Provider Prime: Alien Legacy

by John Vassar

  Every thought of regaining his own will was beaten back by the desire to serve.

  Thorne’s control was total, irresistible.

  Alone in his office at Sat-1, tears began to well in the blue-grey eyes of Nathaniel Devlin. Locked away in the darkest recesses of his mind, he was losing the battle for his soul. Without the foresight of the late Harry Doyle, all that he was would already have been lost. After the Populus Control clerk’s death, Doyle had insisted that the entire DS squad be immunised against Verum-12. Unconvinced, Devlin had limited the inoculation programme to senior ranks - the process was not without risk and he was unwilling to endanger his entire team based on one of Doyle’s hunches. Although the drug found in the clerk was similar to Verum, no-one in his science team could give him an accurate measure of the vaccine’s protection. The answer to that question was now clear. It had very little effect. The serum that Thorne had developed was far more advanced than FedStat’s Verum-12. At best, the inoculation had allowed Commander Nathaniel Devlin to retain a tiny part of his humanity. At worst, it had condemned him to a living hell, able to witness his own acts of depravity but powerless to stop them.

  The order for Mitchell’s execution was just the beginning. Hours later, Devlin received another missive from Thorne. The conversation remained undetected, the incoming transmission carried on an Sub Ether frequency unknown to FedStat.

  ‘Your attempts to terminate the rogue agent Mitchell have once again failed. In addition, your actions have aroused the suspicions of your own senior agent who has now reported his concerns over your recent orders to the High Council.’

  ‘That is impossible… There was nothing in my actions that could have-’

  ‘This is what you will do. Mitchell is being treated in a mining survey facility a short distance from my own location. The co-ordinates are being sent to you. You will give orders to destroy this facility in its entirety before travelling to Cytec T-1 under maximum concealment.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You will carry out these orders immediately. The High Council will be investigating the claims of Agent Charlis and you have little time left before your authority comes under question. Thorne out.’

  Devlin had not heard the rasp of a synthetic voice emanating from a machine of war. His orders had come from the lips of a benevolent being that held sway over the cosmos with grace and understanding. The imprisoned human soul, watching through eyes that no longer cared, screamed out in protest, but was ignored.

  Devlin contacted the FedStat garrison at Lomonosov. He gave orders for a single cruiser and two escort skimmers to annihilate Hirayama-Y survey base with a controlled fission explosion, advising the garrison commander that a plot against the Autogen-owned facility had been uncovered. Although the pro-sentient activists had been discovered and arrested, biological weapons had already been planted on the site. The use of a CYF was the fastest and most efficient means to achieve complete sterilisation. He stated that a similar attack had already succeeded - the reactor sabotage at Cytec’s Euro-2 facility. The lunar-side commander was well aware of this incident and acknowledged the need for swift action. Devlin advised that Hirayama-Y had been evacuated and that any activity on the ground would be of autom origin. He signed off, repeating the need for a Level 10 security lockdown before and after the mission.

  That was forty-five minutes ago. Since then, Nathaniel Devlin had sat back and waited for the message that would consign him to history as a mass murderer. He had no choice but to do this. Any other action was forbidden.

  The surrogate Devlin answered the comlink from Lomonosov and a brief conversation confirmed the complete destruction of Hirayama-Y survey base. His instructions now were to leave Sat-1 immediately and report to Thorne lunar-side. He ran his fingertips over the oak desk, distantly aware that he had just murdered over a hundred people. Someone he used to know urged him to contact the High Council and tell them that Charlis had been right to question his actions. It was a hazy notion and did not last long.

  Devlin’s voice was steady as he rose from the desk. ‘Devlin, Nathaniel, Commander Delere Secos. Vehicle requisition HCV-ND-001. Emergency evac protocol 7601.’

  The protocol he had just invoked was that of a High Council member in a life-threatening situation. Sat-1’s mainframe obeyed without question, running pre-flight checks on Devlin’s personal skimmer and initiating the five-minute sequence to open the massive hangar bay doors.

  ‘Vehicle HCV-ND-001 will be ready to launch in 3 minutes and forty-six seconds. Please proceed to hangar bay 6C. You will not be required to provide further security checks, station security will monitor your progress and provide appropriate access.’

  ‘Acknowledged. Request additional weapon requisition. Steyr XC. Max yield power pack.’ Devlin walked across to the low tray that had morphed from the wall next to the giant vista panel. He glanced out to the stars, then concealed the small, grey pistol in his tunic pocket. Despite Sat-1’s assurances, he intended to make certain that he reached the hangar bay alive.

  Devlin sealed his office for the last time and strode down ‘B’ Corridor to the central elevators. Nothing in his demeanour suggested that anything was out of the ordinary. As he had always done, he smiled and nodded to passing members of his science team as he entered the elevator. ‘Hangar Deck 6, level C.’

  ‘Evac protocol 7601 in operation, override status engaged.’

  The elevator sped him to the belly of the station, ignoring calls from waiting passengers on the decks below. Devlin noticed the bulge in his pocket and straightened his tunic. He stepped from the elevator car and walked straight ahead. He knew the route to 6C, but the station acknowledged his emergency status and illuminated the walls with moving arrows. Deck C’s huge portal hatches would now be open and by the time he reached his skimmer all pre-flights would be complete. He turned into the approach corridor and saw two staffers at the ready in front of the hangar bay portal, as they should be under 7601. He recognised the men, both from Charlis’s non-covert FedStat squad. They were not the DS elite but good men nevertheless, hand-picked by Charlis and trained by him from cadet level. The next few seconds would tell Devlin whether or not the Senate had decided to act on the report submitted by his second-in-command.

  Astley, the staffer on the left, stiffened as the DS Director approached. His right hand moved towards the Fetter Gun at his hip and Devlin had his answer. He stopped a couple of metres in front of them and smiled. ‘Astley, Denton… no problem here I hope? Are you aware that an evac protocol is in effect?’

  Astley answered, eyes front, unwilling to look his supreme commander in the eye. ‘Yes, sir. But we cannot allow you to pass this point. Direct orders from the High Council. You are to return to your office and await instructions from the Senate.’

  ‘Indeed? Well, I can’t argue with the Senate, can I?’ Devlin glanced down at the FGs and added with a chuckle, ‘No need to deploy the hardware, gentlemen, I’ll go quietly.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I apologise. I mean… we’re just obeying orders, sir.’

  ‘I know. Orders can be tricky sometimes. Carry on.’ Devlin turned, then stopped, a puzzled look on his face. He looked down at the deck, then began rummaging in the pockets of his tunic. Astley took a small step forward. ‘Lost something, sir?’

  ‘Misplaced my comlink. Probably why I didn’t get the message from the High Council. No, wait…’ Devlin turned back, his right hand still in his tunic pocket. He smiled at the young staffer. ‘I’ve found it. It was here all the time…’

  The blast from the Steyr lifted Astley from his feet and threw him back against the bulkhead, the energy bolt taking away half his shoulder. Blood spattered across his companion’s face as Devlin re-aimed and fired two bolts into Denton’s stomach. He was dead before he hit the ground. Devlin hurried towards the portal, slipping for a moment on the red puddle spreading across the deck. Quoting 7601, it opened instantly and Devlin raced down the pressurised conduit towards the skimmer. He didn’t under
stand why his eyes were streaming with tears or why the base was still acknowledging his evac protocol. Had Charlis instructed the staffers to detain him without the Senate’s authorisation? All irrelevant. The loss of life signs from the two men would raise the alert soon enough.

  Devlin settled into the command seat and the harness morphed around him. The neural link engaged and he detached the embarkation conduit. Ahead of him, the external hangar portal showed green on all beams for departure. All was well until he released the skimmer and manoeuvred away from the docking clamps.

  ‘Code Zero alert. Do not attempt to leave the hangar area. All external portals are being sealed. Code Zero alert. Do not attempt-‘

  Devlin muted the warning and looked out through the forward transparency. The huge portal hatches were indeed in motion again. He dropped the skimmer’s nose and accelerated towards the narrowing exit. Tactical showed that given his speed and distance from the portal, a forty-five degree roll adjustment was needed to allow the atmospheric winglets to clear the hatch edges. His neural link command, however, was not being acknowledged by the skimmer. He tried again, but it felt like his instructions were countermanded almost before he gave them. The skimmer refused to respond. Non-human chemicals coursed through his veins and sent the pilot’s mind into overdrive. Within a second, he understood what was happening.

  The real Nathaniel Devlin had somehow found the strength to fight back. And he was doing his damndest to prevent the mass-murderer that he had become from reaching freedom. A moment later, the pilot succeeded in engaging manual control, but the good man had delayed him enough. The skimmer’s forward vector was dead centre of the aperture, but it had rotated only seventeen degrees when it reached the portal. The lateral aerofoils were ripped from the rear of the fuselage as the skimmer shot into space. Wreckage sparked behind it, crushed between the massive portal hatches as they clamped shut. Thorne’s Devlin tried to bring the skimmer back into line using repulsors, but manual control was no longer responding. A command from nowhere disengaged the main drive systems. He countered the instruction, but too late. Tactical warned of two craft in pursuit and he activated shields and cam-circuits. Again, his neural link command was reversed and the craft shuddered as energy bolts ripped into the unprotected hull. All drive and weapons systems were now inoperative.

  The exhausted, once-decent human being that had been Nathaniel Devlin was finally wrenched away from the neural link and pushed back into the darkness. There was no emotion on the face of the pilot as his chemically-enhanced mind searched for alternatives. There were none. Systems informed him that his craft would explode in less than twenty seconds unless he jettisoned the fuel core. The new Devlin removed his hands from the controls and sat back. Survival at the expense of capture was an act that was forbidden.

  In a trail of debris, the skimmer tumbled out of control towards the thin blue haze of Earth’s atmosphere.

  34

  Thorne looked down at Julius Moreno, aware of the intensity of the human’s fear. Unlike Steinberg, Moreno was guilty only of stupidity and did not warrant a violent death. The Sentinel reached forward and connected with the medicom table’s life support controls. A steady reduction of oxygen in combination with a strong sedative was selected. The heart regulator would reduce to zero over a period of two minutes. Thorne turned back to Steinberg’s mutilated corpse, most of which was still pinned to the Med Lab wall. It had not been his intention to debase himself in such a killing. Once again a burning desire for revenge had overridden any logical thought process and for the first time he felt real concern over his increasing lack of control. He had been aware of Victor Wade’s presence but found himself unable to extricate his focus from terminating Steinberg. Wade was an irrelevance, but the female could still be an integral part of the next phase and her recapture was preferable. The Sentinel interfaced with T-1’s security core and made the necessary adjustments, which were minimal. Once their tenure had begun, there had never been any possibility of Wade or Steinberg leaving the facility alive. Thorne looked down again at Moreno. The fear had gone, replaced by a weak, vacant smile.

  ‘Rest now,’ Thorne said as he made his way towards corridor M-16.

  ‘What is that thing?’ Rayna Ash was still trembling as Wade pushed her from the Transit car and into the control centre. ‘It isn’t just an autom. There’s something else inside it. Something alive, something intelligent. I can feel it.’

  ‘I don’t know what it is,’ Wade grunted. ‘But I sure as fuck know we’ve got to get out of here fast.’

  ‘My name’s Rayna. Rayna Ash. Thank you for what you did.’

  ‘Victor Wade. My pleasure. Now shut up and listen. We have one chance. The security on Thorne’s skimmer is too tight to gain access. We’re in luck though. We still have the buggy that brought Greaseball in a few hours ago. That’s our ticket out of here.’ Wade wiped the back of his hand across his face and wished he had time for a cigar. There were hundreds of workers on this base and he knew he was abandoning them – but he was no use to them dead. Best he could do was alert FedStat and then run. If they made it to the buggy, there was a chance they could reach help. Wade manipulated the airscreen showing the lunar topography around T-13. He saw a small mining research facility at Hirayama-Y.

  ‘No, not enough security…’ Wade mumbled to himself.

  Rayna scowled at the mass of data on the airscreen. She had never seen anything so complex. ‘Not enough what?’

  ‘We have to get somewhere with decent fire-power. Got to be Lomonosov. It’s a lot further, but gives us a better chance in the long run.’ Wade switched the view to monitor the exit corridors and tube nodes adjacent to the Med lab. No sign of the autom. He shut down the entire Transit network with a human team maintenance code, but corridor M-16 was another matter. He couldn’t activate the fire shutters without sealing their own exit route. ‘Shit. Come on, Victor, think…’

  Rayna Ash turned away and stared into the middle distance. ‘It’s coming.’

  Wade didn’t hear her. He invoked a maximum security alert and instructed every autom on T-13 to head for corridor M-16 between the Med Lab and the control centre. Nothing on the base was armed with anything more lethal than a hypo, but they could block the corridor. If it slowed the thing down for a few seconds, it was worth it. ‘Okay, follow me.’

  A minute later, their running footsteps echoed across the cargo bay hangar deck. Rayna struggled to keep up with her rescuer as Wade raced for the Widgeon 3. They ran past Thorne’s skimmer and he looked at the sleek craft with envious eyes. His chances of gaining entry were nil. They reached the buggy and he comlinked open the entry hatch, pushing Rayna inside. ‘Buckle up.’

  In the command seat, Victor Wade punched in his access code and powered up. Requesting surface access, he instructed the inner airlock portal to open. Nothing happened. He tried again. Fifty metres above and to their left, the portal remained shut. ‘God damn it…’ Wade accessed the security hub and found the problem. T-13 had been sealed tight. Not by his own alert, but on the instruction of another user. Steinberg was dead which left one other with the necessary clearance.

  ‘Thorne…’

  Rayna Ash appeared at his side. ‘What’s the problem? Can’t we take off?’

  Wade slumped back in the pilot’s seat. ‘Nowhere to go. Thorne’s sealed the airlock.’

  Rayna Ash looked over his broad shoulders to the hangar portal they had just come though. The Sentinel was there, standing motionless. She felt its immense power, an incredible intelligence, and somewhere behind all that… a child.

  A frightened, lost child.

  35

  He was trembling. He could see the lights of the City Prime in the distance and knew that he would be subjected to the same abuse tomorrow. He was learning to fear the red sun as it climbed above the city skyline. This room had become his prison, the mysterious male his tormentor. He had been frustrated by the Elder’s decision to select him as the Provider Prime, but had never imagi
ned what was to follow. The pain. The humiliation. He begged for them to stop, but they slammed their objectives into his mind relentlessly. The machine was never turned off. When he wasn’t held in its embrace, he could feel it pounding the messages into his brain through the air, even when he slept.

  He had lost track of time. His old life had become meaningless. His parents a distant memory, one that no longer gave him any feelings of warmth, of love, of any sense of connection. There was no room in his mind for such trivialities. His naiveté was being pulled away piece by piece, replaced with the truth of Vis’haan’s desperate situation and the need for action. The need for strength.

  The need for conquest.

  The machine was relentless. When it gripped his mind he was helpless and melted into its teachings with relief. The pain was worse when he was disconnected. When he thought of things that he wasn’t supposed to. Everything he had known as a youngling was being wrenched away from him. At first, he had refused to believe the horrors he was being fed, fighting to hold on to what he knew was true. As a result, the pain had been unbearable. Only when he acquiesced did it subside. He knew, deep in his soul, that his life would never be the same again. His future, once filled with sunshine and hope, was now a dark, endless tunnel. Every step along that tunnel brought a new horror. He watched himself being reborn as something without conscience.

  But he was beginning to understand.

  To understand why Vis’haan needed the Provider Prime.

  It was not just a question of survival. His people would never die, but Vishaan’s days as a superior race were numbered. Survival at any cost was not an option. Their entire way of life, their traditions, their knowledge, their scientific achievements would all be lost unless a new harvest world was secured. The machine had taught him well. He had always understood that their food was uniquely prepared, that it had to be untainted with blood, that it had to come from certain types of animal. Everyone knew this. But until now, he had not understood how their sustenance had to be killed. No-one but the Elders knew. And the machine.