by Adam Matlow
“Dad? What’s going on?” said Amara, her voice was broken. Her hands were unsteady and trembled slightly. Doc took her hand to comfort her.
“Stay back,” Doc said to Amara, and turned to address Marcus, “She’s not under Davon’s control anymore. I freed her. She’s not a threat.”
“You should listen to Doc,” came a third voice from the left of Marcus. He glanced over to see Kali with a bandage tied around her head. “I’m trying to get some rest in here, and you lot are making a racket.”
“Kali? How did you get here?” asked Marcus.
“After you abandoned me in Jericho my men brought me here. Oh, and by the way, I’m still pissed at you for that. You knew that I wanted to bring Vana back here. I get hurt and you take the opportunity to bail on me.”
“Look, I knew you were in safe hands with your men,” replied Marcus. “To be honest I thought they’d take you back to your outpost.”
“They did, but the place was deserted. I thought it had been attacked until I arrived here and saw the same had happened in New Hope.”
“Where’re your men now?” Marcus relaxed slightly, and Vana stood out from behind him.
“They went on a supply run. They should have been back by now. Something must have happened. I was planning on going to look for them. If I could stand for more than five minutes without getting dizzy.” Kali wandered over to a chair and plopped herself into it.
“I think I know what caused everyone to vanish,” said Vana quietly.
All eyes shifted onto her.
“Go on then,” said Kali.
“How much did you hear about what we told Doc?”
“I heard everything. Don’t believe a word of it.”
“I thought you were resting?” said Marcus.
Kali shot him a snide look. “I’m surprised you are buying into this Doc.” She rolled her eyes and swung her feet up onto a nearby desk. “It’s a load of paranoid conspiracy theory bullshit.”
“Well what do you think happened to all those people outside?” asked Marcus.
“I have no idea,” she replied sharply, “but I sure as hell don’t think it was aliens from the planet Mars that did it.”
“Actually, they're not from Mar--” said Vana before being interrupted.
“Or Venus or whatever.”
“When you consider the evidence--” started Doc,
“What evidence? All they have is a wild story and a bag of trinkets.” She scowled at Vana. “Now don’t get me wrong, it’s obvious something weird is going on around here, and we need to get to the bottom of it. Davon obviously has a new weapon. What this weapon does or how it works is beyond me, but we can’t let him continue to use it.”
“That much we can agree on,” said Marcus.
“I don’t think it’s a weapon,” said Vana, “I think those people are still alive,” she continued, fighting to get a word in past Kali’s diatribe. “I think it was used to transport the inhabitants of this settlement to somewhere else.”
“It’s not just this settlement either,” said Doc. “Since the incident, I have been listening to radio chatter, trying to figure out what happened. It seems this has affected all the other major settlements in the area. Some smaller ones seem to have escaped untouched, and anyone who was outside the settlement limits at the time was also spared. That’s probably why you were not affected,” he said motioning to Vana and Marcus.
“You seem to have more of an idea what this could be Vana,” said Marcus, “What do you think has happened to them?”
“I’ve seen something like this, ‘weapon’ before,” she replied, “though on a much smaller scale. I think it’s a kind of transportation device, used to kidnap your people and take them somewhere else, possibly even off world.”
“Oh, here we go again with the alien nonsense,” snorted Kali.
“Look,” said Marcus, cutting her off. “Whether you believe us or not, the course of action is clear. We have to get to the weapon and either capture or destroy it, and if we can take out Davon at the same time, all the better. Although I’m not sure how. We vaporised several square miles of rock earlier on, and he somehow managed to survive that.”
“Actually, I think I know how he escaped,” said Vana. “He transported himself, in much the same way as he took all these people.”
“Great,” said Marcus. “So now he has the ability to appear anywhere he pleases?”
“Yes, and not only that. He seems to have found a way to do this on a large scale. In theory he could transport a whole army anywhere almost instantly.”
“So why hasn’t he? Nothing’s making sense around here. What does he want? Why kidnap people? What possible use could they be to him?”
“I don’t know,” replied Vana. “But whatever the reason is, the only way we’re going to be able to stop him is to get to the Sentinel. I took everything we will need to create a portal of our own from my ship before we destroyed it. It should allow us to build something we can use to get to the Sentinel. I’m going to need some help if you’re up to it?” She locked her eyes onto Doc, who gingerly probed the backpack, but stopped short of removing anything from it.
“So, once we have this thing built, we’re good to go?” said Kali, who had given up protesting about how absurd this all sounded to her.
“Not quite,” said Vana. “Before we can use this device, we need to calibrate it correctly. Unfortunately, the only place to get the data I need is from Davon’s ship.”
Kali huffed. “You are crazier than I thought. So what? You want to waltz into Davon’s HQ and just ask him politely if you can just borrow the keys to his spaceship for a few minutes?”
Marcus scowled back at her. “I think we can figure out a way between us that would be less direct.”
Kali scoffed at him and shook her head. Her mouth agape with disbelief.
Vana reached around her neck and unclasped the chain which Jax hung on. Marcus had almost forgotten about him. He watched Doc closely, anticipating his response to seeing Jax for the first time.
Vana waved her hand over the top of the crystal and an interface appeared, floating in the air above it.
“Incredible!” said Doc. His eyes lit up at the sight of the technology. “What is it exactly?”
“This is Jax,” said Vana.
“I was hoping I’d get the opportunity to talk with, it-- er, him,” said Doc. “We have a similar concept. We call it artificial intelligence, but this looks vastly superior to anything we ever managed to create.”
The floating interface vanished and was replaced with what looked like a projection of the night sky.
“What are we looking at?” asked Marcus, taking a step back to see the whole image properly.
“A representation of all stellar objects within one hundred light years of the Sentinel.
The display rotated and zoomed in on a star system. In the centre, a small red star was orbited by three planets, lines traced their orbital paths. The map zoomed in again to the furthest planet from the star, a world of purples and green.
“Is that the Sentinel?” asked Marcus, indicating a small symbol hovering over the planet.
“Correct,” said Jax. “It is in orbit around the third planet of this system.”
“How far away from us is this?”
“Several thousand lightyears,” replied Jax. “Too far for the Krall to have detected Earth directly. You were probably detected by one of the Krall’s probes. They have a great many scattered around the galaxy. Listening for the noisy planets.”
“Noisy?” asked Marcus,
Doc explained. “RF noise I imagine. Radio waves, that sort of thing. One hundred years ago we were beaming out vast amounts of noise into the galaxy. Television signals, radio, even radar signals from aircraft would have been detectable out to a certain distance.”
“And when they heard those signals they came for you,” said Jax.
“But surely we were no threat!” said Doc, exasperated. “Even a
hundred years ago, when we were at the height of our achievements, we were only beginning to explore space. We hadn’t even left our own solar system. They were light years away. It would have taken us tens of thousands of years to even reach them!”
“The Krall attack those who have, or are close to achieving FTL technology. Your race must have met those conditions.”
“How many other races are out there?” asked Doc.
“The galaxy is full of all sorts of strange and interesting creatures. But most do not look like you or me. Even the Krall have a very different appearance to what you may be used to.”
Marcus studied Vana. True, there were some differences, but on the whole, there were more similarities. She was around the same height and build as the average person. Eyes, ears, nose, arms, legs, hands, were all in the right place and looked normal to him. His thoughts snapped to Davon. Marcus had assumed the Krall were human looking as well. He had met Davon, and he certainly looked human. Creepy and bizarrely strong, but still human.
“But, if he’s not… human looking, what does he look like? And how is he concealing his real appearance?”
“He has disguised himself so he can move freely among your people,” said Vana.
“I assume you don’t mean he’s wearing a mask and a suit,” said Marcus.
“No. He’s using something much like the technology I am using here.” She pointed to the projection, as it spun slowly in the air. “He can project an image over himself and by using some clever manipulation of energy fields, can give the projection a solid form. Unlike this one, which I can disrupt.” She waved her hand through the projection and it flickered as her hand passed through it. “Underneath he’s something quite different. The Krall have an insect-like appearance.”
Marcus shuddered. Great, a giant bug. That wasn’t at all creepy.
Doc clapped his hands and rubbed them together excitedly.
“So, what are we waiting for?” he said with a smile. “We’ve got something to build!”
Chapter Eleven
Vana spent the next few hours with Doc, as they pieced together the various components they had brought back from the crash site into a working machine. Marcus stuck around for a while, interested to hear about how all the technology worked, but soon found himself out of his depth. Instead, he made himself scarce and left them to it. Amara had retreated to her room after the drama earlier on, and Kali was busy stripping, cleaning and rebuilding the arsenal of weapons she had managed to acquire.
With nothing else for him to do Marcus decided to explore. He found room after room, with dimly lit corridors linking them. Some empty, some stacked with nondescript boxes and stores of dried food. One room was stacked floor to ceiling with weapons and ammunition. A note on the door in Kali’s handwriting described in detail the fate of anyone who messed with her ‘stash’. How Doc had managed to keep this place a secret from him was a mystery.
He wandered aimlessly along yet another set of corridors, not paying attention to where he was going. This place felt familiar to him somehow as if he had been here before. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind. He was about to turn around and retrace his steps when he saw something which looked out of place. Ahead there was a door. There was nothing unusual about the door itself, what caught his eye was the fact it was secured with a padlock. None of the other doors were locked, so what was so special about this one?
He walked over and gave it an exploratory push. The lock rattled but did not give way. He pushed open a few of the other doors nearby and found only empty boxes and disused bits of machinery. Marcus returned to the locked door and examined it. No nameplate or sign existed to give any indication as to what this room was for. If it hadn’t been for the fact it had a lock on it he would have walked right past it, without giving it a second glance.
It had piqued his interest, he wanted to know what was so special about this place, and he had nothing better to do. He considered asking Doc, but he didn’t want to bother him. It would probably turn out to be nothing.
He scoured the area for something he could use, and soon found a few shards of scrap metal which were thin enough to pick the lock. He worked on the lock for what seemed like an eternity and was about to give up entirely when he heard the satisfying click of the lock releasing.
Marcus pumped the air with his fist and looked around sheepishly to make sure nobody else witnessed his little celebration.
As he placed his hand on the door to open it his stomach knotted up and his chest tightened. He looked at his hands. They were shaking. Something about this room made him want to turn and run. A few deep breaths later and his hand was back on the door. He pushed it, and it swung open with a creak.
The room inside was pitch black. Marcus fumbled around the wall nearest the door, before finally locating the light switch and flicking it on. Above him, several fluorescent lights flickered to life. Others, their tubes full of blackened soot remained dark. After a few seconds his eyes adjusted to the dim light from the few remaining working bulbs and could make out what looked like a bed in the centre of the room.
It was raised and looked like something you would find in a hospital. To one side was a chair and small table. The bed had arm and leg restraints, made from a tough leather, and were linked together by chains.
Something stirred in the back of his mind, his heart, now trying to break its way out of his chest, somehow managed to pump harder. He backed towards the door and bumped into another desk behind him. Piles of paperwork and folders clattered to the ground and in the dim light Marcus caught the name, handwritten on one of the binders.
“Marcus Coe: 21-08-2105”
“What the hell...” said Marcus to himself.
He flicked through the pages, which seemed to consist largely of medical notes and other observations. Most of it he didn’t understand, but a few words did jump out at him, such as “coma”, usually in conjunction with the word “unresponsive”. What’s more, he recognised the handwriting. It was the same handwriting as covered all the notes and other bits of paper found almost everywhere in this bunker. Doc’s.
The next few entries were observational notes, spanning several weeks and were full of technical and medical terms with long and scary sounding names. If there was any doubt in his mind these notes were about him, they were quashed when he came to a small envelope, stuffed full of photographs, all dated around five years ago. The photos were all of him, first laying on the table he was now standing in front of - restrained, then later, in what looked like a regular bed.
This had to be some sort of trick or mistake. Marcus had never been here before, in this place and he certainly had never been in a coma.
“I was wondering if you would come back here,” came a voice from the doorway. Marcus flinched and turned quickly. The binder clattered to the floor and came to rest at Doc’s feet.
“I thought you might end up here,” said Doc.
“What’s all this about?” asked Marcus, snatching up the pictures he had dropped, and marching towards him. “Why are there pictures of me chained to this bed? Why are there all these notes about me?”
“How much do you remember about how we first met?” asked Doc, adjusting his glasses.
“I’m not in the mood for guessing games Doc, tell me what’s going on.” Marcus stared at Doc, who remained silent, his question still unanswered. “Fine,” huffed Marcus, “We met three years ago. I came to you for work, you gave me some. The rest is history.”
“Not quite,” said Doc, as he walked in and sat on the edge of the desk. “It’s better if you remember on your own. Familiar sights or sounds can trigger memories thought lost. The fact you even found this room proves something of that time is still in there somewhere.”
“What are you talking about!” yelled Marcus.
“This bunker is massive, yet you walked straight here, to this room. As if your subconscious mind was trying to tell you something.”
Marcus felt his face flush,
he was in no mood for riddles. “I don’t remember ever being here before. Give me a straight answer, we don’t have time to play games here.”
Doc was hesitant. “Well, you were in a coma for most of it,” he said finally. “I was hoping you would remember some of this on your own. However, as you have pointed out, time is not on our side.”
Doc took a thick handwritten journal from the desk and handed it to Marcus. “We freed you Marcus,” he said. “You used to be like Amara. Under the control of Davon.”
◆◆◆
The room span and Marcus saw the floor rushing to meet him. Doc threw out his arm and caught him and helped him back to the bed. He glanced at the Doc’s hand-written notes. All about him, a past he couldn’t remember.
“I am… was one of those things working for Davon? You’ve made a mistake Doc, there’s no way I’d ever be one of those… things.”
“I’m afraid it’s true Marcus. The first time we encountered you was during a firefight in a town some distance from here. The Legion were turning the place over for some reason and things got out of hand. There was a firefight with the underground and you were injured.” Doc tapped the side of his head. Marcus raised his hand and traced the scar across his temple. “The implant Davon used to control you was damaged, which gave us the opportunity to capture you.”
“Wait, implant? What? Is there something in my head Doc?”
“Indeed, there is. A tiny device which interfaces with your brain, suppressing some things and enhancing others. It also instils upon its owner a sense of complete loyalty to Davon. Until now we had no idea how this could be possible, but after meeting Vana... well we now know where this technology came from.