Blood of the Scarecrow: Book 3: Solstice 31 Saga

by Martin Wilsey

  Wes didn’t stay and watch. He left that to Echo and the Warmark. He left her a set of coveralls that would likely fit.

  Over an hour later, Hagan heard the Warmark walking down the corridor to the cafeteria where he sat drinking tea.

  She walked in and looked around. The desperation of earlier was gone from her gray face. Color had returned to her cheeks. Her hair was washed yet still wet, and placed in a French braid down her back.

  “Would you like some tea?” Wes said, as if she was an old friend fresh out of bed.

  She nodded, almost shyly.

  “I never thought this day would come,” she said, her voice now restored.

  Wes brought her a steaming cup.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “No questions but that?”

  She smiled. Was that a slight British accent?

  “Time for questions after I know you are OK,” he said.

  “I will be, soon. The white is upon me and think I know why this one is so very long.”

  She sipped her tea and sighed.

  “I’m sorry. I think I saw you months ago and…I didn’t continue to look for you,” Hagan confessed.

  “Your ship was the last thing I foresaw. On that high ridge. I saw you go into the long white. Like everyone else; then, I just guessed where you would go.”

  She sat and saw the various foods he had set out.

  “The white?” Hagan asked.

  “When you close your eyes and think of the future, what color is it? Is it the black of the time before you were born? No. It’s white. I see like you now. It doesn’t matter. Not knowing what you will say or do. It’s restful.”

  She picked up a cold piece of bacon and bit it.

  Her eyes closed, in delight.

  “My name is Ralta.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT: The Beacon

  “This was when it could have been stopped. Hagan and Worthington should have played it by the book. They should have stayed there and not brought Barcus or that...that thing back to Earth.”

  --Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: Senator Johnathon Kendall, Senator and senior member of the Earth Defense Coalition.

  <<<>>>

  She finished her bacon and tea and, without a word, returned to that same room and fell asleep.

  Echo stationed DS-09 at her door, and Hagan got back to work. It only took him a few hours to connect the final systems to a power source. When he was ready to go, he sat in the main control center and recorded what may be his last transmission.

  “Echo tells me you are leaving soon, and you plan to activate this station as a beacon.”

  Ralta was at the door.

  “I won’t be going with you.”

  Hagan spun his chair around and saw her standing in the hall with the Warmark behind her.

  “Why? There is a good chance this station will be destroyed,” Wes said.

  “That is the very reason. This war is over for me. I can’t bear the weight of it any longer. Turkot and Miles both must have known what would happen when they sent me here.”

  “What war?”

  “The war between the Scarecrows. Fought from prisons. Miles, Turkot, Wex and I are all that remain. Never mind. The thing is, it took me a decade to realize Miles knew but Turkot didn’t. I only saw what happened to me, not what I thought about it. I could have sent myself a message in a bottle. As simple as writing a message in the dust.”

  “I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Just go, when you are ready. Beware of Wex, because she is the queen of lies, the greatest betrayer of all. She’s the one that left me here, taught me to lie, even to myself.”

  “I can’t just leave you here.”

  “You think I can’t survive on my own? You think you could force me to leave? You know how long I tried to get in here with just my bare hands? I will now have power, water, and a warm bed to sleep in for the rest of my life.” She smiled. “I’ll even keep your tower operational.”

  It was then he realized that she was lying to him. Just as he was lying to himself. He knew the tower would be destroyed. Just as she did. He also knew he would die as soon as he touched the defense grid.

  Each picked their own manner of suicide.

  ***

  “We are 160 kilometers from the tower, Wes,” Echo notified him. “Activating warning beacon.”

  Everything worked perfectly; it was a good, strong signal. It would reach an increasing area, in every direction, as the signal expanded at the speed of light. Even a ship traveling at FTL speed will be able to hear it. Every direction will be covered as the moon managed to orbit around the planet.

  “I'm tired, Echo,” Wes said. “Can you deploy the cot, please?”

  The cot opened out from the wall in the main compartment.

  “We will discuss the next steps in the morning,” Echo said, pleasantly, as she lowered the lights. “I will wake you, if anything changes.”

  Wes lay down, after removing his pressure suit, and was asleep in less than a minute.

  He only got three hours rest.

  ***

  The High Keeper was in the control room, trying to understand the reports that came in from above the gorge. An entire unit had been killed, in a matter of moments, even though they were all hardened trackers led by High Tracker Donner. He dispatched the PT-66 for a bombing run. He wanted to pound the rubble, in fact, because of that recon report.

  Alarms began to howl.

  “Now what?” the High Keeper demanded.

  “There is a moon-based warning beacon transmitting in the clear.”

  The frightened man looked up at the High Keeper.

  “It’s transmitting our location coordinates and a warning that it is a trap.”

  Without another word, High Keeper Atish lifted his plate interface and entered the launch codes for the nearest missile, targeting that transmitter.

  At full burn, it will still take three hours to reach its target.

  “Call the high council to chambers. If the chancellor is behind this, he will regret it. Let’s have a closer look at this Man from Earth.”

  ***

  A Klaxon woke Wes out of a deep, dreamless sleep.

  “Echo, Status.”

  “Incoming Javelin. Time to impact, one minute and seventeen seconds,” the AI replied.

  “Turn that alarm off, dammit,” Hagan said, as he reached the pilot’s seat and strapped in.

  It became silent in the cockpit. He just sat and looked to the part of the horizon where he knew the antenna station was located.

  There was a bright flash just over the horizon. He knew it was far brighter than the display allowed. It wasn't like a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere. He watched the dome of a flash get quickly consumed in the vacuum.

  “Signal terminated,” AI~Echo reported.

  Wes sighed.

  “How much food do we have left?” Hagan asked, with despair in his voice.

  “Nineteen days, at present consumption,” AI~Echo replied.

  “Echo, I feel like a big breakfast. Bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast, coffee, and juice. The works,” Hagan said, in a cheerful voice so thin that he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone. “After breakfast, I want to start planning our trip to the surface.”

  Suddenly, the display came alive in front of him. It was full of data he couldn't believe.

  Incoming Transmission.

  “Wes, are you making all that racket?”

  He heard Jimbo's smile in his voice.

  Wes couldn't speak. Was he dreaming this? His vision blurred.

  “Wes, thanks to you, we just took control of the planetary defense grid.” There was a pause. “We now own this planet. You have permission to break radio silence, if you are still alive, you crazy bastard.”

  “Echo, open a channel.”

  He sat up, wiped his face on his sleeve, and paused as he thought of what to say.

  “Damn, Jimbo. When was the last ti
me you brushed your teeth? I can smell your breath from here.”

  “So...what's new?” Jimbo asked, casually.

  Wes heard the smile on his face.

  “Mom, can you come pick me up?” Wes said, just as casually.

  He wasn't sure he could say much more over the lump in his throat.

  Tears began to fall.

  ***

  AI~Echo received the coordinates to the base where the Memphis was parked. The Sariska flew at maximum speed. She was sent all the command codes to the base, and to the Memphis, before she passed to the dark side of the moon.

  It only took her five hours to get there. AI~Echo was analyzing data without being asked. Hagan knew the nature of an Echo AI then.

  Wes could only think about Ralta. He should have convinced her to come.

  AI~Echo had orders that fit this contingency.

  CHAPTER NINE: Reunion

  “During the chaos on Baytirus, a warning beacon was activated on the moon. The High Keeper immediately launched a nuclear missile to destroy it. He thought Barcus was, somehow, behind it. It revealed that the High Keeper did, in fact, still have control over the defense grid.”

  --Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: Captain James Worthington, senior surviving member of the Ventura's command crew.

  <<<>>>

  “Wes, wake up. We are almost there,” AI~Echo said, pausing as if there was more to say.

  Wes sat up in the pilot's seat, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The Tesla facility was visible on the horizon.

  “What's up? Do I need to suit up?”

  “No…Wes, recent developments have revealed that original mission objectives are, once again, possible.”

  AI~Echo was all business.

  “I have decrypted the mission briefing and support documents for you.”

  Wes reviewed the files as the lifeboat settled on the pad. AI~Echo left him alone for a long while so he could.

  “You want me to do this? Worthington will know I am lying.”

  He kept reading.

  ***

  The lifeboat was already in the hangar when Jimbo and the other survivors reached the moon base. The hangar door quickly closed, and the bay was pressurized in no time.

  The ship was smaller than the Memphis but not by much. It had clear exterior markings. The Sariska’s ramp came down and a man with a filthy flight suit, long hair, and a beard stood there.

  He looked pissed, especially because he stood there, holding a Frange carbine. He was flanked by a pair of Warmarks, military drop suits with full weapons and exo-armor. These were the most dangerous war machines ever made.

  They had been activated.

  “Wes, what are you doing? Everything's OK, buddy,” Jimbo said, hands forward, palms open.

  “Shut up and listen, Jimbo.”

  Wes did not sound as crazy as he looked.

  There was a single laser dot on Hagan's forehead. Hume flanked him. She awaited an order to fire.

  “I have been up here, studying. Excellent sensor array, by the way, whoever set that up.”

  “Thank you,” Kuss said. “Make point fast or Hume kills you dead.” Ludmilla Kuss had close cropped blonde hair and a thick polish accent that was direct to the point.

  There were seventeen laser dots on a tall, red-haired woman named Wex. Both Warmarks had their weapons trained on her. And, these suits were bristling with weapons.

  “This is her fault.”

  Wes sounded like he was about to rant.

  “This missile defense grid was not made to keep people out. It was made to keep them in. They are not humans. Well, not anymore. Come out of there. Captain Everett knew. Orders were to rescue...or to destroy.”

  Wex complied, followed by Cine and Jude. She stood fully upright as she slowly descended the ramp. Head held high, her chest covered in laser dots.

  Barcus felt Po tense. They both noticed the bullet holes in Wex’s gown when the laser dots danced around as she moved. The High Keeper must have shot her. It was a test.

  The suits advanced, placing themselves between Wex and the others.

  “He was in the Citadel. In the dungeon,” Barcus said. “They had not fed him food, or water, for seventeen years. He was there when the Citadel was destroyed. He told me to tell Wex…” Barcus turned to her. “That he was tired. That it would be alright. That he understood.”

  “What the hell are you people doing?”

  A small woman pushed her way through and finally came to stand with the barrel of the Frange carbine right against her chest.

  “She wasn't the only prisoner on Baytirus. We all were! And, we are NOT free, yet.”

  Wes saw that she had an ident code indicator name, Po. Just Po.

  Hagan was suddenly not as certain. They were alive. He was looking at Barcus. Hagan's HUD flagged the one designated Wex as an L-Matter being. She was highlighted in a red overlay.

  “They called them a word that the AI would only translate to Scarecrow,” Hagan said. “They crippled their own tech to keep it away from him. Away from her.”

  Wes pointed at Wex,

  “The defense grid here. It's not for defense. It's a permanent quarantine. A prison.”

  “Was this set up by the same bastards that destroyed the Ventura? Is that what you are telling me?” Hume asked, storming forward.

  Wes stared at Barcus. His abdomen, his nervous system seemed to be highlighted in red.

  Wex stood between the suits, and the lasers swung away from her.

  “That grid was set up by the same people that have been doing genetic experiments on Po and her people?”

  Po stood next to Wex. She remembered Wex on her knees beside Barcus.

  “To hell with them,” Hume barked, as she accessed controls on a cuff device. “Warmarks, stand down override. Authorization: Hume, Baker-Seven-Niner.”

  The suits retreated and the weapons stowed away. They were no less intimidating, however.

  “Where the hell did you get two Warmarks?” Jimbo asked.

  Hume walked to the nearest war machine and opened a chest plate, revealing a control/status panel. She was obviously very experienced with them.

  Hagan looked uncertain. He stared at Wex and then Barcus, becoming less certain.

  “I, er um, we have eleven of them in the lifeboat, sir,” Hagan answered.

  Holding his side, Barcus asked, “How are you driving them?”

  “I have a special HUD upgrade. It also identifies...them.”

  Oddly, he was absentmindedly pointing at Barcus, not Wex.

  “But, I'm not driving them, Echo is. The AI.”

  Barcus, Jimbo, and Hume stared at Hagan.

  “You have an ECHO-class AI on that lifeboat? An Extreme Combat Hellfire Operations AI? What the hell is going on here, Jimbo?” Barcus growled, before stepping aside and throwing up an alarming amount of bloody chunks onto the hangar deck.

  “Can we load this boat up and get the hell out of here? I need a nap.”

  He paused, then continued.

  “Sir, we will have five months to figure it out.”

  Barcus spat out another chunk.

  “Captain.”

  It was Hume who called out. She stood in front of the lifeboat.

  “There are also two Javelin modules over here.”

  Jimbo looked at Barcus, who with a broad, bloody smile said, “Em must have gone back. Stu, did you bring these here?”

  “Yes, sir. It was on my task list,” AI~Stu replied, actually sounding abashed. “After the plutonium was transferred to the fuel pods.”

  “Load those up as well,” Worthington said. “We're going home.”

  ***

  “Jimbo, we need to wait,” Hagan said. “If we just show up, what will you do? You realize that Chancellor Dalton is somehow behind this. A pawn or player. It doesn't matter. If he is involved in any way, we are dead. The ECHO had...orders. I need you to see them. Captain Everett was following specific orders. She knew this mig
ht happen.”

  Barcus collapsed just then. Po and the two women in habits caught him.

  Doctor Shaw came over, knelt beside him. “Let's get him back to the med bay on the STU, until the one in the Memphis warms up.” Shaw was the ship’s doctor on the Memphis when the Ventura was destroyed.

  “He just needs a bed and a bucket,” Wex said, looking down on them. “And water. He'll be thirsty when he wakes, but don't give him any food yet. A cold room and low gravity would also help. There are quarters here in shape to occupy. We'll take him.”

  “Wait one damn second,” Shaw said, about to intervene.

  “Doctor Elizabeth Shaw,” Wex began. “Born in Albany, New York on March first, twenty-five thirty-one. Have you ever told anyone that? No. Because you are sensitive about your age, even though you started longevity treatments early.”

  Wex moved toward her, slowly. Wex was tall with red hair and cold blue eyes.

  “You got a dog named Penny when you were nine. You killed it, by accident, the first time you parked the family transport. You never forgave yourself and never got another pet. Did you ever tell anyone that? You are aware of this conspiracy, but had no idea that all this would happen. Your team has a trust word. It's Lohengrin.”

  Shaw backed away. Fear on her face.

  Everyone else just stared as the four women lifted the unconscious Barcus in the low G. Po held one arm and his head. Cine and Jude held his legs and Wex was on the other arm, facing the crowd.

  “I know about it all, Beth,” Wex said as they moved away. “I also know when you explain it all to Jimbo and Hagan, it will be alright.”

  Wex scanned all their faces.

  She paused on Cook’s face before continuing, “You will be there in time. She will make it to Freedom Station.” Cook was the pilot on the Memphis. His quick thinking and skills saved them all more than once.