Nepenthe Rising

by John Triptych

  Dhara cleared her throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but we’re now about fifty klicks from the quarantine zone and I’ve got an idea.”

  Strand kept his hands on the steering wheel while swerving away from a jutting rock looming in front of the ATV. “Go ahead, I’m all ears.”

  “I know the plan is to deactivate our transponder and the backup just before we reach the zone, but I think it would be a mistake,” Dhara said.

  Strand narrowed his eyes as he continued to focus on the terrain ahead. “What makes you so sure?”

  “I know the consortium can’t afford to track every one of the vehicles that’s out here,” Dhara said. “But you can be damned sure the Institute and their Concordance counterparts will be.”

  Keo turned and looked at her. “How do you know this?”

  Dhara let out a sigh. “Come on. I was a senior researcher with the Institute, and I know their security arrangements with regard to artifact sites.”

  “Please elaborate,” Strand said.

  “Let’s say we disable our transponders,” Dhara said. “The Union has a link with the mining consortium, and the moment we go offline it gets flagged on their network. Once that happens they’ll commit one of their satellites for an orbital flyby and try to get a sensor fix on us.”

  Keo shrugged. “Okay, and? It’s going to be hard for them to find us in this toxic smog of a planet.”

  “They don’t need to—not right away,” Dhara said. “They just need a fix on our last location, and they can send aerospace drones or patrol vehicles to look for us based on our final contact. This is guaranteed to happen, especially in an area with an artifact dig.”

  Strand frowned. His original idea was to deploy two vehicles, with one posing as the other, but the logistical problems of getting two ATVs to the planet using separate ships and having a system passcode for just one vessel ended up nixing the plan.

  Keo looked over towards his superior. “I got an idea, LT. Let’s hijack one of the other mining vehicles and use them as bait.”

  “We don’t have enough operators to do that,” Strand said. “What’s your plan, Dr. Hayer?”

  “I have an old Institute passcode that I’ve never used,” Dhara said. “I’m pretty sure they disabled all my others, but not this one because I never logged it into the main network. I figured it would be useful in case of an emergency, so I kept it over the years.”

  Keo didn’t say a word but glanced suspiciously towards the lieutenant. He continued to distrust Dhara and his holstered laser pistol was always at the ready in the event Strand gave him the order to kill her.

  Strand still didn’t fully trust her either, but he had yet to notice any hint of betrayal so far. Keeping his eyes away from Keo, he decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. “Let’s say we go with this. How much time before the main network notices it?”

  “A full planetary rotation, at the very least,” Dhara said. “It should give us enough time to get into the quarantine zone without any fuss. If we can get to the Institute science outpost, it may even allow us inside and we can get new security codes once we’re in there.”

  Strand wasn’t fully convinced. “What about the Concordance? Your passcode isn’t keyed in with them for pre-approval. They’ll spot us in an instant.”

  “Yes, but they won’t fire at us since we’d be under diplomatic cover,” Dhara said. “The parasites know an attack against a representative of the Institute may be construed as an act of war by the Union.”

  “You hope,” Keo said. “I don’t like this plan, LT. Let’s go with my idea instead. I can make it work, trust me.”

  Strand bit his lip. A part of him sensed that Dhara might be laying a trap for them. The other alternatives would be equally risky. He slowed down the ATV before turning his head and looking into Dhara’s eyes. “You’re risking a lot of lives with this plan, Dr. Hayer, including Maeve’s.”

  Dhara could tell they distrusted her. “I know. You may not trust me yet, but let me prove it to you. The map says we’re less than forty-five klicks from the quarantine zone. All eyes in the sky are on us now, I’m sure of it.”

  “And if it doesn’t work?”

  She glanced over at the youth sitting in front of her. “Then you can have Sergeant Keo here shoot me in the head with his weapon. He’s been waiting to do that ever since we left the Nepenthe anyway.”

  Keo’s hand inched closer to his holster.

  Strand gave a slow nod while he activated his smartcom. “Okay, do it. I’m giving you outside network access on your com-link right now.”

  Dhara hunched over the console in front of her. She activated an old com-link server and typed in the passcode she had memorized all those years ago. It returned almost instantly with an approved access point. “Okay, I’m in, and it was accepted into the Institute servers on the planet. I can upload the special passcode into the ATV’s transponder, which will identify us as an official vehicle belonging to the Institute.”

  “Go ahead,” Strand said.

  Dhara’s fingers twitched nervously while keying in the commands. A slight beep emanated from her console. “It’s done. The exact route to get into the Institute outpost has also been downloaded onto our maps. It says here that if we stray from the approved course we may find ourselves under possible attack by griglaks.”

  Strand turned his head to face the vehicle windshield once more. The virtual map on the dashboard had been updated. “Okay, let’s see where this takes us.”

  The terrain around them slowly transformed itself from inert sand and rock into small hill-sized volcanoes surrounded by pools and streams of bubbling iron carbonyl. The ground had become muddy, and Strand switched to full six-wheel drive mode to get through some of the tougher stretches close to the lakes. Even though the vehicle sensors were telling him that many of the preceding waterways were shallow enough to cross, Strand didn’t take the risk of getting stuck in the mire, preferring to drive the ATV on solid ground as much as possible.

  The hatch towards the vehicle’s rear cabin had been left open, and everyone wore their hard suits, with only their helmets lying beside them. The outside cameras spotted a number of heavily armed security bots, their lower torsos modified with long segmented legs to straddle the muck as they patrolled along the prescribed route towards the Union science outpost.

  Keo had gone over to the rear cabin. With Hauk’s help, the pair were busy modifying the stored sidearms by extending their handgrips and removing the trigger guards. The hard suits they were equipped with had large hands, and they needed to make sure each weapon could be used properly while wearing them.

  Hauk used a small printer to build much longer triggers for the weapons while Keo did the field stripping and reassembly.

  Keo looked at one particular trigger closely before handing it back to the boy. “This needs to be longer.”

  Hauk fed the rejected part back into the printer’s input module. “Sorry.”

  Keo took the newly finished handgrip lying on the seat beside him and quickly assembled another laser pistol. “For what it’s worth. Pity we couldn’t just modify our arm-mounted weapons instead, but it would be way too obvious.”

  Hauk held up a gauss carbine while examining it with his smartcom to make sure it had been reassembled properly. “What’s wrong with these?”

  Keo held up his hard suit-encased arm. “It’s hard to aim while we’re wearing all this. With the arm- and shoulder-mounted stuff, you don’t have to use your fingers to fire, and the weapon mounts have good stability. Now it’s gonna be awkward moving around while carrying all this inside a box labeled science supplies.”

  “I’d rather have these than be unarmed,” Hauk said.

  Dhara had placed herself in the front seat and carefully studied the virtual map. “We ought to be coming up to the Union outpost very soon.”

  Strand continued to rely on manual driving instead of letting the autopilot take over. “How far up ahead is it?”

  “Anoth
er klick or so,” Dhara said. “Just beyond that ridge.”

  Strand nodded. “Good. The sooner we get there the bet—”

  His words were interrupted when a sphere the size of a small car floated over the horizon, just ahead of the ATV. Strand hit the brakes as everyone else gasped at the strange sight looming above them. It looked like some sort of misshapen pink- and orange-hued balloon, with veins popping out of its bulbous body. Several tentacles ending in eerie, humanlike eyestalks extended from its underside, peering at them with disquieting stares. A long tuft of hair-like material jutted out from the top of the creature.

  Maeve let out a terrified whimper. “What … what is that?”

  Keo quickly put his helmet on before grabbing hold of one of the laser rifles lying beside him.

  “Everybody calm down,” Strand said. “It’s just a monitor.”

  The sight of the creature hovering several meters beyond the windshield took Hauk’s breath away. “What … what’s a monitor?”

  “It’s one of the Concordance’s bio-machines,” Dhara said. “A monitor is a genetically engineered life form that can float using air sacs. Those things are tasked to observe and relay their information back to their masters, nothing more.”

  Keo had the laser rifle locked and loaded. “It’s a Concordance toy? What’s it doing over here? I thought we were in Union territory.”

  “It’s a joint territory between the two superpowers,” Strand said. “The Union must be allowing their counterparts some access for transparency’s sake.”

  Dhara nodded. “That’s what I figured too. The parasites must be spying on every research team going in and out of the Union science outpost.”

  Strand frowned. “Not good. It means the Concordance will probably relay what they just saw back to the Union for verification.” He glanced towards Dhara. “Can you think up an excuse as to why you suddenly popped up here without prior warning?”

  The monitor seemed to remain where it was, despite the occasional gust of billowing wind swaying its spheroid form. Less than a minute later the creature suddenly became more bloated before floating up and disappearing further up into the misty sky.

  Maeve’s eyes were now filled with an insatiable curiosity. “How is it able to float like that? The gravity on this planet is so heavy.”

  Dhara turned to look at the girl. “Monitors store lifting gases in their bodies; that’s why they sort of look like balloons. My guess is it was probably using helium or hydrogen. The Concordance tailor-fit their bio-machines to adapt to the atmosphere of the planets they’re assigned to, so it’s probably why the monitor we saw seemed bigger than normal.”

  “Really creepy,” Maeve said. “Can they think on their own?”

  “The Institute believes all bio-machines have a limited form of intelligence,” Dhara said. “Just enough awareness to do their tasks properly. The Concordance knows all too well the dangers of true sentience from our shared experiences in the Singularity Wars, and I suspect they would never allow their creations to achieve full independence from them.”

  Strand pressed on the accelerator once more and the vehicle began to pick up speed. There would be no turning back now. “Let’s get this over with.”

  22 The Relic

  The Science Institute’s research station on Horizon consisted of several interlinked modules. These prefabricated structures had been transported over from orbit and assembled on site, with new sections being attached to replace the degraded ones over time. Automated turrets had been installed along the outer edges of the base perimeter to repel the occasional griglak attack.

  Garrett Strand drove the ATV up onto a parking platform before maneuvering the vehicle to put it in line with one of the extendable airlocks. Everyone now wore their helmets in order to hide their faces. Dhara Hayer had thought the idea silly, since they wouldn’t be allowed to walk around the base interior with their hard suits on, but Strand had insisted, so she decided to make up a story to try and justify it.

  They were met by Administrator Bosai Kini and his two assistants as the five of them ventured out of the airlock module. The head of the Institute’s research station was a short man in lab smocks, and his expression betrayed a mix of surprise and suspicion as he gawked at the five humans in hard suits standing in front of him. “Welcome to Horizon Science Station. May I ask which one of you is Dr. Hayer?”

  Dhara lifted her helmet’s faceplate so he could see her face. She had memorized their names after checking the Institute’s database. “It’s me. Sorry about this unannounced visit to your station, Dr. Kini, but we’ve got a situation.”

  Bosai frowned while rubbing his chin. “What kind of situation? I just got an official complaint from my counterparts in the Concordance. It seems they spotted your vehicle on the way here and you didn’t file an authorization with them. This puts me in a very awkward position, you know.”

  Strand and Ripoll Keo immediately tensed up. Their weapons were hidden in the packs they carried, but the hard suits had strength multipliers built into their exoskeletons, and they could easily smash the three people standing in front of them to a pulp.

  Duncan Hauk stood just behind them along with Maeve Lindros, and the boy could see four unmoving security bots on the far side of the room.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Dhara said. “The information my team uncovered is so time sensitive I needed to come here in person to tell you about it.”

  The two researchers standing beside Bosai exchanged confused looks with each other. They were about to say something when Bosai gestured at them to keep quiet before turning his attention back to the guests. “What’s this about?”

  “The artifact you’re working on, you do recall I used to work on a similar one before, right?”

  Bosai nodded. “Yes, of course. We’ve been using your team’s research notes from New Zion as a guide for our field studies here. Is there a problem?”

  “I’m afraid there is,” Dhara said. “According to our recent analysis, my team is predicting a detonation.”

  “A what?”

  “An explosion,” Dhara said. “The artifact at the dig site will blow up, and the radius is expected to be fifty kilometers.”

  One of Bosai’s assistants gave Dhara a look of incredulity. “What? That’s absurd. The so-called detonation of the artifact in New Zion only had a blast radius of less than a hundred meters. We’re two kilometers away from the dig site here, and we put up blast walls around it.”

  Dhara placed her hands on her armored hips. “You do realize the excavated portion of this artifact is at least three times the size of the one we had in New Zion, right?”

  “Well … yes, but—”

  Dhara refocused her attention towards Bosai. “This station, as well as the Concordance base, is well within the blast radius.”

  The color drained from Bosai’s face. “Did … does your team know when this will h-happen?”

  Dhara held up her left wrist and activated the holographic smartcom display while pretending to look at it. “According to our findings, it could happen at any time now.”

  Bosai gasped. “Great antecessors! What do we do?”

  Dhara continued her totally serious demeanor. “Do you have enough vehicles to begin an emergency evacuation?”

  Bosai exchanged worried glances with his two assistants. “I-I’m not sure. I-I need to call this in to the orbital station; maybe they can have a few shuttles sent down to pick us up.”

  “There’s no time for it,” Dhara said. “It’s going to take at least thirty minutes for them to arrange a rescue fleet of shuttles. Get your staff onto every available vehicle and head out of the area. My calculations state that anything past sixty kilometers ought to be safe.”

  “A-alright,” Bosai said as he turned around, gesticulating wildly at his two assistants. “Get to the vehicle bay and have those ATVs refueled and ready to go. I’m going to the control room; I’ll make the general announcement from there.”<
br />
  “I’ll go with you,” Dhara said while gesturing at the others beside her. “Get back in the vehicle and prepare to go to the dig site.”

  Bosai was confused again. “You-you’re not evacuating with us?”

  Dhara shook her head. “No. The Institute gave me a handpicked team to go over there and try and disable the relic before it goes off.”

  “You could be killed.”

  She shrugged. “Yes, it’s a possibility, but I have a duty to try and preserve the artifact in question, even if it means sacrificing my own life. Your team is too valuable, so you need to go.”

  Bosai walked over to a nearby alarm panel and activated it, sending out a screeching series of bells and whistles along the entire outpost. “Come on, follow me.”

  Dhara began to walk with him. “Okay.”

  Strand caught up with them. “I’ll go with you too.”

  Instead of following the convoy of vehicles making their way towards the perimeter of the station, Strand drove the ATV in the opposite direction, towards the dig site. Dhara had instructed Bosai to relay an evacuation message to the Concordance base, and told his staff to maintain com-link silence afterwards, lest their signals trigger the artifact’s premature detonation. Once the last of the scientists had gone, Keo and Hauk went over to the security room and disabled all the automated surveillance and defense drones at the site before joining the team back in their vehicle.

  Keo sat in the front seat again, his laser rifle poking up from in between his legs. “Based on the map readings, we ought to be getting close to the dig site.”

  Strand peered ahead through the windshield. “Damn, visibility is even worse now. I have to slow us down to a crawl or we might just hit something.”

  Dhara sat in the backseat with the two kids. “Yes, the mist just gets thicker the closer you get to the artifact. My theory is the device somehow affects both the atmosphere and the planetary terrain around it.”

  “You did pretty well with all the fast talking back at the station, Dr. Hayer,” Hauk said, remembering an ancient expression his mother once told him. “The staff there swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.”