Last Flight of the Ark

by D. L. Jackson

  Jessica stooped down and touched the mosaic tiles on the floor, dusting them off with her fingers. She traced the images of people dressed in robes and gowns. “They look human.” The tone of her voice held a soft reverence, as though she were in a church. She brushed the surface some more.

  “The clothing looks like something from our world. Ancient Greece maybe, but not quite,” Jessica said. She used her hand to push the debris over and pull a root away from the mural. “Look at this. It’s an island with five consecutive rings around it. It almost looks like….the city. Oh, God.”

  She sucked in a breath. “I recognize this. According to Plato, Atlantis sank into the ocean. It was theorized that the Atlanteans became corrupt with power and it was even rumored they conducted experiments on humans and animals, bringing about their destruction. You don’t think….” She grabbed another root and the mural cracked apart. “Shit.”

  A few feet away, he nudged aside rubble with the toe of his boot and the breath caught in his lungs. The images inlaid into the tile floor here were similarly old and broken, but he could still see enough to raise the hair on the back of his neck. “Jessica.”

  She turned and looked to where he’d cleared and reached over to sweep it clean. “Do you see what I see, sir?”

  He was looking. She didn’t need to tell him twice. A picture of Earth from above, that slowly focused in, tighter and tighter until it read like a storybook. Pictures of men and wolves strapped to tables. Pictures of half men, half wolves running around. The rooms in the mosaic looked like modern labs with large crystals that projected beams of light. But that wasn’t all. The more dirt she removed, the more his skin crawled.

  The next images revealed pictures of people killing the man-wolves, driving them away. People eating people and changing their forms. Then hives, lined up row after row like soldiers. Piles of bodies stacked on top of one another and set aflame as though a plague had swept the land. More and more. It continued on in the detailed mosaics, showing not only the destruction of the island, but the city that sat in the center, lifting from the Earth and taking flight into space.

  “They’re Atlanteans,” Jessica said.

  “Let’s not speculate. Whoever they were, they were human or humanoid and they played with things they shouldn’t have.” He kicked dirt and dried leaves back over the mural. Now he had a serious case of the willies. He’d done the same thing, played with the laws of nature. A feeling of foreboding attacked.

  History was only recorded and remembered for one reason.

  He glanced out the decaying wall at the street. The light was falling. Soon it would be dark and they’d be lucky to find each other, let alone the hive. “We’ve got an hour tops before night falls. Let’s find that hive and get out of here.”

  “Gladly. This place is giving me the creeps.”

  Kaleb started for the exit and stopped. He grabbed Jessica’s arm, pulled her next to him, and pointed down at the toe of his boot. “What do you make of that?” He stared at another section of the mosaic floor, a picture of what appeared to be a series of cryo-cells and people climbing into them. Each cell was oval and shaped like a casket, but the next picture proved it wasn’t one. The figures climbed out and switched places with others, as though it were a shift rotation.

  “That doesn’t look good. It looks like some kind of hibernation chamber similar to what we use to transport the animals.” Jessica stooped down. “Did you happen to notice all the figures are male except for one? I think this species is a hive community. One female or queen per settlement. If we can find the queen and kill her, there’s a good chance we can stop them.”

  “I don’t think we need to find her,” he said. “I think she’s the one who posed as the commander of the Genesis II. She’s down here somewhere, and if she is the mother of the things in that hive, she won’t go far from her nest. My guess is she’s down here to protect her young. If we can find the hive, we’ll find her. For now, we better get out of here. We’ll come back and search some of these buildings with a bigger force.”

  Jessica stood. “How many of those cells do you think they have?”

  “In a city this size? I don’t even want to speculate.” He punched his com. “Melissa?”

  Static fizzed across the link. “Captain Deluzio, do you copy?”

  Nothing.

  Jessica tapped her com. “I’m not getting a clear link either. Something in this city is disrupting communications. We didn’t have an issue before we landed.”

  “And I know why.”

  Kaleb and Jessica spun around. Captain James stepped into the doorway. “I’ve been trying to get a link with you for the last hour. I heard voices and followed the sound.”

  “Why couldn’t we get a link?”

  “I followed the hijackers underground. They’ve got empty cryo-cells in some tunnels under these ruins. Most have mummified remains. A few are empty. None of the cells have anything alive in them. I counted a total of seventeen empties. My guess is those are the hijacker’s cells. They also activated some kind of crystal and it appears to be scrambling our transmissions. I haven’t been able to get a clear channel since. I thought about destroying it, but I didn’t want to take a chance of triggering any booby traps. There’s some seriously advanced tech in this city and it could be extremely dangerous. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to stick around down there.”

  “Did they see you?”

  “No, sir.” He nodded toward another exit. “I followed them. I found something else outside the city, near their shuttle. It’s like a giant wasp’s nest and it stinks like something dead. Lucky me, my hearing has become as acute as my sense of smell. I heard you and came back down here. It’s through that door and up a walkway to an area above the city.”

  “Let’s go. That sounds like the nest we’re looking for. The sooner we destroy that thing, the better.” Kaleb grabbed Jessica’s arm and pulled her toward the exit. He glanced over his shoulder to Bryant.

  “Captain James. I need you to go back to the shuttle and see if you can reach Captain Deluzio and Lieutenant Jeffers on that com. I didn’t have a problem reaching the Ark from the shuttle. Maybe the distortion is confined to the city.

  “Yes, sir.” Captain James nodded. “Follow the path up the stairs. It’s about a quarter of a kilometer into the trees. You can’t miss it.”

  “Yeah, we noticed. It breathes.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “You up for this?” Melissa asked as Frank parked his ass in the nav’s seat.

  She studied her console. Still no contact from the surface, or coordinates. They couldn’t wait anymore. They were going down, one way or the other. Low on fuel and high on luck and it would take a hell of a lot of both to land the ship.

  He nodded. “I’m up for anything but hanging out in that bay.”

  She glanced sideways at him and choked back the laugh. A wild look gleamed in his eyes. Poor baby. His shirt hung out here and there and the first two buttons were gone. Not open, gone. One of the silver bars on his lapel was absent and at least a half-dozen lipstick marks peppered his face. It appeared his admirers had jumped on the chance to join his pack. Or jumped on him. Maybe both.

  “You might want to strap in.” The Ark lurched and bucked, bouncing Frank a foot out of his seat.

  He snapped his restraints. “Why’s that?”

  “This is our only window to make the descent. It might get a bit bumpy.”

  “Yeah.” He glanced at her and grinned.

  “We’re almost out of fuel.” The Ark began to shake, rattling Melissa where she sat.

  “How low?” His tone shifted from playful to serious.

  “Empty, except for the backup cells, which don’t amount to much.” Melissa dropped the flaps and lowered the nose.

  “Empty—as in we’re almost out, or empty as in oh, shit, we aren’t making it to the surface?”

  “The ‘oh shit’ part, but we’re making it to the surface and in one piece.”
<
br />   “What makes you so certain?” Frank latched on to the armrests, his knuckles white.

  “I’ve never crashed a ship before, and I don’t intend to start now.”

  “Why’d you have to say that?” Lights everywhere began to flash and beep. Frank’s gaze swept over the control panel. His mouth tightened into a hard line and his skin took on a green pallor. He swallowed and tapped the glass over a gauge. “It says the ship’s hot.”

  “Happens. She’s made to take the heat.”

  He touched another. “This one says life support is low.”

  “The planet has enough oxygen for all of us.”

  Frank pointed at a flashing sign of a man assuming the crash position: head tucked between his knees, ready to kiss his ass good-bye. “That can’t be good.”

  “That’s easy to fix.” She hit a switch and the lights died, leaving the deck in the dark except for a glow from the navigational screen.

  “That doesn’t fix it.” Frank turned to her. His eyes were popped wide and sweat had already started to bead on his forehead.

  “You worry too much.” Melissa gripped two levers beside her seat. “Going manual. I need you to activate that panel over there. It handles the flaps, emergency boosters, and backup fuel cells. We’ll need them all to land this ship.”

  “We? I don’t know anything about flying.”

  “You don’t need to fly it or land it. That’s what I do. I need you to follow instructions.” She nodded to a panel in front of him. “I’m gonna take the Ark down on fumes. I’ve cut everything but our auxiliary power and engines. When we hit the clearing, we’re going to dump the backup power into the engines, hit the forward thrusters, and bring the ship to full reverse. We’ve only got enough fuel to do it once, so it’s critical she remains steady or we’ll go into a spiral and I won’t be able to stop it. Timing is everything. On my mark, you’ll engage our vertical boosters. If we do this right, the stop will be sudden but she’ll drop to dock like a feather.

  “If we don’t do it right?”

  “You don’t want me to answer that. If I had time, I’d bring one of the pilots from the Genesis II on deck, but I don’t, so it’s your lucky day. I’m promoting you to copilot. Now hit that switch for me.” She nodded at the intercom.” My hands are kind of full at the moment.”

  “Pack leader, copilot, I can’t wait to see what’s next.” Frank hit the switch and activated the ship-wide intercom.

  Melissa grinned. “This is Captain Melissa Deluzio, pilot of the Ark. Please lock down for landing. We’ve got to set this boat down. Once we clear the mountains, we should be in good shape, but the air currents coming off the mountain range might shake us up a bit. When we land, I’ll need you to check your fellow crew members and administer first aid to anyone injured. All communications will go into blackout in one minute and resume once we land. Please standby for further orders.”

  “Mountains? First aid?” Frank turned to her. His jaw dropped open and snapped closed.

  “Relax. The only time you should be worried is when I’m worried. You can’t expect we won’t have a few bumps and scrapes among the crew. The Ark wasn’t made for planetary landings.”

  “We’re going to crash, aren’t we?” Frank wore panic on his face like a Kabuki mask and appeared to be close to snapping. She needed to keep him calm and thinking clearly. In his defense, he’d never been in a navigator’s seat or even in flight simulation. All this was new and very scary. If she didn’t have so much to worry about, she might be close to panic herself. No reason to let on that things might not work out.

  “I don’t know the meaning of crash. I’m a good pilot, Frank. Trust me. I can do this.” Melissa glanced out the glass at the world below in an attempt to get a hold of her courage. She needed to calm her mind, and his. The unease she sensed was quickly sending her into an anxiety attack of her own. She turned to look at him. Frank’s eyes were clamped shut. “Okay, let’s talk about something different. So how long have you been a military police officer?”

  “I’m not. I’m with the Judge Advocate General’s office. A lawyer.”

  “I thought you were security?”

  “Yeah. They lumped us together with them. Enforce laws, make laws, and prosecute, it’s all the same in Earth Command’s eyes.” He frowned. “As it turns out, I’m the only legal representative present on the ship now. The senior officer in charge of the colonial legal department, Lieutenant Colonel George Black, was killed along with his second-in-command Captain Danvers and the rest of the Genesis II’s command crew.”

  “So what kind of duties does a lieutenant in fleet legal have?”

  Frank shrugged. “Not much. All the power belonged to Colonel Black. Earth Command gave him a great deal of flexibility with colonial law on Terra II. He was given the ability to create laws to suit our new world’s needs. He had all say in anything legal. Marriage, divorce, court-martials, you name it.”

  “What about Captain Danvers?”

  “He could marry, serve as a divorce or defense attorney, and could step into Colonel Black’s shoes should anything happen to him.”

  “And you?”

  “Go-fer.”

  “Gopher?”

  “Go for this, go for that. I did all the footwork and legal paperwork. Unless I’m promoted to a command position of at least captain, my jurisdiction ends at the tip of a pencil.”

  “A pencil? That’s a little primitive.”

  “It gives me time to think about what I’m writing. You don’t want a closing argument to sound dull.” The ship took the moment to lurch and Frank slammed his eyes shut. He white-knuckled the armrests.

  “You can look. It’s okay.”

  “Excuse me if I don’t want to look death in the face.”

  So much for calming him. “Sorry, you’re going to have to do it. I need you to engage that red switch in front of you.”

  “What does it do?”

  “It helps us to get to the surface.”

  Frank opened one eye and hit the switch. The thrusters fired as the vessel broke atmosphere. The Ark shook hard as the ship hit her first group of jet streams. Melissa activated and deactivated the vertical thrusters to keep her coming in on a proper angle and the crosscurrents of air from tearing the vessel apart. She wasn’t fast enough and clipped a strong stream, knocking the ship hard and tossing them against their harnesses. Melissa corrected and she smoothed out, barely missing the top of a mountain.

  “Oh, God.” Frank leaned over and barfed beside his chair.

  “How you doing over there?”

  “Fabulous.”

  “That’s good, because you need to sit up and get ready. The clearing is right at your twelve and I need your hand on the thrusters.”

  “Why? Where are yours going to be?”

  “I’m going to be keeping her from crashing. You’re going to do as we discussed. Dump the fuel into the backup cells feeding the engines and hit the forward thrusters.”

  “Shit.”

  “Not right now. When we land, you’re welcome to crap your pants, but right now I need you to focus on the red panel that’s blinking and when I tell you, push the green button and pull back on the lever.”

  “Green button and pull back.”

  “You’ll do great.” Melissa gave him a nod.

  Frank turned to look out the canopy and swallowed. “I can do this.”

  “Yes, you can.” The ground was no more than fifty meters and closing. “Now.”

  Frank punched it and yanked back on the lever, pulling it off the panel. He lifted it, his mouth wide open. “I broke it.”

  The thrusters fired. “Not broken.” The ship bucked and the engines conked out. “Okay, maybe a little. Hold on. We have to do this the hard way.”

  “I thought that was the hard way.”

  “Not even close.” The ship hit the ground and skidded, snapping trees off like toothpicks as she slid through the clearing and into a forest. The skin of the vessel squealed along with
Frank as branches raked the sides.

  As the Ark came to a stop, Melissa turned to Frank. “You can shit now.”

  “Thank you, Captain, but I already did.”

  ***

  “You’re sure Colonel Titan’s shuttle is this way?” Frank studied the forest.

  “I’m positive.” Melissa glanced down at her navigational scanner, which picked up a shuttle’s signature. The rough landing had her a little mixed up but at least the homing beacon wasn’t jumbled. It didn’t lie. A shuttle sat at their twelve. All they had to do was keep walking and eventually they’d find it.

  Now, which shuttle was another question. The scanner might do a lot of things, like monitor bio readings or relay satellite weather reports, even digitally plot a course. It could do just about anything except make the trip through the forest easier and tell her which Earth Command shuttle sat about two clicks ahead of them. They could be headed for friend or foe and it was anyone’s guess, since her com didn’t work. Melissa shifted her pack and stared into the thick growth. The heavy metal content in the soil in this location could be scrambling the signal and com. From the air, the interference hadn’t been too bad. She could speak to Kaleb then, but down here….

  “I’m aerospace legal, not a grunt. I can sue the hell out of you but forget land navigation.” He eyed her scanner. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing. If we get lost,” he raised his hands, “not my fault.” Frank stopped by a tree and reached out to brace himself against it. “Not used to this gravity or air. Can you slow it down?”

  “Negative. We need to find Colonel Titan and let him know we’ve landed. For some reason I can’t get them on the com.” Melissa slung her weapon’s strap over her shoulder and stared ahead. Who knew what surprises the aliens had for them on the planet? They could quite possibly be walking into a trap, and that she couldn’t reach Kaleb on the com didn’t put her at ease.

  “How many of the aliens do you think are down here?”

  “Not a clue. We didn’t get any readings off biologicals when we approached. It looks like they have a way to block our bioscanners.” Melissa used her sleeve to clear the sweat from her forehead. “I know the alien commander and her security guards are down here. I’m picking up their shuttle’s signature.” She pushed into an opening in the vegetation. This wouldn’t be the first or the last forest she’d hiked through. When she’d heard they were taking applications for the mission, she’d cross-trained in several areas, including outdoor survival skills. Anything and everything she could think of to qualify and get on board the Genesis I. Thank God for forward thinking.