by Isaac Hooke
Needless to say, Tane had no time to train with Julius. But his Mechanics skill was certainly getting a workout. He kept expecting that particular skill to go up, but it remained frustratingly at level one. That made some sense, he supposed. While he might be getting better at repairing the same machines over and over, he wasn’t quite learning how to repair a starship engine, for example.
The second night, Tane was working late repairing yet another broken subsystem, this one a ventilator. He was inside a bio dome containing a crop of corn. The dome was on the lower levels on the right side of the farm structure and had been buried in sand thanks to the recent tornado—the maintenance robots hadn’t gotten around to digging it out yet. As such it was relatively dark inside, lit only by the few light globes scattered throughout.
He was lying underneath the ventilator, fiddling with one of the regulators, when he heard a cracking sound.
He cocked his head, listening. “The hell?”
The sound stopped.
“Ralph, what was that?” Tane asked.
“A crack has formed in one of the panes composing the southern side of this dome,” a pleasant, disembodied female voice answered. That was Ralph, the computer system that ran the farm. The AI liked to transition between genders at least once a day, so that some days a male would answer, other days, a female.
“Can you pinpoint the crack and dispatch a repair drone?” Tane asked.
“All repair drones are currently occupied,” Ralph said. “I’ll ask your father for permission to repurpose some of them.”
Tane heard a distant crunch followed by the clatter of breaking glass.
“Ah crap.” Tane pulled himself out from under the ventilator.
“Dome breached,” Ralph intoned. “Warning, dome breached.”
“Tane, what’s going on down there?” Dad’s voice came over the comm.
“Corn Dome 22A has suffered a collapse somewhere apparently,” Tane said. “I’ll check it out.”
“No,” Dad said. “Get out of there. If the glass has been breached in one place, the entire dome is unstable. The whole thing could come crashing in on you at any time.”
“But the dome is rated to withstand far greater pressures than a few tons of sand,” Tane said.
“I know,” Dad said. “The tornado must have weakened the structure. Get out.”
Tane searched the dome above the rows of corn, and spotted sand pouring in through a breach in the ceiling on the far side. It was burying the corn crop underneath.
“I can see the breach,” Tane said. “We definitely got sand pouring in. Big time. The crop will be ruined.”
“I’m redirecting some of the maintenance drones as we speak,” Dad said. “Hopefully they can get it repaired before too much of the crop is ruined. I’m also sending digger robots to begin shoveling away the sand from the outside.”
“Maybe I can stop the flow of sand from in here,” Tane said.
“No, I already told you to get out.”
“Okay, okay.” Tane quickly shoved the equipment back into his tool chest.
But before he could leave, he heard an odd rustling behind him, as if something was moving quietly through the corn stalks…
3
Tane spun and ran his gaze across the closest edge of the corn field. The plants were genetically engineered to be tall, and reached almost to six meters. Nothing there. It was too early for the maintenance drones to have arrived. He glanced upward, and sure enough didn’t see any of them working on the distant breach. He focused on the field and tried the built-in digital zoom his chip offered: he increased the magnification by two times and pumped up the ISO so he could see better in the dim light. He still noticed nothing as he ran his gaze across the rows of evenly spaced stalks.
“Ralph, is there anything else in here with me?” Tane asked.
“I don’t believe so,” Ralph replied in that mellifluous voice. “My cameras are not detecting anything unusual. Well, excepting the sand pouring in.”
“What if something slid inside with the sand, using it as cover?” Tane asked.
“It’s possible,” Ralph said. “Though doubtful.”
“Did you hear that rustling sound a few seconds ago?” Tane asked.
“What rustling sound?” Ralph said.
“Never mind.” Tane said. “It must have been the sand pouring through the breach, and my brain just confused it for something else.”
“See what happens when you allow synthetics to cut open your head to install microchips?” Ralph said.
“That’s right,” Tane said. “Keep up the jokes at my expense.”
“I wasn’t joking,” the female-voiced AI said.
Tane chuckled.
Smart ass AIs.
He canceled the zoom and turned to go.
That was when he heard a series of strange clicks and pops coming from some distance behind him.
He spun around but the sound ceased. “Who’s there?”
The odd noise had seemed to come from the far side of the dome, near the ceiling breach.
There was definitely something else in here. A lost robot? Somehow he doubted it.
“Ralph, get me a bead on that sound,” Tane said. “Is it one of ours?”
But the computer system didn’t answer.
“Ralph?” Tane said.
Still nothing.
“Crap.” He tried the comm next. “Dad, Ralph seems to be offline. Can you confirm whether any of the robots have arrived yet?”
His dad didn’t answer either.
Tane was starting to get scared. He fished out a wrench from his tool kit and held it like a dagger.
Like a dagger. Yeah right.
“Greg, this isn’t funny!” Tane shouted. “Come out damn it!”
In any answer came only the continual hissing of the sand slipping through the breach.
While watching horror vids or virtual reality experiences, Tane was always the one shouting the loudest at the protagonist, exhorting him or her not to be so stupid as to go downstairs when the lights went out and strange sounds were coming from the basement.
Tane swore that if he ever found himself in a similar situation, he’d never be that stupid protagonist.
He definitely wasn’t going to check out the source of those noises.
The robots can do it. That’s what they’re for!
He stowed the wrench and ran to the exit hatch. He slid his palm over the open switch.
The door didn’t budge.
“What!” Tane said. “Of all times to fail.”
The light globes suddenly clicked off, plunging the dome into darkness.
“Oh crap,” Tane said. “Crap crap crap.”
He heard that spine tingling click-clack again. It came from a different direction inside the dome now. Had the source moved, or were there two of them?
He wasn’t going to wait to find out. Tane pumped up the ISO on his vision in a vain hope to see better; it was useless of course, given that at least some light was needed in order to see anything and it was pitch black in there.
He felt around, searching for the side panel. There. He slid a finger into the circular release latch and pulled it open.
The emergency lights abruptly kicked in, momentarily blinding him; he flicked the ISO back to auto, and the illumination levels gated back to something manageable.
He reached into the side panel and began pumping the manual open switch. The door began to slide sideways, tiny bit by tiny bit, opening a crack.
Behind him, he heard the sound of rustling foliage again. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw it then: the topmost sections of corn stalks swayed in turn as something made its way through the field, moving toward him. Quickly. The many intervening stalks screened the actual trespasser from view.
Crap crap crap!
Tane didn’t have much time. He pumped the door switch faster.
“Come on... come on.”
The trespasser was almost at the front of the c
orn field now. In seconds he, she, or it would emerged, and Tane would be in the line of fire. He glanced at the door. The crack had enlarged to about the size of his head. Wide enough to squeeze through sideways?
Hell with it.
Abandoning the tool chest, he dove at the door, swiveled his body to the side, and squeezed through crabwise. The fit was tight, but he made it.
In the narrow corridor outside the emergency lights were active, and they rotated, alternately bathing the passage in red and blue light. A klaxon screeched in the background. It was a sound Tane had heard before, but only during practice drills meant to simulate a scavenger attack.
Somehow, Tane didn’t think scavengers were the cause.
Tane tripped.
No... something had grabbed his foot!
He glanced down. A black-clad arm had squeezed through the opening, barely fitting. It seemed to be covered in a protective suit of some kind: it was round, trunk-like, covered in circular grooves. It terminated in a gloved hand that wasn’t human: two thick fingers, with a backwards-facing thumb emerging directly opposite. More like a bird’s claw than a hand.
Tane kicked off his shoe, and the arm retracted behind the door, bringing the footwear with it.
Tane clambered to his feet and dashed down the corridor.
“Dad, come in, Dad!” Tane tried again, shouting a bit louder than he had perhaps intended.
He was met with static. He checked his connection to the local mixnet. No signal.
Heart in his throat, Tane continued down the corridor. He kicked off his other shoe, because running with only one was too awkward.
The lights continued to alternate between red and blue around him. The klaxon screeched. He glanced over his shoulder, terrified at what he would see: the arm—tentacle?—had returned, though it looped back in upon itself, and the claw portion gripped the edge of the partially open door. Two more such arms joined in so that all three worked at prying open the door.
Tane hurried down the corridor. He clambered up a ladder to the next floor and closed the scuttle underneath him. The lights flashed in warning here, too.
When he rounded a sharp bend he almost ran headfirst into a tentacled horror. His first impression was of a squid rammed onto the body of a crab.
Tane leaped backward in fright, hitting the corner hard behind him.
He quickly spun around and fled.
The tentacled horror pursued. The thing barely fit the passageway.
Tane dashed into another corridor. There was a hatch on the far end. This one was hand operated, thankfully, and swung on hinges. Tane shut and locked the hatch behind him and quickly stepped away.
The surface of the hatch bent outward as the creature began to repeatedly slam into it from the other side.
Tane backed away a few paces, then turned around and ran. Glancing over his shoulder, he realized the exterior surface of the hatch was turning white hot: the creature was firing some sort of plasma weapon at the metal.
He raced around a bend, putting as much distance between himself and his pursuer as possible.
Where the hell were these things coming from?
And then he realized there were at least five other domes on this side of the farm that were buried in sand. If other breaches had occurred, these aliens could be slipping inside from multiple entry points.
“Ralph, are you back online yet?” he shouted.
Nothing.
Tane clambered up another ladder and shut the scuttle behind him. He raced into a side corridor, sealed the hatch, and then paused for a moment to catch his breath and get his bearings.
But he couldn’t get himself to calm down. His heart still pounded in his chest. Insanely pounded. And his breathing remained ragged.
Relax. Relax.
But Tane couldn’t. He was convinced one of those monsters was going to come running around the bend and down the corridor toward him at any moment. Either that, or start slamming into the hatch behind him.
He had the presence of mind to pull up his cardiovascular and endocrine settings, and adjusted his heart rate down to forcibly calm himself. He also dropped his epinephrine levels. He wasn’t sure it would work, but then his head abruptly tilted forward and the next thing he knew he was lying flat on the floor.
Whoops. Too low.
He bumped his heart rate up higher and a moment later felt well enough to clamber to his feet.
Note to self, take care when adjusting cardiovascular attributes. Unless I want to knock myself out.
At least his heart was no longer racing and his breathing had returned to some semblance of normalcy.
That’s better. Those rate and hormonal hooks are actually pretty handy. When they work.
It was a little embarrassing that he couldn’t calm down on his own, but hey, his farm was under attack by frigging alien monsters. He was no hero. He’d never fought in any wars. And if he had to use a chip embedded in his skull to calm down, then so what?
Fake it till you make it.
Finally able to relax, he glanced at the overhead map his HUD provided and confirmed he was roughly where he thought he was.
He switched control of his heart and lungs back to his autonomic nervous system, and was relieved when his breathing and heart rate didn’t skyrocket. He reflected for a moment on the creature he had glimpsed.
Four pairs of segmented legs protruded at ninety-degree angles from a broad carapace. At the front of the carapace, several stiff stalks emerged, sourcing the long, trunk-like tentacles that ended in the three-fingered claws he had seen on the first creature. It carried a big, tube-like weapon that reminded Tane of an energy launcher, gripped between two of those tentacles. A glass dome sat on top of the carapace, behind the stalks, and within it was a face that reminded Tane of a Tholan fly trap: a sideways-opening jaw lined with serrated teeth.
The legs, the carapace, those tentacles… they were all the same black color, and they were all smooth, mostly rounded pieces. But it was the glass dome that was the real giveaway, and the face lurking behind it: the whole thing had to be some kind of environmental suit. Perhaps a battle suit or mech. Those four pairs of segmented legs might not even be part of the creature’s body. It could be tech similar to the spider mechs the TSN employed.
Whatever the case, his attackers were definitely alien. But what the hell did they want with him and his family?
He pulled up his ID history, curious what his chip would have to say about the sighting. The results were disappointing, to say the least.
Race: Unknown
Level: Unknown
Class: Unknown
It made some sense, though, considering that the creatures wouldn’t have public profiles, and that there was probably nothing in his internal database to correlate to.
Tane thought about the suit design a bit more. The glass dome was probably the weakest link. If he could break that glass, he could kill them. He was certain of it. Then again, it probably wasn’t glass, but some super polycarbonate. Well, whatever the case, he was going to concentrate his efforts on that part of the suit, once he got himself an appropriate weapon anyway. This wasn’t a battleship with armories waiting on every level, unfortunately. The plasma rifles he wanted were in the basement.
Tane raced down the corridor and reached the lift. Without power, it wouldn’t activate, but he wasn’t too worried about that. He kicked open the maintenance panel and entered the tunnel beside the lift. He slid down the ladder with the agility of one who had grown up on a hydroponics farm. It was completely dark, and his enhanced vision couldn’t discern a thing, but he knew that just behind him awaited the elevator shaft, and its fatal drop.
He tightened his grip occasionally to slow his descent. He was able to gauge his progress by the maintenance accesses he passed, as each floor had one, and the rectangular outlines of the panels were delineated by the emergency lights beyond.
When his feet touched the bottom he knew he had reached the basement.
Tane
climbed back up to the last panel, kicked it open, and pulled himself into the waiting corridor. He hurried to the storage room and proceeded directly to the weapons rack within. He grabbed himself one of the waiting plasma rifles.
Earlier he had turned on auto-item identification, and the stats momentarily appeared on his HUD.
Weapon: C2 Plasma Rifle.
Model: Cutlass II-7 Rev c.
Item type: Uncommon.
Additional damage: 15% added plasma burn damage for each successful hit.
Additional effects: None.
Plasma Rifle specific:
Firing rate: Semi-automatic. Squeeze trigger to fire a 4 - 10 round burst.
Recharge rate: 30 seconds per round. If all 10 rounds are used in a single burst, the full 30 seconds must pass before another round can be fired.
Overall weapon charge: 100%.
Extra features: Weapon light capable of providing tight beam visible or infrared illumination. Equipped with illuminated scope and laser sight.
Tane would have preferred something like a plasma pistol for the close quarters fighting ahead, as the rifle would be a bit unwieldy in the tight corridors, but this was all he had so he would have to make do. Besides, he had fired a pistol only one or two times in his life, and his accuracy with the smaller weapon would be terrible.
The rifle scope would be relatively useless in the tight confines of the corridors—he’d have to rely on the targeting notch above the muzzle. He turned on the laser sight mechanism and aimed at the far wall. A red dot appeared. That would help. He linked the C2 to his chip so he could receive recharge information on his HUD.