Deep Space Intelligence : Complete Series

by Gary Weston

  ‘Ok. I’ve work to do. I have to write a report on the incident last night. I’ll come and see you as soon as I get the chance. Good luck for tomorrow.’

  Chapter 118

  The twenty-nine men and women crammed into the bare room had not been fed, but they had access to water. All had been dosed with drixolate, apart from one man. He had begged for a dose of the drug, but had been ignored. None of them could understand this, especially the man who was sitting on the floor, feeling the burning already starting. Why had he been singled out? He had allowed himself to be taken to the space station to ensure he would be supplied with the drug. Had he done something wrong? Why had the others been dosed and not him?

  As he contemplated these things, the door opened. A runner, one he hadn’t seen before, pointed at him.

  The man felt a dash of hope run through him and struggled to his feet. ‘My drugs? I can have my drugs?’

  The runner said nothing. The man followed him and arrived at the robot, guarding the door. The robot scanned the runner, then opened the door. The runner remained outside.

  ‘Go in.’

  With his internal organs starting to decompose, the pain was causing the man confusion and fear. The robot, huge, cold and terrifying. Holding his guts, he decided he wasn’t about to enter that dark room. Doubling up, he started scurrying away. The robot’s eyes suddenly glowed, and the man stopped in his tracks. He turned, his eyes dead, his expression fixed. He walked past the runner and the robot, and entered the room. The runner stayed outside as the robot followed the man inside.

  The mind control was released, and the man was again hit by the pain and collapsed onto the floor. As he rolled in agony, he could see a light ahead of him, just a glow. It was hard for him to focus. Was this what death was like? The light in the tank illuminated what lurked within. He could see at least three monsters in the tank, all pressed up against the glass. They were studying him. One spoke to him, in his mind.

  ‘Stand.’

  The man tried to move, but the pain prevented him. Something was happening in his mind. The pain vanished, and he struggled to his feet. The robot opened the door on the side, and the man walked through it, still free from the pain. The door closed behind him. He climbed the steps to the top of the tank, part of which slid back. Two of the monsters circled below the surface, the thick green liquid rippling as they swam, waiting impatiently to eat. The man stepped into the tank.

  Chapter 119

  General Millet sat by Joy Dainty.

  ‘I’ve checked with the pilots. We’re still locked on. We know it must be a space station. There are no planets there. As long as they stay put, we should find them.’

  ‘Good. Do you think Tagg and Casey are there?’

  ‘I hope so, Joy. I don’t want to get your hopes up too much.’

  Joy tried to smile, and nodded. ‘I know. How long until we reach the station?’

  ‘Just under four days. We’re at top speed. We have some of the best pilots and shooters in the fleet. We’re all itching to get the upper hand for a change.’

  ‘Do you have family, General?’

  A pained smile crossed Millet’s face. ‘My wife was also a DSI agent. She was killed on a mission, years ago. We had a son. Marley.’

  ‘Had?’

  Millet sighed. ‘Another heartache. When he was seventeen. God. Maybe I’m biased. But I never met a young man with so much life in him. He must have gotten his looks from his mother, because he sure didn’t look anything like me.’ Millet smiled at the memory of his son, his eyes misted over and he smiled at memories of happier times. ‘Girls. He practically had to beat them off with a stick. He dreamed of being a doctor. He’d have done it, too.’

  ‘General. If it hurts you, don’t tell me.’

  ‘The heartache never goes away. This was when the drixolate was just becoming an issue. There was a girl. Gorgeous, she was. She had become a slave. She had been ordered to turn Marley into a slave; that way they could control me. Marley wasn’t going to let that happen and he died in my arms.’

  Millet’s huge shoulders began to quake and a tear trickled down his cheek.

  Joy brushed it away with her fingertips. ‘Such a terrible waste. I am so sorry. What happened to the girl?’

  ‘Adora. She was so distraught with what she had done, she let herself die. She was alone, in agony. I can only imagine what it must have been like for her. A wonderful young woman. Perhaps, if circumstances had been different, she and Marley…’ Millet paused, wrestling with his emotions. ‘As he died, Marley begged me not to blame Adora. She would have been the one for him, he told me. His heart stopped as I held him in my arms. Not for one second did I blame Adora. As far as I was concerned, those runners had taken two wonderful young lives.’ He got up to go. ‘I know who were responsible. I’ll go to my maker happily, if I can help destroy them. I need to go to my bunk, now. Just to…’

  He left the words unsaid and Joy watched him walk away to his bunk, his shoulders slumped, his heart full of sadness.

  Chapter 120

  The ship approached the space station.

  ‘Docking, two minutes. Docking two minutes. Buckle up. I repeat, buckle up.’

  The ship lined up in the middle of the double doughnuts. The pilots expertly lined up with the docking clamps, and the airlock docking mechanism joined the ship to the station.

  ‘You. I want you out of the way,’ said Corey, letting the captives free. ‘Into the passenger section.’

  Raven and Casey did as ordered, as the runners entered the hold. The cubes of drixolate were top of the runners to do list, filling the back of an electric vehicle. The driver waited patiently as cube after cube were piled onto the back. It would take several trips to take this huge load to the main storage facility. Once fully loaded, the driver took the load, returning seven minutes later to repeat the exercise. Nine trips later, the hold of the ship was empty.

  Raven was looking out of the small observation window in the passenger section. He didn’t like what he saw.

  ‘Something big is going down, Karma. Take a look at that lot.’

  ‘Jeez. Ships everywhere. And that’s all we can see from this window.’

  A voice from the hold of the ship called them. It was Fritz. He tapped the control on his wrist to remind them to behave. ‘Follow me.’

  He marched them to a small room with a single bunk and a shower in one corner. ‘You stay here for the time being.’

  Raven asked, ‘What’s happening, Fritz? All those ships outside?’

  ‘The next phase. Nothing to concern yourself with.’

  ‘What then, Fritz?’ asked Casey. ‘What happens to us, the human race?’

  Fritz sneered at her. ‘The same human race that habitually screws it up for ourselves? Always bickering, the greed, the way we use up and spit out everything we touch, including planets? Who cares what happens to the human race?’

  Raven said, ‘What have they offered you, Fritz? To be a part of some elite? Those things in that tank? You really want to be bossed around by a bunch of big lizards?’

  Fritz growled and raised his hand to strike Raven, then had a better idea. He pressed the control on his wrist and sent a jolt of power through Raven’s body. It was turned up to maximum, the current high enough to burn flesh. Raven fell to his knees, the smell of his skin burning, filling the air.

  ‘Fritz,’ said Casey. ‘Let him go, you bully.’

  Raven was twitching and jerking as the power burned him, his head shaking spasmodically.

  ‘Fritz. Please stop this,’ begged Casey.

  Fritz turned off the current, and Raven fell over onto the floor.

  Fritz opened the door and stormed out, locking the door behind him. Casey went to Raven’s side.

  Raven said, ‘I always knew I was hot stuff, but that was ridiculous.’

  Casey helped him to his feet and he rolled over onto his side. Casey tried to examine his wrists, but could not move the cuffs enough to do so.
>
  ‘I think you touched a nerve with Fritz.’

  Raven groaned. ‘He damn well touched a whole load of mine.’

  Casey lay on the narrow cot and pulled the single blanket over them. They were alive, but for how much longer was anyone’s guess. Eventually, they drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 121

  General Millet said, ‘What is it, Captain Dorran?’

  ‘This, Sir,’ said Mick Dorran, pointing at the green screen. ‘Ship signatures. This signal is the station, these all around it are ships.’

  ‘Jeez. There are what? Fourteen?’

  ‘Fifteen, Sir. There’s one over there, heading towards the station.’

  ‘It’s safe to assume they are all armed. Fifteen against four of our ships. Not good odds.’

  Dorran said, ‘Do we stop and call for reinforcements, Sir?’

  ‘Negative, Captain. They’d take too long to get here, and even then, we could maybe raise three more ships. Are you sure they haven’t seen us yet?’

  Dorran shrugged. ‘We can see them. No reason why they can’t see us. Unless they’ve been too damn busy to have noticed us.’

  ‘Ok. Cut the tracking signal. That’s the first thing they would see. Turn off the radio completely. Anything they could register, kill it. Continue on this heading.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  As the captain did that, Millet watched the green screen for a minute, then returned to the passenger section.

  ‘Ok. Listen up, everyone. We’ve picked up the signals from fifteen ships. They’re all runners’ ships, surrounding the station. I expect them to be armed.’

  There came a collective murmuring from his officers.

  Armstrong said, ‘Sir. Does that mean we carry on?’

  ‘Yes, Shorty. We’re basically it. You know what we’re up against. I’ve an idea we lose this battle, we lose the war.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Armstrong. ‘There’s your answer, Sir. We win the battle.’

  Millet couldn’t help but laugh. ‘That your plan, Shorty?’

  ‘Yep. Unless you got a better one.’

  This made all the others laugh, too.

  ‘No, Shorty. Nothing that beats your plan. There you have it, people. Beautiful in its simplicity. We go over there and win the battle.’

  That got a cheer from the troops. With a grin, Millet winked at Shorty.

  Chapter 122

  The appetites of the creatures in the tank became insatiable. Between them, they were eating a human every four hours. Then the frenzy stopped. The light in the tank went out, plunging everything into darkness. The robot had been given his instructions. He was to stand on guard outside the door. Nothing went in or out without their direct orders. They sank to the bottom of the tank which was littered with bones and skulls. Only the flesh was consumed.

  It was time to physically change. This would take time. It would take two full days, during which they would be vulnerable. No human was aware of that fact. Had one dared to enter the room, he would assume the creatures were merely sleeping, after eating so much. Nothing to worry about. Life on the station would continue as normal. Work would be done. Ships would be loaded, the mission would continue.

  They knew of the constant threat of a human attack, but no signal had been detected and their spy Rod Scales hadn’t reported any activity. The ships surrounding the station had been called in from all parts of their drug induced empire, merely as a precaution at a critical time.

  Four of the five creatures were curled up on the bottom of the tank, their metabolic rate drastically reduced. These were the females. On the bellies of the creatures, small golf-ball sized lumps were starting to protrude from under the skin. Each female creature had two rows of these lumps, eighty-two in total. The feeding had been to nourish the embryos during the gestation period. Little had changed in millions of years. Not until that first fortunate contact with the humans.

  First Human Contact

  Six years earlier

  Captain Reah Neon set the angle of atmospheric entry and took the ship into orbit. One place looked as bad as another to set the ship down. ‘Is that some kind of a lake or sea down there?’ she asked.

  ‘Probably a good idea not to land on it, just in case.’ Scientific coordinator, Phil Potts, was full of gems like that.

  ‘I wasn’t about to land on it, jerk head. What the hell is this atmosphere made of? There’s stuff in it I never even heard of.’

  ‘We should keep our helmets on, I’m thinking,’ said Potts. Another gem.

  Neon said, ‘Buckle up, buckle up. Welcome to… Has this shit-pile got a name?’

  ‘XP1J-93,’ said Potts.

  ‘Where’s the poetry in that?’ Neon asked. ‘Welcome to planet…Greensea. Jerk head. Make a note of that. Make a note it was me that named this crappy old rock.’

  ‘And that’s your claim to fame now, is it? Sticking handles on junk planets nobody will ever visit?’

  Neon snorted, ‘And yours will be for being the prize prick for continuously spouting the obvious. And will you damn well buckle up when I tell you?’

  ‘If it’ll shut you up I will. There. Land. And try not to kill us.’

  Neon landed the ship and the legs self levelled on the uneven terrain. ‘Ok. We have three days scheduled on this pearl amongst the stars. If you’re not done by then, I’ll go home without you.’

  Potts, despite Neon’s attitude, was actually the one in charge. He unbuckled as the three team members behind him did the same. Two rookies without the experience to be useful, and an old timer who was along to gather information for a book he was writing. All three were a waste of space as far as Potts was concerned. He smiled anyway.

  ‘I’ll say this one time. Unexplored planets are dangerous places. Do not go wandering off. Stay in sight of each other at all time, do not touch anything. If anything is of any interest, call me. Do not touch anything until we know it is safe to do so. The air on this planet…well, it just isn’t. Somebody with too much time on their hands, threw a whole bunch of chemicals in the air, and most landed right here. Treat everything as potentially life threatening, because it probably is. Any questions?’

  ‘If the air is so bad, why are we here?’ It was the writer, Snowy White, who had asked.

  Nodding at the old man, Potts said, ‘Good question. Any more questions?’ There were none.

  The ship remained their place to eat, sleep and crap. Outside it was all about collecting samples, recording the position on the planet where they had been found, then doing the analysis work in the ship’s laboratory as they journeyed home.

  Potts closely supervised all that the rookies and the old man did. He tried to be nice to Ruby Goldstein, the youngest and the prettiest. He even held back on his choice of swear words when she forgot and almost bypassed the decontamination unit passing into the ship. She had been on the verge of tears, and he had almost apologised for yelling at her. Damn rookies.

  With the rookies and the old man doing the tedious job of sealing up that day’s samples and recording exactly where they had been found, Neon and Potts took the buggy to the green ocean. Testing the ground with their feet, they stepped off the buggy.

  ‘Greensea,’ said Potts. ‘I ate pea soup, one time. I think this is where they got it from.’

  Potts waved the wand of the combined spectrometer and mass spectrometer over the liquid. The digital instruments told Potts what he already knew. It wasn’t pea soup. Recording the data, he was about to take a small sample, when something moved in the liquid, just a couple of yards away from him.

  ‘Holy crap. Neon. Did you see that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There. In there. Something moved.’

  To the best of Neon’s knowledge, Potts had no sense of humour whatsoever. He didn’t do stand-up, wind-up or send-up.

  ‘Probably just gas,’ said Neon. ‘The crap in this cesspit could produce anything.’

  Potts was adamant. ‘Not gas. Something physical. Look. The
re it goes again.’

  This time, Neon saw a long, dark shape barely breaking the surface. Then it did a roll-over, and vanished.

  ‘Damn. Something lives in that?’

  ‘There’s a camera in the buggy. I’ll go get it.’

  Before Potts made another step, a pain pole-axed him. Fearing a suit breach in the toxic environment, Neon rushed to his side. The suit seemed intact. ‘Come on, jerk head. Wake up.’

  Potts seemed to lie in a semi-comatose state. Neon had no idea just how much activity was going on in Potts’s head.

  ‘Pottsy. Come on. Wake up.’

  Potts was twice Neon’s size and weight, impossible for her to move by herself. She had to go for help. She tried the radio first, but background radiation from the green sea, only gave her static. Doing the unthinkable, she jumped on the buggy and raced back to the ship for help. She returned with the others half an hour later. Potts had gone.

  ‘Are you sure this is the place?’ Snowy White asked.

  ‘Here,’ said a rookie. ‘Footsteps. Commander Potts walked into the sea.’

  Neon looked at the footsteps. No sign of struggle around them, just a straight line, into the liquid.

  ‘Look,’ said White. ‘What’s that?’

  Something bobbed up onto the surface. It was the remains of a helmet. It floated for a few seconds, then sank out of sight. Instinctively, they all stepped back. That’s when the voices filled their heads. That’s when they literally lost their minds. Something else now controlled the human beings, and the war had begun.

  Chapter 123

  Captain Dorran woke the General. ‘Sir. Sir.’

  Millet rubbed his eyes. ‘Captain?’

  ‘One of their ships is breaking away from the others. Slow.’

  ‘Heading this way?’ said Millet. He was pulling his boots on.

  ‘No, Sir. If it doesn’t speed up, we can catch it.’

  Millet followed Dorran to the flight deck. The solitary blip was on the screen.

  ‘The station?’