“So,” I finally broke the silence, “how do we get into the place?”
“This is what I propose. We watch for the shipment to come in. We stun the shipping crew with stun guns and tie them up. We pour out the ale in one barrel and one of us will hide in the barrel. That will be me. I will carry the gas with me inside the barrel as the barrels are loaded inside the hideout. Once inside I will release the gas into the compound, incapacitating everyone inside. Then I will let the rest of you in. We take care of any security mechs there and then we look for Will. Hopefully the inert sarin gas will have done its job to incapacitate any living being inside the building.”
“Sounds easy enough. Except for the part where we knock out the shipping crew with stun guns. And the people inside the hideout. With deadly gas,” I said grimly.
“We'll be outfitted with masks,” said Rychik.
“It shouldn't be any more than one or two people to deal with, tops,” Genevieve said. Tulos made a sound of disbelief.
“How would you know this?”
“We don't but really, how many people do you need to carry a small load of barrels into a loading bay at a building? It's not like they run a huge cafeteria around there.”
“I suppose we'll find out for sure when we do the stakeout,” said Diamond.
“So, once we get in, we look for the android. Night vision goggles that can detect electrical impulses on different wavelengths would be useful. If he has the hive wire in him, as you say Robert, we should find him. That wire, many believe, is a halfway sentient piece of technology. Almost biological. We get the android before they recover and we get out.”
“How much time do we have before they come to and realize what's happening?” I asked.
“We should have roughly thirty minutes before they recover. They may have self-cleaning installation systems in their hideout, in which, we would have only fifteen minutes.” Everyone was quiet now. I rolled back in my seat, thinking.
“So, are we all in?” Asked Genevieve. I glanced hard at everyone and put my hand down flat on the table. The others looked at me in surprise but Genevieve and Rychik seemed to understand my resolution the point of the gesture. Rychik nodded at me in approval. Genevieve put her hand on top of mine. Diamond put his hand on top of hers with Rychik on top of his and then Tulos following on top of all.
“We're all in,” I said firmly. God help us. I thought darkly.
8
Diamond and I sat drinking yet another alien made ale. It was rather thick and milky and had the slight taste of star anise and deep, vegetal flavors I wasn't familiar with. Nor was I a big fan of it. In fact, I was learning that unlike on Earth within the many western brewing cultures, vegetal and even fusty notes in alcoholic beverages were highly sought after and revered among the various alien brewing cultures of Eraut while other notes and flavors we humans valued were seen as rather elementary or for new drinkers, who couldn't handle the real brews. Either way, it was a brand new food to explore and that was always an adventure. I still longed for a good bourbon, though.
Looking at the violet, starry sky it seemed so peaceful up there, but so much danger filled the air like invisible smoke. The danger already planted here in this system. Not to mention what was coming.
“It boggles the mind, just what we're actually up against. Thousands of ships. Thousands. Fleets of them. I still can't believe they're coming,” said Diamond.
“It's hard to wrap the mind around it. Nothing like this has ever affected humankind,” I said.
“The only other sentient, intelligent species of beings in the galaxy and they're headed right here to destroy us. I remember seeing a really old, old film with my dad when I was a kid. They were playing old movies on the holoplex in downtown Portland then back when they still had one. It was called Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I loved it. Was one of my favorite film stories even though it was so old. How wrong they were back then,” he said, his voice tinged with sadness.
“Some of them are friendly to us. Remember that. But yeah, I see what you mean. We've been taught one thing only to find out something else is true. That's an encounter nobody wants.”
“A vast place to explore and wonder. I used to think after my time as a smuggler that the only people we had to worry about were other humans. I was so wrong. How can we really win this?” He turned to look at me.
“I'm not sure of anything, Diamond. All I know is that we have a fighting chance to stay one step ahead of them. They still have to cross over vast distances through space. And that will give humans the time to prepare for when they do show up.” I took a sip, thinking on my own close encounter in a Hussa lab. “I had. . .an experience on the moon that I can't quite explain. I found a connection between your work smuggling illegal drugs for a drug company and one of the mines on the moon. There was a creature there, one of the aliens, a race thought extinct, who found her way here. She was the power behind the operation out there at Hussa.” His eyes were as big as plates. He opened his mouth but I raised my hand to silence him and continued.
“Her kind were radically different from other Erautians. They were once worshiped as gods on Eraut, you know. She was the last of her kind. She witnessed the destruction of her people, her house, her entire line and all she cared about. It made her insane. She too, saw the writing on the wall for humanity. But her solution was to transform all humans into beings like herself. She was behind the scientist heading a laboratory that was carrying out genetic experiments on human beings, trying to transform them into alien beings. She thought that perhaps by doing this we'd be powerful enough to defeat the coming foe.”
“That's the craziest thing I've ever heard!” Was all he could say once he finally found his voice. I nodded.
“Believe me. She had a team of people carrying out genetic experiments on the miners out there, trying to turn them into beings like herself. I was captured. She tried to do the same to me but I escaped, thankfully.” I shuddered. But not unscathed. “That would be one kind of victory for humans. Had she succeeded,” I said grimly.
“I'm so glad you escaped, Bob. I. . uh. . .I don't even know what to say,” he gasped. “The entire human race with alien DNA to fight off the aliens? I don't understand the reasoning.”
“I didn't quite get it either, at the time. But her kind, called the Fiorjah, they were once god-like beings on their planet. They had the power to transport themselves through air easily like a bird or a winged insect. They had strength and powers that most terrestrial beings don't have. I wonder if they were of another species entirely from the Erautians and simply arrived at the planet long ago from some other place. But that was her solution to the coming crises. It didn't work. People were dying in droves from those experiments.” I saw his face fall and his eyes grew darker. Even his complexion grew grayish. I wondered if he must have been feeling guilt.
“That is some solution. I've known plenty of nasty characters out there who would kill for that kind of power.”
“I'm sure they would but she wasn't offering a choice. And above all, humans want choice to shape their own destinies. Under her solution there was no choice. She was every bit as autocratic and cruel as the rulers of the Realm. In fact, the practices, rules and customs in how they run their societies they originally learned from the Fiorjah. Many of them had grown tired of that kind of rule. They fought back. That is why not all of them are enemies. Conversely, not all humans are allies.”
“They would have never known what hit them once they arrived in this system, if she had her way,” he said.
“And yet, I'm not sure that's what lies in our future. We have to fight this in our own way, together with what allies we have. That's how free people do things.”
“Not everybody is free on Earth.”
“I know but it's something we always strive towards.” I said quietly. Sadly, it was true. We still struggled with the same weaknesses humans have always struggled with. Even as things seemed to get better in medicine, scienc
e and technology, they really just stayed the same when it came to how badly people treated one another.
But this was a vastly different kind of problem we were all facing. One day Earth would have to know the truth, if we were to mobilize a true war to fight for our own existence.
9
Before we could carry off the heist we were called to attend the last meeting of strategy before the battle. Something big was brewing, in addition to the looming mission to Europa. And after it was known that I was back in Syzygy we'd received another cryptic message from Admiral Suttu that they had a surprise for me and expected my presence at the meeting.
We left by way of the Elysium Planitia, of which Syzygy sat on the north-easternmost corner and went far west toward the great Valles Marineris. In our thirty hour trip in Genevieve's Hornet shuttle which Genevieve had recently fixed, I got a chance to get a good look at the varied features of Mars. Every few hours I saw glimpses of what appeared to be outposts, camps, the odd way station and even small industrial districts in the far distance on the horizon to the north and to the south. I saw a tiny, lone nine-wheeled cargo hauler making its way through the desert, heading north. There was a fair amount of traffic going east and west. Some carriers and other ships we passed and some passed us on their way.
The Elysium mountain range, of which Syzygy had a fantastic view of as it sat on the adjacent plains, faded in the distance only for us to see another, even larger mountain range appear to the west; the great Tharsis volcanic region. The vast Valles Marineris cut along the Martian Equator and covered nearly a quarter of the planet's surface. Its size roughly spanned the distance of the United States. Ophir was located in a canyon in the central area within this vast canyon system. It was the great dream for many separatists, Tulos and Genevieve said, and they intended to make it one of the first great cities of Mars. It was late evening when we arrived and from the outside, with long streams of traffic coming and going above in traffic air lanes, it looked like nearly any other metropolis. We soared down the northern valley system, marveling at the sheer scope and grandeur of this red, arrid land. They sure picked an impressive place to build!
Ophir, though still in its beginning stages, was already a city reaching for greatness. A vast and generous environmental dome was up and working and invisible unless you caught it at a certain angle in the fading sun light. Clouds of dust rose over the city and its mighty scaffolding; giant engineered hover cranes crawling with mechs and builders with their jet packs attached were at work carving, blasting away rock or building the skeletal frames for future buildings with metal, stone and red mud made from the Martian soil. Drilling, digging, stacking, chiseling and all the noise and creative chaos that surrounded a place being developed surrounded us. The lines of traffic became heavier as we drew closer down the valley. Even in its infancy it seemed more organized than the chaotic air traffic of Syzygy. I detected bluish auroras to the south end of the canyon. The sun was setting and its colors dying with it and on the western border of the city's edge, the violet black starry sky faded in.
I'd heard they built day and night and the work would continue on at this furious pace for years to come. It was to be a center for culture for the new alien society. I wondered if humans would be able to make this place their home as well?
“I could live in a place like this, I think,” said Diamond, mostly to himself gazing in awe at it. He turned to the rest of us. “if I were, you know, allowed to live here.”
“I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to live here,” said Tulos.
The valley, it's precipices unimaginably steep, it's canyon lengths vast, seemed to engulf the city but who knew what time would bring? Perhaps cities would run the length of the canyon system, their buildings rising high above its walls, and dwarf it in the future.
The center of power was coalescing around a large, round building called the Oculus. Which was where we were going to meet with the Alliance or Allied Martian Powers. We slowed and dropped, sinking down between the valley walls. Genevieve landed at the port landing pad and taxied towards a bay in a spaceport hangar. As we came within the city limits I watched alien stone workers hewing stone with strange machines, making dwellings and other buildings right in the walls of the canyon. This city was meant to last. I felt myself falling in love with the very idea of coming here, living here. . .and I stopped myself. What of my family? They would never want to live amongst aliens. What was I thinking? A very uncomfortable thought came to me. Am I becoming. . .one of them? I tried my best to shake these thoughts away. I had a job to do! To even think of such things was ridiculous!
Once we de-boarded we were met by a boxy-looking courtesy mech wearing a woman's wig and an official-looking uniform, a discontinued model I recognized made from a company now out of business, and two worker mechs who immediately went towards our carrier. She greeted us in Chinese at first. Genevieve said something to her in Chinese and the mech immediately switched to English.
“These two will conduct a post-flight inspection of your ship. Remain here to be scanned,” she said as she turned on a small retina-scanner and had us step through a body scanner. After she'd finished scanning each of us she ushered us through the brightly lit hangar and through a corridor.
“Right this way, please. There is a carrier waiting for you,” said the mech pleasantly.
“Has anyone told you any news since the last time the captains met?”
“I don't know of any news.” She led us through a narrow hall filled with dust and down a golden lift car. It was cathedral-like in its make but instead of the hall built aside from the wall itself it was built within it, taking advantage of the natural beauty of the stone itself. Curves, buttresses and arches followed the way and the pattern of the rock itself. In natural formations furniture flowed together as if they had transformed over time into these objects and designs for the use of sentient beings. It was a marvel I had never seen before and a chance to experience the architecture and beauty and creativity of alien cultures. We reached the ground floor and the mech led us through a hall filled with construction workers, pilots and all sorts of other people, Suwudi, Miku, Glia and human and several combinations of these races.
“I see a few smugglers here,” said Diamond under his breath. “I wonder what they trade in out here. I need to find out.”
“Diamond.” I warned.
“Its just that this is a whole new world to me. Think of the possibilities!”
“They mean to make a stand here. This is no smuggler's cave or pirate hideout.” I admonished. We were traveling down inside a clear tube that looked like glass or crystal, flying through the air. This wasn't the frightening experience I had underneath Genevieve's hideout in that rickety thing, but it reminded me of that. I held on to a handle beside me. Once we reached ground level we were led into a small passenger hover carrier and driven about ten miles south of the spaceport to the Oculus.
It was round and sat in the ground like a reddish brown, oblong egg rolled onto its side. It had one entrance in its middle made of very wide copper or bronze looking outer doors.
“This is the Oculus,” said Tulos. Indeed, the doorway made it look nearly like a stone eyeball looking out over the city.
“I don't see any windows,” I said.
“There is no need for windows. There are cameras that are stationed all around it so those who work here have a view all around it and of the city,” answered the mech helpfully. I wondered in this city where Sworda was and how he was faring, what he was doing.
All around the Oculus were crisply, polished newly laid red flagstones made of the rock from the valley walls that mimicked the roundness of the building. They were laid in complex swirling patterns. At the entrance on either side stood two soldiers. Genevieve, Tulos and Rychik gave verbal codes for clearance and passage in. We were all scanned and our weapons taken and logged before entry.
Once inside I saw nothing but consoles, screens, holographs and overlay maps and wall to
wall computers and what I could only guess were intelligence employees sitting at these consoles or standing at tables gazing through holographic images of information flooding in. I saw many images of the moon Europa throughout the room, looking like an antique cue ball.
The Oculus was a building designed in layers, an outer layer, where all this activity of information gathering took place and each bit of intelligence was examined and sifted through a hierarchy of groups within the agency, and there was an inner chamber, where the actual meetings and plans for war and political workings took place. I gathered it was a place where information flowed like a river, a massive hub of information from all kinds of sources. From hundreds, no thousands, of sources. It was an intense scene before me.
“We gather intelligence here. Any bit of information is scanned, dissected and examined over and over again, saved until another piece of information comes in to shed light on what came before. We call it the Oculus because for us, it stands for our eyes all over the planet and beyond, as a vigilant watcher for our safety and freedom. To watch anything that might be useful and anything that may pose a danger to us,” said Tulos.
“I see. You keep saying “we” Tulos. So you really are planning on moving here then?”
“Perhaps. I think on it more and more. I support the efforts in building Ophir, certainly.” I was in awe of what I was seeing. There was a set of wide, tall steel and stone doors before us in the middle of this vast room as we crossed through the outer layer.
These doors opened before us and we entered a short anteroom which lead inside a huge, round auditorium, the inner layer, with seating all around in rows starting from the floor and going up toward the ceiling. The room was filled with hanging globes of light that grew dimmer the closer they rose to the high ceiling and to the walls from where we came in I thought I detected something that looked like stained glass back lit with sunlight from outside. Except we were in the inner room where no natural light from what I could discern could flow in. Surely, wondrous alien secrets of engineering, artistry and architecture lay here! If only we were here for reasons of peace instead of war.
Mission: Attack on Europa Page 8