by Phil Maxey
Two plasma bolts hit the inside of the elevator just to the left of Yegor's shoulder, but a meter over the head of everyone else.
“Get the damn door closed!” shouted Evgeni, as Weber threw himself at the touch controls, causing the door to slide quickly shut and blocking the fury of noise from outside.
“Where to?” said Weber the strange cable still hanging from his wrist.
“Docking bay!” replied Evgeni.
“Did you mask our digital signature? Otherwise they will just shut—” Evan stopped talking when he saw that Weber was looking at him nonchalantly.
“I’ve been doing this since before your parents existed, I’m a lot older than I look,” said Weber.
You look kinda old thought Evan.
“How long before we are at the docking bay?” said Evgeni.
“Not long, thirty seconds,” said Weber, the picture of calm.
Luke hadn’t had much chance to gather his thoughts from the moment he put his cards down, but now, in the well-lit space with these five men, he wasn’t sure if escaping was what he wanted, he needed to do his penance. “How are we going to get off Tantalus?”
Evgeni leaned against the wall. “We find a shuttle, we leave. It’s simple.”
“They’re just going to send an RRV after us,” said Luke, not understanding how they could venture further than a few clicks from the ship without being brought back.
Evgeni looked at Weber, who looked reluctant to speak. “I’ll fool the ship’s AI into thinking we are just a normal shuttle returning to earth.”
Evan looked impressed, then remembered what Luke had said to him about an attack as he entered the cell. “What was—” The elevator plunged into darkness. Evgeni swore to himself.
Everyone’s breathing was all Luke could hear as they all waited for the light to return, but after ten seconds it was still impossible for them to see anything.
“Maybe it not come back on. Weber, can you tell us where we are?”
“The one with the flashlight, I need it over here, now!” said Weber, as Thiago obliged.
Weber pulled the panel off as he did before, and attached the cable from his hand to the inside. Thiago’s flashlight switched between Weber and the circuitry inside the wall. Weber had his eyes closed and sweat was slowly crawling down his face.
He breathed out. “Central Water station section 2B” his words sounded synthetic.
“Can you get the doors open?” said Luke.
Weber looked at Evgeni. “Yes, we can walk from here.”
CHAPTER 12
“Ship, lower the alarm to thirty percent volume.” Captain Taylor turned to Elisa.
“Is the radiation still hitting us?” Taylor gripped the sides of her seat on the bridge.
“The levels are receding, Captain, but our—” the lights dimmed “—power output is still being affected,” said Elisa.
“Jones, what’s our distance from Earth?”
“3000 km and increasing, Captain,” said Jones.
“What about the inertial dampeners?”
“IMs have been sent to inspect them.”
“What other damage have we taken?”
“The GX hull plating seems to have absorbed a lot of the radiation, but some made it inside and affected other systems.”
“Ship, what is the reason our energy output is being affected?” She posed into the air around her.
“The life form which the Tantalus came into contact with—”
Taylor interrupted. “Wait. What do you mean life form?”
“The behavior and interactions of the unknown radiation is consistent with sentient life.”
Elisa and Jones looked at each other.
Taylor sighed. “I don’t have time for this nonsense, obviously the power fluctuations must be affecting the ship’s AI.” She turned to Jones. “Do we have full power for propulsion?”
Jones tapped his screen. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“Then plot a course to the Moon colony.”
He continued his tapping. “Course logged. We should be within the Moon’s orbit inside six hours.”
Taylor leaned back in her chair feeling drained, the bridge still slightly tilted.
“Ma’am, I have an emergency transmission coming in from Mars colony,” said Elisa.
Taylor nodded, and Elisa tapped her console screen. A woman with a burn on the right side of her face, appeared on the large screen. She was standing in what looked like a laboratory, her darting eyes and shaky voice betrayed her obvious fear. Taylor’s grip tightened on her seat’s leather arm.
“This is an emergency call from Mars colony.” The woman looked briefly behind then back to the camera. “We are under attack, I repeat, we are under attack. It is not a syndicate—” The lights in the corridor, visible through a window at the back of the mainly white room went out. She looked around and jumped, her body visibly shaking. “Please, any ships in the vicinity of the Mars colony, come to our aid, I don’t know how long we can hold out against the darkness. We have—”
The video froze.
Taylor looked at Elisa.
“That’s all there is, Ma’am.”
Captain Taylor ran her hand through her hair, while looking down. “Jones, how far is it to Mars colony?”
He consulted his screen. “If we had enough fuel, perhaps five days.”
“We don’t have the fuel?”
“The fuel we have just expended means we are point two percent short of achieving necessary velocity to reach Mars colony. The Moon colony is the only base we can get to with our current fuel, Ma’am.”
Taylor stood. “Okay, Elisa find an Earth Authority base or colony to talk with. If that’s not possible find me any ship.”
This was only the second time the captain had called her by her first name. She quickly scanned the usual comms frequencies and didn’t find anything, she changed to do a broad sweep of all frequencies and the same result came back.
“Umm—” Elisa found it hard to mention what she hadn’t found.
“What?” said the captain, moving closer to her.
“I’m not finding any transmissions from any of the bases or colonies, or any from ships.”
“No, that can’t be right.” Taylor stepped forward, nudging Elisa to one side, and began tapping away at the screen. After a few seconds of negative results, her hand lifted and wavered. “Could this radiation be affecting our sensor arrays?”
“It’s possible,” said Elisa doubting her own words.
“The Moon Colony, try to reach them.”
Elisa’s instincts were telling her what the result would be, but did it anyway.
“Nothing Ma’am.”
The three people on the bridge of the Tantalus suddenly felt very alone.
“Do you want me to plot a new course, Ma’am,” said Jones.
Taylor held her temple. “Okay, let’s try this. Find me the nearest ship to us, there must be one that isn’t too far, there’s always a lot of traffic between Earth and the Moon colony.”
The large screen changed showing a view of space overlaid with hundreds of lines between Earth and the Moon. One of them flashed red. A small image of a ship, together with text and crew manifest appeared next to the flashing line.
“On our current trajectory and at our current velocity with a small course adjustment we will intercept the Hatton, a hauler with a crew of sixteen in approximately three hours,” said Jones. “Shall I make the adjustment? Ma’am.”
“Yes.” As she went to sit back down in her seat, a new alarm sounded. “Now what?”
“The cell blocks have been breached. Two hundred and twelve inmates are currently moving away from the blocks,” said the ship’s AI. “IMs have been sent to intercept.”
CHAPTER 13
Evan stepped onto the small platform in the shaft, out of breath. Luckily the lights had come back to full illumination a few moments before. He looked up to Evgeni who was busily climbing a little way above him. “For a
man of advanced years, he’s pretty fit,” Evan said to Luke and Thiago as they passed by.
“Come on!” shouted down Evgeni.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Evan under his breath, as he got hold of the ladder and started to climb again.
They soon reached the top of the shaft and stepped out onto a larger platform than before, with a door. Weber set about doing his usual job with the circuitry.
A noise rose from far below, and they all looked down to the bottom of the six floors they had just climbed up.
“An IM has entered the shaft,” exclaimed Evan.
They all watched as the machine made short work of the climb, and was moving at least three times faster than they had. “We need the door open Weber!” said Evgeni.
“I know, I’m working!”
The silver and green machine seemed to speed up. “Inmates, you are to halt and not to proceed any further!” The IM spoke its instruction loudly from only a few stories below.
“You really don’t want to be caught by one of those things, it’s not pretty,” said Thiago.
The small group, readied themselves for a fight which they knew they would lose, even with Yegor by their side.
“Got it!” The door slid open, and they moved outside quickly.
“Close it!” shouted Evgeni.
Weber quickly pulled the panel off on the outside, plugged his cable in, and the door slammed shut just as metal fingers appeared on the top of the ladder. A few seconds afterwards, a thumping noise came from the other side of the door.
“It’s sealed, he can’t open it,” said Weber.
“The power failures seem to have stopped,” said Evan looking concerned. “That’s not good for our chances of escaping.”
Weber looked both ways in the small corridor they were standing in. “This way,” he said, then moved off to their left towards a junction. After a quick look, he repeated his previous words before leading them down the corridor which ended with a large door, with “Docking Bay Access” above it. Straightaway, he tore off the panel and plugged his cable in again. “This might take a while; their security is coming back online.”
The small group looked anxiously back from where they came. Distant clangs reverberated through the walls and floors.
Evan looked at Luke. “What did you say earlier about an attack?”
Before Luke could reply, Evgeni spoke up. “We do not know much, other than there has been a massive attack on Earth, three fusion reactors have exploded.”
Evan scrunched his face up in confusion.
A wave of realization swept across Thiago’s face, and he turned to Evgeni. “The reactors, were any of them near the east coast American Municipalities?”
Evgeni nodded before he started talking. “Yes, there was one there that exploded.”
Thiago shook his head, while his face tightened. Then he had another thought.
Maybe her shuttle was redirected to another port.
Just as the idea settled in Thiago’s mind another metallic sound came from along the corridor. They all froze and hoped there would be no further noise, but the sound continued, becoming a continuous rapping.
Evgeni looked at Yegor, who moved ahead of them standing tall.
“I do not think we have long, you need to get the door open Weber,” said Evgeni as the noise grew louder. An IM appeared at the end of the corridor a hundred meters away, running on all fours like a cat.
“That’s kind of cool,” said Evan as the large door behind him slid open.
The cat like IM covered half the distance to them in a few seconds and leapt through the air at Yegor, who moved to the side with a grace which surprised Luke, grabbing the IM by the throat and slinging it against the wall.
They all ran over the door’s threshold, watching as the IM regained its balance and lunged towards Yegor.
The door closed.
“We can’t leave him!” shouted Luke.
Evgeni looked down. “They will not kill him, they will just take him back.”
Luke turned around in anger, he wasn’t liking the choices they were making.
They were in a long, wide corridor at least two hundred meters long with a string of small recesses leading to airlocks on both sides.
Weber ran to the touch screen of each, checking and shaking his head. After four attempts, he found what he was looking for. “This one.” He pulled off the panel to the side and attached his cable, the airlock opened revealing a corridor which ran to an open door. “They tried to lock us out, but I’ve overridden their attempts,” said Weber with pride. “I have also put a firewall around their ignition codes for the other shuttles and RRVs, but it will only hold for about one hour, then they will be coming after us.”
“That’s more than enough time for us to get to the surface,” said Evgeni running into the airlock, as Weber disconnected himself.
Luke looked back at the door they had just come through, and the airlock ahead, and sighed in frustration. He felt like he was surfing a wave that he wanted to get off, but felt unable to. He and the others ran into the airlock, then the passenger floor of the shuttle, and both airlocks closed behind them.
“I presume you know how to pilot a shuttle, Mr. Carter.”
Luke nodded and ran up the small set of stairs to the cockpit. Its door slid back and he leapt into the pilot’s chair. Weber appeared behind him. “As you can see I have opened the docking bay external doors, but I don’t know how long they will stay open for, I suggest we leave immediately.”
Luke nodded again, and looked at the console in front of him. It had been over seven years since he had piloted a shuttle, but they were simple enough that a first-year ensign could fly them. His finger traced across the screen, releasing the docking clamps, and firing up the fusion engines.
He was about to engage the thrust when a voice came over the internal comms for everyone to hear. It was Captain Taylor.
“Luke Carter, I know you are in the shuttle that is firing up, hell you’re probably piloting it.”
“What are you waiting for! Take us out!” insisted Weber. Luke raised his hand, there was something about the tone of her voice that was off, it was not demanding, it almost sounded apologetic.
Evgeni walked up the stairs and stood behind them both. “What is the delay?”
“Wait,” said Luke.
“I will pilot us out, I’m sure I have the prerequisite database somewhere in me,” said Weber sitting down in the co-pilot’s seat.
“I can’t stop you from leaving, but there is something you should know, something, we don’t know what, has attacked, and it would seem devastated much of Earth,” said the captain.
Thiago walked up the steps and stood close behind them all, while Weber stopped doing what he needed to do to pilot the ship and listened.
“Mars colony has also been attacked—” somebody said something behind her, which she quickly shut down, then she continued “—and we cannot reach any colonies, bases or ships anywhere in the system, we are currently two hours from the Moon colony, and one hour from intercepting a hauler which we want to investigate to try to find out what is going on.”
“She is just trying to stall us, Weber take us out, before we lose chance!” shouted Evgeni.
“Are you hearing, what she is saying? We are probably not even within shuttle range to Earth anymore anyway,” said Luke. Evgeni looked away in frustration. Luke looked at Weber. “Can I talk to her on the comms?” Webber nodded. Luke tapped the options on the console screen. “What’s your name, Captain?”
“Kim Taylor.”
“How do I know this is not some attempt to slow us down, and the view of Earth is just outside the docking bay?”
“If you allow us access to your systems, we will show you.”
Evgeni grabbed Luke’s shoulder. “No! We will be back in our cells within the hour if we do that, at least we have some leverage while we are in here.”
“What leverage? They don’t give a crap about us,” s
aid Thiago.
Luke looked at Weber. “Can we give her access back, but stop them from opening the doors, or taking control of anything else?”
Weber felt under the console for a port, and attached his cable. He looked at Luke. “I can restrict their access for maybe sixty seconds, then they will be in.”
“Okay, Captain, send us what you have,” said Luke.
The HUD on the shuttles front windows, changed to Earth and the mushroom clouds slowly rising, followed by a kind of darkness creeping across the globe.
Evgeni leaned forward. “Surely that is just the sun receding behind the planet.”
“We are looking at daytime for the northern hemisphere,” said Luke. He had seen the sun rise and set on Earth a thousand times, over a decade. Evgeni rubbed his chin. Weber's hands fell to his sides.
“But what could attack Earth like that?” said Evan standing behind them.
The view changed to the close-up view of the surface and the listless beings that roamed across the landscape. They all just watched in silence. Finally, the video of the frightened woman on the Mars colony played.
Evgeni leaned back on the wall behind him.
Luke broke the silence. “You are on the way to the Moon colony? How do you know it’s any different there?”
“We don’t, we have had no response from our transmissions to them, but it’s the closest EA base from Earth.”
“Quick you should pull the connection!” said Evgeni as if waking up from a dream.
Weber just looked at him. “They have had full access to the shuttle for the past thirty seconds,” he said pulling his cable from the console.
Luke looked at those around him. “Well you now have access to the shuttles systems, you can open the doors and pull us out and march us back to our cells, we can’t stop you now, so I guess this conversation is over.”
“Actually, I need your help.”
CHAPTER 14
“Are you insane?” Murlock marched up and down outside a window which looked upon a large prisoner holding compartment, ranting at the top of his voice. “We can’t trust these people, have you seen their records?” Captain Taylor stood with her hands behind her back, silent. “Probably not, because all you do is pilot this big bucket, but I’ve seen every person’s record on this ship, and trust me when I tell you, you do not want these people anywhere near you. Murderers, rapists, arsonists, and those are the good guys. Then there’s the others that we keep in the deep bowels of this ship, which we are trying to forget about. Oh, then we have those—” his face turned to one of a mixture of anger and sadness “—terrorists, the Archon syndicate.”