by J. N. Chaney
I wiped the juice from my mouth as I chewed. “What do you say, Lex?”
“About what?” she asked, curiously.
“Beats me, kid. I was asking you.”
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Mr. Hughes, you’re silly today.”
I smirked and tousled her hair, looking back to the horizon and then to the land beneath us. The air was crisp and clean, more than I was used to, even compared to other habitable worlds. I had to imagine it had something to do with the terraforming process that was still taking place. All these elevated cities, kilometers above the surface, each with a factory at its center, producing atmosphere.
Athena told me this was due to the loss of the planet’s magnetic field. The working theory was that the core had stopped turning at some point, probably long ago, so the Eternals—the former residents of this place—built themselves a network of factories all across the globe, hoping to remake the planet.
That was all speculation. None of us really knew what any of this was for or why the Eternals had chosen to do what they did. Hell, they weren’t around to ask, so all we could do was look at the evidence and give our best guess.
I hated speculation, though, especially from a distance. The only way we were going to get answers about this place would be to get down there and start looking.
That wasn’t to say that we hadn’t done a little of that already. Abigail and I had led a team to check the local area beneath this city. We’d also landed on several other cities at different points around the planet, but the results were mixed, and priorities demanded our attention elsewhere, such as establishing a proper colony, growing food, clearing out some living space for our people, and making sure our newly acquired defense network remained operational.
“Sir,” said a voice in my ear. “If you’ll pardon the interruption.”
Speak of the devil, I thought, then touched the comm. “What’s up, Siggy?”
“You requested to know when Ms. Pryar arrived,” he informed.
I smiled at the name. “She’s back already, is she?” I asked.
“The Galactic Dawn has entered the final slip tunnel towards Earth. Ms. Pryar wanted me to let you know she’ll meet you at the loading dock once her ship arrives.”
I glanced down at Lex. “Looks like Abigail’s almost back.”
“Really?” asked Lex, her eyes suddenly wide with excitement.
“What’s the ETA, Siggy?” I asked.
“Three hours, sir.”
“Won’t be long,” I said to Lex.
The little girl grinned. “I’m going to show her the garden right away! Wait until she sees all the things we grew.”
“I’m sure she’ll love them, kid,” I said. “Siggy, let me know when she’s ready to unload those new colonists.”
“Of course, sir,” answered Sigmond.
After procuring The Galactic Dawn from the Union, I had asked the maintenance crews to recover the ship and outfit her with new armaments, since we’d blown most of the weapons off its hull in the last fight. Thanks to Sigmond—who now had full access to a fleet of drones and several manufacturing stations—getting the parts we needed was easier than it normally would’ve been.
Of course, the ship wasn’t exactly the same. The guns were now significantly stronger, made from old Earth tech, like the strike ships on Titan. This increased The Dawn’s overall firepower by nearly fivefold. Not a bad improvement, if you asked me.
I tapped my comm again. “Siggy, where’s Octavia right now? She still out with Alphonse and Bolin?”
“Yes, sir,” said the Cognitive. “At this exact moment, they are flying over a continent formally named Australia. Shall I have them recalled?”
“No, that’s fine,” I said. “Just tell them The Galactic Dawn is almost here.”
I had ordered our squads to begin fly-overs of all the different cities, hoping to find something that might not necessarily show up on orbital scans. So far, nothing had come of it, but I was hopeful that if we continued, we’d eventually find a clue. I just didn’t think it would take this long.
“Understood,” said Sigmond. “They should return by this afternoon.”
I glanced behind me at the garden and the other colonists. Hitchens stood under the shade of a nearby apartment building, wiping his forehead with a small towel before taking a drink from his canteen. He’d lost some weight in recent weeks, eager to work whenever we’d let him. Aside from running the school, he spent time in the garden or helping to clear and organize debris from the other buildings. We had so much work to do, even after all this time, and I anticipated there would be no shortage of it in the future.
Building a world wasn’t easy business, but when it was over, we’d have a real home, safe from all those who would do us harm.
Freedom, I had found, was a powerful motivator.
* * *
“I want this building cleared by the end of the week,” I told my renovations team. We were standing in the central atrium on the first floor, which had already been cleared and wiped down earlier in the day.
“That soon?” asked Billins, balking a little at the notion. “It took eight days to do the last one.”
I motioned at the two new crew members I had assigned to this team. “You’ve got the extra hands. They should be enough to cut your time by a day, at least.”
He nodded. “Yes, sir.”
The team dispersed shortly, each of them splitting into groups of two and taking the neighboring rooms. I smiled at the sight, but especially Billins, who had done well in the short time he’d been with us.
“The sergeant seems to be adapting well,” observed Sigmond, cutting into my thoughts. His statement surprised me with how perceptive it was, although I knew it shouldn’t. Even back when he was an A.I., Siggy always had a way of getting inside my head.
“Not bad for a Union lackey,” I said, keeping my voice low.
“His recent evaluation is quite positive,” informed Sigmond.
“I saw,” I said, leaning against the wall. “Seems a far cry from the fool we met on The Dawn. I was surprised he wanted to stay behind, what with me almost getting him killed.”
“It has been said that a shared traumatic event can bond people,” postulated Sigmond. “Perhaps he feels a connection to you and the others.”
I thought back to the conversation I’d had with Billins about the prospect of returning to the Union. It was right after we had defeated Brigham and seized The Galactic Dawn.
He could’ve left with the other cruisers—probably gotten a pay raise out of it, too, given his POW status. Instead, he’d chosen to stay, surprising us all. “I’ve never seen anyone do what you did,” Billins had told me. “You beat the Union, and no one does that. Not even the Sarkonians. You did it all by yourselves, and I just think that’s amazing. I figure if you can do something like that, maybe you can do more, too. If you don't mind, I wanna be there when it happens, whatever that something is. I wanna see where you go next.”
“If you come, you’ll have to be one of us,” I had said, standing with him next to the garden on Titan. “The Union might brand you as a traitor. It might be a problem for your family.”
“I only have my cat Bean, and she’s in my quarters on The Galactic Dawn,” he’d told me. “Can I bring her, too?”
I laughed as I replayed the conversation in my head, imagining the little black and white cat in Billins’ arms. He’d brought her with him to the colony, even let the kids play with her from time to time. None of us treated him poorly, far as I knew, and he seemed eager to do his part, same as the rest.
It could have easily gone the other way.
“Captain!” called a voice from outside.
“That sounds like Dr. Hitchens,” said Sigmond.
I eased off the wall and walked to the front door. The sun hit me with momentary blindness as my eyes adjusted to a cloudless sky. “What is it, Hitchens?” I asked, squinting.
The jolly archeologist waddled u
p to the nearby stairs, sweat beading down his cheeks. “I was hoping to inquire with you, regarding the appropriation of a classroom for the children. The room we’re currently occupying is a little too small for our needs. I can’t imagine how cramped it will become once the new families arrive this afternoon.”
I sighed. “I’ll see what I can do, Prof.”
“Thank you, Captain,” said Hitchens, a wide grin on his face. “You have no idea how happy this will make the children.”
I leaned inside the building. “Billins!” I barked.
“Yes, sir!” he called, his voice echoing through the atrium. The boy came running, fumbling with a mop as he halted to a stop in front of me. “W-What’s wrong? Is everything alright?”
“Everything’s fine, Billins,” I assured him. “I need you to focus on clearing out the largest room on this floor. Help Hitchens here move whatever equipment he needs into it.”
“Equipment?” asked Billins, looking at Hitchens.
“Just a few dozen tables and chairs. Oh, and possibly some lab instruments for the students.” He chuckled. “The children do enjoy their projects.”
“You can handle this, right?” I asked, raising my brow. “If not, I can always ask someone else.”
Billins stiffened. “O-Of course, sir! Leave it to me.”
I nodded, then motioned for him to get back to it. He bustled off to the other room, calling the rest of his team to refocus their efforts.
“I must say, Captain, that boy is as eager as they come,” observed Hitchens. “Although, we don’t necessarily need the room right this moment. There’s no reason to rush if he has other work to do.”
“He’s trying to prove himself,” I explained. “I figure I’ll let him do just that.”
“Ah, I see,” said Hitchens. “In that case, by all means. The children will be excited to have a larger area to study in.”
Hitchens gave me a courteous nod and proceeded to the garden across the street, joining a handful of others, as they harvested a batch of deki fruit.
Verdun, the first colony in the new world, was finally coming into its own. “Let me help you with some of that,” I called after Hitchens as he picked up one of the baskets.
The archeologist smiled. “Thank you, Captain. Another set of hands certainly wouldn’t hurt.”
* * *
The Galactic Dawn arrived in orbit shortly after Hitchens and I finished up with the harvest. Sigmond informed me that he’d already arranged to have a shuttle take me there, to which I quickly agreed.
I walked through the middle of the city, looking over the buildings along the street. Most of them were empty, waiting for us to clean and refit them. Alphonse and I had already chosen which would be the dorms and which would be used for other services, such as medical, storage, and recreational centers. Truth of the matter was that we’d only managed to clear about ten percent of the city, leaving most of it untouched. Limited manpower would do that.
But the new colonists were coming soon, and that meant a fresh workforce ready to build. In a few years, maybe less, we’d have this entire city occupied and running. Maybe it wouldn’t be perfect—nothing ever is—but I’d make absolutely sure it worked.
There weren’t many dangers on this planet, at least that we’d been able to find. The only threat seemed to be the little machines located on the planet’s surface—automated robots which came and went, and whose purpose seemed to be a total mystery. They resembled bottom feeder shellfish, like something you might find in the deep ocean, consuming the waste of other animals.
Because of this, many of the colonists had taken to calling them trilobites, based on one of the entries in Titan's Old Earth historical database.
Unlike their namesake, these trilobites seemed to have a unique purpose.
Shortly after discovering them, we dropped a metal crate nearby, just to see what would happen. To our surprise, the machines swarmed the box, quickly liquifying the metal. From there, they absorbed it into their bodies and retreated underground.
I was going to leave them alone after that, at least until we understood more about them. That was when the lookout reported seeing them at the base of the city, right next to the lower scaffolding.
The trilobites did nothing at first. They simply sat there, never leaving, never doing much of anything. After seeing what they’d done to our crate, I decided to have them put down.
The following morning, Bolin and a team of our best sharpshooters rained a hailstorm of bullets down on the machines until they were completely immobilized.
I expected that to be the end of it, but I was wrong.
More machines came as soon as we killed the others. They latched onto their dead brothers and, just as they had done to the crate, liquified their remains before returning into the ground again. Within the hour, another group had emerged, taking up position near the scaffolding, and waiting.
We tried killing them a few more times, but it was always the same. Shoot a trilobite and another liquified it, taking its place. There seemed to be no end to them.
I was beginning to wonder what was going through their little heads and why they’d taken a liking to our city, but no others. What had possessed them to gather together down there? Was something controlling them?
They remained at the base of the scaffolding every hour of every day, never leaving except for a few minutes after we killed them. I didn’t fully understand what they were or why they were there—only that this was a problem I needed to fix. I only had to figure out how.
That was why I’d sent Alphonse and Octavia out on their own. Each and every day for the last two weeks, those two had been searching for answers, and I expected they’d find something soon. If they didn’t, then the strike ships I had scouring the solar system for anything with a Sarkonian or Union signature would do the trick. One way or another, we’d find out who or what was responsible.
I approached the shuttle on the landing pad and climbed inside, strapping into the pilot’s chair. I touched the control pad, ordering the ship to prime its engines.
When I did, a hologram appeared on the dash. “Good afternoon, Captain Hughes,” said Athena, blinking her artificial blue eyes. “Taking a visit to The Galactic Dawn?”
“You know it,” I answered. “What can I do you for, Athena?”
She smiled. “I was hoping to place a request, if you have the time to hear it.”
“I’ve got thirty minutes before I dock,” I said, lifting the ship off the pad. “Let’s hear it.”
“If you could spare the engineers, it would please me very much to increase the number of holo emitters on Verdun.”
“Isn’t this something Karin and Dressler are supposed to be handling?” I asked. “Why are you asking me?”
“They’re currently occupied with more pressing concerns, I’m afraid. However, I believe you have thirteen capable engineers arriving today with sufficient educational backgrounds who could—”
“Athena,” I interjected, cocking my brow at the hologram. “Are you already trying to poach our new recruits?”
“Guilty as charged, Captain,” said the Cognitive. “I hope you’ll pardon my ambition. With everyone on the surface, I feel rather isolated here.”
“Isolated? Didn’t you spend close to two thousand years alone before we showed up?”
“I did, but now I find myself longing for the company,” she admitted. “I suppose I’ve grown used to it lately. I apologize for my selfish request, Captain.”
I chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do, Athena.”
“That is all I ask,” she said, instantly disappearing from the dash.
In her place, a holo readout of the system appeared, indicating my position as well as The Galactic Dawn. I had plenty of time before I arrived, which meant I could either rest my eyes or catch up on some reading.
Alphonse, Hitchens, and Dressler had all sent me packets of work logs, notes, and a shitload of requests. Athena wasn’t the only one who want
ed me to assign her some new personnel. It seemed like every single department head was in dire need of more recruits.
I decided to ignore all of that for right now, since I hadn’t even met the new arrivals yet. Instead, I leaned back in my seat and stared out the window, watching as the blue sky faded into black as I left the atmosphere. Below, I could still see Verdun, located on one of many identical elevated cities that were spread across the globe.
TWO
I stepped off the loading platform and onto the landing bay of The Galactic Dawn. Immediately, I was met by a sea of people—over a hundred future colonists scurrying about the deck, most of their faces reflecting both excitement and uncertainty. It was a look that I had grown accustomed to during my time traveling the stars. I’d seen countless refugees, especially in the Deadlands, and they always had that same look in their eyes.
You could almost feel the uncertainty and nervousness in the air. None of these people truly knew what to expect once they arrived on Earth. All they understood was what we’d told them, which wasn’t much—only that they would be part of the first colony on a rediscovered Earth, a planet that, as it turned out, was actually real and not just a story in a children’s book. They had, of course, needed proof, and we’d provided it through censored videos and images, but it didn’t take much to convince them to come. These were displaced people under fire from two empires, all of them living in constant fear of war.
We’d specifically chosen worlds like theirs, near the Union and Sarkonian borders, because of that fear. These were worlds on the verge of being conquered, and the people living on them knew it. They just couldn’t do anything about it.
The Union and Sarkonian Empire had invaded and claimed multiple systems over the last decade, but increasingly so in recent months. The Deadlands were shrinking a little more with each passing week, giving its residents more cause to flee, pushing them deeper and deeper into the neutral territory between empires.
But the Deadlands wouldn’t last forever. It wouldn’t take long before the Union and the Sarkonians swallowed them all up, dividing everything between them. There would be no more free worlds. There would only be the conquered.
