The Pathfinder Trilogy

by Todd Stockert

  Abruptly Adam turned his head sharply to the left and then right, continuing his search for any signs of what he was told could almost certainly still be found here. The eye HUD was active on the inner surface of his right eye, where a green circle with crosshairs running through it jumped from object to object, while he watched, working to identify anything that appeared out of the ordinary. He was still looking to the right when the green circle darted to the left edge of his vision and settled on a small bump at the base of a large hill. Watching the indicator begin to flash, Adam prompted his implant to ‘zoom in’ on the targeted shape. Once the area of interest expanded ten times larger, a relieved smile flashed across his face. Poking out of one side of the dirt that comprised the ‘bump’ was a sharp, rectangular corner… a manufactured, metallic shape that could only be man-made.

  They ARE still here, he realized instantly, his mind jubilant at his successful discovery.

  The directions that Cren Hollis had given him were proving to be accurate, as were the landmarks that were significantly easier to identify using his enhanced vision. Moving more quickly now, Adam began a series of larger leaps that carried him several dozen yards with each hop. His body would drift smoothly through the lunar night for a while, before the soft gravity that was only twenty-two percent of Earth normal gradually pulled him down again. What you’re looking for will be very difficult to find, but not impossible, Hollis had explained calmly. And those who live there will be wary of strangers, so be certain to keep your defenses fully powered and in place.

  He was nearing the unusual structure in question when the green targeting circle tugged his enhanced vision downward. He noticed immediately that he was leaving semi-permanent boot tracks in the soft dust, raising clouds of it with his feet in fact… dust that would take some time to settle given the low gravity. And yet his eye HUD once again enlarged the area directly in front of the toes on his right boot, zooming directly in on the dirt so that he could plainly see that it appeared to have been neatly, well… swept. Of course, Adam realized suddenly, studying patterns that were almost invisible to the naked eye without a deliberate search. They would need to clean up after themselves in order to prevent the telescopes of passing ships from identifying man-made imprints.

  According to Hollis, a supply ship would normally land on the top of the huge hill rising high above him, connecting to a docking collar that could be raised upward through the dusty soil on the peak. But he was on foot and at ground level near the base of the large hill, so he approached the exposed corner of what could only be a cargo container slowly, making certain to knock loudly. Cautiously he mimicked the pattern Hollis recommended he use to alert those inside that visitors were nearby. He waited nearly ten minutes, repeating the knocking routine periodically by hammering on the exposed metal with a large wrench that spent most of its time attached to the belt around his waist. The display on his eye HUD surveyed the structure thoroughly, identifying a nearby airlock that was partially buried beneath the smaller hill.

  Long ago, the Crasel landed a bunch of cargo carriers on the surface of this moon, his mind kept telling him in sheer disbelief, and then they buried them with explosives. They did this because to not do so would mean a death sentence for everyone living inside of them.

  An entire colony of civilians was housed beneath this small mountain, totally self-sufficient in the short run so long as its inhabitants received periodic deliveries of supplies for the long haul. Briefly, he tried to imagine what a lifetime in so confining a space must be like. In the end he gave up trying to wrap his mind around the concept and instead settled for opening a path to the airlock entrance. Raising his hands, he used his wrist guns to begin blasting away large chunks of the lunar surface, working steadily to expose as much of the cargo container’s corner as possible. The weapons were now strapped to the outside of his spacesuit, allowing him to use them even while fully protected by the spacesuit from the lack of atmosphere.

  The colossal mess he made was discouraging to say the least, but Adam prided himself on the fact that the people living in this colony would soon be somewhere else. [“All right folks,”] he transmitted through the implant link. [“I’m going in.”]

  [“You had better be prepared for anything,”] his wife replied, her presence reassuring to him while standing in the dark and lonely lunar night. [“The Kuth tortured people on a regular basis, so those people are probably used to receiving visitors who know the secret knock. Don’t take any unexpected chances honey. If anything happened to you now…”]

  [“Don’t worry,”] Adam told her, although his own anxiety was understandably elevated by the prospect of first contact with these people. Resolved to do this, he repeated his earlier words. [“I’m going in.”]

  Reaching out with one hand, he tried to turn the manual handle that would release the outer airlock door and failed. Swallowing hard, he accessed the implant’s offensive capability and increased his body strength by a factor of three. Slowly but surely, with steady, consistent pressure the handle began to gradually move toward the unlocked position. It was a tough job that required patience, but Adam forced himself to proceed slowly. If he damaged his gloves, his suit would lose atmosphere. If he resorted to forcing the door using too much of his enhanced strength, it might not close properly and then he would be faced with the prospect of opening the inner airlock door while the outer one remained unsealed. Firmly and steadily, he maintained constant pressure on the lever, feeling it finally give.

  A sharp tug on the door opened it a crack. A second, sharper tug opened it far enough so that he could slip his body through the small opening and into the airlock. Turning around, Adam pulled the outer door closed and then locked it tightly from the inside. The beacon from his helmet pierced the darkness with a stab of illumination that allowed him to see most of the interior. Clouds of dust from his boots swirled around him in the light gravity, moving in front of his helmet visor in patterns similar to the nebula dust found almost everywhere in the Wasteland.

  [“I don’t think this airlock has been used in some time,”] he commented, even though everyone back in the Tranquility Science Lab could see everything that he was seeing. [“These doors are very slow to respond.”] He did his best to quell his anxiety while locating a wall panel long enough to tap in the sequence needed to pressurize the airlock. Ventilation fans long dormant creaked slowly back to life and began filling the interior of the small airlock with a breathable atmosphere.

  [“You’re lucky,”] his wife told him. [“If there wasn’t an available airlock, you’d have been climbing that huge hill outside. Then you would have had to locate the concealed docking collar. Even in low gravity, that would have given you quite the workout.”]

  [“I disagree,”] Adam thought back at her in response. [“It’s not luck at all. A smart person leaves more than one exit available in case they need to execute a swift exit. My guess is that there will be at least several escape vessels parked nearby too, camouflaged just as thoroughly as this compound is.”]

  Carefully he operated the manual controls that controlled the inner door. A loud shriek of protesting metal pierced the deathly silence before the door finally yielded to his steady pull. It popped open and then seemed to operate normally. Adam moved quickly into the next chamber, which appeared to be a converted “T” intersection corridor. Pausing long enough to look left first and then to the right, he noticed that both of those directions had long ago been closed off and permanently sealed using the emergency bulkheads.

  The only direction readily available in the small corridor was straight forward, and he did so at a quicker pace, now in normal gravity and eager to reach his destination. When he reached a closed hatch after traveling thirty or forty yards, he pulled forth the wrench from his belt and repeated his earlier effort, tapping on the solid metal using Hollis’ predetermined code. Again there was no immediate response to his signal so he opened the hatch and stepped through it.

  He entered a large,
dimly lit chamber that was about twenty meters wide and took two quick steps. Then he heard the gunshots ring out and sparks exploded next to his right arm as the slugs hit the wall next to the hatch. “Hold it right there or you’re a dead man,” someone snapped angrily from across the room.

  “Hold your fire!” Adam hollered irritably, his frayed nerves driving his already elevated anger higher. The last thing he needed, after everything he had already been through, was to become the cause of a civilian bloodbath resulting from ricocheting slugs. He held up his arms, allowing them to see the lengthy tubes strapped to his forearms, holding both hands steady until he was certain there would be no more gunfire. “I’m going to take my helmet off… slowly.”

  He was in the process of doing just that when he heard someone shouting at him. “Identify yourself!”

  “My name is Adam Roh,” he told them bluntly but honestly. “I’m here to help.”

  “Sure you are.” The comment was dripping with undisguised suspicion, although he heard someone inhale softly as they caught a glimpse of the collar on the Crasel uniform he wore beneath the spacesuit. The familiar pattern of yellow stripes was easily recognizable, even from a distance.

  Adam dropped his helmet on the floor and looked at the two men standing in the hatchway across from him. Both were older and dressed in ragged, rotting clothing. The one with the rifle was at least sixty years old, his face and arms covered with wrinkles, age spots and long-healed scars, but his thin frame was noticeably emaciated by too many days without adequate nourishment. The other man was about forty and Adam noticed that he was missing one hand along with the lower half of his right leg beneath the knee.

  These are the people who stay behind and protect the civilians, he realized abruptly. That job falls to the elderly or those who are too injured to survive in the war on the frontier.

  “I tell you I’m a friend!” he insisted fiercely. “Back away into the next room and I’ll prove it.”

  “Like hell you are!” snapped the older man. “You may know the code we’re hoping to hear, but you don’t know our procedures. It takes forever to smooth away tracks in the lunar dust out there, a task that must now be completely redone due to your stupidity and clumsiness.”

  “You’re supposed to park your ship up top, using the docking collar,” the younger man added sharply. “There’s virtually nothing to erase after you leave. Who taught you how to come to this place?”

  Adam took a deep breath before lowering his hands just far enough to release a low-level, wrist gun pulse. It was more of a heat blast at five percent, but it was enough to knock the rifle out of the old man’s hands and shove both men back through the opposite hatch entrance. The two of them backpedaled with surprised outcries, utterly confused by the action for the few precious seconds Adam needed to cross the chamber and give them a quick, physical shove. They landed on their backs in a much larger, fully lit cargo bay, one that was completely filled with men, women and a mind boggling number of young children.

  The men were out front, some of them with rifles and handguns, expressions menacing as they stood protectively in front of the women and children. Studying them more closely, Adam noted that most of them were much older than normal Wasteland soldiers and more than a few were also permanently burdened with serious physical injuries. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you dead right now,” one of them sneered derisively. He waved a pistol menacingly and pointed it directly at Adam’s head. The comment came as even more of a shock upon realizing that it was spoken by a young boy who was probably not even sixteen. Still a minor and already drafted into service to his people as a soldier!

  “I’m asking all of you to trust me… because of this,” replied Adam simply, stepping into the cargo bay and pointing back into the other chamber. A soft golden glow was forming in its center, widening rapidly into a large sphere that pulsated softly and hummed powerfully. For about thirty seconds it just sat there in the center of the room, glowing brilliantly with enough light to cause most of the people in the cargo bay to gasp at the mere sight of it. The appearance of the energy sphere was so far beyond anything they had ever seen that it captivated everyone, and for a brief moment in time, no one said anything.

  Then Big Cren Hollis emerged from the center of the golden portal, followed almost immediately by Arte Kasik. Janney Stox came last, but he was grinning from ear to ear and genuinely looking forward to saying hello to a bunch of his lifelong friends. There were additional gasps of awe and recognition from the crowd at the unexpected appearance of the familiar faces, causing Adam to remember just how much supernatural fear there was among the Wastelanders. For a brief instant, he felt fear in his gut, a terrible fear that the civilians would think that this was some sort of sorcery or magician’s trick and open fire on them all.

  Then Big Cren Hollis tossed aside the fully automatic rifle he was carrying and opened his arms. “Where are my wives and children?” he thundered at the top of his lungs. “By golly, it’s been far too long since I’ve held you all in my arms… where the devil are you?”

  The line of men holding protective positions in front of everyone else remained solid only until several women and a large cluster of children, young kids of varying ages, suddenly ran forward with loud cries of recognition. Adam stood there and watched as he heard relieved crying from the two ladies and shouts of “Daddy Daddy Daddy!” from the kids. In seconds, a small mob had formed around Cren Hollis, and he stood like a tall, rock solid pillar in the center of it all, laughing and roaring and wrapping his big strong arms around everyone he could reach.

  The sixty year old man, still lying flat on his back, looked up at Adam with clear puzzlement. “What’s going on here?” he asked while rolling into a seated position so that he could get a better look at the shining golden light still beaming into the room from the chamber connected to the airlock corridor.

  “The war is over and this man ended it!” yelled Arte Kasik, cackling with glee and pointing directly at Adam as he moved past Hollis and farther out into the light. Another mob of women and children pushed through the stupefied line of men on guard duty, moving toward the battered Wasteland warrior as they recognized his face and voice. The children started climbing all over him too, and he finally gave up completely and sat down on the metal floor so that everyone could hug and kiss him all at once.

  Janney Stox came last, lingering next to Adam while watching the rousing, exuberant reunion with a warm smile on his face. “Don’t you have family too?” Adam asked him, but the tall man shook his head negatively in response.

  “I am not so lucky,” he replied in a bittersweet tone. “I have nightmares and emotional waking seizures that make it difficult for anyone to love me,” he explained somewhat reluctantly. “They’re probably due to a few hard hits I took on my head during my younger days, so I’ve always tried to contribute to our cause by fighting the good fight.” He shrugged his shoulders. “My time here is usually spent with the older soldiers, since I’m one of the few still around who served with them. We play a lot of card games.”

  “You sound like you’re deliberately isolating yourself from others.”

  Stox simply waved a hand casually in response. “It is the way things have always worked best for me.”

  “Perhaps all that can now change,” Adam replied softly, smiling as he watched the two groups of howling children celebrate with their exuberant, undisguised youthful emotions. “We have Doctors who can help you with your medical condition, and they will. Everyone here is being relocated to Tranquility… all of the members of the Crasel are going to get to live with us… with my people.”

  “Why are we so special?” wondered Janney Stox with a bittersweet smile, shouldering his rifle just long enough to pick up a stray kid. He danced awkwardly in his thick-soled combat boots, swinging the giggling child in circles and singing an odd song that Adam had never heard before. With the entire bay still completely illuminated by the effervescent golden light from
the other chamber, it was truly a heartwarming sight.

  The war in the Wasteland was finally over, and its end had taken less than two weeks!

  “I guess because we need someone to act as a reliable contact linking my people and yours, and you folks stuck with me the entire way,” replied Adam firmly. “We would not have been able to do what we did without you.” He was about to say more, but his voice trailed off as he spotted a group of women lurking just behind the protection of the armed row of men. They had obviously been waiting for more men to emerge from the portal and were significantly disappointed that none had. The truth of the matter suddenly dawned on him as he saw all of the young children standing next to them.

  The elation he felt drained completely out of him in an instant.

  There was large block of guilt in Adam’s gut that felt almost unbearable as he suddenly remembered his first day with the Crasel, along with all of the men blown out of an airlock by the Zaketh forces who captured them. Most of the women were sniffling and crying with the sudden realization that their loved ones were never coming home. His gaze drifted from woman to woman until it settled on a younger lady whose face he immediately recognized, a pretty young woman with long, unkempt dark hair. She was patiently standing at the edge of the main group of people, watching with a downcast expression that was clouded by concern.

  The emotional blow upon seeing her was overwhelming, and Adam took a few minutes to gather his conflicting emotions together before moving slowly away from Janney Stox. Expression suddenly grim, he approached her with a much more solemn attitude, still uncertain as to what specifically he should say to her. He stopped walking when she was right in front of him and for a moment the two of them just studied each other.