by Gentry Race
“We found ‘bugs’ that weren’t native to the environment itself but more like leeches, sucking what resources this planet had,” Tang said. “We tried to kill them at first, but they were hard to detect due to their high metabolisms. Fast little fuckers.”
“Come to find out they take after the tachyon particle,” Colin added, “moving faster than light itself.”
“What were they feeding on?” Richter asked.
“Everything. Ammonia, methane, H2O. It turns out they were sending the resources somewhere else,” Colin said.
“Where?” Richter asked.
“A small moon system around a gas giant called Gigantica, outside the Central Cluster Federation,” Colin Fox said. “We sent a friendly message, standard orientation protocol, and…”
Richter waited to hear the answer.
“Something came back,” Colin said with a flourish.
The holoscreen changed to show what looked like experimental crop fields within a large military container. Scientists were conducting research among the neatly planted rows. A seed dissolved into the center frame, slowly rotating on its axis.
“Both an ultimate fertilizer and perfect pesticide, this seed will put Rockheed on the forefront of terraforming,” Colin Fox said, “light years ahead of the competition. We’ll be able to start growing crops before full conversion is even met.”
“How do we know the intentions of this ‘seed’ aren’t... hostile?” Richter asked.
“Oh, their intentions are friendly, Richter,” Tang said. “We’ve grown many versions of the seed below the Reform Facility. Trial testing on the Reformers has been successful. They’ve been eating the crops for months, experiencing zero defects,” Tang said.
“Until now,” Richter said.
“The origin of the riot was another cause,” Tang continued. Swiping to another holopanel, the screen changed, showing a Reform cell below the facility. “General Graham and Sasha Hastings have been leading an operation to further their research. Their team found something else, something much greater than the seed.”
Richter recognized it immediately, thanks to having done numerous drills from the underground paddocks. These were known as the HOLEs, trapdoors leading to chambers that housed dysfunctional Reform inmates. Center of the frame, Richter could see an inmate who was restrained by all four limbs and was wearing a suit that was ported in distinct locations on its paneling. On his shoulder, branded into his skin, was the mark of a skull inside a space helmet with wings in front of what looked like clouds. Richter looked closer and made it out to be a small explosion instead.
“A way to enhance warfare,” Tang said.
A scientist could be seen splicing into the back of the prisoner’s neck, implanting a small device that looked techno-organic, similar to the bug he’d seen before. Stabbing weapons jutted from each porthole in the exosuit, turning the prisoner into a bona fide porcupine of death. Richter shivered at the thought of the neck implant procedure at first but then brushed it off, realizing the ramifications of what they were doing to Reformers.
“Many trials were conducted,” Tang said.
The Reform inmate began to convulse violently, spewing a foamy white paste from his mouth. Richter knew what they were doing. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard of a “super soldier” experimentation program. Many men had dedicated their lives to the good of science and the military, only to be used as guinea pigs.
“For what? For an exosuit that nanoprints knives?” Richter said.
“That’s not all, Richter.” Tang said. “This Voxel suit has shown the potential of nanoprinting weapons with complex moving parts.”
Richter scoffed. He couldn’t understand the excitement Tang exuded for a technology that’d been around forever. Voxels were nothing new. Volumetric three-dimensional nanoprinting of food had been a standard for many years, pushing the forefront in material-additive manufacturing. If there was a base material to print from, a protoform was the result.
“So what?” Richter said. “We nanoprint shit all the time.”
“Not like this,” Tang said. “Voxelization can be linked with the user's psyche, allowing for an instant manifestation of anything the mind desires. Along with DNA information from the seed, the protomaterial needed for unlimited printing has succeeded.”
“It’s a goddamn Armageddon suit,” Colin said.
“So, that’s what's happening on the surface?” Richter asked. “Suited up Reform inmates gone haywire? Fucking voxel porcupines?”
“We’re not sure of the extent of their capabilities. The mind can dream up some weird shit, Richter,” Colin said.
“Yeah, leave it to Rockheed’s finest for that,” Richter said.
“I’ve been in contact with General Graham and Sasha Hastings, but I had no idea she was this close,” Tang added. “Honestly, not knowing what’s down there scares me the most.”
“Contact? Yeah, I bet. Heard you two were really close. Taking a lot of trips down there lately,” Richter said. “Looks like you both have some explaining to do to the investors.”
“Richter, we all were here when this was happening, and now it’s a shit storm,” Colin said, food stuck around his mouth. “You’re just as much a part of Rockheed’s brotherhood as everyone else.”
Richter’s mind raced. There was no way he considered himself a brother to Colin or Tang, but Colin had a point. The board would likely convict all parties involved based on the fact that he hadn’t said anything. Richter looked at Colin’s face again as, with pursed lips, he changed the holoscreen to reveal what Richter had been suspecting his solution would be.
A simulation played of Oyria being hit with a large impact and ravaged in the resultant nuclear fire. Richter remembered his orientation—fail-safes that were set up in case of a quarantine that was out of control.
“Safety protocols have been enacted. A payload of nukes will be delivered in six hours to clean all this up,” said Fox. “Then, we can start anew with no problem, thanks to the ‘seed’ we have access to.”
“Sir, I brought my brother here!” Richter exclaimed, swelling with anger. He had been lied to, and now he’d brought his brother to a position where he thought he’d be safe, only to have him suffer all over again. “What about the rest of Rockheed? The Reform Facility inmates? The employees?”
“It's a redo, Richter.” Colin barely flinched at the enraging language. “If we’re caught, then it’s treason by genocide. We lose everything. Hell, you’ll lose your rank, your career, and your pension.”
Richter looked past Colin to the stars that slowly circled past the glass hull of the space station. What would a nuclear explosion do to the methane on the planet? He had to save his brother, no matter the cost.
“But the methane,” Richter said. “There’s oxygen down there now. It’ll act as an oxidizer.”
“We’ve run the numbers,” Colin said. “There’s not enough oxygen to ignite the whole planet, just enough to melt down some thin crustal formations.”
“Richter, I’m leading a team down there to retrieve the seed and all the genetic information I can,” Tang finally said. “As a fellow Space Marine, I’ll retrieve your brother if I can find him.”
“Yeah, I bet you will,” Richter said, knowing Tang wouldn’t give a shit about Nathan. “Tell Sasha I said hi.”
Richter’s stride was brisk but calm so as not to cause a commotion while walking down the long corridor to the docking bay where ROAS housed its fleet of cruise ships. Among all the bureaucratic bullshit and irresponsible corporate decisions he’d seen over the years, this was the worst. He had only one purpose now—save his brother even if it meant going rogue and disobeying orders.
He turned his wrist over and looked down at a watch showing varying measurements of time, altitude, and atmospheric pressure.
“TRUDI, get me the ETA on the nuke payload headed for Oyria,” Richter said.
A new time indicator lit up in bright red, reading T minus three hour
s, fifty-six minutes. Richter’s heart thumped.
“Sarge, where are we heading? Has someone been a bad boy?’ TRUDI said in Richter’s ear.
“TRUDI, what's the status of the fleet?” Richter fired back, annoyed at her tone. “I need to get to the surface.”
“All ships are locked per executive order, sir,” TRUDI said.
“Can you access the interface to open up a ship?” Richter asked.
“Sir, I can do many things, and one of them is making you happy,” TRUDI said.
Richter turned a corner that doglegged right, opening to a large fleet of ships stacked over each other and a larger hangar door below. Above, a central tube hung from the ceiling with circular paneled glass that revealed the airmen and traffic control officers who were monitoring the bridge.
“I need you to override a fighter ship,” Richter said, pointing to a small, unassuming, V-shaped vessel.
“My pleasure, sir. Can I outfit it with the large… package?” TRUDI asked.
“Sure,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Big guns will be needed.”
He watched the hanging control tower as TRUDI bypassed the encryption. The turret-styled mechanism began to engage, lowering the ship, now equipped with two large cannons on each side. Richter ran over and hopped into the Plexiglas cockpit.
Now snug in his seat, Richter watched the controllers already scrambling in the tower in response to the unauthorized sanction. He flipped switches to lock the Plexiglas cockpit door, unbuckle the ship from the turret housing, and engage the thrusters. A hot, bluish white exhaust pulsed outward as the room dimmed to red. Guards could be seen piling from the door and stopping in formation, raising their energy weapons to their shoulders. They began to fire. Richter pulled right on the controls and swerved away from the barrage.
“TRUDI, I need you to open that bay, now!” Richter yelled, maneuvering the ship downward toward the closed doors.
“You need me to open what?” TRUDI said, showing a set of beautiful legs on the holoscreen as if she really had a pair.
“Open your fucking legs, TRUDI!” Richter screamed, pushing the aircraft straight toward the doors. “Now!”
Turrets all around began to spin while his onetime comrades engaged fighter ships to intercept him. He had to hurry. He engaged the large cannons and spun them around but pointed them just below the targets. What Richter wanted the most was to save his brother, but he wouldn’t harm his comrades in the corps. He just hoped they’d return the favor.
Richter approached the door. Streaks from laser beams shot across his nose, ricocheting off the door. A bright light began to grow in front of him in a large vertical line, and he wondered if he would make it. The opening seemed too slim after adding the cannons.
After a few tense moments, his stomach lifted, and he felt the gravity ease as they exited the bay.
“TRUDI, close your legs!”
The bay doors slammed closed, trapping any fighters who might be following him.
“I hope it was as good for you as it was for me,” TRUDI said at last.
Richter felt relief as he headed toward the brilliantly white, snow-covered planet below.
4
Nathan Collins lay in his prime cot that unfolded neatly from the bunk wall. The room was barely dark due to the ambient light from the snow outside that was shining in through a crystalline-windowed door. Adding insult to injury, a few monitors across the way were kept on, showing the ice crust and the ammonia cocktail currents below. His heart drummed slowly as the effects of the alcohol began to wear off. His first thought was that he should’ve drunk more.
Thoughts of Sasha flooded his mind, and he wondered what had gone wrong with them. He missed their time together, but that was history. Nathan turned to his side, pulling off his amber shades and placing them on the floor. His pale eye almost glimmered at night, depending on how the light hit it.
Deep down Nathan knew he wore the shades to hide his disfigurement, as well as to make it easier for people to look at him without showing their obvious distress. He also wore them to lessen the ‘shine’ he saw from his bad eye. At first, he hadn’t known what to make of it. Wisps of smoke-like distortions seemed to waft in his peripheral vision like some type of energy field. It had made for some great drunken nights trying to follow them, but they always dissipated into nothing. VA doctors chalked it up to side effects from the Syndicate weapon-blast he’d taken to the face, but Nathan was convinced it had opened his eye to another spectrum that modern science couldn’t explain.
Nathan rolled back over, covering his face with the thin sheet, trying to block the reflected light pouring in from the windows. How did anyone get any sleep with it looking like high noon?
THUNK!
The door’s handle shook violently. Through the windowed door, he could make out a dark, shadowy figure outside. Two seconds later, another figure was behind it, and then another.
“Unauthorized DNA,” the computer sputtered repeatedly.
Nathan shot up, reaching under his cot for a small mag pistol. He cocked the slide back, injecting a bullet into the chamber. His “good” eye focused through the sight onto the figures that seemed to be scrambling about.
Nathan stepped closer to the door, firmly planted his left leg, and kicked the door open. The force knocked the figures to the ground. Nathan could now see who they were—Reformers from the facility.
“What are you doing out here?” Nathan yelled, never taking his aim off the group.
One Reformer was mangled, bleeding from the hip where a large gash had opened from what appeared to be claw marks. Nathan motioned for the other Reformers to move back away from the injured one as he knelt to size up the wound.
“What happened to you?” Nathan asked, looking back to the snowy tundra and the Reform Facility. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, so how had they escaped?
“It’s following us!” one Reformer said, slowly rising to his feet. His hair was long and tangled into dreadlocks that rustled over his orange Reformer uniform. On his chest was a nametag shaped like a target that read “Switch.” This target was repeated all over his jumpsuit in crucial areas that guards could easily aim at.
Nathan was initially reluctant to believe the man named Switch, figuring the wounded one had gashed himself on barbed wire while trying to escape.
“You bet they’re following you. You just tried to escape from Reform,” Nathan said, standing up, taking aim, and backing away from the men. He needed to call in his post.
“No, a fucking arachnid! Big as a man!” Switch said.
“Fuck you. I saw a fucking snake,” said the other Reformer, holding his wound.
Among the frigid snow mounds in the distance, Nathan could see something moving in his peripheral vision. He’d forgotten his glasses back in his post, so there was no help with the bright, reflective snow. It was probably just “shine,” he thought.
“It’s coming, man!” the wounded Reformer yelled, rising to his feet and running off into the cold.
Nathan considered dropping him right there with a clean shot, but the poor soul had lost it at that point. Must have hypothermia. Nathan had seen the “hide and die” syndrome before—humans losing it and stripping naked in the cold, just to find a burrow to die in.
“Please, help us. There’s a creature hunting us,” Switch yelled.
Nathan could read the fear in Switch’s eyes as he pleaded, and he looked back up at the horizon. Nothing was moving, just static white tundra. “There’s nothing here, but…”
A large, black, four-legged creature rose from a mound of snow, its fur frosted white as if it had been burrowing its way toward them. The wolf slowly stepped toward them with its soft, pillow-matted paws and sharp, jutting claws.
Nathan’s vision was blurry, and he quickly realized that he was seeing two different images, one in each eye. In his “good” eye, a huge wolf-like beast appeared with fangs as large as limbs. In his “bad” eye, a dark humanoid form was wearing a p
orthole suit of some kind.
The humanoid’s skin looked like black, interlocking scales, which formed some kind of techno-organic pattern with large apertures that glowed from within. Nathan could now see that the wolf-like legs were growing from all the portholes, forming the creature in his “good” eye.
“See! A fucking arachnid!” Switch yelled out, jumping to his feet and pushing past Nathan into his post.
“No, that’s a fucking wolf!” Nathan yelled back.
Nathan couldn’t believe either eye. What was happening? Nathan closed his “good” eye, staring down the sight of his weapon with his squinting ghostly eye.
Not far away, he watched the hound zigzag and then intercept another moving object. It was the third Reformer, who didn’t have a chance as the large, brooding monster came down on him with a ravenous bite. Nathan watched in horror, reacting the only way he knew.
TUTT, TUTT, TUTT!
Nathan fired his pistol.
The suited creature trekked closer to them, and Nathan’s heart slowed when he got a glimpse of it up close. He was seeing the face of a man who looked scared, dying inside.
TUTT, TUTT, TUTT!
Nathan fired again, this time sending three shots into the man’s chest, dropping the canine creature, but it picked itself back up. Nathan watched as the wolf’s limbs flailed wildly. It was dying, bleeding out. The two Reformers came out of the post to watch a man die on the ground.
He looked back at Switch, who was in shock. Nathan knew this meant more than a prison break. What he wondered now was whether Sasha was still in there or, even worse, dead. But first, he needed to find out what the fuck was going on.
Nathan Collins walked back into his post and gave a heavy look toward the dreadlocked escapee who was fiddling with the components of the post’s terminal. Switch typed code effortlessly, unlocking confidential menus and sub-folders. Nathan was shocked to see him working so efficiently.