Particles floated in the air as my light played across the living area. I moved from room to room. There was nothing special about it. It reminded me of a furnished apartment waiting for a renter.
“Check the computer,” said The Hive.
“Right,” I said and sat down at the terminal. I wiped away the sheen from the monitor and powered up the machine.
“Is there anything in particular I’m looking for?” I said.
“Not that I know of, but we got lucky the last time you searched a computer.”
I squinted at the monitor as the computer went through its boot up cycle. It was difficult to tell if The Hive was making some kind of joke or being serious. I hadn’t heard it make a joke before, but I couldn’t shake the feeling it was somehow being sarcastic.
“The Vantagax don’t seem to be taking any interest in the area you’re in.”
The yellow dots on my map continued to concentrate around one specific area. If I remembered correctly it was an area where shuttles had been stored.
“As long as they don’t bother me I don’t care,” I muttered.
The computer finished booting up, and I began searching through the files. There wasn’t anything specific: a few books, letters that said nothing helpful, pictures. I sighed and opened the network to see if there was anything else I could get into from here. Not much else was helpful.
“Hi,” said the P’You. A small window popped up in the corner of the monitor with the P’You’s head. “It looks like you’re trying to access station networks. Is there something I can help you with?”
“No,” I said. I didn’t need to be bugged by a virtual annoyance right now. “I’m doing fine.”
“This computer terminal isn’t connected to the greatest amount of networks possible,” said the P’You. “Would you like me to connect you to all accessible networks?”
I thought about this for a second. It wasn’t like I was going to be able to get anything up and running messing around in someone’s living quarters. Besides, if I could search other computers from here I wouldn’t have to keep sneaking around the station.
“Sure,” I said.
The P’You smiled. “Connected to all accessible networks. Have a pleasant day.” The window disappeared.
The network folder began to populate with additional connections. Thousands upon thousands appeared. The sheer volume began to overwhelm me. It quickly dawned on me that searching like this wasn’t going to be the most efficient solution.
I stood and began heading toward the door.
“Who is accessing our computer system,” yelled someone over the general radio band. “Identify yourself.”
I froze. The voice wasn’t familiar as it wasn’t The Hive. It had the sing-song quality of the Vantagax.
A window popped up in the corner of my HUD. A cross looking Vantagax with feathers so puffed they made its uniform bulge filling the video feed. It clacked its long, thin beak and turned its head to look into the camera with one eye.
“Who is accessing our computers?” it said.
“Run. The Vantagax have pinpointed your location by the computer you used.”
I bolted out the door. The yellow dots on my map started to funnel through the passageways towards me. I ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction.
“Can you get me?” I said between pants.
“They’ve located my ship. It’s not safe.”
“How am I supposed to get off of here?” I said.
“Unidentified individual,” said the Vantagax. “We have located your ship. There is no place for you to go. You are outmanned and outgunned. Give yourself up.”
I surprised myself by laughing. There was no scenario I could think of where I gave myself up willingly to any Vantagax. If need be I would run around this entire station until they caught me themselves just to make it as difficult as possible.
“Their weapons are locked.”
The yellow dots converged on the living space I’d been in a few minutes earlier. They moved faster than I thought, but their search of the living quarters gave me some time to gain a bit of distance. I headed toward the nearest emergency airlock.
“I’m going to jump out then you can pick me up,” I said.
“I’ve made a false Travel log to make them think you’re back –“
The Hive didn’t respond to anything I said after that.
Chapter Three
“Your ship and anyone left aboard have been destroyed,” said the Vantagax in the window. “There is nowhere to run. There is nowhere to hide. There is no reason to die needlessly.”
I continued along the passage as a quick pang of sorrow stabbed my chest for The Hive. A second set of yellow dots began to converge and move towards my position from a different section of the station. I knew they were trying to trap me, get me from both sides, cut off any retreat.
“We know where you are,” said the Vantagax, looking to the side just off camera. “Ring 3, Section 9, Area 1. You’re just passing through a large atrium that served as a hydroponics station.”
My surroundings confirmed the Vantagax statement: row upon row, stacked upon each other, of hydroponic growing machinery. I swore under my breath. The yellow dots were getting closer and my plan of running until I could find a good hiding spot wasn’t going to work anymore. I should have assumed that if I knew where the Vantagax were they would know where I could be found.
I wished The Hive was still alive. Correction; I wish The Hive still had members here with me. The Hive wasn’t dead I had to remind myself. The members were gone, but it was like losing a finger or a kidney or maybe some skins cells. I wasn’t sure how many members The Hive had or how integral they were to it staying alive. Either way, this wasn’t the moment to think about it.
If The Hive had been with me it could have figured a way to mask my location. Do something to the station computers so that they recognized me as Vantagax or trick the Vantagax somehow into not being able to track me. I didn’t have the technical skill or knowhow to pull anything like that off.
However, I did notice a large gap now mostly absent of Vantagax: the docking area where their ship was moored. If I was to escape the station I needed the Vantagax ship to be disabled otherwise it could destroy me without hesitation or a second of hardship. At my command a way marker popped up on my map for the dock and green arrows appeared in front of me marking the shortest route. I slowed my pace feeling for the first time some of the adrenaline wear off and the pain of over-exertion manifest itself in my muscles.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” said the Vantagax. “Do you know we’re closing in on you? Do you know we’re going to catch you?”
The taunting wasn’t working. If anything it steeled my reserve as I plotted out my path. The yellow dots were getting closer. In a few moments, if I stood still, they would be on me, but a clear path lay ahead. I didn’t know if it was part of their tactic of corralling me or if they hadn’t thought it through and were simply coming from different directions.
“You’ve slowed down,” said the Vantagax. “My people are almost on top of you.” His head cocked to the side. “Have you given up or are you spent, too tired to continue forward?”
I took off at a sprint, letting my suit assist me as much as possible. It was pushed to the limit as I raced forward. My momentum gave me some breathing room from the pursuing parties. If I was to make it to the ship I needed to throw up some impediments to those coming after me, but they would have to be together for maximum impact. Something would have to bring the two groups together.
“Do you think I would willingly let myself be captured by you?” I said after opening up a video feed to the general broadcast. I made the broadcast available to all on the station.
The Vantagax in my view screen reared its head back and gave an ear-piercing screech followed by a shrill whistle that sounded like nails on a chalkboard. It brought its head back down and looked into the screen. Its feathers were puffed more tha
n before, and it bobbed back and forth like it was about to attack.
“A month’s extra pay to the one that brings me the body of The Representative,” screamed the Vantagax.
A throaty cacophony of whistling and cawing chimed in over the general band. I heard bloody murder screamed at me, insults about my mother, vivid details of how I would be killed. It seemed I’d struck a nerve.
I smiled and turned down a long hallway. The yellow dots converged in a passage a few turns behind me. If there had been atmosphere I could have heard their shouting in person. The ground felt like it shook from their running.
At the end of the hallway a door blocked my path. My heart pounded in my chest as I ripped open a panel next to the bulkhead. The first several Vantagax rounded the corner and saw me. They fired their energy weapons, green bolts covering the distance so fast I didn’t have time to duck. They impacted the wall around me. The materials melted and glowed molten.
I grabbed the handle in the panel and pulled down. The door split apart and opened faster than I thought. More shots missed me as I crossed the threshold and ducked behind the bulkhead. I opened another panel, pulled the lever and the door slammed shut. I felt vibrations from the energy bolts impacting against the other side of the door.
The level pulled out from its socket with ease. I almost dropped it to the ground then thought better of it. Even with the extra strength from my suit having a blunt object as a weapon was better than nothing. With my free hand I punched through the panel, grabbed a handful of whatever was behind it and pulled. A grip of wires came out, and I repeated the process before taking off again down the hallway. If that didn’t prevent the door from opening I was sunk.
Yellow dots on my map milled about the doorway for a bit before moving away down side corridors. They hadn’t gotten through. They would have to find another way into the next section, which gave me precious minutes. I breathed a small sigh of relief that step one of my plan worked.
“Do you think small delays will stop your demise, Terran?” said the view screen Vantagax. It’d switched over to a private band. “A month’s pay is nothing compared to what General Braxa will pay for proof of your death.”
I stumbled at the mention of Braxa. The Hive had reassured me that she was dead even though no body had been recovered. Her entire ship had been absorbed into Kaur’s flagship and that had been destroyed as far as I knew. I had avoided thinking about what might be if she was alive, but faced with the possibility of her return it didn’t shock me; she could have survived by sheer power of her insane will.
“Braxa tried to catch me once and failed,” I said.
The Vantagax laughed. “We have the time and resources to hunt every one of you Terran colonists down and wipe your pitiful race from the galaxy.”
I turned off my video feed and smiled. Even if Braxa was alive the Vantagax had told me one very important thing; the Vantagax were after humans. I had to find wherever they were and tell them. My resolve strengthened to get off Station Ter.
It took three more times repeating the door process before I made it to the docking section. I queried my map, and it told me the Vantagax hunting party had five minutes before it would catch up. I set a countdown timer. The few minutes I’d gained would have to be enough time for me to figure out what I needed to do.
The docking section had areas that were at least fifty feet wide at their narrowest. There were no sharp corners. Everything sloped in gentle arcs as they turned. If I wasn’t being pursued it would have been a welcome change from the cloying atmosphere of the passageways of The Hive’s ship.
I picked up my pace at much as I could. The exertion started to get to me. My legs felt weak and if I slowed down even a little bit my muscles started to turn to jelly. I tried to ignore the shortage of breath, and the burning in the back of my throat. There wasn’t time to catch my breath or get a rest.
Two yellow dots milled about my destination marker. As I rounded the gentle curve they came into view. One was the Vantagax who had been contacting me on the view screen.
It stopped mid-sentence, popped its head up and looked in my direction as I pounded around the corner. It barked orders to the second. The other one raised its weapon and fired once at me, missing. It pulled the trigger in rapid succession but nothing happened. With loud slaps it pounded the side of its non-firing rifle.
I closed the distance between us in a few steps and swung the lever I’d kept with me. The firing Vantagax’s eyes went wide as the lever connected with the side of its head just below the lip of its helmet. It crumpled to a heap on the ground as I turned to the view screen Vantagax who struggled to pull a sidearm from its hip holster.
Hatred burned in its eyes as it watched me bound toward it. I reared my arm back and swung, but the Vantagax moved to its left. I missed wide, my momentum carrying me forward.
Something hit me square in the back, and I pitched into the wall. I pushed myself off and to the side as an energy blast impacted where I’d just been. The composite melted then cooled in dripping stalactites.
I whirled around and faced the Vantagax. It regarded me with the cool, calculated stare of a soldier in battle that I’d seen so many times so far since I’d been woken up. The world slowed as I stared down the barrel of its sidearm. In fractions its finger squeezed the trigger.
The barrel of the gun followed me as I feinted to my left. I threw the lever as hard as I could muster. It spun and arced through the air as the Vantagax fired. The blast passed close enough to me that I swore I could see striations of the particles moving about in it.
When the lever slammed into the Vantagax’s chest everything came back to normal. I closed the gulf between us as the Vantagax struggled to breath. Its chest looked caved in, and it stumbled backwards, dropping its sidearm. I landed a singled punch to its face finishing the job.
I took a few steps back, panting, and looked at the scene. Two dead Vantagax, killed in a short span of time by my own hand. The expected repulsion and nausea didn’t come. I looked at the corpses on the ground in front of me. There was nothing but a swell of pride at the success I had accomplished. The coldness with which I felt towards the death of the two Vantagax startled but didn’t disgust me. It felt almost right, almost just.
I checked my count down timer. Four minutes were left before the pursuing party would catch me. With one last look at my handiwork I moved into the passageway that led to the Vantagax ship’s docking station.
With no real idea what I looked for I stopped at the first large control panel I came to. The sheer amount of buttons and information on it indicated to me that I had found something important. I scanned it looking for anything that might help me.
I found what must have been the Vantagax ship: a large square symbol with small lines attached to a shape that looked like the docking section. With a passing glance I also noticed there was one small, shuttle-sized ship docked further down. That could be my escape, but I needed to focus on how to stop the Vantagax ship. If I didn’t stop it now it’d stop me as soon as I tried to escape.
Panic started to rise in my chest. My heart beat faster as I scanned and rescanned the console. Nothing popped out at me. In desperation I touched the Vantagax symbol with a quick jab of my finger.
My stomach leapt into my throat as the image zoomed in on the Vantagax ship. A 3D outline of the ship appeared on one side of the screen, spinning in a slow circle. A series of readouts scrolled from bottom to top on the right side. My timer told me I had a minute and a half left.
I tried to understand anything on the readouts. While I understood most of the words alone when they were interspaced with the jargon I couldn’t make heads or tails out of what it said. I touched the ship outline again hoping that something, anything came up to help me.
The screen flashed red. The image of the ship shifted to the center of the screen and shrunk. A large red button, flashing “Lock Down”, appeared above the ship. I didn’t wait to think about it. I slapped the button with my
open palm.
Yellow warning lights began to flash and spin around the Vantagax ship’s docking entrance. The doorway sealed and klaxons blared. The tour guide P’You appeared on all the screens with a stern look on its face.
“This ship has been quarantined. In accordance with safety protocol 27.19.0.3.4 J.1 it may not leave the station,” said the P’You, “until all requirements have been met. No one may enter –"
I didn’t hear the rest of the message. My countdown timer rung as I made my way into the shuttle. The door closed as I sat down in what looked to be the pilot’s seat. I felt the gentle jostling of the ship uncoupling from the station and the telltale sign of movement as the shuttle compensated for the acceleration. To my relief the departure didn’t end up with me exposed to the vacuum of space.
Chapter Four
Because I didn’t lay in a course the shuttle’s virtual intelligence asked if I wanted to go to the same destination as the previous occupants. Seeing as I had no leads of where to go specifically from my investigation on Station Ter, and the shuttle was stocked with a printer and enough organic material to make meals for months, I agreed. The next three weeks were the most bored I’d been since waking up. It gave me plenty of time to read about my destination: Station Three Unclaimed unofficially called Free. It was a free-trade zone with a semblance of law and order.
When I stepped off the shuttle Free felt different. There was a hustle and bustle that I hadn’t seen since I’d been awoken. The din of urban life almost overwhelmed me in the moment. I’d become used to the sounds of a ship or the quiet of an abandoned beach. Fighting didn’t give me time to stand and admire my surroundings.
In Free I caught myself gawking at the structures as they towered over me. I stopped to listen to the sounds of a city, but caught myself as I gawked at a race which looked like jellyfish and were moved about by hovering anti-grav pads. There were groups who wore exo-suits, stood ten feet tall and were rail thin. A small, pony keg sized creature pushed past with enough strength to send me stumbling a few steps to my right. There were numerous other races I hadn’t seen before who took no interest in me beyond the fact I blocked their path. It became apparent that I had been insulated from daily life of the average citizen since being awoken. What did people do? What did they enjoy? How did they live? The Vantagax had pulled me forward in time by waking me from my cryo-sleep, and no one gave me a chance to acclimate.
The Terran Shepherd (The Terran Series Book 2) Page 2