning from the energy accumulator. The energy reservoir field had failed, and his mechanical body was attempting in vain to switch from one reserve circuit to another. The Soulwalker had no knowledge of why it was happening, except that his fate had caught up with him as unexpectedly as it was fast.

  Success

  They just sat there and waited for the end. An hour ago, the jet energy beam had ceased, but that could have also been a deliberate process, not inflicted by the nanobots. The Stinger may have simply absorbed enough energy to function without the beam.

  When the news arrived that the Soulwalker’s psychic energy field no longer expanded, they began to hope.

  Arkroid had finally obtained a signal from the South Polar zone through the relay stations and followed the frightening pictures with an unmoving face. It was apparent that most of the soldiers had either lost their lives or would die very soon. A ring of devastation surrounded the Stinger, the work of the soldiers under mental control.

  »Banduk, how much longer? When will it finally happen?«

  There were already too many victims.

  The scientist shrugged.

  »The logisticians should have stabilized in number long ago and the replibots should be at their destructive work. It all depends on how much damage they have been able to cause, and when crucial support functions of the Stinger might fail. The nanobots seek out flows of energy of any type, take over indicated circuits, machinery, and consoles and go to work. They detect interface junctions, produce acid or mechanically sever connections. They generate short circuits and failures. The logisticians will have already attacked every convertible material and consumed it to supply the replibots. That should have caused damage on its own. The greatest share of the damage is done by the replibots.«

  »How did you get the idea of using nanobots as weapons?« Arkroid asked, calmly.

  Banduk wiped his hand through his black hair, clumped together with sweat, as he answered. »Simple reverse logic: if the nanobots repair the hull damage to our spaceships, then they could also be reprogrammed to do the reverse. I hope we haven’t made a mistake.«

  Suddenly, a flash of ultra-bright lightning appeared over Antarctica, and a glowing ball of fire expanded into the sky to a diameter of many kilometers.

  The men and women at Uluru station were torn from their lethargy – horrified. They ran to their consoles, where they hardly realized what they saw and heard. The Stinger had been destroyed by a powerful explosion.

  The explosion had vaporized vast quantities of glacial ice and carried the vapor into the atmosphere, leaving behind an enormous crater to mark the Stinger’s former position.

  Arkroid stared, entranced, at the rising mushroom cloud. Only then did his mind comprehend what had happened. He grinned and joined the now-reveling crowd. The nanobots’ mission was a complete success! The enemy on Earth had been defeated.

  On Earth – but what was happening at the edge of the solar system? The joy was quickly subdued by the sober realization that the future of mankind now depended on the Globuster’s response.

  Exploding implants

  Leading the command crew, Donald Day left the control room and aimed a Globusterfist at the corridor junction. The lighting had nearly failed, and a biting-cold haze spread throughout the corridors. The battle against the invaders had demolished entire sections. The commander was literally walking through the ruins of his base. He hoped that the deeper rooms and sections had provided enough protection for the civilians and realized that even those were in imminent danger unless the Globusters’ advance could be stopped. Day didn’t know how many invaders had entered the base, or how many DEA soldiers were still alive. Heavy explosions were still felt, and the entire base shook violently. The commander ordered his men to take their positions and keep an eye on the end of the connecting tunnel. A Globuster broke through a wall and saw the men. A yellow secretion dripped from its mouth, an indicator that it was wounded. The men opened fire before the Globuster could charge. The commandos had adjusted their Globfists’ nozzle velocities according to Ivanova’s advice and slow moving grenades struck their target. One of the Globuster’s arms was torn off and the next blast ripped open its chest. One of its implants exploded and seriously injured the attacker. With a bone-marrow-shaking cry, the creature ran directly toward the defenders while its defense shield broke down, releasing the poisonous chlorine gas it needed for survival. Day felt an almost overwhelming nausea. In a last attempt, the Globuster was using its mental ability to induce panic. Everyone who still had a working weapon depressed the trigger. The creature fell only a few meters short of the commander, croaking, and gasping. Then the Globuster was dead.

  Don’t think! Act

  Bill Davis had been able to retreat with extreme difficulty. He ordered the last two remaining Hawks of his squadron to the Ryan and Shenzhou. The cruisers had remained unchallenged, almost as if the Globusters had a healthy respect for the ships. The aliens didn’t realize how vulnerable both ships actually were. Davis flew his Hawk low over Triton’s surface, heading for the base or what was left of it.

  As he soared above the former IRS site, he tried but failed to discern the location of the destroyed scientific center. Then he saw the burning base! In place of the Star Hall an ugly wound of a crater greeted him. Davis sighted landed Globusterships and a group of about twenty invaders at the crater’s edge, forming a rough circle. He didn’t know their intentions, but he guessed that they were assuming attack formation. A gl
ance at his laser’s energy readout was sobering. It was depleted!

  Davis knew that the ground defense was nowhere near strong enough and closed his eyes for a moment.

  Don‘t think! Act!

  Davis pulled the Hawk steeply upward, successfully avoided two plasma balls, rolled, and forced the Hawk into a straight dive. The Hawk fell from the sky like a rock, directly toward the gathered invaders – and exploded on impact among them.

  A grieving Human being

  Maya Ivanova had lost too many of her comrades, yet her will to survive had never been as strong as in these moments. She led a small group of soldiers and hunted Globusters through the devastated sections of the base. She had received with relief the short message from her first officer that the Shenzhou was still undamaged. The Globusters evidently assumed that the Shenzhou was capable of defending herself. Well, the Shenzhou had succeeded in shooting down an enemy lens ship.

  She froze as another message from her ship arrived. Robert Necolett, the stocky Frenchman, who had already seen action on Quaoar, yanked the commander behind the closest cover.

  »What's wrong with you, Maya? You can’t just stand here out in the open!«

  Ivanova’s face paled as she answered, »Bill Davis has just fallen in combat. He sacrificed his life for us.«

  Then the commander clenched her jaws, leaped from cover with a battle cry and ran directly toward a Globuster, who was threatening two of her people.