Kraken Orbital

by James J. Stubbs

  Chapter 6

  The Morris-Cooper Mining Company

  I awake, the same way I do every miserable day, to a high pitched blaring alarm. At least I’m not alone. All of the other miners in my sector are up and ready too. They, like me, resist the urge to turn over and get a little more sleep.

  There are days I would literally kill for just another five minutes. I know better than that though. I did it once and got a swift slap round my face from one of the brutish guards as penance for the crime of wanting just a few more seconds of shut-eye.

  I crawl out of my top bunk, the highest of three, and jump to the cold floor. The impact shudders through my flat, bare feet and hurts a little but I’m used to it. I stretch but only briefly. Those thin cots are no way near big enough for a guy of my size to get a comfortable night’s sleep.

  The walls of the facility are grey and uninspiring, cramped and claustrophobic, and aren’t exactly designed to make us comfortable. I file in line with my fellow downtrodden miners and wait for my turn to be served my daily intake of orphan grade gruel.

  There are a hundred of us working in slave like conditions in this sector. There is no telling us apart, other than the tone of our skin, for we all wear the same bland grey vests and black trousers. The company don’t provide us or even allow us to provide our own nightwear. We just get these itchy wool based garments that serve as multi functional clothes. Night clothes first and underwear later when we stick our mining suits on all thrown into one nice unattractive and itchy package.

  Some of these guys are close to tears every single morning. They’re the newest of us. We’ve all been there. We all came here at some point or another with dollar signs glistening in our eyes. With thoughts of new worlds, different frontiers, and life experiences bubbling through our young and naïve minds.

  The first to arrive are the most distressed. They realize the truth behind the propaganda and it hits them like the slab metal of a sledge hammer. The rest of us have our hearts hardened to it by now.

  Nobody says anything as we walk, single file, smelly and miserable, down the thin and grey concrete covered corridor to the cafeteria. There is barely enough room for a gentle sway of the shoulders in here. The cafeteria is no better. It’s serviced by more hopeless wrecks like ourselves.

  There’s never any chance of service with a smile. I take a thin wooden tray that has compartments carved into it from a pile in the corner of the narrow and boxy room. I’ve had this one five other days so far. I know because I etch a little mark into the corner every day with my breakfast knife. Some of them I’ve had like fifty or more times. It’s odd how we pass the time here and measure out our sentences.

  Some of the guys have notches scribbled in chalk above their pillows. I bet they wish they stood for all the women they managed to bed while they were here. I do.

  The room is housed in a deep underground facility which contains all living quarters and access to the mines too. I can’t remember the last time I saw the sun. That’s why they serve us this crap. It’s laced with vitamins and minerals, all cheap to produce, to stop us getting rickets or scurvy.

  The young woman behind the chest high counter slops some white, lumpy, slop onto my tray with a deep spoon and refills it for the next guy. I used to say thanks to her. Can’t be bothered anymore. I never even got so much as a smile back from her. And she’s not exactly pretty either.

  I take it, since there is no point in protesting, and go to sit on one of the white colored plastic tables set in the middle of the room. I don’t know what time it is. I don’t even know if it’s day or night. They keep us on a constant rotating shift so we never know how much sleep we have or anything like that. Alarms go off all the time as the next group rises or beds down.

  They might even artificially lengthen the day or maybe even shorten it so it feels like time is all wrong. I have no proof of that but I don’t put it past them. I kept track the best I could for about a month. Now I have literally no idea. I can barely remember how long it has been since I started “working” for them. I think it’s years. I remember when I started but I can’t mark time here so I guess it could be longer.

  We’re guarded the whole time. I wonder what they are. I never get to see their faces. They all wear red armor that is galvanized in a plastic shell and stand a good few inches above us. They might be bio-engineered slave drivers for all I know. They speak in different tones like men and women but they always wear mirrored masks that just cast my own reflection back at me every time I even dare to look at them.

  They always stand there, wherever we are, looking menacing and ominous. They must get fed a damn sight better than we do though. The guys are massive with huge bulking arms that are the same size as most peoples’ legs. The women are tall, curvy, maybe even sexy. I can’t tell anymore. They might be horrible looking but I have nothing else to go by as I endure my long sentence of employment. I’ve had a good few beatings in my time from them.

  ‘What are you thinking about Parker? Any good dreams?’ His booming voice greets me as soon as I sit down. He sleeps one bunk below me and we mine together sometimes. He is a massive, muscular framed, and energetic black man. Doug. His teeth miraculously remain dazzlingly white after our long service underground.

  He always asks me that. And it always really winds me up. I’m thinking the same thing that everyone else is thinking about. Taking a big axe and slamming it against some rocks for a few grueling hours. And I can’t remember the last time I had a good dream. I hit out at him over it.

  ‘Yeah.’ I say. ‘One really good one. I think your mother was in it.’ That’s out of character for me. His smile fades briefly but he soon erupts with glorious laughter. I wish more people were like him. It takes no time at all for one of the beating guards to come over and stomp on our brief exchange. They don’t even bother to ask us to be quiet. They slap me across the back of my head and do the same to my buddy.

  He erupts though. He has a temper on him. I’ve seen it get him in trouble so many times before. He jumps to his feet and ignores the fact the tray he is holding still has food on it and starts beating the guard over the head with it. He grunts with every hollow impact. I want to help him. I really do. But I daren’t. I hate myself for it. They have me broken, beat down and afraid. Just where they like us. I wish I could be more like Doug and just swing out for a lucky punch.

  The male guard endures a few beats and then punches out at my buddy. I’m frozen to my seat. I know what will happen to me if I try to help him out. That kind of insolence gets you thrown in isolation for sometimes months at a time. The female guard comes racing over and administers an electric shock to my friend with a concealed weapon.

  He hits the table, eyes still pinned wide open, and passes out immediately. The guards drag him off, spilling all of my food across the room as they do. I hate myself for not doing anything. I know what they’re doing is wrong and I hate the fact they have me too damn afraid to do anything about it. I quietly promise to no one but myself that one day things will change.

  Breakfast is over quickly. I lost all my appetite and ate nothing. We are filed out into the changing area which is down a few more pale and uninteresting corridors. I was gonna miss Doug on this shift. Him getting dragged away has put me on a dangerous downer.

  I pull my black suit on in silence in front of a towering blue locker as some of my team mates start to wake up and enjoy a few bantering jokes. I’m happy they have their spirits up. I honestly am. But mine is rock bottom and theirs will be soon too. Damn newbies. I don’t feel like getting involved. I still feel deeply ashamed.

  The suit is tight and unforgiving to the male extremities. It has basic padding but it does nothing for you if you get a rock falling on it or anything like that. I’ve seen guy’s arms snap clean off before. It is patterned like a human muscular frame with protruding silver colored pads that emulate a six-pack figure and a good general muscle structure. I remember seeing the pictures of them and thinking, stup
idly, that if I signed up I would end up looking awesome like that.

  None of us have good frames. They feed us too much crap and we get no time to recover to build any muscle. I pull my mask on. It’s like a motorcycle helmet. It has interior lights that illuminate my face and allow me to see a few paces in front of me. It’s dark and claustrophobic to wear though. It intensifies my breathing and exaggerates the sound of my pulse through the sides of my neck. It freaked me out at first but now I just think they’re stupidly uncomfortable.

  As soon as we are changed the shift leader, a short, bald, highly aggressive and insufferable son of a bitch, comes to take us to the mine. I hate that guy so much. He talks like he owns the place. Like he knows everything there is to know. He thinks he has all his life figured out and that life comes easy to him.

  He gets a kick out of how beaten down and depressed we all look at the end of our long slog. He likes to wind us up and take the piss out of us all day long, like he could do any better at this hard as nails, rubbish job than we can. He thinks he’s God’s gift to the job.

  At the end of the day the dumb ass is still stuck down here with us, staring at the same rock for months on end, watching and laughing at us as we try to break it apart. That epitomizes what I hate the most about this job. They caught us, all of us, with promises of promotion and creating a better life. If this is the kind of guy I would have to turn into to “make it” to the next level in the company, then they can keep it.

  He leads us through a large air locked door, that is locked with a spinning mechanism in the middle of two splitting parts, and down the dry black rocks to the same face of brick we’ve been hammering at for months on end. We were supposed to be mining a crag in the planet for some damn mineral I’ve never even heard of.

  I stay pretty much silent for my whole shift. You would think that in this day and age we would mine using expensive equipment but that’s not true. I think it’s more economical to slave drive us into the ground with sharpened pick axes. And then just replace us when we burn out and die. Humans are cheap. Machines aren’t.

  I swing my axe at the rock face, deep down in a dark tunnel completely void of natural light, relentlessly at the unforgiving wall. I swing hard each time but I can’t get the picture of my buddy getting dragged away from the back of my eyes. I hate this place. I hate getting talked down to the way that I do. I hate how the security forces lord it over us and how we never get any time to get off-world and enjoy some downtime. I hate that I never see my family any more, barely even get the chance to call them up.

  There is no light down here. Just the silly, virtually useless head torches they have built into our crash helmets.

  I think about quitting. I think about it all of the time. I don’t even know how to do it though. I don’t even know how to go about handing a notice in. I never see a “higher up” to even talk to them. Not that I would dare.

  I know my energy isn’t up to scratch. I think about how I used to be. I think about how I used to try to impress my boss on my first few shifts with him and I would slam at the rock as hard as I could over and over again until some small speck broke off.

  I remember how he used to praise me and say I would do well and that I would go far. How naïve was I? That disappeared after a few months and then the beating started.

  The guys in the sleeping quarters used to hate me. They hated how enthusiastic I was and how I made them look bad. They never did anything about it. I would forgive them now if they just beat the living daylights out of me every single night. But they didn’t. And they didn’t because they knew what would happen. They knew the company, and its true colors, would soon shine through and that I would turn into the same bitter and destroyed sort of wreck that they are.

  I know I’m not like that anymore. I know my boss detects that I’m on my way down and he is on my case every single day. Life shouldn’t be like this. Slaving away for some company, never seeing your family, never being able to get out and meet new people. Maybe even a girl. While I might still be young. I can’t even remember if I am or not. I don’t feel it. I feel old.

  I swing my axe with mere muscle memory. There’s no thought behind it. There is no power behind it. There is no intent with any swing. The dull edge of the blade just chinks at the stone all day long. I assume, of course, that it is even day time. There truly is no way to tell. Some of the guys to my side have a few boulders, fist sized fragments of the rock face, lain on the floor beside them. I have nothing to show for the shift. I know I’m in for it. I can’t bring myself to care though.

  ‘Parker?’ There goes his aggressive, grating little voice. He looks up at me from his stunted frame and immediately invades my personal space.

  ‘What?’ I’m immediately shallow with him. I’m hostile and he hates it. It might dig my grave for me but I’m not backing down to this guy today.

  I don’t know if he can sense my deflated tone or, even if he does, if he will care or not. I doubt he has any emotion beating through his shallow heart.

  ‘Why haven’t you got anything from today?’ He emphasizes the word “why” with such a condescending tone. It gets right under my skin.

  ‘I guess the rock is too hard right there.’ I point at it. He thinks I’m being sarcastic. I am, but not intentionally, I just want this over with as soon as possible. He hardens his stance and flares at the nostrils. I can see the shadow below his nose stretch, illuminated by the weak lights in his helmet.

  ‘If you can’t do this job then I’ll just find someone else who can!’ He barks at me as he points an accusatory finger right at my chest. I can feel the primal rage build up inside of me. Just like I feel it every time he starts. But there is something different about today. Today, I can’t stop it, and I don’t want to either.

  ‘Then how do you pay to feed your family, I bet your fat mother eats ten tons a day!’ He barks again. And there it is. I snap. Like I’ve wanted to for so long. The pent up anger raised inside of me finally releases and I’m no longer in control. I submit entirely to the beast within.

  I lift up my axe and strike the sorry son of a bitch with the dull end of it. The force of the blow, the most powerful I’ve delivered all day, cracks right through his glass helmet face. I can see the fear in his face. I see his eyes widen and his chin wobble. And I love it. I’m the top dog all of a sudden!

  This sorry, small and pitiful man has made me, and my whole group, feel like less than crap for years and now I’m on top! I strike him again and he falls to the floor. The glass shatters with the second blow and he gasps for oxygen in the shallow atmosphere of the cave. I want to kill him. The un-evolved ape inside of me wants to pulverized this small, pathetic, insect of a man into the dirt beneath my feet just because he dared to look at me wrong!

  If this was a dog eat dog world, like it should be, if we were back in the dark ages before the infection of civilization, like we should be, if this was survival of the fittest and the lesser man ended up on the menu? Then I’d have killed him and feasted on his blood for a week. Regrettably, the civilized man with a conscience, who knows that its wrong to kill for any reason, stops me in my tracks.

  I finally see again through my rage glazed eyes and look at my bewildered colleagues who are staring at me blankly in a welcome state of disbelief. I realize my teeth are gritted shut and I’m panting hard for breath to calm my surge of adrenaline. It suddenly occurs to me. Any one of these men could have sounded the alarm by now. More than that they could have stopped me themselves. But they haven’t.

  I make a run for it, carried by the empowering sense that I might just escape this persistent nightmare.

  I run like I’ve never ran before. My feet pound hard off the solid rocky surface of the cave and I make for the airlock. There are other miners still working. I have a chance at this. The news can’t have spread that fast if people are still working. I race through the mine as fast as I can. I lean into every turn so I can make it around the tight and twists rocky outcroppi
ngs.

  I knock three guys right off their feet as I round the last corner to the air lock. I would like to stop and ask them if they’re ok but I fight that urge and carry on. The door is locked. Obviously. I still have my axe and I’m not going to be defeated! I swing it hard into the locking mechanism in the centre of the door. It sparks but doesn’t budge. I hit it again with every inch of swing I can manage. Again with heart pulsing agony! Once more and it relents.

  The mechanism drops limply to the floor with a circular rotating motion, like a coin dropping only to remain unsettled. The door springs open. People are getting worried. I can see them over my shoulder, they huddle into the wall struck with fear, but I don’t care!

  The door to the airlock springs open and I enter it. I jam the axe into the next door and hit it over and over until it drops too. I swing my axe as hard as I can into the ventilation chamber above until it stops working too. I did that out of malice and I really enjoyed it.

  I’m back in the changing area. The next crew are getting ready for their shift, they are glued to the benches in fear too. I enter the room like a snarling, pulsating, enraged dragon wielding my axe tightly about my clenched fists. Every time I breath out I unintentionally snarl or growl.

  They do nothing, so I bolt it past them and make for the next corridor that I don’t recognize. If I’m going to make it out then I need to go to places that I don’t know off the top of my head. The only other direction would lead me back to my bed chamber, where I could most usefully, pull the covers over my head and hide until I got found and likely shot.

  I bolted through a red colored door that thankfully wasn’t locked. The light was the first thing that hit me. The powerful yet gentle sun high in the sky instantly blinded me but did nothing to sooth my enraged temper. The door led out to a raised, mesh patterned, metal walkway.

  It ran off in several directions like a spider web connecting a million different stairwells and other facilities. The steel frames clung against the rocky fissures and crags. Two guards spotted me right away. Both guys, massive, with huge muscles and decked out in red, combat bruised, armor came bearing down on me from over the walkway.

  I don’t know where to go. My fight or flight reaction was stuck on the former. I bolted right to them. I hit the first guy so hard with a dipped shoulder that he stumbled right away and fell, with a shattering scream, to the rocky surface below. I heard his body hit the ground and snap.

  It should have filled me with dread. It should have filled me with anger at myself and it should have made me feel guilty and depressed. I’d taken a life. But it didn’t. I was glad and that scared me even more. The last guy stopped dead, afraid of me, and turned to run away. I threw my axe off the back of his head. It hit his helmet hard, cracked it through the middle, and the guy fell to the floor limp. The metal walkway creaked under the shock of his weight.

  I wanted his armor. He had a laser weapon on him too. The axe could go. I tossed it over the side without thinking twice. I threw off my mining uniform as fast as I could and started pulling the red armor off the lifeless body. I knew it wasn’t going to be a snug fit but it seemed to stretch or shrink around the wearer. Shrink in my case.

  No one had discovered me so I was safe to wander around so long as I got rid of this body. I lifted the guy slowly over the rail that guarded the sides of the walkway. He was heavy. I swung his torso over the rail then lifted his legs so that he was precariously balanced on the tiny edge of the metal. I shoved him to the floor below. I knew it would kill him. He opened his eyes as he slumped into the rock. His look of fear will always be etched onto the back of my eyes.

  I discarded the helmet. It was cracked so I couldn’t see anything out of it when I briefly tried it on. I could see a rig connected to the walkway that didn’t have a guard by the door. I needed to get far away. The structure was like an oil rig, used in the not too distant past, in oil rich areas back on Earth. There was a module welded on the base that would make it capably of space flight.

  It had hyper drive. A basic one I assumed as I studied it from the ledge and a deck to the side that would presumably be the cockpit. Pipe lines traced its every corner and I could make out the drill mechanism penetrating through the middle of the metal honeycomb structure.

  That was a good a chance as any. I broke out into a swift jog. My heavy boots crashed over the metal walkway and the impact vibrated and echoed throughout the rocky surroundings. I was still alone for now. I could see, in the distance, a few guards over on the other walkways to my left. They were far enough away to remain undisturbed. The sound must not be carrying that far and their vision, in the long distance, must be somewhat impaired by the shell of their helmets.

  I hit the door hard with my shoulder to brake it open. It wasn’t too strong and the weak lock gave way with just one barge. The metal lock fell to the concrete floor with a dull thud. I brushed my palm over the but of the laser weapon, and suddenly realized I had no idea how to use it. I couldn’t see or hear anyone in the next area.

  The next area served as entrance to the rig. It was honeycombed and I could see though it past the strong metal beams. It consisted of a long corridor that led to an open concrete stairway. It reminded me of a space shuttle entrance. I was always a dreamer. That’s why I came here. I always wanted to explore space. That kind of thing had fascinated me as a kid in my history lessons.

  I run again, all the way up to the stairs, and don’t even pause to check that the way was clear like I should have.

  ‘Hey!’ Damn it! There were four of them in the stair way that I hadn’t seen. They had me pinned from an elevated position and my adrenaline was starting to fall. My heart started beating harder and harder and I contemplated, although very briefly, giving up.

  I drew the laser gun and started pulling at the trigger. I should have been watching where I was pointing it. I wasn’t expecting it to go off at all. I thought there might have been a safety mechanism or something. The bolts of laser energy, red and dazzling, slammed against the concrete and fired dust and fragments of brick up into the air.

  I breathed in, by mistake, and inhaled a lot of particles. I couldn’t stop coughing. I could hear them laughing at me. Mocking me. I guess I deserved it.

  ‘Come on, kid, you had a good run!’ One of them jested and was met with applauding laughter and a few claps and high fives from his dumb ass buddies. I was, again, filled with rage.

  They added fuel to my burning fire and I was empowered some more to not back down. I don’t care if I die here like this. I’d rather die than go back. I raised my gun through the fog of dust and fired as many times as I could until the weapon stopped. It overheated, burned my hand right through my armored glove, and I dropped it like a rookie on the floor.

  The first body fell down the stairs, parting the wave of dust as it fell, and slumped at the base with smoldering holes in the man’s armor. I flared at the nostrils and my muscles felt unnaturally tense. I steadied my breath, relaxed my shoulders and felt my face go numb, not with regret or self hate. But anger and pride. I start walking up the stairs, passing three more burnt bodies as I climb and don’t stop to give them the time of day to even look at them.

  I follow the next areas, corridors and adjacent rooms containing supercomputers and navigational gear blindly on auto pilot. I feel invincible and above the law. I stuff my hand into my pocket when it starts throbbing from the pain of the burn. There is a security card in there. I take hold of it and a door to my right suddenly sparks into life.

  The circular locking mechanism spins into life and the door thunders open. It reveals a control room, maybe a bridge, I step in and the door closes.

  All at once the emotion hits me. I feel elated at first. I managed to tear off the shackles that bound me to this modern day form of slavery. I managed, all of a sudden, to show my boss just what I thought of him and beat him down just like he did to us day after day. But I’d killed. I didn’t know that was in me. I’d hoped it wasn’t. My chest tigh
tens and I feel an insurmountable wave of depression lift over me.

  I only notice my tears as they start rolling down my cheeks and splashing into little puddles across the matt black floor. I start to shake uncontrollably and I can feel all the solidity ebb away from me. The resolve I used to beat the life out of my boss, tear my way out of the mine, kill six guards on my way to the rig, suddenly but surely ebbs out of me. All the negativity, pain and self hate rushes through me and fills me with dread.

  I cry for what feels like hours, holding an open palm to my brushed beard, gritting my teeth over the side of my hand. I bite down hard so that the pain takes my mind away from what I just did. It isn’t enough. I punch myself hard on the side of the cheek to try and snap out of it. But I just fall to my knees. I start hitting my head, over and over again, off the side of the centre console until I can see nothing but dazzling white in the backs of my eyes.

  I stop just before I pass out and roll back, slumping to the cold floor, a broken and deflated man.

  I must have knocked something. Images and charts started filling the screen above my head. It was mounted above the centre console so high that I had not even seen it when I came in. The centre console allowed full vision through the windows ahead, but the pilot or captain would have to lift his head to see any data displayed upon the screen. The pictures showed a luscious world, filled with greenery, roaring rivers, interesting creatures and rolling hills.

  The charts that occupied the other half of the screen displayed densities of detected natural gas. The planet I was looking at was not too dissimilar from Earth long before the advent of the human race. It’s fossil fuels were rich. The Morris-Cooper Company must have been planning on flying this hybrid rig there and mining for the gas deposits.

  I decide in an instant what I’m going to do. I’ve made my choice, I made it when I first struck my boss with my axe, and there is no turning back from the things that I have done in the last half hour. I’m going to steal it. I’m going to fly the damn thing there and just take my chances. I’m blind to the numbing sensation of uncertainty. I just don’t care any more. I’ll fly this thing there and mine for the gas myself or something.

  I used to fly crop sprayers for my Dad. They were equipped with small jet fired engines, were unstable in flight, needed constant adjustments, and landed like catapulted cows. Those were more basic than this, this thing has flight intelligence, probably an auto pilot too, and I’m confident that I can get it going.

  I peer, through tear filled and glazed eyes, out of the window ahead. I can see a much larger group of guards heading my way from over the metal walkways that stretch in every direction.

  It has to be now. I reach for the console. There is a huge lever and a sequence of buttons. One is clearly marked “Start”. They might as well have just given me the key and flown it away for me. I hit the large circular, green and illuminated button and listen as the belting hyper drive rattles to life.

  The Morris-Cooper Company aren’t that well off. It must be a second hand death trap but it seems to fly alright. I must have initiated a launch sequence because the metal walkways immediately start tearing away to a burst of exploding bolts. I smile, irresistibly, as the guards are thrown from the swinging walkways and down to the rocky floor.

  The rapid, vertical, acceleration is dizzying. I feel like something is pushing down hard on the top of my skull as the rig begins to climb. A few warning lights begin to flash but I ignore them. I have no idea what they mean and I couldn’t care less.

  I’m riding on luck though and I know it. I hope this works. I scream and hold onto the console tight as I’m propelled into the upper atmosphere. The power of the engine suddenly lessens as I become weightless. I had forgotten, stupidly, all about the absence of gravity up in space. I keep tight hold of the centre console and pull hard to make myself float through the bridge to the pilots chair ahead.

  I enjoy the sensation of being in zero gravity and I wish I had time to savor it. I should know that the guards have no way to follow me but I’m riding the blinding adrenaline of an escape. I don’t want to just float about amicably in space. I want to set my course and get away.

  I pull myself down to the cold leather seat and tuck my feet under the dashboard to hold myself in place as I pull two thick straps over each of my shoulders and secure them into their anchor points at my sides. The warning light that was blaring before, accompanied with an incessant beep, stops as soon as the harness clunks into place.

  A screen in front of me flickers to life. My hands don’t know what to do. I had, rather stupidly, been expecting a steering wheel or joy stick or something. I got lucky again though. Because the course had already been lain in. I made one last check through the onboard systems to confirm that no one had been trapped on board. I cycled through a few basic screens and found one that stated, in bold red letters across a blue screen, no personnel on board.

  My stress level dropped a touch and I cycled through the screens using a little button to the left of the monitor, back to the original display that conveniently asked me in a pop up window if I would like to begin the course. I tapped it a few times to no avail. I took off my gloves and that worked. The screen was skin sensitive. I could hear, rather than feel, the engine flicker back into life.

  A split second later and the intense g-force began to build as the rig built up some inertia. I sighed and lay back once the course settled. Stars raced past my window in a dazzling flurry and spectacle. I let myself slip into their hypnotic trance, then finally closed my eyes to sleep. I hope when I wake I can start coming to terms with what I did.