Will decided that he had stood back long enough and reared his blade as he ran toward Ethen. Another cordon wrapped around Ethen’s neck. He attempted to grab it but the plant held his arms too tightly. Will jumped and brought his blade down on the cordon. The tension on Ethen’s neck subsided. Will freed Ethen’s arms and leg with a flurry of strikes. Ethen fell to the ground and backed away from the plant. Will avoided the cordons that were now searching for him and helped Ethen scoot away from the attack. “I told you that you never know what can eat you in here,” Will said as he pulled Ethen by the collar.
“You were right, Will,” Ethen said as he struggled, still trying to catch his breath.
“Do you think we can go back now?” Will asked.
“I think I’ve seen enough,” Ethen said.
Ethen returned to his feet and gathered the loose cordons from around his ankles. He noticed that the cordons had left welts on his arms and leg from trying to tear him apart. He didn’t go back to the wall. Ethen walked straight for the door through the small trees that obscured the killer plant. Will looked back at the plant and saw its mouth close. He followed Ethen as he started for the exit. “I never want to see that plant again,” he told Ethen.
“Me either,” was the only reply Ethen could conjure up. Ethen was focused on getting to the exit and Will shifted his focus to following him. Once they made it to the doorway, they ran down the stairs skipping as many steps as they could. They rushed into the interface room. “Do not go up there,” Ethen said as he came to a stop.
“Up to the plant? I could have told you that,” Jay said. Ben watched Ethen approach him with several red bands wrapped around his shoulders and arms. Ben was looking at Ethen strangely.
“What did you get yourself wrapped up in?” Ben asked.
“Let’s just say I found something that we could use,” Ethen said as he let the cordons drop to the floor. “I figured that we could tie these vines around the Trolls’ arms.” Ethen looked at one of the Trolls and said, “The red coloring is a better marker than what you did with their hands.”
Ben picked up one of the cordons from the floor and took it over to a Troll. The Troll lifted its arm and allowed Ben to tie the cordon around it. Ben wrapped the cordon in a coil and tucked the ends underneath the single layer. “That should do it,” Ben said as he walked backward. He examined the Troll from five steps back. “I think that’ll do.” He took ten more steps backwards. “Yeah, we’ll be able to tell the difference now. From fifteen steps back, the Troll’s arm was discernably red from the vine. It was a perfect contrast and an obvious difference from the Trolls that would be fighting them.
Ben grabbed another cordon and Ethen joined him. Ben wrapped one arm as Ethen matched the process on the other arm. Once they were done, the Trolls’ arms appeared to be covered with red sleeves. A total of nine Trolls were ready to fight alongside them and Barron, Barron was with them too.
Ben realized that Marcus had been watching the entrance to the terraformer for a while. “Maddie, could you go check on Marcus and see if he needs anything?” he asked.
“No problem,” she said, “it’s crowded in here anyway.” Maddie made her way toward the door. She stopped beside Barron and decided to talk to him, wanting to know exactly what had happened to him.
“Do you want to come with?” she asked.
“Yes, I would like that,” Barron said, seizing the opportunity to talk to her.
Maddie started to walk out but reached out to Rho, “I don’t trust him, Rho. We need to find out if Barron really is in there.”
As soon as they left the interface room, Maddie started asking her questions. “So why can’t you let the real Barron talk to me?”
“Because I am not able to make the connection, like I told you before,” Barron told her.
“That’s a load of crap. Rho and Kappa made the connections, why can’t you?” Maddie demanded. She grabbed Barron’s arm and Rho took control of the conversation.
Who are you, being? What do you call yourself? Maddie listened to Rho get straight to the point.
I was given no name, no identification, I am Barron. Named just as the vessel was. Barron replied. Rho probed Barron’s mind in search of the real Barron. Barron twitched in reaction to the search. Rho continued to probe but its search was being obstructed somehow.
You are blocking me and my ability to communicate with the vessel, Rho told Barron.
It is as I said, I am unable to make the connection, Barron replied.
Maddie felt herself being grabbed and pulled away from Barron. The voice and the connection came to an abrupt stop. Marcus had grabbed her. He held her face-to-face. “They’re coming. The attack is here,” Marcus said. He was quick and concise with his words. His eyes were wide open. “The time has come.” Marcus released Maddie and ran to the interface room.
Maddie was slightly stunned but looked around for Barron. “Where did he go?” She looked to her left and right. In the short time that Marcus had separated them, Barron had managed to run away. “I don’t know where he went Rho,” Maddie thought to Rho.
“He will be found, Maddie. Let us focus on our survival for right now,” Rho said.
Maddie sprinted to the interface room and had to dodge the outgoing Trolls. She quickly searched for Barron and did not see him. “Crap, he’s not here,” she said as she ran to the interface poles. As she sprinted past the far pole, her metallic hand extended and grabbed it. In one motion, she bent over, swooped up her orbitizer, and changed her direction back for the door. “This time, they die,” she said as she ran through the door.
DAY 287
INITIAL SHOCK
TERRAFORMER
In the chaos that Marcus had initiated when he entered the interface room with news of the attack, two groups formed to fight against the attacking Trolls. The groups were formed by their familiarity with the structure. Marcus, Ben, and Ethen hurried for the stairs toward the room with the vats. Hope, Jay, Will, and the Trolls went through the other entrance. After Maddie grabbed her weapon, she quickly followed Hope toward the lounge.
There were already flashes of blue flickering in the hall as Maddie passed the closed doors to reach Hope. Their allied Trolls were in front of Will and Jay. Maddie asked Hope, “Do you know if that is Will or Quill?” Will overheard her and turned around.
“It’s Quill. Did you really think Will could handle this?” Quill responded.
Maddie was relieved. Even though Quill was difficult to be around, Will was a burden in any situation. Maddie approached the stairs that went down to the lounge. Quill noticed that they were oversized just like the ones going up to the arboretum. The allied Trolls had no difficulty descending as they marched forward as if they were on a suicide mission.
The Trolls were on the lower level when Maddie and Hope reached the stairs. They slowly walked each step keeping their eyes on the hall in front of them. Step by step, they had made it halfway down when rapidly plodding footsteps came toward them. Jay and Quill ran back up the stairs. Jay grabbed Hope by the hand and Maddie turned to follow the flow of oncoming Trolls. She noticed the red sleeves and knew they were friendly. With her balance weighted on her knee and foot, she sprung toward the top of the stairs.
Maddie made it to the top and one red sleeved Troll stood in front of her. She could see that Jay had stopped and Hope was in front of a door. The door slid open and Maddie jumped into the opening behind Jay, landing flat on the ground. She noticed the pad to close the door and picked herself up off of the floor. She reached for the pad. Hope’s hand touched the pad first and the door closed before Maddie could do anything else. “Bet you’re glad that I’m around,” Hope said with a smile.
“I sure am,” Maddie returned the smile. She did a head count of who had made it into the room. There was Jay, and there was Hope, and there was nobody else. “Did Quill make it?”
“I don’t think he’s here,” Jay said.
“He ran in front of us,” Hope said as her sm
ile vanished.
Maddie looked around the room. It was filled with large metallic boxes that were made of the same material as the walls. “We should hide behind those,” Maddie said as she walked to the boxes. Jay positioned himself behind Hope, who was the first to take cover.
“How long are we going to wait here?” Hope asked. Clunking was heard outside of the door as the movement and sound of a fight grew closer.
“Until it’s quiet out there or someone comes in the door,” Maddie told her.
Maddie and Jay took cover. Jay, as big as he was, had more difficulty getting in a comfortable position. Maddie found a spot where she could lean against the wall. There was silence as they took time to catch their breath and calm down. Maddie closed her eyes and thought to Rho. “If you had any great plans, now would be a great time to share them. You know, with the whole wanting to survive thing.”
“I wouldn’t have recommended anything other than what we have done,” Rho, as usual, did not hesitate to answer.
Maddie opened her eyes and looked over to Jay and Hope. Hope’s eyes were closed. It was clear that she was talking to Kappa in her mind. Jay sat with his arms resting on his knees. He was staring at his hands as he picked the underneath of his fingernails.
“You know, this is going to end one of two ways, either we live or we die,” Jay said, still picking at his fingers.
“You know, we are still alive,” Maddie said, watching Jay.
The sounds outside the door stopped. It seemed the commotion had subsided. Maddie noticed the absence of noise and slowly got to her feet. Her head rose above the box as she stared at the door. Once her chin was even with the top of the box, the door slid open. “Are you in there?” the question came from a silhouette. Maddie’s eyes quickly adjusted to see the man.
“Barron, is that you? We’re here,” Maddie said as she fully came to her feet.
“Yes, I told you that I was going to help you,” Barron said as he walked toward their makeshift foxhole. “Let me help you get out of here. We can’t be pinned down.” He waited for Jay and Hope to get to their feet. They started to make their way toward Barron. He turned to walk out of the room with them in tow. As he spun, they saw that his hands held an orbitizer tightly. Somehow, Barron, who was unarmed originally, had managed to grab one.
Maddie figured that he had run away from Marcus and hid when the attack began. He must have picked one up at an opportune moment when one of the attacking Trolls fell. She gripped her orbitizer tightly as she still did not trust Barron. Hope and Jay were less apprehensive and quickly fell into form behind Barron. Maddie closed up the back and they left the room.
Outside of the room, Maddie saw piles of Trolls. She looked at strewn limbs. A mixture of mangled arms, legs, and bodies filled the floor. She stepped in the few areas free from the carnage as she counted the red bands. She couldn’t count the sets since some of the bodies were dismembered but it looked like all of the allied Trolls had been killed. Strangely, she did not see any of the attacking Trolls. “Barron, if these Trolls are all dead, then where did the bad ones go?” she asked since he had been on the outside.
“They continued to go that way,” he said pointing to the interface room. “I am sure that they are looking for the others.”
Maddie kept her focus on avoiding the Trolls as she stepped toward Barron and the others. The flow of casualties extended to and down the stairs. She continued her cautious walk making sure that she didn’t trip. Barron had stopped at the corner and looked around toward the lounge. He put his hands up to indicate that everyone needed to stop. The core of his orbitizer began to glow and he pointed it around the corner. One shot, then a pause, and then another shot. He stepped around the corner as a Troll crumpled to the ground. “I got him, let’s keep going,” he said. They walked around the Troll and Maddie saw that it didn’t have red sleeves. She decided that this version of Barron was really there to help them.
Hope and Jay followed closely behind Barron as Maddie kept a little distance between them. Barron turned the corner to the dark hallway and luckily there were no Trolls in the darkened area. He led the others to the main hall. Blue flashes were littering the hall near the laboratory. “Well, it looks like the best way to go is outside,” he told Hope and Jay. “Come on,” he directed them toward the exit and walked toward the daylight.
As they made it to end of the hall, one surviving Troll stumbled into view, his red sleeves showing in the light from outside. Barron started to pick up his pace. “Come on, hurry,” he beckoned the others. Hope and Jay felt his urgency and hurried toward the outside. Maddie saw herself falling behind and started to jog briskly. Barron, Hope, and Jay made it outside as Maddie approached the door.
Maddie was two steps from making it outside when the red sleeved Troll grabbed her orbitizer and pushed her down the ramp. Maddie stumbled as she tried to keep her footing. She stayed upright and straightened herself once her feet hit the purple moss. She looked back to see the red sleeved Troll holding two orbitizers and blocking the doorway back into the terraformer. She spun around to see Barron with his orbitizer pointed right at her. Her arms shot up, “Barron, what are you doing?”
She kept her eyes on Barron and looked for Hope and Jay in her peripherals. There were only a few Trolls around her. One was holding Hope and another was holding Jay. A third Troll was mounted on a Crossbearer with an orbitizer sitting on its lap. “You can let Rho know that you both erred in your judgment,” Barron told her without any emotion breaking his façade.
“How’d we do that?” she asked. She hoped the longer she could keep him talking, the more likely that somebody, even Quill, could help them out of the situation.
“The queen mother thought you were just ordinary human pests that would eventually have been exterminated. But when you decided to challenge the queen mother, it knew that you could not be allowed to survive,” Barron said, maintaining his aim on Maddie.
“Maybe we could talk to the queen-,” Maddie started to say.
“No,” Barron stopped her abruptly, “the queen mother has given her directives and there will be no negotiations.”
“What are you going to do?” Maddie asked.
“The queen mother has decided the following punishment for you. Any vessels being found to have joined you will be exterminated. Any humans in league with you shall be exterminated. You will observe all exterminations and then you, yourself, shall be exterminated,” Barron informed Maddie of her sentence.
The red sleeved Troll came from behind Maddie and wrapped its claws around her. She struggled to break free but the grasp was too tight. The Troll lifted Maddie and carried her next to Jay. Rho tried to speak to it. You said you were going to help us and now you are helping to kill us. You can still stop this.
That was my directive. Gain your trust and then eliminate you, the Troll responded.
As Maddie and Jay were being held, the Troll holding Hope shoved her to the ground. Hope was on all fours and looked up at Barron. “Please, please don’t kill me,” she begged him. Barron, unmoved by her plea, raised his orbitizer and pointed it at her head.
“This is your extermination,” he said as the core began to glow blue.
DAY 287
THE THREE MEN
TERRAFORMER
As Marcus rushed into the interface room, he spotted Ben and immediately ran for him. He noticed the red sleeved Trolls and rushed by them. He slowed enough to grab Ben by the arm and pull him. “They’re here, we’re under attack,” he hollered. The announcement caused everyone to start moving.
“Hope, take those Trolls with you and let them know that this is life or death,” Ben shouted. He turned to follow Marcus and looked toward Ethen. “Come with us,” he told Ethen as he ran past. Marcus was heading straight for the laboratory and Ben knew that it would be as good a place as any to defend themselves against the Trolls and their orbitizers since it was at least familiar. Ethen sprinted behind Marcus and Ben. He stopped on the stairwell.
“Do you want to go up?” he yelled to Ben.
“No,” Ben yelled back, “we don’t know what’s up there.”
Ethen ran down the stairs to catch up with Marcus and Ben. He reached the door and entered the laboratory. He found the nearest undamaged vat and took cover behind it. Ethen looked for Marcus and Ben but could not see either of them. His attention diverted to the front of the room when he heard a clank in the distance. His eyes scanned between every vat as he tried to identify the source of the sound. He quietly moved from one vat to the next, carefully avoiding being seen.
Ben was crouched behind Marcus. They had heard the clank as well. They had taken position on the wall opposite of Ethen. Marcus looked toward the entrance and spotted a Troll. Ben tapped him on his shoulder. “It doesn’t have any red on its arms. It’s not with us,” Ben whispered. Marcus nodded his head in understanding and moved toward the Troll, keeping low so he wasn’t seen.
The Troll didn’t notice Marcus as it walked down an aisle of vats. Quietly, Marcus crept to an empty tank next to the blue hued Troll. Ben was close behind and placed himself next to an adjacent vat. When the Troll looked in the opposite direction, Marcus seized his opportunity. He jumped from cover and began to shoot the Troll. Ben, matching Marcus’ initiative, jumped into the aisle behind the Troll and began firing as well. The Troll had no time to react as the bullets collided with its head.
The Troll began to unload its orbitizer as it tried to stop the onslaught. It shot wildly and the blue orbs flew in a flurry. Some of the orbs were absorbed by the wall and the others met with the vats creating holes where glass used to be. The Troll started to collapse and ceased its orbitizer fire. The core was blackened and depleted as the Troll hit the ground.
Genetic Drift Page 26
