Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1)

by Robin MacMillan

  My hands press the icons on the pad frantically, in hopes that one of them will shut the doors. All of a sudden the lift comes to life and begins to move, the doors above begin to shut.

  I grab Kate and bury her in my arms in case the explosion gets through the door. At least if it does she’ll be the last thing that the flames will hit, giving her a fighting chance of survival.

  The explosion hits the lift, by the time it did the lift only moved down maybe a meter or so. It gave us a chance though. It’s sheer dumb luck that we’ve survived this long. The entire room shakes violently. There’s no way to tell if the cords and cables that keep the lift attached will disconnect. We’ll know if they do though, it’ll be the ride of our lives going down.

  “Are we going to be fine?” Kate asks in an innocent little voice.

  “I think so, we might be in here a while though,” I hug her tightly in my arms, if nothing else I can at least provide some comfort and security. It leaves me wondering where everyone else had been at the time of the explosion. Roughly only ten minutes ago that the first explosion happened, maybe it had damaged power to the building, or maybe this was only one of the suicide bombers locations. I wouldn’t know for sure until I talk to another person.

  The thought of being stuck in here unsettles my stomach; I don’t do so well in small spaces for a prolonged period of time.

  For now, all we have to do is wait, wait to live, wait to die. Hopefully though we’ll be waiting for a rescue, I won’t let this child die, even if it’s the last thing I do, especially if it’s the last thing that I do. After thinking about the child my mind flashes to Syreena, we’d talked before about having children. If only she was here to see the new friend that I’ve made.

  ****

  Day 33: Cycle 3: Period 2: Year 2397

  My eyes open groggily, it’s getting harder and harder to breathe by the minute. Kate’s unconscious in my arms, there’s still a pulse though, which is better than I’d hoped for, at least she’s still alive.

  Noises come from above, it sounds like voices. It’s hard to tell though; my body’s beginning to shut down from lack of oxygen. After a few minutes passed when we got into the lift I had tried to open up vents of some sort in order to get the clean oxygen coming in, it was almost impossible though.

  There’s no way to get out of the lift without using the doors, and that’s impossible, they won’t open anymore. Damage must’ve been caused to them during the second explosions havoc on the level.

  I muster all the strength I can to stand up, I gently put Kate down on the floor. I try to yell up to the level above, seeing as that’s where the voices are coming from. I can’t though, I’m on the verge of passing out and I want to use up all my remaining energy to yell? There’s little chance of that happening.

  I bring both my arms up and start pounding on the doors; hopefully someone above will hear the racket. The doors at least are not burning hot, unlike before when I had first tried banging on them.

  More muffles voices come from above, they’re getting louder as the seconds tick by.

  I bang three more times on the door.

  What comes next are three bangs from outside, I guess they’re just making sure that someone’s actually trapped inside the lift.

  “Is there anyone in there?”

  I try to respond but there isn’t enough air in my lungs.

  Instead, I just bang on the door repeatedly.

  “Get the separators, there are people stuck in the lift!”

  I go back to Kate, shaking her gently. Hopefully she’ll wake up soon.

  I look back to the door, I don’t know how they’ll get in, and the door is a meter below the actual level. The lift lurches, breaking my train of thought. Someone’s on the roof of the lift.

  The ceiling begins to glow bright red in the form of a circle. Someone must be cutting through the roof with a laser to get inside, seeing as the door is blocked and inaccessible.

  There’s nothing else that I can do to get out of the way. Hopefully the people that are cutting in through the roof are smart enough to scan for heat readings. Once they found out where the life forms are located inside the lift they’d find a safe place to cut into, instead of just picking a random spot and hoping that the part they cut out wouldn’t fall right on top of us.

  I sit here, crouched over Kate for at least a minute before a sizable chunk of the ceiling comes crashing to the floor.

  I wait a few seconds before looking up; there’s a giant circle cut out, roughly a meter in diameter. Two arms come down from above, gesturing for the girl. I pick her up gently and move under the hole, the arms hoist her up and out of the lift. A second pair of arms comes down and waves for me to grab them. Luckily, I’m tall enough to almost grab the top of the hole itself, it doesn’t take much effort to get myself out, of course with the help of the cutting crew.

  The first thing I notice when my head pops out from the lift is how much cleaner the air feels. No longer are we trapped in a confined space rebreathing the same oxygen. I look up at the face of our savior. He’s wearing a dark orange maintenance suit, thickly padded welding gloves and a huge black mask that’s probably meant to keep the intense light of the laser from reflecting into his eyes.

  “Thanks a bunch, another ten minutes or so and there would have been no one left to come and rescue.”

  “Why were you in the lift?” The man says, his voice sounds muffled from behind the mask.

  “We went in there to escape an explosiion that I recall took out most of this level. It was the only place to go.”

  “We figured that’s what happened, but what caused it?”

  “From what I can tell it was a suicide bomber.”

  “What? How did the Hakorians get into this facility without us knowing about it?” He exclaims.

  “It wasn’t a Hakorian; it was one of our own. I don’t mean to be a picky person, but we need to get medical assistance, the kid is in pretty rough shape, she passed out fifteen minutes ago.”

  The person nods, “you,” he points at the other one behind him, “get them to the medical level.”

  “Here, I’ll take the girl,” extending my arms out for Kate, he passes her to me, she feels limp in my arms.

  There isn’t anywhere to go that I can see, maybe the staircase shaft’s cleared out a bit, hopefully the door isn’t screeching hot anymore.

  One of the rescue crew reaches into his pocket and pulls out a comm unit, several other items fall out of his pocket as his hand comes out.

  “We found two survivors; we’re bringing them to the med level now.”

  “Darrian pick all that crap up, we need to get out of here,” the other scolds him.

  “Sorry,” he bends down to pick them up, his hands are gloved, and for some reason he’s also wearing a long sleeve shirt. I don’t know why though, there’s no reason to, seeing as it’s a hundred degrees on this level. Even me, who’s wearing almost nothing besides simple short pants and a shredded shirt, it feels like I’m roasting. And yet, he’s wearing a full mechanics suit.

  As his outstretched hand goes to pick up the items his sleeve rolls a little bit up his arm. Under is a tattoo, a symbol. I’ve seen that symbol somewhere before, my memory can’t quite remember though.

  That’s when it hits me, I’d seen it almost half a cycle ago when I was a prisoner. Except it had been on the arm of a Hakorian, in the exact same spot.

  They must be some of the traitors, they’d asked question about what had happened on this level, I can only assume that they already know exactly what transpired here. Hell, they’re probably in on it.

  “Here, one sec, I just need to check something,” I say.

  I kneel down on the cleanest part of the floor that I can find and place Kate there.

  Before I take action, I need to know for sure whether or not if they’re truly enemies of Terra. I take my own knife out of my back pocket and conceal it in the palm of my hand.

  I start to cough viole
ntly, stumbling all over the place. I walk past the man named Darrian and grab hold of the other guys arm to support myself.

  “He needs medical attention a.s.a.p.” he says, looking at Darrian.

  The other one doesn’t notice though that I’d rolled up his sleeve partially to the point where the tattoo should be if he indeed has one. My fears are confirmed as the sleeve goes past his wrist and reveals the same symbol.

  The man looks down at my eyes, I’m looking at him though, my eyes are focused on the tattoo. It’s a tough choice to make, kill your own kind in hopes that they wont kill you.

  Although they probably aren’t even here to take me to the med level, they’re probably here to take me back to a Hakorian transport and have me shipped back to the Fleet.

  The man realizes what happened, “we’ve been made!”

  Before I know it there’s a boot coming up into my chest. I try to roll out of the way but I’m too slow. My head is still light headed from the lack of oxygen I experienced in the lift.

  The knife in my palm springs to life. I swing it low at the attackers legs, hoping to wound and not kill. Well, I only need one of them alive. It doesn’t matter to me if one of them happens to die. They’d made their allegiance known; they’re no longer citizens of this world. Therefore, they don’t abide to our rules and laws.

  He obviously isn’t expecting that I’m armed, or that I’m even lucid enough to make an attack on him. I must’ve caught him off guard by a full out attack seeing as I appeared to be coughing up a lung just moments ago.

  The man screams as my blade slides effortlessly across his abdomen. Hot blood pours onto my knife wielding hand. The man goes down to the ground, his body must be in shock, he’s twitching as if he’d just had an electrical shock.

  Seeing as he isn’t the problem anymore I turn to the other one, who’s now right behind me. I don’t have enough time to react, his arms wrap around my body, one crossing under my left armpit and the other going around my neck; they join up right around my breastbone.

  The man begins to squeeze, hopefully the man isn’t strong enough to be able to crush my ribs in from behind.

  I bring my foot up and step on the attacker’s boot, the man swears angrily, but he doesn’t let go. Trying a different tactic I bring my head back until I hear a sickening crunch as my skull makes contact with his nose. The man, who’s now blinded with pain, releases his grasp over my body unwillingly.

  I turn around to look directly at my attacker now. The man stands there grabbing his face, I bring my hands on his shoulder and slouch him over the ground; I bring my knee up right into his jaw. There’s a cracking noise as my knee hits his jaw, the man’s feet leave the ground for a second as his body goes down to the ground. The man lies there on his back, he’s trying to raise his arm, probably ushering me to come over and save him.

  “I don’t think so pal, it just doesn’t work that way. Don’t worry; I’m not going to kill you. This fire might though, or the thin air on this level. Good luck,” I turn back towards Kate; luckily, she hadn’t been awake to see any of that. Her mind isn’t old enough to process images of what I just did.

  Once I have her in my arms I make a run for the staircase. If the two men had been telling the truth it’s probably safe now to use in order to get to the level below and then get proper medical attention.

  Last time I tried to use the staircase I burned my hand. I wonder if the same thing would happen this time.

  I reach out and tap the handle, bringing my hand back as fast as I can to avoid pain. Pain doesn’t follow this time though, the handle almost feels cold. I go back for another round, this time I grasp it and turn it all the way to the side till I hear a click in the mechanism. I push the door open, I gaze up the staircase shaft, the floor above looks all black and burnt, the level below however seems fine.

  I go down the stairs as fast as I can to the level below; every second that I waste is a chance that Kate won’t make it.

  The space in between every floor is thankfully larger than normal, otherwise the bomb that went off in the level above could’ve damaged this level. And the one above it. By the looks of it med level 4 has seen the same amount of damage, possibly even more than level 5. From what I can tell when I reach to door on level 6 there doesn’t appear to be any damage.

  I open the door and pop my head inside; a flurry of activity. Doctors and nurses running around, other people who are yelling at them, they’re most likely wanting to get inside select rooms to see their loved ones.

  I step inside the room, “I need a Doctor!”

  No one can hear me though over all the other noises and commotions that are taking place. I quickly glance at everyone to see if I’ll recognize them. No one, out of all of these people I don’t know any of them. I stand here correcting myself though, a man comes into view that I know, someone who’ll be most helpful in the situation that I’m currently in. It’s Doctor Zanning.

  “Hey Doc! Zanning! Over here!” I shout as loud as I can over the crowd.

  I catch his attention, he looks around for the person that called his name, his eyes glance over me and he rushes over.

  “Colonel, what happened? The military is not giving us any information until they find more information.” His eyes drift over to Kate.

  “What have we here? Bring her into my office.” He leads the way through the mob as head to his office. It only takes a minute or so, it probably would’ve been faster if we weren’t all clustered together in the hall.

  “Here we are, set her down here so I can examine her.”

  We go inside a very small room that has a tiny desk.

  “This is your office? My bathroom at home is bigger than this.”

  “Well we couldn’t exactly afford to give me the space that a real office has, anything large enough to fit people in it is converted into a hospital room.”

  “Understandable, why don’t we just go into one of the rooms then? Because I doubt that she will be better right away.”

  “What's her name?” He asks, he takes out a light and opens her eyelid.

  “It’s Kate, and Doc what the hell is the point of shining that in her eye?”

  “I’m checking to see if her pupillary reflex is good, it just lets me know that her body is still functioning properly.”

  “And is it?”

  “Yes, she will fine. What were you doing anyway; she wouldn’t have passed out without a good reason.”

  “We were stuck in a lift, and there were fumes coming in; making it very hard to breathe after a while. I was on the verge if passing out as well when we were rescued, somewhat.” My mind flashes back to the two men that tried to kill me.

  “What exactly happened, I mean; we know that there was an explosion. That much is clear, but what really happened?”

  “I’m not sure I’m at liberty to discuss this with you, sorry Doc. It might cause a panic, and we are already in a bad situation we don’t need to add to that stress level with more stress.”

  “I won’t blab to anyone, you can trust me,” he urges.

  “Actually no Sir, I can't trust anyone.”

  That response catches him off guard, “what do you mean by that?”

  “Our enemies are everywhere Doc; don’t trust anyone, for your sake,” I put my hand on his shoulder, “now, can I move her?”

  “Of course you can, besides she can't stay in my office.”

  “Ok, you gotta stop calling it an office, it’s a box. My closet is bigger than this,” I bend over to pick Kate up; I have just the room in mind. “Oh, are those cryo tanks ready?” The thought of Syreena being put into stasis has been hanging in my mind ever since I had the conversation with the good Doctor. I never stop thinking about her, she’s the one most single important thing in my life; one that’ll stay in my life.

  “Yes, they are almost ready; I could have them in full working order in say…an hour?”

  “When can we wake her up?” An hour? That isn’t soon enough.

>   “Like I said before it can be dangerous, we don’t know how long she will last before she goes into critical condition; it might be minutes or hours. It would be best if we do so right before we plan to put her in.”

  “Alright, just let me know when you plan to do that.”

  “I will come and get you when the time comes.”

  “Thanks Doc, I owe you one.”

  I turn out of the office and look for Syreenas room. It’s hard to find because of all the people crammed everywhere. I don’t even know how this place can function, you can’t move a foot in either direction before hitting someone. It must make the staff extremely stressed seeing as they can’t do their job properly.

  It takes only a minute before I’m standing outside her door. I go inside.

  Luckily the room is small enough so that it’s only able to hold one patient. A bed with two chairs on each side; there’s also a small table in the corner of the room.

  I pull the two chairs together and make a makeshift bed; I set Kate down gently on them. It isn’t an actual bed but it’ll do for now.

  The only place for me to sit is on the bed next to Syreena.

  “I’m back, like I said I would be. I also made a new friend since I was here last. She’s a really cute kid that I saved from her suicidal father. Hopefully you’ll meet her, if not today then someday in the future when I come back for you.”

  I sigh as a single tear rolls down my cheek, there’s nothing more painful than watching her lie here, completely helpless, and I know that there’s nothing that I can do that’ll make her better. That’s probably the most painful part, knowing that I can’t save her.

  I sit here talking to her for what feels like hours, eventually though my needs overruled my wants.

  “I’ll be back ok?” I stand up; my stomach’s been gnawing at me since I got out of the lift. You’d think that I’d eaten enough food previously before my meeting with Weber.

  I get off the bed and look back to Kate, surprisingly she sitting there, looking at me. She’s completely awake.