The abyss I was in was replaced by a cloudburst of light when my eyelids unbolted themselves. The clock in my head told me I had only slept for thirty minutes, but I was glad to no longer be blind or only privy to the sound of lamentations. I was now staring at a large holographic picture at the opposite side of the room, which swapped to a different image every few minutes. It was currently depicting a snapshot of one of the scientist’s smiling family, my dossier telling me the man was, in fact, Dr. Powell. He, his wife, two young boys and a slightly older girl were standing by the edge of the Red Rift, an immense lava-filled canyon popular with tourists from around the galaxy. The date at the lower right corner of the picture listed the pic as being taken twenty-three years ago. “I saw Dr. Powell somehow get… snatched off his speeder,” reiterated the words of Dr. Oleson, as though I were listening to a recording of it. The faint sound of sobbing disrupted my train of thought.
Was I still dreaming? I shook off the possibility, resolved in the fact that I could tell the difference between the real and its imitation. I stood up and habitually slipped on my helmet, keeping its visor up. The unfailing weeping was feeble, but it was unquestionably originating from within the deck. I treaded lightly out the room, perceiving that the soft sobbing was a couple of doors down my side of the hall. I walked to its entry, where the unlocked door slid open at my approach. Sitting in the bottom bunk with her back to me was Dr. Oleson, who promptly stood up at hearing my entrance. She turned to gaze at me with tear-swollen eyes, wiping her damp cheeks with the back of her worn hands. It was here I comprehended I must have been intruding on a grieving widow. I began to wonder why her crying had lured me in in the first place.
“I-I’m sorry, doctor,” I stuttered out. “I was just… I’ll leave you alone.”
Before I could turn completely around, she said, “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
I was about to tell her she hadn’t, but then I remembered that the last thing I heard in my dream had been crying. Had a piece of reality crept into my subconscious mind after all? Why did some primordial instinct tell me that wasn’t the case?
My pause had been noticed, and she asked, “Is something the matter?”
Snapping out of my mini-trance, I answered, “No. You just reminded me that I had been dreaming.”
Smiling weakly, she said, “Something pleasant, I hope.”
“Just some memories, I think.”
Perking up a little, she said, “You mean an echo?”
“Echo?”
She nodded, some of the strained lines in her face fading just a tad. “Dreams that contain vivid memories. You know, the Sacred Script says dreaming of certain memories are the Gods’ way of trying to tell us something about our lives. Maybe you have a deep connection to the Gods’ Realm.”
“Well, not all the memories were perfect,” I said, trying my best not to completely dismiss her words. “I think they were regular old dreams. I’m not special enough to get messages from the Sacred.”
“The Sacred don’t care how significant a person you are. They help when they can.” Her voice reverted back to its solemn state. “I should have listened to my dreams.”
“Why is that?”
She dropped her watery eyes, though the fresh tears did not fall this time. She held her left elbow with her right hand, contemplating whether to tell me what was churning in her mind. Evidently resolved, she lifted her bright blue eyes to me and, with a voice as fragile as a snowflake, said, “I’ve had nightmares every time I’ve slept on this world. In fact, it’s usually the same one. They always start with me looking up at the two moons of this world, running furiously away from something I can’t ever see. I then meet the edge of the ocean and I start swimming with all my might, but before I can swim too far, I get pulled under by some powerful force, like a black hole is sucking me in. I get dragged down deeper and deeper, and I begin to drown, but even as I’m dying I become aware of the origin of this insurmountable force.”
She was talking to herself more than to me by this point, but she kept her attention focused on my helmet. “I don’t know what it is. I always wake up before I actually see anything, but something tells me I should be grateful that I wake up before I do. I hear it, though. I hear its hum. What makes it all worse is when I think I hear that hum when I’m awake. I simply shrugged it off before everything happened. I mean, I had to, right? What could I do? Tell Frank that we should leave this meticulously planned and expensive mission of a lifetime because I was having a bad dream? Nerves; that’s what I told myself it was. What I had to tell myself. I don’t believe that anymore. There’s something wrong with this world. And I don’t just mean the creatures and the odd interference. I mean this world is sick.”
The last few words were stated with so much vehemence that they lingered in my ears a few moments after she said them. Meanwhile, she inhaled a long draught of air, looking relieved she had expressed something she had clearly wanted to articulate for some time.
She wearily turned away from me and sat back down on the bed. In a near whisper, she acknowledged my presence by saying, “I’m sorry for making you hear the frazzled words of a new widow.”
“Nothing to apologize for, ma’am.” I immediately hated how professional that sounded. Then, wanting to sound less soldierly and desiring to let her know about my own qualms, I said, “I actually agree with you. There is something off about this world. Warping soil usually feels the same no matter where I am, but this world almost seems to… How do I explain it? It feels like I’m trespassing when I use my ability, like there’s a tangible personality I’m messing with. I hope no one else decides to study this planet after we leave. I have a feeling only misfortune lies here for those not bringing an army, and I’m not completely sure who they’d be fighting.”
“That will be my recommendation if we ever leave. I wish I had your confidence. The worst thing I can imagine right now is having my children learn of our deaths by some faceless government worker coming to their door. I told them how we would be fine, how ‘Mommy and Daddy were just going to dust off some old bones and buil…’”
Her words were stifled in her throat. She dropped her face into her hands and broke into the same cry I had heard before. Seeing nothing else I could do, I sat beside her and gently draped my arm over her shoulders. She gathered herself after a minute and only sniffled.
Hoping to ease her further, I said, “Sorry combat armor isn’t softer.”
“That’s all right,” she said with a wet chuckle. “You’ve been sweet to put up with me. You obviously haven’t been tempered by decades of battle. You’re very young, aren’t you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Gods! The farthest I ever traveled by that age was to Mars University, and here you are involved in this mess. I don’t understand how the fighting age hasn’t gone up in proportion to our longer lives. It seems like such a waste for old politicians to keep sending those who have barely started life into combat.”
“An argument I’ve heard often, but trust me, it’s a choice for most of us, whether others understand it or not.”
“It sounds more like-”
Our conversation was tersely interrupted when Brent’s and Fife’s cerebral links were disconnected.
Chapter Ten
As I reacted to this new crisis by standing up, mentally commanding my visor to shut airtight, and grabbing my rifle from the magnetic holster on my back, Captain Kiran ordered, “Everyone to the engineering deck!”
Prior to taking a step toward the door, I instructed the doctor, “Stay here and lock the door when I leave. Don’t open it unless we say so.” She nodded nervously and I rushed out the enclosure, my rifle ready to meet whatever had forced Brent’s and Fife’s lines to break off. Attempting to get up to date, I asked Vasilissa, “What’s the situation?”
“Brent and Fife were in engineering,” she hastily replied. “They were finishing up on the repairs. The rest of us were eating in the mess hall. Whe
re are-”
It was her turn to be interrupted, except this time it was by the red emergency lights beginning to flash acutely down the halls. At that same second, over the ship’s speakers, Hardy informed us, “Engine safety measures are being overridden using manual procedures. If safeguards are not reestablished, core meltdown imminent in five minutes.”
“Is there a visual in the engineering deck?” Kiran asked Hardy.
“All cameras in engineering were inoperable on arrival,” notified the S.I. “The scout present in engineering is also not responding.” When I entered the elevator, he continued with, “Manual override complete. Core meltdown in five minutes. Lethal blast radius estimated at three miles.” This was one of those few moments when the tireless composure in Hardy’s voice bothered me.
The elevator ride was short, as I had been directly above the sought after deck. After notifying my team I had reached the proper area, I asked our virtual ally, “Hardy, can we still reverse the meltdown?”
“The process can be terminated within two minutes if the manual controls can be reached in time.”
I thus headed for the core room situated within the center of the crescent shaped deck hall, keeping in mind to expect something to interfere at any point. Going up the curving hall, I passed a couple of rooms on either side of me, giving them a quick inspection to verify that no one could flank me from behind or pursue the doctor. When I reached the halfway point of the semicircular deck, the elevator door in front of the core room began to open, revealing the rest of my comrades inside, including their scout, confirming that no one had escaped using one of the two elevators. When that observation passed, a grenade-sized explosion could be heard bursting inside the core room. I could next feel some minor vibrations coming from someone moving about inside the chamber, something I apprised my squad of.
“We have your trapped!” snarled the captain. I was sure I was not the only one startled by his roaring voice. “Surrender now! This is your only warning!”
The unrelated response to the furious declarations was a Hardy update, who said, “Four minutes until total core meltdown.”
When no response came from the desired room after several substantial seconds, the captain and Vasilissa acquired positions at each side of the entrance. Furthermore, Emory, Briannika, and I pointed our barrels at the door. The scout sent a tendril into the door panel to open it manually, anticipating the door to be locked and, even if it wasn’t, to allow the door to slide open without us having to completely expose ourselves to whoever was waiting inside. The instant the door exposed a crack of the chamber’s interior, an intense, whistling gust of wind of the captain’s making invaded the small chamber, forcing the door to slide open faster. Before long, this gust turned into an unceasing gale that I was sure was powerful enough to compel fired bullets to make a U-turn. When a thud was heard from within, Kiran stopped the gale, which was our cue to enter. Vasilissa was the first to obey, followed by Emory, Briannika, and myself; the captain being too long to effectively maneuver inside the room with the rest of us.
Forming the last link of a line made up of my comrades, we saw something that had forced our breaths out from our lungs. Lying on his right side against the back wall was the lieutenant, and he was pointing his rifle at us. Before a stunned word could be uttered, he squeezed the trigger. A stream of bullets was relinquished from his weapon, treating us no better than game birds. A few slugs found their mark on Vasilissa’s shield, but before it could fall, the four of us spontaneously countered with our own trained volley. Succumbing to our overwhelming assault, the transparent bubble that encased the lieutenant quickly ripped open and vanished, allowing for our close range barrage to then tear through his armor. Not interested in killing him, we didn’t aim for vital points, and we stopped firing when neither of his arms could lift a bee’s wing. Everything fell silent for a short moment. Some blood leaked out of his suit’s fissures and trickled down his side-leaning body, pooling on the floor.
“Brent! What the fuck are you doing?!” Emory cried, his high-pitched tone almost cracking his voice.
The eyes behind Brent’s visor looked at the speaker, but they were dull and inattentive, as though he was really staring well beyond his comrade. When he parted his trembling, pale lips to speak, only blood was coughed up from his throat, gurgling up the unintelligible words he made a considerable effort to sputter. His head then sagged and his body went limp.
With the surprising source of the danger incapacitated, Briannika headed for an unpaneled wall to our right, but it took little more than a glance to see that it and the control board below it had been torn to shreds by the fallout of a grenade blast.
“Shit,” said the talorian. “Manual override is impossible.”
“Where’s Fife?” Emory asked.
“Probably in the transmitter room,” I reminded him.
As the captain entered the core room, Emory departed. A nod from Kiran indicated for me to follow him, so I trailed Emory’s hurried steps toward the comm room that was just a few rooms farther down the hooked hall, the scout not far behind me. On reaching the locked door, the scout repeated the same action as it had done to the core chamber door. The transmitter room was really just an oversized booth, so it was no trouble spotting the only point of implication in it. Lying prone on the floor with his helmet stashed under his left arm was Fife’s static body, a grisly bullet hole in the back of his scarlet head. As far as traumatic injuries to the head were concerned, the wound was surprisingly clean, a product of his still active nanotech attempting to dress the fatal wound. Emory produced a caustic yelp at the sight and fell to his knees to grasp the body. Though I couldn’t have been the only one who had braced themselves for this result, it was no less difficult to inform everyone that Fife was dead.
“Three minutes until total core meltdown,” updated Hardy.
“We have no choice,” the captain asserted through the thought-comm. “Everyone to the shuttle!”
Behind me, Emory had reattached Fife’s helmet and was now carrying his body over his shoulder. We then hastily headed for the elevator back by the core room. On reaching it I saw Kiran was using warped air to transmit Brent’s unconscious body on a dense carpet of air. Given that the elevator was intended for humans, there wasn’t enough room for all of us in one trip, so I went back to the elevator I had used previously. Briannika also joined me. Once we picked up the doctor, who followed us like a frightened child would its parents, the elevator ride brought us to the command deck, where the others were already waiting. As we entered the decontamination chamber, Hardy was instructed to bring the shuttle as close to the exit as he could, soon to become the last bastion on this world that belonged to us. The cameras outside, most of which had not been targeted for destruction by the preceding team, showed that there was still many alien bats loitering on the ground and in the double-mooned sky, though the vast majority had moved on.
As Hardy announced the countdown was at a minute and a half, the cameras confirmed that the shuttle was waiting just a few feet outside the entry. The door leading outside skated open, and as if that had been the signal all along, all the extraterrestrial bats that blanketed the ground began to rush at us. They were clumsy beasts when scuttling, but they had a surprisingly elastic body and could cross five or so yards in a single bound, using their lone back foot to focus and initialize the leap. In any event, their vaulting charge was met by a blast of focused wind instigated by the captain, tumbling them back to the ground like umbrellas caught in a tempest. For my part, I used my best aspect to create two dirt walls that rose nine feet high, stretched them to the shuttle’s access five feet away, and capped it off with a roof. I had little time to make the wall dense, making it weak enough in places to allow a few malignant bats to gnash a small opening, but it held well enough for our fleeting purposes. The shuttle door soon closed behind us and we began to lift off with just under a minute left to escape the blast.
Kiran laid the unconscious lieu
tenant on the floor while the rest of us tried to settle on the seats, only knowing that Hardy was to take us as far away as possible. I started to aid Emory in his attempt to strap Fife to a seat. Suddenly, when the shuttle had risen some thirty feet and was on the verge of accelerating southward, the shuttle’s alarm activated, fervently warning its mostly unstrapped passengers of an inbound projectile. There was no time for Hardy to make evasive maneuvers. The shuttle lurched violently when it was struck on its port side, rocking those inside. The projectile wasn’t strong enough to break the shield, but the ongoing alarm declared that the missile had not come alone. The shuttle did have counter measures in three automated machine guns that popped out when necessary (two at to the bottom of the craft and one of a larger caliber on the roof). The computer used these armaments to avidly hunt for the sources of the incoming missiles. Before they could lock on, however, a second missile struck the shuttle as it began its acceleration, depleting the shield to almost nothing. Our own artilleries did prevent two more rockets from impacting the little craft, but another missile was able to sneak through and make direct contact with the port side engine, cutting our speed by half. The concentration of enemy fire forced Hardy to abandon the more straightforward southern route. Instead, his computerized mind had him climb the shuttle over the Revel and move us east, in an attempt to use the cruiser as a barrier against more attacks.
At this juncture, when everything was little more than a blur of alarms, missile strikes, machine guns, and experiencing an earthquake in the sky, one of the shuttle’s night vision cameras finally found one of those responsible for the attack, and perhaps for some of what we had already been through. The image was fed into our cerebral links, where we saw the silhouette of a human figure drenched under the shadow of a cloud. The form stood upon a small sand dune, holding what appeared to be the outline of an RPG slung over his arm. The bat imitators had surrounded the humanoid edifice, but they were calm and passive. Most merely seemed to be enjoying the scene being played out. The delicate clouds broke apart for a moment and allowed the light of the moons to clasp the land, illuminating the predominately black armor of the mysterious figure. The light was soon enshrouded by the banks of fast-moving clouds, but the break had revealed the armor as belonging to one of the members of the missing security team.
Ember's Echo (The Nimbus Collection Book 2) Page 9
