by In Churl Yo
“Time? For what?” Arsenal asked.
“We have to leave.”
“You’re kidding, right? We just got here, old man. There’s still pilfering and plundering to do. Secret base, remember?”
“No, Nox is right,” Zoah said. “New Mexico is only a way station. The answers are waiting for us wherever that ship is going.” She pointed toward the SLS rocket in the distance.
“Hold on a tick,” said Baller. “You’re not actually suggesting we climb aboard that candlestick?”
“Yes, and now,” said the former Ceres security chief.
“You don’t get a say in this group, Nox,” barked Caleb.
The now-familiar sound of circuit breakers popped again in the background, the resounding clank replaced by a steady hum of electricity flowing through conduits throughout the underground base. Red lights gave way to white, warming up from their dim state. The backup generators were operating.
“I do if you want to get onboard that ship. But we’ve got to go,” Nox replied, not bothering to hide the trouble in his voice.
Neema studied the white-haired man. She looked at Caleb and Zoah, then closed her eyes and decided. “Alright. Let’s go.”
“Follow me.” Nox was already running.
CHAPTER 28
Theodore Ogden was excited, and that troubled him.
He worked hard at keeping an even keel—too low and work wouldn’t get done, production slacked off, and employees became relaxed and lazy; too high and mistakes would get made, efficiency suffered, and workers complained or rebelled. Neither would do. There was a reason most administrators were boring people and why middle managers were often overlooked as menial cogs in a great spinning wheel. They weren’t just a necessary evil vital to the success of some multinational conglomerate, they were also necessarily dull and shallow. In business, once you’d reached a certain level, consistency was king. Consistency was also by default boring, and boring was what Ogden liked. It was replicable. It was reliable. And thus, Ogden abhorred surprises.
This rocket and wherever it may lead was the very definition of surprise, and yet he could hardly contain himself as he sat in the modified stealth drone’s cockpit, 90 degrees to the horizon with his back to the ground, waiting for the countdown to begin. He was energized. He was experiencing some long-relinquished childhood dream of speeding off to the stars. It was all ridiculous, but here he was—now excited, troubled and soon to become annoyed.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ogden, but that is against procedure.”
“Launch the damn rocket,” Ogden commanded.
“We’re still in lockdown mode. You do hear the explosions above ground, don’t you, sir?”
“Irrelevant. By the time the countdown has run its course, our countermeasures will have already dealt with the attackers. If you don’t start the launch procedures now, I will be waiting for no good reason.”
“Backup generators have only just engaged. There’s weather coming in and some of the systems are still running off batteries. I cannot authorize…”
Ogden sighed. “I absolve you.”
The communication channel hissed for a moment. Only background noise came from the speaker above, until it tweeted: “Come again?”
“You recognize that the Ceres Corporation owns this base and every piece of equipment on it, that every person here is a Ceres employee,” said Ogden. “But perhaps you don’t also recognize that I am not just the Chief Executive Officer of this company. I don’t simply run Ceres. Never mind that I could expel you, your entire family name, your friends, acquaintances, bridge club members, even the boy who makes your morning coffee, all out of the protection of our facilities to face the Zombie Flu on your own. Never mind that in the past I have done just that for far less. No, today I am your friend. I am in a good mood and so will make this an easy decision for you: I officially absolve you. Whatever happens because of this launch, whether I die in a smoking ball of flame or freeze in the hard recesses of space, God forbid, will not in any way reflect on your career, your position in the company or professional standing. I take complete responsibility for this decision. It is mine and mine alone to take. How could you possibly refuse me? You should consider your alternatives seriously.”
The speaker hissed again, then clicked. “You make a compelling argument, Mr. Ogden.”
“And you would be wise to agree with it,” the CEO responded. “Now, I will only say this once more before I lose all patience. Pretty please with sugar on top: Launch the damn rocket.”
Theodore Ogden never got a verbal reply. Instead the countdown timer on the console in front of him came to life, its numbers descending toward an anticipated if not exciting conclusion.
# # #
Nox led them across the open hangar through a set of double-doors into a wide hallway. The chaos of the attack above ground had everyone on the base moving in a frenzy. Even with the power back on, it would be some time before all communications and security systems were fully back online.
“You’re a hacker, right?” Nox asked the girl with pink hair.
Tifa smirked. “I don’t do labels,” she said.
The man with white hair was having none of it. “I need access to this panel now,” he demanded.
“Fine. Whatever.” Tifa flicked her visor down and began running through lines of code until she uncovered and switched the necessary key that allowed for non-specified user entry. “You’re in.”
Nox spoke as he typed. “There’s a long sequence of steps a crew must complete before they get access to the command module. We’re going to bypass all the health- and safety-related measures for starters. In fact, we’re not even headed for the command module.”
“Wait, isn’t that where the pilots sit and everything?” Milton asked.
“It’s also where Ogden is,” the man with white hair replied, “and we can’t risk him aborting the launch or us getting captured. So instead, we’re going here.”
A nearby monitor sprang to life with a schematic of the entire SLS rocket and payload, which included the stealth ship on top. A large module beneath the modified drone was blinking.
“Is that a storage container?” Neema asked with a healthy bit of skepticism in her voice.
“No, that would be silly,” Nox replied. “It’s, uh, a delineated environment… a consignment repository.”
“What does that mean?” asked Zoah.
“It’s a damn storage container. How are we supposed to survive launch inside that thing?” said Caleb.
Nox walked over to a nearby locker and opened it. He pulled something off the top shelf, turned around and threw it at Caleb, who reacted just fast enough to catch the large, spherical helmet before it broke his nose. “Relax,” said the man with white hair. “I’ve got a plan. Now everyone gather ’round. I only have time to demonstrate this once, and then you’re going to have to dress each other.” He pulled out a dark gray-colored full-body suit with a large zipper on the back and held it up so that everyone could see. “Hey, big guy, what’s your name?”
“Baller.”
“Right. Let’s suit you up.”
Crew escape technicians took around 30 minutes to dress an astronaut, taking great care to ensure that the water-heated tubes, pressurized rubber lining and oxygen systems were all functioning within expected operating parameters. It took several minutes longer for the crew themselves to don their Z-series extravehicular activity suits (in this case, the new model Z-4s), which allowed them to survive and work in the vacuum of space. After Nox showed them how, it took everyone 15 minutes to get into their gear and be good to go.
In the interim, Arsenal and Baller had to help Elsif fight off several waves of military drones in their dogfight above ground, although they already managed to lose one of their ships in the coordinated attack. Still, the three of them had avoided being overrun by the smaller, automated craft.
“How’s that algorithm holding?” Arsenal asked.
“Working great, than
ks,” said Elsif. “Their targeting systems are still misaligning or ghosting our ships. You’re a genius.”
“Brilliant, he is,” Baller added. “Only don’t let it go to your head.”
Arsenal grunted, a wide grin forming across his face, totally in his element.
Cufflinks and heads-up displays were built into their spacesuits, and they were busy working them while meandering down another passageway with the rest of their group, the weight of the bulky, 35-kilogram suits keeping their pace slow. They soon reached the end of the hall.
“We need to call the elevator,” said Nox pointing to a nearby panel, “only we can’t let anybody know that we did.”
Neema and Milton unraveled two cords at the base of their gloves and connected them to either side of the interface on the wall. They worked silently, both moving their hands on virtual keyboards to solve the problem.
Neema paused for a moment to face Nox. “The launch countdown has started. We’ve got 10 minutes before this thing lights up,” she said.
The white-haired man nodded and gave her a look that he hoped projected confidence but Neema interpreted as: We’re running out of time.
When the car arrived, and the glass doors slid open, Nox spun around to face the group. “There’s only room for three at a time. Caleb, I want you and Baller with me first. We’ve got a little work to do up there to prepare the container. The rest of you follow as you can.”
Sixty seconds. The vertical trip up the superstructure of the launch platform only took a minute but felt like hours to Nox. When the pulley system disengaged, and the momentum caught up with their stomachs, they were 10 stories up and facing an open walkway with a stiff crosswind. The three men traversed the bridge toward the SLS.
“Baller?” Nox said.
“Yeah, mate?”
He pointed at the hatch controls for the storage module. The large man took a quick look at them and nodded. A moment later the door released its lock, and they stepped inside.
Dozens of large plastic crates were lined up throughout the compartment and held in place with tension straps. Nox looked behind them. “Caleb, you should find some pneumatic pistols in that cabinet. Grab them then come find us. Baller, we need to find a specific lot of crates starting with number… hang on… A481516-2342. Let’s get to it.”
Caleb grunted. He hated being ordered by Nox but decided to take one for the team and be a good solider—for now. When this was over though the two of them were going to have words, and by words he meant blows. The thought caused him to smirk as he imagined the liveliness of their eventual conversation. Oh, I’ve got a few creative words for him, that’s for sure.
Meanwhile, the clock in Nox’s head continued to tick. The storage container was larger than he’d expected, with way more inside it than he thought possible, and the search was eating up what little time they had left. They had to find those crates if any of this was going to work. They had to find them now.
“Here,” Baller called out from a darkened nook. The man with white hair hobbled in his spacesuit toward him as fast as his legs would carry.
Thirty meters below them, all eyes fixated on elevator doors that remained closed.
Zoah pressed her helmet up against the glass and looked up. “This is taking forever,” she said.
“It’s coming,” assured Neema, who then turned to Elsif. “How are we looking outside?”
“I wouldn’t have believed it, but they appear to be regrouping,” he replied.
“You’re letting those drones flank you,” Arsenal shouted. “Whatever you’re trying to do, Elsif, stop doing it.”
“I see it, I see it. They want to box me in, but that’s never going to happen. At this rate though, I don’t see us lasting another 15 minutes before it’s game over.”
Neema smiled. “Good thing we don’t have 15 minutes then.”
Milton switched over to a private channel, and Neema saw the connection on her helmet display. “You do realize if we’re still down here when that rocket goes up….” he said.
She was about to respond when the elevator doors opened, signaling its arrival. “Okay, I want Zoah and Milton on this one,” Neema said. “Who’s going with them?”
“Me,” replied Arsenal. “I’m going.”
“Fine. Send it back down as soon as you’re off.” She watched them board and a few seconds later the car was ascending out of view. Now all Neema could do was sit back and wait, but she was never good at waiting. “Elsif, give me telemetry and control of my ship.”
A window in her helmet came to life as Elsif transferred control. She expanded the live feed stream so that it encompassed her entire field of vision. Neema whistled. The team had been busy.
She was in the wingman position, supporting Arsenal, who was still piloting his drone. They were coming about from south of the facility, skirting a small monadnock ridge jutting up from the surrounding sandy plain. Neema could see several dark, steady wisps of smoke rising from the ruined remains of light armored vehicles and blackened buildings, the asphalt runway pocked with impact craters and debris.
“Welcome to the fight,” Arsenal said. “Keep an eye on our six. I’m about to start our attack run.”
“I hear you,” she replied. Neema had played her share of virtual games, but simulations, no matter how well programmed, weren’t convincing to her—this interface, however, was its own thing altogether, as if reality became animation. It took a moment for her to get oriented to what she was seeing.
The drones were in a rapid descent. Arsenal had them coming in fast, most likely to keep their enemies at a distance, but he was pushing it. Even without a hap suit to apply the requisite g-forces to clue her in, Neema could tell the ships were at their structural limit. “Um, don’t you need to see the target to hit it?” she asked. “At this speed, you’re going to be past the base by the time you pull the trigger. What are you doing?”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” Arsenal responded. “Watch and learn.”
He took his ship low. Any lower, any mistake on his part, and his drone would clip the ground and splinter into a million pieces across the runway. Neema followed his lead.
“You’ve got company. Coming in behind on your left. Looks like the bulk of their remaining air forces,” said Elsif. “I’m out of position to help.”
“I see them,” Neema replied. “Arsenal, we need to evade.”
“No! Stay on course,” he barked. “I got this.”
Warning lights flashed in her cockpit, accompanied by buzzing alarms that sounded serious to Neema. “Something’s happening. I’ve got an override in my propulsion system. I think someone’s hacking my ship.” Next her fuel status indicator began beeping, and she watched the levels start to fall. “Dammit, is that you, Arsenal?”
No answer. Instead Neema saw her windshield being covered by a fine mist that soon became a torrential downpour as Arsenal’s drone began dumping its fuel as well. The next happened quickly: the ship she was following nosedived into the asphalt below, a ball of flame erupted that soon engulfed Neema’s drone, and her live feed cut out, leaving nothing but darkness on her display.
Neema snapped back the opaque cover on her helmet and turned to look at Elsif. “What the hell was that?”
Elsif craned his neck forward for a better look at his vid feed. “Well, there’s still an awful lot of smoke down there, but… I’d say it was a complete and utter take down.”
“The enemy ships?”
“Destroyed. I guess his little maneuver worked.”
Neema clicked her tongue and shook her head. “I’m going to kill Arsenal. What was he thinking? Why does he have to be so reckless and headstrong?”
“You can’t argue with the results,” Elsif said.
No, she couldn’t. But Neema felt like she’d been having an argument with Arsenal for years, and it was wearing her down like an etched rut on a road they’d been traveling together for far too long.
“I’ve got a better question for
you,” Tifa said over the com channel. “Anybody know where the elevator is? It should have been back by now.” Neema looked up through the glass doors and despite feeling confident in her team’s ability to come through, couldn’t help but wonder the same.
Ten stories above them, the storage container held a flurry of activity. Baller had indeed found the crates they wanted, their contents now being set up one after the other by the big man all along the walkway.
“This is your great idea?” Caleb asked as he watched.
Nox ignored him, instead grabbing the industrial pistol from Caleb’s hand and using it to fire bolts through each item’s base into the container’s metal flooring. When he was through, there were four reclining chairs secured and ready for launch. Nox threw the pneumatic gun back at Caleb. “Finish the rest. I’ll get everyone seated.”
The man with white hair motioned Zoah over, and she sat down in the ergonomic recliner. “Are we going to be okay in these?” she whispered over a private channel.
Nox smiled at her. “We’ll be fine.”
“What were these chairs supposed to be used for?”
“They’re made of steel. We’ll be fine.”
“You’re putting us in office chairs, aren’t you?”
He threaded the restraining harness over her Z-4 suit’s padded shoulders and pulled at the slack until she was secured. “We’ll be fine.” Soon Nox had Arsenal and Baller belted down and set as well.
“Time?” he asked on the group channel.
Milton responded. “Four minutes, 37 seconds.”
“Come on then,” Nox said. “You’re next.”
“No. Something’s wrong.”
Caleb paused his work and looked over at them. “What is it?”
“Neema should have been here by now. I can’t reach her on the com,” Milton said.
“The elevator,” Caleb said, getting ready to move into action.
“Finish what you’re doing,” the white-haired man ordered. “We’ll look into it.”