“Are you suggesting those people didn’t die? That they were… what, used in a government cover-up?” Kat asked.
Flint went back to the video and pressed play; the large vessel rolled across space in front of the camera again. “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
The video cut out, and Flint cursed. He wanted to see what happened.
“This is insane.” Kat took his seat as he stood, and Flint could tell she was trying to see if there was a way to repair the damaged file.
“Did you see the date?” he asked her, now pacing across the short bridge.
“August second, 2415.”
“And what’s the date today?” he asked.
She looked back at him with understanding in her eyes. “June thirtieth, 2475. That means…”
Flint nodded. “It means another sixty years has passed since that video. If what they said in the first one still stands, then the aliens come every thirty years.” Just what had happened sixty years ago on that video? And what had happened the last time, thirty years earlier still? More importantly, as he headed toward Jupiter, he somehow felt connected to what was about to happen in a month.
“I don’t like this, Flint,” Kat said softly.
“I don’t either. Keep playing with the files, and see if you find anything else,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” She sounded nervous.
He started to walk back to his quarters, a comp tablet in his hand. “I’m going to find out everything I can on this Fairbanks and Palmer. There has to be something that can fill in the blanks.”
Jarden
“Activate the drive,” Captain Young said, lifting a hand in the air before quickly dropping it to his side. Councilman Jarden Fairbanks sat on the edge of the bridge, letting the crew do what they were paid to do. He was content to be a silent witness to the test jump.
Only the slightest vibrations in his seat’s arms told him anything had changed on the ship. Jarden smiled wide, baring his pearly white teeth. Yes. He was so close. The drive had worked once before, and he was going to make sure this one would as well. The amount of time and resources that had gone into getting those initial colony ship blueprints had been astronomical.
He’d called in every favor, every back scratch and bribe he could; all the while, no one knew what he’d really been after. Even now, the rest of the Fleet and the government had no clue that Councilman Fairbanks was out here. He smiled again, thinking about the guile needed to pull off something of this magnitude. He wasn’t an arrogant man, but he did appreciate his ability to get a job done.
“Drive is ready, sir. Prepare to launch. On your mark.” First Officer Barkley stood at a console and glanced back at Young, awaiting his command.
“Now. Launch.” Young briefly glanced to Jarden, a look of pride on his face. Fairbanks was going to love replacing him. Young was a tool, and not one he wanted to keep in his toolbox for the extended trip.
The viewscreen covered in blue energy, and now the ship vibrated fiercely. Something was wrong! They didn’t have time for an issue now. There was only a short window before they needed to make the real jump.
As Jarden sat, concerned over the errors someone in engineering must have made, the viewscreen flashed white and blinked. When it flashed back, they were a thousand kilometers in front of a large asteroid, the very same they’d set as their destination.
It worked… Jarden stood up, his hands shaking. His hand found purchase on the arm of the chair, balancing him. “It worked,” he whispered. The bridge was silent: the ten officers on board didn’t move, let alone dare to breathe for a moment. “It worked!” he shouted now, the rest of the crew joining him in congratulations.
They were happy, but little did they know just how a big a step this was for humanity. Jarden walked up to the captain, his legs working once again, the initial surprise shaken from his old body. “Well done, Young. Take us back the long way. I don’t want to risk damaging anything before we run an analysis.”
“Yes, sir,” Young said.
As Jarden left the bridge, he heard Young shout out a series of commands, but Jarden hardly heard them.
“I’m coming. I’m coming.” He kept repeating the words under his breath as he worked his way off the bridge.
Wren
Wren was surprised at the special treatment. She’d seen inmates suffer from beatings, but they always arrived from the infirmary days later and were thrown right back into the work schedule.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to break any rules,” she said to the android guard. It held a tablet and pointed to it, showing her number highlighted in red.
“You are not assigned to work detail until tomorrow. Vacate the area or you will be assigned a demerit.” The monotone voice stopped talking, indicating the conversation was over.
Wren turned on a heel and walked back down the hallway, expecting a guard to stop her. None did. The door opened, allowing her back toward the common area, where inmates could relax for short periods throughout the day when they weren’t working, eating, or locked in their cells.
A few others were there, their shifts different than hers. Truth was, Wren didn’t know if she worked a night shift or a day shift. There really wasn’t such a thing out here, and it took a while to get used to.
An older woman, with frown lines so deep they looked like scars, motioned her over. “Sando,” she said, her voice dry and raspy.
“West,” Wren replied.
“No one’s seen Slicer,” West said, and Wren found herself shrugging.
“What do I care? She attacked me.” Wren felt the fresh cut on her forehead pucker as she frowned.
“Kinda strange, ain’t it?” the old lady asked.
“I just want to mind my own. Have a good day.” Wren walked away, crossing the room. She passed the empty tables and chairs, heading for a small, worn sofa at the end of the space. It was quiet over there, no one to bug her. She sat down, feeling the tender bruises from her beating, and tried to determine what had happened.
Slicer wouldn’t have attacked her without reason, or at least Wren didn’t think so. Things had been so blurry while she’d been in recovery, but she was certain a man had come to visit her. Had he arranged the beating so he could talk to her? Then she recalled the name she’d given the man, and how quickly he’d left after she’d shouted the councilman’s name.
Wren’s head pounded, and she closed her eyes, trying to ease the pain. Traces of medication still lingered in her bloodstream, and she found herself drifting off as she sat there. Dreams came fitfully as she slept: of a life long gone and a future she would never have.
When she woke some time later, her eyes darted open fearfully. She breathed a sigh of relief as she found the open room empty of prisoners.
A mechanical noise coming from beside her caught her attention, and she turned to it, her head going light at the sudden movement.
“Hello, Wren,” the android said without looking at her. His hand rested on his weapon as it always did, but only one guard had ever called her by her real name.
She sat up, feet flat on the floor. She stared forward as she spoke, not wanting to draw attention to her conversation in case watchful eyes were prying. “What do you want?”
“I want to help,” came the reply.
“Help with what? I can’t be helped,” Wren said, her looming headache coming back in a flash.
“You don’t belong here. I want to help.” The voice was even, but she could still sense the intensity behind it.
“Who are you? I don’t understand. You’re an android. One of them. Who put you up to this?” Wren spat out the series of inquiries.
“I am CD6. No one has put me up to anything. I can tell you shouldn’t be in prison. I shouldn’t be here either,” he said.
“Why not?”
His answer came quickly. “Because I don’t belong here. I’m different from the other guards.” His voice was low, and she glanced back at him. He was stil
l staring forward.
Her heart raced, pain shooting into the back of her eyes with each fast pulse. “What do you expect to do?”
He didn’t answer right away, and she almost hoped he was done with his contact. After twenty seconds, he replied, “We can leave. I’ve found a way.”
Her throat closed as tears formed in her eyes. Leave? How could they possibly leave? It was impossible. But maybe… with the help of an android… “How?”
The door opened, and another guard entered the room, followed by the newly-ended shift workers. These ones came from the processing plant and were wearing light brown jumpsuits. He moved now, speaking softly as he went by her. “Be ready.”
His words rang in her mind as he strode out of the room, past the other guard and through the doors, out of her life as quickly as he’d appeared.
____________
“Where were you today?” Mara asked at dinner time. Her younger friend’s cheeks were red, her eyes sad and puffy.
“I wasn’t on the work schedule.” Wren poked at the lumpy food on her tray and felt something other than hopelessness for the first time in two years. She felt hope, and from the words of an android. She shook her head and ran a finger over the bandage still wrapped over her forehead. She must be crazy. There was no way a guard had actually talked to her. She was going insane. Still, even with her half-thinking she might indeed have gone off the deep end, she clung to the feeling of hope, like a life vest in the middle of the ocean back home.
Mara looked up at her, scrunching her nose. “That’s strange, isn’t it?”
Wren shrugged.
“Where’s Slicer?” Mara asked.
Wren was getting tired of the incessant questions but didn’t want to yell at her only friend inside the prison, so she forced a smile. “Hopefully out the airlock.”
Mara’s mouth formed a surprised O, and then she laughed too. “Wren, stop it. What did you do to get her angry with you?”
“Nothing. I bumped into her.”
Mara appeared to think about this as she sculpted a volcano from her powder-turned-slop, and didn’t respond. They sat in silence for a few minutes, Wren finally eating something off her plate. Once she started eating, her healing body demanded she finish.
“Guards were talking about double shift starting tomorrow.” Mara let out a sigh, air billowing her cheeks before sending a few pieces of slop flying.
“Double shifts? They’ve never done those before.” Wren was uncomfortable with all the changes recently. First she saw a man in the prison; then an android spoke to her like she was a human, not a number. Then the beating, followed by the drug-infused interrogation, and now this. She felt like she was a tiny cog in a much larger wheel, and she wondered what the big picture was.
“West said this happened thirty-odd years ago. Earth Fleet demanded more material for their ships. Prisons produce eighty percent of the metals used on their fleet ships. Or at least, that’s what the guards told us once.” Mara pushed her plate forward and dropped her utensil in the center of the slop pile with a splash.
“They’re ramping up production for something,” Wren whispered to herself. Mara didn’t seem to notice, but Wren put the pieces together. The special project she’d been in charge of at New Dallas was part of it. This much was clear. But if she was working on a theoretical virus to wipe out a specific type of DNA two years ago, and the military was increasing their ship production, then…
Wren’s tired eyes sprang open. They were preparing for something.
She saw the helix in her mind’s eye. She’d had nightmares from the brief time she’d seen the images on Darnel’s monitor. Of course, that was the same time her laboratory had been compromised. She could still close her eyes and see the bullet entering Darnel’s head as the Patrol walked in behind the Fleet troops.
She remembered arguing before being thrown in handcuffs and dragged away. She knew she would have been dead beside her assistant if the Patrol hadn’t shown up. The Fleet were there to take her lab results and cover up the project; of that she had no doubt.
Now it all came clear. Her study wasn’t hypothetical or theoretical. It was real.
Earth Fleet was preparing for an invasion.
6
Ace
His bed was small, and most of the others had complained about the size of their cots. Ace had quietly cried into his pillow the first night and the second: happy tears that he was sleeping on a mattress, regardless of its diminutive size. His luck had changed so drastically, and no one would ever understand where he’d come from. To them, he was Edgar Smith, a kid who grew up in Old Chicago but had gone to school, had a home and a family.
The idea that the real Edgar Smith’s family would be grieving their missing son helped his tears flow that first night, but he couldn’t do anything for them now. He’d stolen the boy’s ID and wouldn’t go back. Never. By the third night, he was too exhausted to cry, and he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the lumpy pillow.
When morning came, which was somewhere around 5 AM, he was woken by the sounds of his squadron’s drill instructor. Time didn’t seem the same on the moon base. Lieutenant Deso was an imposing character: thick arms and legs, and a barrel chest. His gray jumpsuit looked like it was going to explode at any moment.
“Get your sorry asses out of bed. Do you think this is Saturday morning back home? Are you waiting for your mommy to call you down for cereal and holotoons? Get to it!” Deso yelled, and Ace found himself smiling. This was his ideal Saturday, and he didn’t ever remember waking up on a weekend to feel safe and comfortable without a care in the world.
“What’s up his butt?” Buck, a young recruit in the bunk below Ace’s, asked as he swung down to the floor, landing softly.
“Just doing his job,” Ace said, slipping into his jumpsuit. He wished he could sleep in it so he didn’t have to change in front of his squad. He was by far the smallest one here. The runt of the litter. He glanced over to Serina’s bunk, which sat across the small room. She was standing there stretching, her jumpsuit folded down to the waist. Ace felt a rush of heat, and he quickly averted his eyes.
Buck wasn’t done. “I still think he’s a jerk.”
Ace didn’t respond. They formed a line, Serina at the front. She’d been voted squad commander the first night, and it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she was the only one who’d volunteered. Ace knew no one else had wanted to go against her. She’d won the race, and that was enough for them all to establish her as their leader.
They marched in unison, heading out of the small bunk and down the halls, where other squadrons were getting in line and funneling outside at the same time.
In a couple minutes, they were under the dome, and Ace found himself staring above. Nothing but space all around them. Outside that dome was certain death, and he shoved the fear back inside. He wasn’t going to make it into Earth Fleet with worries about dying in space. He had more immediate things to concern himself with, like surviving until breakfast.
“Good. Nice of you all to make it,” Lieutenant Deso shouted to his squad. Ace could hear the other lieutenants doing the same routine, and he blocked their yells from his mind. He’d focus only on Deso. “We have a game this morning. If you finish, then you can eat. Clear?”
“Yes, sir!” Blue Squadron shouted in near-perfect unison.
“I can’t hear you!” Deso shouted back.
“Yes, sir!” they repeated, this time fully in sync.
“Good. Capture-the-Flag is an age-old game, used for years as a training tool. We have our own version.” Deso opened a box beside him and pulled out a gun. Ace’s heart beat faster in his chest as he watched Deso tap a button by the trigger. The gun was slightly larger than a pistol, and the side lit up green as he brought it to life. “This is a stunner. Shoot someone with this gun, and they’re frozen in their footsteps for ten seconds. Who wants to volunteer?” he asked.
When no one stepped forward, Ace glanced to the right, whe
re he saw another recruit from another squad being shot with one. It didn’t look so bad.
“Shoot me, sir!” Ace bellowed, and the recruit in front of him stepped to the side.
“Smith. Very well.” Deso didn’t give warning; he just fired, hitting the recruit in front of Ace. The girl, Casey Keller, had raised a hand out in front of her, and she was now frozen in place, a green glow surrounding her. “No one said I was a good shot. If I was, maybe I wouldn’t be teaching a bunch of snot-nosed kids on the moon.”
Ace’s heart slowed, and he found himself fighting back a smile. In a few seconds, Casey was free from the pulse, and she coughed, her hand flying to her face. She stepped back in line, though Ace could tell her legs were wobbly.
“Thank you, Recruit Keller. Everyone grab a stunner and get into the transport. You’ll be facing Yellow today. Remember, there’s no prison in this game. You get stunned, you’re done. Got it?” Lieutenant Deso handed out the guns, and Ace held one in his hand, the weight strange in his grip.
____________
“Ace, where are you?” Serina’s voice carried through the headset.
His back was pressed against a tree. They’d been brought to a forest. Ace couldn’t believe it. A forest on the moon. It was amazing. He quickly forgot about it as the game began. Then he was on a life-or-death mission to capture Yellow’s flag, which turned out to be a glowing yellow orb sitting on top of a barn-like structure deep into their end of the forest.
Barriers were set up, and Ace could see another game going on twenty yards to his left. Green versus Purple. He watched as a Green female recruit was sneaked up on and stunned. He took a deep breath and replied to Serina.
“I see the flag. There are at least three of them guarding the structure. If I can get close enough, I think I can get up there, but I need some cover.” He leaned around the tree and spotted two of his own team: one behind the barn, and Serina across the field to his right.
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