It happened quickly. Just as Carter’s centre of gravity finally moved beyond the edge of his his feet, he lost his balance and stumbled forward.
“Carter!” Michelle yelled in frustration, but her warning was far too late.
Carter’s sudden loss of equilibrium – or perhaps it was Michelle’s voice – seemed to startle him awake halfway to the floor and as he flailed his arms to catch his fall, he snagged a wrench that was attached to a large bolt on the contraption’s side. The wrench squealed as it turned under his weight and the loosened bolt released some kind of oil that had been held under pressure, spraying it over Garen’s stormsuit before he could get out of the way.
Carter continued falling, striking his head on the side of the contraption before slumping unconscious to the floor, and Garen quickly looked at Michelle to see if she’d noticed him.
She was staring straight up at him with wide eyes.
“Not good,” he thought as he leapt down to prevent her from setting off any alarms.
But before he could stop her, Michelle’s flailing hand slapped a large red button beside the activation panel and the elevator lurched to a halt.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Garen said calmly, before hitting her in the stomach.
As Michelle bent over in pain, Garen snaked an arm around her neck and twisted savagely upward, breaking her neck in an instant. Then he let her limp body fall to the elevator floor beside the fool who’d exposed him and glanced at the elevator’s glowing counter.
Luckily for him, they were only one floor beneath the one he was trying to get to and so he left the employees where they lay and quickly leapt up to scramble through the ceiling’s access panel.
Once inside the elevator shaft, it didn’t take Garen long to climb the access ladder and force the doors on the level above. This caused another deafening alarm to go off and Garen had no doubt this one was meant to incapacitate him while the nearest security team could reach his location.
“No point trying to stay hidden now,” he thought quickly.
There were several more employees on this level and they gaped at the indistinct, oil-splashed form that ran by them, but none of them moved to stop him. Whether it was surprise, or cowardice, Garen didn’t care. He just needed to finish his mission before Golgotha Security caught up with him.
When he finally reached the scroober’s communication hub, Garen stopped in front of the large, heavily locked entrance and pulled a small tube of foam explosive from the pocket at his waist. He then used it to draw a quick oval on the door, placed a small detonator at the top, and took several steps to the side.
The sizzling SHOOMP it produced blasted him with a powerful shockwave, but Garen ignored the sudden slap of pain and quickly stepped forward to kick the oval of metal he’d just cut out of the door.
The room beyond was small and smelt strongly of disinfectant. There were a dozen motionless bodies lying on benches, six along each wall, and every one of them was fitted with life support systems that seemed to service both ends of the digestive cycle. Their eyes were also covered with large, black visors and their hairless heads bristled with wires that streamed down into a much thicker set of cables that disappeared into the walls.
“Which one of you is worthy?” Garen thought, staring around the chamber dispassionately.
But he knew there was no time to make such a serious judgement and so he simply strode toward the nearest body.
As he approached, he took two small vials out of the pocket at his waist and held them up for inspection. One contained the highly illegal drug Lyquis – the sacred means by which he communicated with Kari – and the other contained a solution of the suspended nano-tech that he’d stolen from a Coalition drop ship.
Lowering the vials again, Garen leapt onto the nearest scroober’s bench and squatted over the man’s chest.
He knew the added weight wouldn’t be noticed. All the scroober’s conscious attention would be on the scanners and cameras that covered his allocated surveillance areas.
Reaching down, Garen gently thumbed the man’s lower lip down and poured the Lyquis through the small gap between the man’s feeding tube and his teeth. He then waited as the drug made its way to the scroober’s brain and wondered what it would make him see and whether the effect would be noticeable at the Golgotha’s central security hub.
As he calmly pondered the question, the sound of heavy boot steps echoed through the hole he’d just cut in the door and Garen knew his time was about to run out.
Kari had assured him that his own safety was paramount, but Garen knew he had to finish the mission at all costs. And so, despite being aware he was leaving himself open to attack, he ignored the boot steps and patiently lifted the dark visor that covered the scroober’s eyes.
Multi-coloured lights spilled out from beneath the visor and Garen leaned forward to check if the man’s pupils were dilated – a sign that the Lyquis was working.
“Not yet,” he thought, bringing the second vial close to the scroober’s eye.
This was the part of the plan he had to take on faith. From the research he’d done with Kari and Onzo, he assumed the complicated nano-particles would be absorbed along the scroober’s optical pathways and migrate into his brain, where they could fulfil their purpose and begin transforming the cellular material.
Garen had no idea what this would do to the scroober, but Kari was confident it would create an energy conduit that he could use to enter the Golgotha’s communication system.
Kari was essentially made of energy – albeit one that could only be detected through the use of Lyquis – and so he could easily endure such a process. Then, once he was inside, he would be free to study the Golgotha and find a way to send the entire energy sump into the crushing depths of Jupiter’s lower atmosphere.
“I know you can hear me, Kari,” Garen said as he waited for the scroober’s pupils to dilate. “I don’t need Lyquis to know you’re here with me now. I just want you to know that I’m ready for whatever will come. Do whatever you have to do.”
Then the boot steps finally reached him, just as the scroober’s pupils grew larger.
Suddenly Garen had a split-second decision to make. He could either defend himself and possibly lose his chance to complete the mission, or he could finish this here and now, and leave himself at the mercy of the Security team charging into the room behind him.
It was no contest. Ignoring the Security officers completely, Garen calmly tipped the vial up and poured its contents directly into the scroober’s eye.
For a moment, he thought he saw a gleam of blue light as the solution was absorbed through the cornea’s membrane, then he heard a sharp BLAM and something slammed into his back. The force of the blow smashed him off the bench and he instinctively tried to turn in the air so he could catch himself before he hit the far wall, but another violent BLAM split the air and the associated blow slammed into his shoulder, hammering him into the wall with enough force to send bright sparks across his vision.
The Security team was firing on him without mercy and if it weren’t for his stormsuit, Garen knew he would already be dead. He instinctively tried to get to his feet and turn to face his attackers, but some kind of net smacked into him and he was suddenly pinned against the wall. He strained against the tough fibres with all his strength and managed to tear several anchoring bolts from the wall, but another shot slammed into him, then another, and another.
Garen’s carefully honed physical awareness made him acutely aware of the damage being done to his body and so he knew he wouldn’t escape this time. He knew this was the end.
He was well aware of his status as the most wanted man in the solar system and that his capture could only mean death. But he had faith that Kari had made it into the Golgotha’s communication systems and knew his life would be worth the destruction of an entire energy sump.
Such a triumph would save countless heavangel lives and avenge the many thousand it had already taken.
“Goodbye Kari,” he thought in resignation, waiting for the end.
But the firing suddenly stopped and as Garen lay still, breathing shallowly to avoid the pain that came with each inhalation, he wasn’t sure why.
“I can’t believe it,” a creaking voice spoke from above him. “Garen Maertikye, finally brought to justice.”
Garen turned to meet his attacker’s gaze, but all he saw was the business end of a pitgun barrel. Then a final BLAM assaulted his ears and everything went white.
For a moment, he seemed to float within the light, oblivious to everything else, then an impenetrable darkness flowed in around him and the fading light took all sensation, thought, and awareness along with it.
A note from the author.
Thank you for reading! This is the third and final short story leading up to the novel ‘Jupiter – Illusions of Faith’.
If you’d like to find out what happens to Garen, whether his plan to install the heavangel Kari into the Golgotha’s communications system succeeded, and if they manage to finally destroy one of the Coalition’s energy sumps, then you can buy the ebook version of ‘Jupiter - Illusions of Faith’ here or on my website at www.kynanwaterford.com.au.
You can also like my facebook page at www.facebook.com/KynanWaterfordAuthor or tweet me @KynanWaterford.
Special thanks to Ivan Nastić who created the amazing artwork for this series of short stories. I’ve tried not to visualise too much of the world of ‘Jupiter – Illusions of Faith’ for my readers, as I believe your imagination is a far more powerful artist than I could ever hope to provide, but I’m a lover of concept art – particularly in the realm of science fiction and fantasy – and I particularly love what Ivan has created. If you’d like to contact Ivan or see more of his work, you can visit his website at www.ivan-nastic.daportfolio.com/
Wishing you and your imagination all the best,
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