by Paul Teague
There is a massive thud and the entire structure shakes. This is not unlike the feeling I had when the lower Quadrant sections began to move when we were in the bunker. It’s a deep, thunderous, violent shake. I glance outside the windows, and looking below I can see what is happening.
The four Quadrants have made their journey from Earth to space. They’re docking with this space station, and that’s what’s causing this shaking.
It’s stopped the weapon fire for a moment at least. It must have caught the Troopers by surprise too.
‘Run, now!’ says Kate suddenly. She’s the first to gather her wits. We all fire a few random shots up the corridor, towards the Troopers, then each group takes its agreed fork in the corridor.
We’re going deep into the heart of this place now. The windows are gone, we could just be in one of the other bunkers as far as I’m concerned. The shaking has stopped. I counted four great thuds, that has to be all of the Quadrants docked.
This structure must be huge. The upper levels of our Scottish bunker were supposed to be the size of a couple of football pitches, the vast lower levels spread out over a much greater area, so I can’t imagine how big this place is now.
Simon and Kate are off. They look like they’ve done this sort of thing before, they have the appearance of a team.
I look at Nat. ‘You okay?’ I ask. It seems like everything has been crazy for the past few days, we’ve barely had time to speak.
‘Yeah,’ she replies. ‘I’m just thinking of the time, we haven’t got long left.’
‘We’ll talk later,’ I say, ‘but let’s finish this thing, however it ends for us.’
She’s just about to answer when she’s hit by a green ray. She slumps to the ground. I’m aware for a moment of a sudden rush of fear, then something hits me too and it’s over.
Chapter Eight
Lost Friend
Amy heard a massive explosion along the corridor. She stopped for a moment, fearful for Dan, but then ran on. She knew that she was seeing a different side of her son and that she would have to trust him.
He’d played enough of those blasted computer games in his life to have every bit as much idea of military strategy as she did.
Her guess was that he’d detonated those explosives in the corridor to slow down the Troopers. Good call Dan, and thanks for the head start.
She made her way up the corridor, where only days before, she and her family had explored a dusty old Cold War bunker.
How she yearned to be back there right now, to those safe, carefree family days, before the darkness fell. Away from attacking Troopers and drone bombardments, shoot-outs and medical crises.
She’d walked away from this life at the age of 19 when she’d left the Army, and she’d never missed it.
Those events with James had been quite enough for her, she’d long ago decided that a life of dramatic excitement was not for her.
Amy neared the blast door area where she’d been reunited with James hours earlier. She looked towards the end of the corridor. The doors were open, the shimmering lights were acting as a barrier between the bunker and the darkness outside. There was a solitary guard there, the team they’d sent to retrieve Roachie must have still been out there.
Amy put on the helmet that she’d taken from the Trooper earlier. She cursed that it was no longer possible to pass herself off as regular bunker staff.
When she’d first entered this place with Nat, all she needed was a pair of overalls and a name badge. That reminded her, her laptop was still in the dorm area with James’s blood on it where she’d whacked him on the head. Poor guy, he’d been through a lot.
The helmet took a little getting used to, but having already spent twenty-four hours in the darkness beyond the doors, Amy knew what was out there and understood that this would require some assistance. Wearing the helmet and carrying the weapon that she’d retrieved from the Trooper, Amy was hoping that she’d be able to make it quite some way up the corridor before the guard realized something was wrong.
With the initiative hers, she reckoned that she’d be able to stun him before she was spotted. It was worth a try anyway. She was just bracing herself and summoning up the courage to start the long walk up the corridor, when there was a commotion at the blast doors.
A group of Troopers stepped out of the darkness, through the shimmering wall of lights, back into the bunker entrance. They’d been alerted by The Queen. The minute Dan had set off the explosives deeper within the bunker, the Troopers had been diverted from their task of chasing James on the surface, high above. Their mission was to find and terminate whoever had entered the bunker, before they could get back to the lift and escape.
Amy was quick to realize what this meant, but she could just about see from that distance that the Troopers were carrying something – or someone. She hesitated for a moment, thinking through her options. Her only way out was via the lift Transporter, but even then she wasn’t sure if she could activate it any more with the SymNode no longer working.
She needed to resolve the issue with Roachie. Did he need help? There were only six Troopers in all: one who had been just outside the bunker doors, the one that she’d been just about to shoot at a few moments ago, plus the search party of four sent out to find James.
Amy decided to take a chance. Whatever Dan had done further along the corridor had stopped Troopers coming up behind her. These six Troopers could be dodged – there were a lot of places to hide between here and the lift. If she could avoid them, she might still be able to locate James.
She repeated the steps which had kept her concealed previously, deciding to take cover in the dorms where she’d left her laptop. She hesitated at the door, remembering that Nat had had to open the door previously, this thing required clearance. She activated the SymNode on her hand, it fired up straight away and she touched the entry pad.
She heard a beep within the helmet, and the door slid open. Wearing the helmet must have authenticated the SymNode in some way, and that meant she’d probably be able to access the lifts too. She hoped so.
But something else was happening too. Since she’d placed the helmet on her head, she’d begun to hear the mutterings of somebody or something who sounded distressed, in pain even. All she could sense was a confused flow of thoughts, commands and plans. She didn’t know it then, but she was receiving the streamed consciousness of The Queen. To her it was a jumbled mess of words and information – she was unable to filter it or process it in any way.
In spite of that, Amy got a very strong sense of who – or what – was conveying this data. It was female and it was in a very high state of anguish and agitation. Whatever she was doing, she was doing unwillingly.
Such was the force of the sadness that she picked up, Amy had to tear off the helmet, she couldn’t bear it any longer.
She grabbed her laptop from the bed where hours before she’d first found the overalls which had served so well to let her blend in. As she picked it up, she noticed something that that she’d missed before. There was an SD card tucked into the side, just the tip of it protruding. Amy didn’t have an SD card, and her instinct made her wonder if that’s what Nat had been up to when she’d found her in the car.
She’d check it later, she could hear the Troopers moving along the corridor outside. They’d be in here soon. She grabbed one of the metal wardrobes, it was easy to shift, and she pulled it in front of herself in a corner. There was just enough room for her to conceal herself.
The Troopers entered the room – two stood outside the doorway, four came inside. They threw whatever – whoever – it was that they’d been carrying onto one of the beds.
They searched the room thoroughly, under beds, in wardrobes and cupboards, but they didn’t detect or hear Amy in her makeshift hiding place. The Troopers left the dorm, the door closed behind them and Amy began breathing easily again.
She intuitively knew who it was on the bed, but she had to see for herself. Amy rushed up to the bod
y and turned it over gingerly. She felt for a pulse, in the neck and in the wrist. Blood and mud were caked in equal measure over his body and clothes. It was James. And he was dead.
Cleaning Up
In the moments after Kate had been released from the power of the device in her neck, The Queen had come online and taken over control of the Troopers. From that moment she was able to broadcast a steady stream of information and instructions directly to all Troopers, whichever Quadrant they were in.
She could see and hear everything that they could hear. It was a constant stream of one thousand consciousnesses, a disjointed jumble to anybody but The Queen and the Troopers, who’d been modified to receive this data.
The Queen herself had gained this position because she had powers beyond those of her warriors. She was telepathic, and it was her genetic ability that had been harnessed to create this terrible army: part-human, part-machine.
The Queen’s power was exerted too late to stop the Unification process which had been sanctioned by The Global Consortium.
It didn’t matter to the perpetrators of these crimes. They had only needed The Nexus, now they had a vast spaceship at their command, it would all be destroyed in the end anyway.
Thousands of miles below, in the three Quadrants that had been overcome by Troopers, bunker personnel were being rounded up and contained on the remaining upper levels. Those who resisted were killed, the others herded callously into cramped rooms. There they would perish, once the final bunker assault had been completed, but in the meantime they’d be held as hostages, useful currency to hasten the conclusion of this battle.
Troopers who’d been stationed in the lowest levels of the Quadrants were now in space and docked with The Nexus. They could move freely between each of The Nexus Quadrants, but there were only two ways on and off this ship since the fifth button had been activated by Nat.
Either it required docking from space, or there was one central Nexus Transporter – everything that came on or went off this hub went through a single portal.
Only the third Quadrant remained uncaptured on the ground. Once The Nexus was fully mobilized, the final assault would begin.
The Nexus had been conceived as an ark, a refuge for humanity to start all over again if the terraforming had failed. Now it would represent the last remnants of a dead society; this ark would come crashing down onto the surface of the planet that had created it, destroyed by a human whose hatred for his species knew no limits.
It was only a matter of time now. The Shards had begun to change the Earth’s biosphere, and that process would soon become unstoppable. The last tatters of the human race would be defenceless against it.
Very soon, this planet would take its last breaths, the sleeping life forms on the surface below would perish. But who would be left to hear Earth’s final screams?
The Devil’s Offer
I’m aware of a sharp pain in my head as I come round – it’s not unlike waking up in the morning. I’m disorientated for a few moments, then I piece things together. I’m on the floor, in a Control Room similar to those in the Quadrants that I’ve seen.
I look around and see Nat on the floor next to me. There is blood too, but it’s not hers. I look to the other side of me, and there, motionless and bruised on the floor, is Doctor Pierce.
I’m battling through this sore head now, and Nat has begun to wake. She barely has her eyes open when she leaps up and runs with terrible force at somebody who is standing across the room.
She rushes at him like she doesn’t care about the outcome, and she badly scratches his face, drawing blood, before a Trooper pulls her off and throws her violently back to the floor.
I look at her target. It’s Doctor Pierce. Well, it’s somebody who looks like Doctor Pierce. A clone perhaps? A twin more likely. They are the same, yet not the same. Identical twins, but one has a kinder face.
This is the man who is lying unconscious at my side. I recognize that tie of his, it makes it easier to tell them apart. It’s doing that weird thing again, where it seems to reflect different colours.
The man I’m looking at now has hate in his eyes, he looks wild and mad. There is somebody else here as well, besides the Troopers. I mistake him for human at first, but he’s not quite human. That’s confirmed when I clock his hands – he has loads of fingers, seven on each hand. Wow.
The mad-looking Doctor Pierce begins to speak.
Nat is dazed. A Trooper comes up and restrains her with his booted foot. She looks like she’s only taking a few moments out before she gets up for round two.
‘Welcome Dan … and Nat,’ he begins. ‘How nice it is to see you both together again.’
‘You scumbag!’ yells Nat. She struggles against the Trooper’s restraint and he hits her with his weapon. Blood trickles from her forehead and she is subdued now, though from what I’ve seen of Nat recently, she’s just waiting for her moment. I go to protect her, but another Trooper moves towards me menacingly.
The nasty looking Doctor Pierce carries on speaking, Nat has taken quite a gash out of his face.
‘Thank you very much for coming to me, it saved me a lot of time having to flush you both out.
‘However, I thought we’d be retrieving your dead bodies. The fact that you’re both alive is a very pleasant bonus.’
Okay, this is definitely not the Doctor Pierce that I knew at school. Sure, that guy was weird and difficult to talk to. But his evil twin has an even bigger attitude problem. This guy is hardcore nasty.
The Doctor Pierce who is lying at my side begins to stir, roused to consciousness by the commotion.
‘Dan ...’ he says looking at me, then, ‘and Nat too.’
The look on his face tells me all I need to know. This is not good.
‘Henry!’ he shouts at the other man. ‘You need to stop this now!’
‘Shut up Harold!’ replies the evil guy, and a Trooper raises his weapon as if about to strike the man at my side.
He’s cowed. They’ve done this to him already, like Nat. He knows that they will use violence if we give them the excuse.
‘Dan, you already know my brother Harold Pierce, Nat – meet the other Doctor Pierce, my useless twin.’
So they are twins, at least we have something in common. I suppose it’s a starting point, though I get the feeling we won’t be doing a lot of bonding.
‘I’m sure you’ve already figured out Nat why you were my guest in the lab for so long. I see from your Comms-Tabs that you’ve got nice little timers counting down to the end.
‘Just less than two hours remaining. I hope that you’re enjoying your final hours alive?’
Okay, this guy is really starting to annoy me now. I can see why Nat dislikes him so much, it seems like they know each other already.
‘Of course it was your sister who helped us to engineer all of this – without access to her DNA for the past three years, none of this would have been possible.
‘So thank you Nat, you’ve done me a massive service – but for Earth, I’m afraid it’s not so good.’
Nat struggles again. I can almost feel the hatred seeping from her, she can’t wait to hurt this man.
‘I want to give you the opportunity of life though my young friends,’ he continues, quite obviously enjoying the power that he wields here. His weird friend, the fingers guy, is just smiling, enjoying being a spectator in all of this.
‘Only my dear brother over there knows the truth about you two. I take it he hasn’t chosen to share it with you yet?’
I look at Doctor Pierce. He looks concerned – I sense that we’re nearing the truth now.
‘Did you know that you’re not even human?’ he asks. We’ve had a hint of this from Xiang, but this is getting interesting.
‘You know you are adopted of course, but did anybody ever tell you about your mother?’
Nat and I are hanging onto his every word. The Doctor Pierce at my side starts to speak.
‘You still don’t have to do th
is Henry, have some compassion for goodness’ sake ...’
On a nod from the other Doctor Pierce, Henry, a Trooper strikes his twin with his weapon and he collapses on the floor beside me. I’m shaken by the violence used to hit him. I’ve never seen aggression like this before – I’m really scared, but angry too.
‘Your mother was from another planet, the lovely planet of Zatheon, which you won’t know about, of course.’
I knew that we’d get our answers here and even if me and Nat don’t make it through the next few hours, at least we’ll finally know what this has been all about.
With the amount of unfamiliar tech I’ve seen in the past forty-eight hours, it makes sense that Henry Pierce has an alien friend.
‘The reason I’m so pleased that you’re alive is that it gives us a chance for a final deal, a little arrangement that will save your lives.
‘I told my friend Zadra Nurmeen here that you’d never take up my offer, but he’s the psychological expert, and he disagrees.
‘So here’s my offer Nat and Dan ...’
He’s enjoying this. He pauses for dramatic effect like he’s about to reveal the winner of a TV talent contest.
‘Your real mother is still alive; her name is Davran Saloor.
‘She’d dearly love to see you again – you were both torn away from her in the first place, she screamed for days when you were separated.’ He has our attention now. We look at each other, of course we want to hear more.
‘Here’s the deal,’ he continues, his eyes narrowing now.
‘You get to live and meet your real mother ...’
‘And we have to do what?’ Nat almost spits out at him.
‘In return, you have to help me to kill her planet.’
Part Two: The Captive
Chapter One
Vengeance