by Devon C Ford
“No. No, there’s nothing else there.” He turned and walked away before he could be questioned further. Hendricks watched his receding back, now fully convinced he was hiding something, and stood thinking. Knowing the man as he did, he liked to think he wasn’t bad or evil otherwise he wouldn’t have spent the last ten years or so of his life on Earth spending billions not only to save himself, but humanity. Deciding to stay quiet and keep his suspicions to himself, but still for his own peace of mind to keep an eye on him, Hendricks turned and got on with his work of keeping their community safe.
~
The work to construct the ditch and fill it with logs and branches that had been stacked for future building work used most of the available man and woman power. Nervous glances toward the trees and the shadowy no man’s land under the canopy slowed work, but the reassurance of the automated defense turrets articulating left and right in a constant search pattern served as a reassurance, as did the four members of Sierra team standing guard, alert with their weapons ready.
“Did you do this thing, Annie?” Weber muttered quietly, keeping his mouth close to the mic so he didn’t transmit to anyone else.
“The movement of the auto-cannons?” she answered immediately through his earpiece, as though they were involved in a conversation and the fact that she eavesdropped on everyone wasn’t at all weird. “Yes, I believed it might increase productivity if workers felt more protected and didn’t waste time looking for threats.”
“I like this, it is good thinking,” Weber said in a low voice, smiling at the nearest woman who looked up at him thinking he was speaking to her. He put his hand on his radio as though he was using it and she could just hear the one side of the conversation. She smiled up at him and went back to digging.
There was a brief pause when everyone gathered at the edge of the cleared area to bury the body of the man who had been killed by the bug in the medical tent. Amir presided over the ceremony, giving a short talk on the man’s life, no doubt after a thorough personnel briefing from his enhanced file courtesy of Ms. Cole. He had been a farmer in the Midwest, single, and had volunteered without question when Amir had approached him. Dr. Warren was unsure why he had not emerged from cryo in good health and had been trying everything to revive him with little success. She feared he wasn’t going to make it and had already stated that if he unfortunately died, she would do a full autopsy to try and find out why.
The damage the bug’s sharp mandibles had caused to his body in the short time it had been feeding on him made that impossible; the man had been ravaged.
When the ceremony was over the gathered crowd, sobered by the reminder of their own mortality and tenuous grip on reality on this unexpected new Earth, continued with their allocated tasks.
Annie kept the drones circling overhead in wide, lazy arcs, rotating them as necessary to keep battery levels at a premium, watching out for anyone approaching the compound. The Sierra team members were either on the walls or walking the perimeter around the workers, guarding them all.
The three engineers reported back to Amir and Hendricks within a few hours. They were confident they could link up the compressors and adapt the pipework to create a ring of air jets around the compound. They asked if Anderson could help them as Annie had requested for him. She had worked with them during the planning phase, one of the curiosities of her ability to be in many places at once in effect. She said she could control the thrusters on the pods as she had been programmed to remotely launch, dock and land the pods back on Earth without any human interference and she wanted Anderson to help her run the diagnostic tests on the system.
“Feel free to invite Doctor Anderson to the meeting, if he’s available,” Amir said.
“I just have,” she replied, “I anticipate that he will arrive in fifty seconds. He was working on the ditch and has just started walking toward the gate.”
Anderson was exhausted and sweating from the heavy lifting work his deskbound body was unused to, but he was working beside Cat who seemed to be showing no signs of tiredness at all. The sun was still high in the sky indicating there was still a lot of daylight left and therefore hard labor, before night would draw them back behind the protection of the walls. Every time she bent down or stretched, he could not help himself and his eyes were drawn to the parts of her body that seemed to leap out at him through the T-shirt or the trousers she was wearing.
“David,” Annie bleeped in his ear, “I need your help with something, can you return to the compound and come to my pod please?”
Anderson stood and stretched his aching back as he replied. “You need my help, Annie?” He was suddenly concerned. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m operating well within acceptable parameters, thank you for your concern. I need your help to run a diagnostic analysis on what the engineers are doing on the air jet system. If you could alter some lines of programming it will leave my memory available for other tasks, that’s all.”
“Oh. Okay. You’re too lazy to do the menial work, so you thought you’d get little old me to do it for you?”
Annie sounded shocked and a little bit hurt when she responded. “No, David, that is not the case. I calculated that asking you to do it would be the most efficient way to complete the task.”
“Relax, Annie,” Anderson chuckled. “I’m messing with you. Add this conversation to your humor subroutines and run pattern analysis,” he told her.
She bleeped softly once in his ear before a pause and response. “Still telling me what to think, David?”
“I’m going to hope that one came from the same subroutine,” he said, “otherwise you’re turning into a moody teen faster than I anticipated. I’ll be right there, just give me a few minutes, will ya?”
Annie lowered her voice to a whisper. “David, I have been monitoring your vital signs. With your elevated temperature and heart rate you may be at risk of spells of nausea or even fainting. I wouldn’t want you to do that in front of your girlfriend.”
Anderson blurted out, “She’s not my girlfr—” but stopped only as he realized he was talking out loud and Cat was standing looking at him. His face turned a deeper shade of red and he tried to look anywhere but at Cat.
She smiled at his obvious embarrassment. “Who are you talking to?”
Trying to recover he replied, “Annie, I was talking to Annie. She needs my help on something and wants me back in the compound.”
Cat walked up to him and put her arms around him. “Am I not your girlfriend then?” She pouted, raising her eyebrows as she looked up at him. “I just thought you may want me to be, that’s all.”
Once again, he didn’t know what to do or what to say as he went an even brighter shade of red and cringed inwardly, but more embarrassingly for him, outwardly. Cat laughed kindly and whispered in his ear, “I think you have a lot to learn about the opposite sex. Why don’t we try and get some time together alone later so I can start teaching you?” She kissed him gently on the lips before turning and carrying on stacking logs in the ditch.
He stood staring at her for a few seconds before gathering the thoughts that were now threatening to overload his brain at what she meant by that. With a slight dazed stagger in his step he walked into the compound accompanied all the way by Annie chuckling in his ear.
Before dusk fell the ditch was completed, and the exhausted community members tiredly entered the compound and gratefully gathered in the canteen, hungrily eating the food that had been prepared for them.
Fertilizer, as the most flammable substance they had in plentiful supply, had been scattered over the wood stacked in the ditch and flares were issued to all of Sierra team so if The Swarm returned, they could drop the small incendiaries into the ditch and ignite the carefully stacked wood, dried grass and twigs to create their ring of fire.
One of the unknowns a thousand years ago had been what the quality of the soil would be like upon their return to Earth, and sufficient fertilizer was included in the stores to treat a
large enough area to feed the group. The theory flowing from there that cultivating the land would make it more fertile.
Soil samples they had taken since arrival proved that the soil, untouched by humanity for a thousand years, was rich in nutrients and more than suitable for growing crops so the use of the fertilizer was no great gamble.
As dusk turned to night the compound was on edge as many worried that The Swarm would return as Tanaka had promised. Some among them, mostly the combat trained, hoped it would, as it would confirm the theories they had come up with about how they were controlled.
For safety, all non-essential personnel were told to seal themselves up in their pods where they would be safe in case another breech occurred.
The central fort hastily constructed the night before was improved and reinforced; if The swarm came, and the fires didn’t hold them back the plan was to revert to Annie controlling the gun turrets while all Sierra team members would retreat to the fort and deal with any breeches that might occur.
Night fell, and they waited.
Chapter 10
Keep the Home Fires Burning
The Springs, a few hours earlier
Tanaka was apoplectic with rage. He had tried to get one of his concubines to improve his mood, but all it had led to was him beating her into unconsciousness when no matter how hard she tried he was unable to perform. He blamed her, telling her that she was too ugly and casting her out with orders that she be sent to work doing something menial and degrading.
“Pigs,” he crowed as she was dragged away by her hair, “let her work with the pigs.” He thought he heard her snarl that she already was and demanded of the guard to know what she had said, but he was related to her and knowing Tanaka’s anger was not her fault, decided to protect her, swearing that he didn’t hear her say anything.
In reality he knew it wasn’t the girl. As far as concubines went, she was stunning even in the company of the most attractive women of the Springs. He blamed the stress and the physical exertion of the journey on foot, allowing himself to bask in that falsehood to appease his own narcissism.
He knew his people were talking about him. About how the newcomers had defied him, embarrassed him, forced him to retreat.
About how they had guns.
The stories about the power of their weapons were already being exaggerated far beyond what had actually happened, and he had heard through the window of his room a conversation between two sentries discussing how they had seen beams of light and flames one hundred paces long destroying forests and vaporizing their fellow warriors.
Tanaka needed to do something, needed to soothe his injured pride with action no matter how impotent, and the only thing he could do was to try and direct The Swarm toward them again. That in itself worried him, as even though he followed the memorized instructions precisely, more often than not it was unsuccessful. The jubilation he had felt when he had successfully done it the night before boosted with the knowledge that the people with him had seen it too, had disappeared into doubt and apprehension.
But he had threatened it. His people had heard him too; he had to do something. He pushed the unconscious young girl from his bed. She was a poor replacement for the first girl and one he had grown bored of quickly. When he again couldn’t perform, to save him drawing attention of the fact to others, he chose to prove his manliness by beating her into unconsciousness instead.
Rising from his bed he gave the unfortunate girl who was now sprawled on the floor of his chamber, blood dripping from the wounds his fists had caused, a spiteful kick as he walked naked across his bedchamber to throw on some robes before reaching for his jacket that was carefully draped around a carved wooden mannequin. Pushing the curtain aside he opened the door to his secret room.
It took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the gloom, the only light coming from a small, heavily barred window high in the walls. He knew from the legends passed to him that the room must be kept dark to preserve what it contained but had no understanding of why it was necessary.
Gently caressing the steel desk that was now battered with age and pitted with rust, he sat in the chair staring solemnly at the holder of the device, a stainless steel reinforced briefcase.
Eventually, he roused himself and gently, ever so gently, opened the lid to reveal what it contained. He breathed a sigh of relief; the lights that sometimes never came on at all were flashing stronger than he had ever seen. It was a good omen and he hoped it meant the machine would do his bidding and direct The Swarm.
Had he any technical knowledge, he would have known that the power source, so long underused and operating at the lowest level to maintain itself, was slowly coming back online. His ignorance blinded him to the fact that the lights had been flashing stronger ever since Harrison had entered The Source. He had no way of knowing that the interaction had unwittingly sparked a series of preprogrammed events that would slowly bring the compact nuclear reactor back to full operating capacity from its mostly dormant state.
Holding the transmitter, which he knew only as the Beacon, that he had removed from his jacket pocket, he carefully inserted it into the port on the device. He didn’t need to get the coordinates from the map, curled and yellowed with age and spotted with mold that he kept hidden behind a curtain on the wall; he had them memorized from the previous night.
Carefully, with a single finger locked straight to hit the keys and his tongue protruding from one side of his mouth, he tapped in the numbers onto the keypad. The numbers, once printed on the keys, had long since worn away, but he knew from the carefully memorized instructions which one to press for which number he wanted to input. The screen on the device flickered, and for a brief moment showed a cross on a map before it went fuzzy and blurred.
Pressing another series of buttons his finger hovered over the largest on the keypad which he knew he had to press to issue the command. He closed his eyes as if in prayer and paused for a few seconds before opening them and gently pressed the final button of the sequence. He smiled as it emitted a barely audible crackly bleep.
The signal had been sent successfully.
~
Two hours after darkness fell, Hendricks was on the walls scanning through his night vision goggles for any movement. For the twentieth time he asked Annie, “Anything at all?”
Annie beeped in his ear. “Jimmy, as soon as I detect anyth—movement north east of us! Same pattern as before. It can only be The Swarm.”
“Direction?”
“Wait one, just confirming now…Yes, they are heading straight for us.”
Hendricks shouted into his radio, “They’re coming, drop the flares! Light the whole place up!” He pulled a flare from his own pocket, removed the safety cap and ignited it in one strike. As soon as it was burning fully, he dropped it over the side of the pod onto the ring of timber below him. Looking around he could see others doing the same.
He pulled another flare from his pocket and prepared it, just in case his first one didn’t ignite the highly combustible fertilizer he had been assured would burn easily and ignite the logs and branches. He looked over the side, willing the fire to spread. “Annie, how far away are they?”
“Eight hundred yards and closing rapidly, they should be here in about a minute if they keep their current speed and vector.”
He watched the flare as it spluttered below him, its long plume of colored smoke drifting away in the wind. Through his earpiece he could hear the frustration of everyone else vocalized in long strings of swear words as they too willed the fire to take hold.
“Five hundred yards,” Annie spoke urgently in his ear, “bringing the automated gun system online.” All around the wall the motors on the emplaced guns whirred, and they started articulating, looking for targets.
He struck the ignitor across the third flare in his hand and held it out before him, waiting for it to burn evenly before dropping it. Just as he was about to open his hand, a loud whoosh sounded from below and the small shockwave ru
shed up to him as the fertilizer finally caught fire. With a chain reaction the eye could follow, flames spread out in both directions. Heat from the flames washed up the walls forcing him back a pace and he hinged the night vision goggles that were attached to his helmet away from his eyes to prevent the highly magnified light giving him goggle-blindness.
Hendricks sighed with relief and drew back the hand holding the burning flare to whip it forward using his entire body, sending it arcing out into the night to tumble end over fiery end. Above the rising crackle of the flames The Swarm could now be heard approaching—their clattering, chattering, screeching shriek that dragged metaphorical nails down the chalkboard inside his spine—as the flare finally bumped back to Earth to bounce off the hard shell of one massive bug heading straight for him.
Annie kept up the commentary on the reducing distance until Hendricks could see with his own eyes the ring of darkness ahead of him beginning to change shape. The mass of blackness seemed to flow like a stream around a rock as it morphed into one solid wave that continued heading straight toward them. It bulged and altered shape as the bugs climbed over one another in their eagerness to taste fresh meat.
The front rank of The Swarm reached the ring of fire and stopped dead as their primitive brains registered the danger that the heat and the bright flickering light contained, until forced into the flames by the pressure of the ones behind. The noise as they burned reverberated around the walls like the wailing sounds of tortured souls.
Confirming the flames had spread to encircle them completely by checking in with Stevens and Jones on the opposite side, he relaxed slightly and studied the teeming mass of dark bodies lit by the flames. The plan seemed to be working, the bugs wouldn’t enter the flames and only succumbed to them when pushed by the masses behind still trying to reach the walls. They seemed agitated and, if he had to guess, unsure of what to do. Knowing that they weren’t facing a mindless army of robotic carnivorous giant bugs, but ones that seemed to be showing fear, made him feel remarkably better about their situation.