Red Sky Dawning

by Ian J. Malone

  Katie considered the tan line on her own left ring finger, then studied Madisyn with a look of understanding.

  “I will admit this, though,” Madisyn said with a wry smile. “I really did just want to slap the hell out of him when I first met him. Wow, was he full of himself!”

  “Ya know,” Katie said with a smile of her own. “I kinda get that.”

  “Dr. Reynolds,” a male voice called through the computer terminal’s comm speaker. “Dr. Reynolds, please respond. You have an incoming message from Jon Reiser on subspace.”

  “Excuse me for just a moment.” Madisyn walked to the terminal and tapped a key. “Reynolds, here. I’ll take it in my quarters.”

  “Acknowledged,” the voice said, then the channel disconnected.

  “Sorry, Katie, but I’ve got to take this,” Madisyn said.

  “Go. Believe me, I understand.”

  Stepping through the door, Madisyn waved goodbye then paused. “I’m glad you’re coming with us, Katie. While it’s no secret that your brother and his friends are remarkable people, I’m glad you’ll now get to see just how true that really is. In any case, I’ll look forward to seeing you around the ship.”

  Katie waved back. “Likewise, Madisyn. Thanks for the tour and, well…everything else.”

  “Don’t mention it. Now make yourself at home. And welcome aboard.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 11: Encounter

  “Commandant, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Briggs said from tactical. “We’ll be entering Rynzer space in approximately thirty seconds. Shall I place the ship on yellow alert?”

  Masterson broke out of his pensive stare at hyperspace in the main viewer. “That won’t be necessary, Commander. We’re only here to investigate, and besides…if there is someone out here, we don’t want to provoke them just yet.” He then turned in his command chair to address the Kamuir’s communications officer. “Lieutenant, you’ll find a subfolder in the primary comm directory, named ‘SSR 512.2.’ It contains a very specific transmission code which I’d like you to cue up at once and broadcast on an all-channels hail as soon as we exit hyperspace.”

  The young officer looked confused but did it anyway.

  “Just out of curiosity, sir,” Langella said. “Would you care to elaborate on exactly who it is we’re hailing?”

  “Anyone who might be listening, Major,” Masterson said in a cool, yet increasingly eager voice. He returned his attention to the main viewer in time to see the tunnel outside dissolve to stars as the bridge instruments around him chirped to life.

  “Nav-recal complete, sir,” the helmsman said. “Artificial horizon has been successfully established and synchronized to all fighter wings. We can move out on your order.”

  “Stand by.” Masterson turned to the console on his chair-arm and glanced over the influx of sensor data. According to the ship’s initial scans, these were indeed the coordinates he’d dug from the Auran data drive; astronomics confirmed that. A typical Y-class system, it consisted of eight planets and a nebula around an otherwise insignificant yellow dwarf so far away that it rendered most of the worlds uninhabitable for humans.

  Then again, Masterson recalled, signaling LORASS for a fresh sweep of the system’s outer edge, it wasn’t human life he was here to find.

  “Awaiting your order, sir,” Langella said.

  Masterson ignored the statement and dug further into the data. It has to be here. From planet to planet, he swiped, searching for the one that would either validate his theory or send him straight back to square one with his research. It has to be.

  Eighth planet. Seventh planet…nothing.

  “Commandant Masterson, sir,” Langella said.

  Fifth planet…fourth planet…

  Come on.

  “Awaiting your order…sir.”

  Third planet…second planet—Masterson’s eyes flashed. “Helm! Adjust heading forty-two degrees to port and lay in a course for the second planet in the system, just beyond the nebula. Maximum sublight.”

  “Heading confirmed,” the helmsman said, fingers racing.

  Seconds later, the camera-view ahead refocused on a massive, light-red sphere directly off the port bow.

  Apparently curious as to why his CO had taken an interest in this planet over the others, Langella crossed the bridge to the science station and nudged Lieutenant Ovies out of the way. “Reading trace amounts of thetalon and oxygen in the atmosphere. Also nitrogen, burnathal, methane, benzene, dichloride-zim—” The XO shot to his feet, his face filled with grim understanding. “That’s Kirahar fallout from a detonated engine core! But how in gods’ names is one this big even possible?”

  Ovies reassumed his station and surveyed the information for himself. “He’s right, sir. This world saw a massively destructive event on a global scale, and by the looks of things, I’d say it happened about a century ago.”

  Masterson felt a renewed sense of purpose flood over him.

  “I don’t understand,” Langella said to Masterson. “If the caldrasite reservoir was here, it would’ve been wiped out in the blast along with everything else. How could the probe have found something that hasn’t existed for a hundred years?” His look turned suspicious. “That begs the question, sir: what exactly did you expect to find here?”

  “All in good time, Major,” Masterson said. “All in good time.”

  “Arriving in orbit around the second planet now,” the helmsman said.

  “Surface conditions?” Masterson asked Ovies.

  “Not favorable at all, sir.” The science officer slid his spectacles up the bridge of his slender nose and turned to Briggs. “As a matter of fact, given the chemical composition, I’d say they’re hostile.”

  “How’s the air?” Briggs asked.

  “Breathable, but only in short doses,” Ovies said. “There is quite a bit of oxygen left in the atmosphere, which is good. However, it’s mixed with heavy amounts of thetalon and benzene, neither of which will hit you at first, but twenty minutes outside of an enviro-suit and you’ll feel it.”

  “Meaning?” Briggs asked.

  “Off the top of my head?” Ovies asked. “Dizziness, headaches, stomach irritation, irregular heartbeat…and those are just the short-term exposure symptoms. Gods forbid you were trapped down there for any amount of time. Your blood and immune system would be fried in a month, and the air’s just the start of your problems.”

  “Elaborate,” Briggs said.

  “Light down there is extremely limited, plus you’re looking at sub-freezing temperatures at night and gale-force winds with heavy particulate density in most active zones. That’s gonna make landing a shuttle pretty difficult, especially given the rocky terrain. Bottom line, sir: I wouldn’t recommend staying on that planet any longer than two, three hours tops. Otherwise you run the risk of having your suits compromised by all of the Kirahar radiation, and that’s assuming the particulates don’t do it first.”

  “But a shuttle landing is possible?” Masterson pressed.

  “Yes, sir,” Ovies said. “I still don’t advise it if the commander—”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant, but I’ll be leading the site mission,” Masterson declared, already reaching for his chair’s comm button.

  Langella’s jaw fell open. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Flight, this is the commandant.” Masterson ignored his XO. “Prep a shuttle for immediate departure, along with two enviro-suits. Lieutenant Commander Briggs and I are en route to you now; Major Langella has the conn.”

  Langella stood up straight. “Sir, I must protest! Fleet protocol clearly restricts any commanding officer from leading a site mission, much less one this dangerous.”

  “Your overwhelming concern for my well-being is duly noted, Major,” Masterson said, crossing the bridge and entering the lift with Briggs. “Alas, we’ll have to discuss this later.”

  Racing up the steps after them, Langella shoved a hand into the lift, blocking the doors. “Listen, how about we cu
t the charade?” he said in voice low enough for only the men inside to hear.

  Masterson cocked his head at his XO. Perhaps not so spineless after all.

  “You don’t like me because you think I’m Zier’s boy, and that’s fine,” Langella said. “Frankly, I don’t want to be here either, not like this. But none of that changes the fact that you’ve had an agenda for this mission ever since we left Alystier, and as the executive officer—chosen by you or not—I’m entitled to know what that is. Now either you tell me, or so help me gods, I’ll use the full weight of my authority to have you relieved of command. So what’ll it be, sir?”

  Masterson regarded Langella’s fiery gaze with glacial ease as an uneasy Briggs shifted in the lift beside him. “My humblest apologies, Major, if I’ve given you cause to doubt me. Please know that was not my intention. To prove it…” He gestured the XO onto the lift. “I invite you to join my site team.”

  His ardent objection temporarily stymied, Langella gave a final flare of his nostrils and stepped inside.

  “Lieutenant Ovies,” Masterson called to his science officer. “The ship is yours.”

  * * *

  Several minutes after its launch from the Kamuir, the Alystierian shuttle cut through the final swath of stormy cloud cover toward the planet’s surface, its maneuvering thrusters fully ablaze against the shearing winds and heavy debris that Ovies had spoken of.

  “Adjusting course by twenty-three degrees to compensate,” Briggs shouted over the roar of wind and engines. Moments later, the violence began to settle, and, seizing the opening, Briggs guided the shuttle through its final descent to the surface—a barren wasteland of bright-red sand and rock due to the remaining thetalon in the planet’s atmosphere.

  Breathtaking. Masterson studied the horizon’s fiery color in his nav display and imagined the planet’s true brilliance during its heyday before the bomb.

  “Tracking to geo-zone 68.5 in the northern mountains,” Masterson said, cross-checking the coordinates he’d pulled from the Auran drive with the topography below then entering them into the nav-com for Briggs’s access. “There should be adequate field-space in that region to allow us to land the shuttle. From there, we’re on foot.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Masterson saw Langella make a face in the back seat, as if weighing a protest, but he remained quiet.

  “Vector laid in, sir,” Briggs said. “We’re starting our final descent.”

  Masterson’s pulse quickened as the shuttle slowed to a steady cruise over what had once been a thriving urban center, and an enormous one at that. Built at the foot of a mountain range eighty kilometers inland from a long-dry river delta, the city had covered ninety square kilometers and was bordered by hills to the east and plains to the west—though, according to the initial scans, it appeared totally devoid of life signs.

  Masterson noted the architecture of the ancient stone and mud-brick slopes of the area’s inner city as compared to the crumbled multi-spired towers of latter-day expansion. It was all in keeping with what the Auran data had told him he’d find.

  “What is this place?” Langella asked, but he got no response from Masterson, who was focused on the ground as they skimmed over.

  Flying past what might’ve been a temple or government building—a massive round structure of stone walls, multiple columns, and a fractured steel dome—Masterson found his gaze fixed on the one defining landmark he’d seen in Rayner’s notes.

  The Lestuza, he thought, completely in awe of the eighty-meter acropolis that even now, after all that’d happened, still held its shape. Its jagged edges jutted up through its base more like an animal’s head in shape than rock. Right where you’re supposed to be!

  “What is that?” Langella asked, his earlier skepticism temporarily muted by curiosity.

  “That, my dear Major,” Masterson said, “may well be why we’re here.”

  “Arriving at the designated coordinates, sir,” Briggs announced over another buck of turbulence as the cabin lights shifted from yellow to red. “Touchdown in thirty seconds.”

  * * *

  Hearing the light, airy hiss of his helmet as it sealed into place, Masterson gave a quick check of his enviro-suit’s oxygen reserves via the HUD on his left-sleeve gauntlet before gesturing to Briggs that he was ready to move out.

  The trio emerged through the port-side hatch only to be slammed back against the shuttle’s hull by a sudden, intense gust of sand and debris.

  “Commandant, sir. Are you all right?” Briggs asked over the comm.

  “Fine, Commander,” Masterson said, throwing an arm over his visor when another sandblast ripped through.

  “Hell of a place to dig for caldrasite,” Langella growled from down on one knee. He rose and added, “Just where exactly do you expect us to go in this?”

  “Roughly half a klick that way.” Masterson pointed toward the dome. “And I suggest we get moving. It’ll be nightfall soon, and I have no intention of getting caught out here. Commander Briggs, you’re on point.”

  Masterson followed Briggs onto what he guessed had been the city’s main thoroughfare—a meters-wide stretch that cut through the heart of the ruins. The three men trudged through the harsh conditions, past the rubble of ancient buildings and what may have been statues, before eventually arriving at the enormous stone structure Masterson had spotted from the air.

  “Well then,” Langella said, panting. They halted at a series of elaborately carved steps leading up to a vault-like steel door. “What do you suppose the odds are that someone left that unlocked?”

  Masterson said nothing. Rather, he ascended the steps to the entrance and again reached for his HUD, this time to access the Auran data he’d uploaded before leaving the shuttle. Soon the five enormous locks released, and the door creaked open.

  Langella narrowed his eyes. “How did you do that?”

  “Lucky guess.” Masterson stepped aside to allow Briggs back onto point for the move inside. “After you, Major.”

  Langella snorted and fell in behind Briggs.

  Making their way up the steps and through the foyer, they were soon looking straight up through the atrium of a cavernous, eight-level rotunda.

  “Incredible,” Masterson said, surveying the building’s stone-and-steel interior, which, all things considered, had held up remarkably well. The lone exception was the cracked dome overhead that had left some of the chambers exposed to the elements.

  “Whoever built this really knew what they were doing,” Briggs said, tracing the great hall with the flashlight on his rifle barrel. “Judging by the level of damage to most of the other buildings outside, this place must’ve been a structural fortress by comparison.”

  “Agreed.” Masterson spied several rows of risers and seating sections leading up to the main stairwell. “This must’ve been some sort of mass congregational room.”

  “Hey, what’s with the spiked décor?” Langella gestured to a cluster of meter-long stalactites protruding from a nearby overhang. “I didn’t think they got that big in one century.”

  “They don’t.” Masterson counted no fewer than forty more formations like it around the room. “The telazene in the fallout must’ve bonded with the calcium carbonate in the rock to accelerate the growth process.”

  Langella shrugged and attached a signal booster to the wall beside him. That would keep their team connected to the shuttle’s primary systems by remote, and thus keep them in contact with the Kamuir in orbit.

  “Commandant, sir?” Briggs called from an adjoining corridor. “You’re gonna want to see this.”

  Breaking from his study of a glyph pattern he’d found on one of the walls in the main rotunda, Masterson headed for the passage where he found Briggs hunched over something—a body.

  “Whoa, what is that?” Langella asked over the commandant’s shoulder.

  Briggs rose to his feet and stood back. There, clad from head to toe in hulking—albeit weather-aged—black armor, were the skeletal rema
ins of a humanoid sprawled out on the ground.

  “What the gods’ names is that?” Langella repeated, pointing to the armor itself, which was splayed open at the torso to reveal a tangled web of wires and needle-tipped interface cables.

  “A native, I’d venture,” Masterson said, “and a remarkably well-preserved one, at that.” Then, searching the rest of the tunnel with his light, he saw what looked like another chamber entrance ahead.

  “Dear lords!” Langella leaned in for a closer look at the corpse, the joints and spinal column of which were riddled through the bone with needles. “Was this thing physically connected to its suit somehow? Who were these people, and what was this place?”

  “This was their capitol building.” Masterson chewed his lip, his mind and his light still locked on the unexplored chamber.

  “That an educated guess, sir?” Briggs asked.