Ronan said nothing, but returned the bow.
As if on cue, Poole descended the STU ramp and then the dock apron.
Barcus spoke to AI~Poole, “Poole, has Stu transferred all comms keys to you?”
“Yes, Barcus,” AI~Poole said, out loud.
“Allow administrative access to planetary comms to High Keeper Ronan and his Chief Tech Mason,” Barcus said, formally.
“Done.”
“Now grant them full administrative access to the defense grid,” Barcus said. “All missile and plasma cannons.”
“Please confirm. Full administrative access,” AI~Poole stated.
“Confirmed,” Barcus said. Then, he approached Ronan.
“Ronan, we couldn’t leave your planet defenseless. And, we won’t protect it while holding a sword over your head. Poole will stay here with you. He will help you. He has more capacity, comms, and computing power than all your remaining data centers combined. He will guide you with your modernization plan. Take it slow.”
Ronan seemed to understand what that meant. All his fears evaporated in these few sentences.
“Hello, Poole,” he said.
“Hello, Ronan. Would you care to nuke anyone this morning?”
They all laughed.
Wex, Jude and Cine had retreated quietly into the Sedna.
***
Good-byes were quick, after that. There were hugs and tears and back slapping handshakes. The Sedna lifted off with twelve in its crew. They had an appointment to pick up Wes.
There was no reason for radio silence, so they made a planet-wide search for any additional survivors. No HUD comms were found anywhere else on the planet, or the moon.
The lifeboat was already in the hangar when they reached the moon base. The hangar door quickly closed, and the bay was pressurized, in no time.
By the time the Sedna’s apron was down, a man with a filthy flight suit, long hair and a beard stood there.
He looked pissed, especially because he stood there, holding a Frange carbine, and he was flanked by a pair of Warmarks, military drop suits with full weapons and exo-armor. These were the most dangerous war machines ever made.
They had been activated.
“Wes, what are you doing? Everything's okay, buddy,” Jimbo said, hands forward, palms open.
“Shut up and listen, Jimbo.” Wes did not sound as crazy as he looked.
There was a single laser dot on Hagan’s forehead. Hume flanked him. She awaited an order to fire.
“I have been up here, studying. Excellent sensor array, by the way, whoever set that up.”
“Thank you,” Kuss said, “Make your point fast or Hume kills you dead.”
She noticed there were seventeen laser dots on Wex. Both Warmarks had their weapons trained on her. And, these suits were bristling with weapons.
“This is her fault.” Wes sounded like he was about to rant. “This missile defense grid was not made to keep people out. It was made to keep them in. They are not humans. Well, not anymore. Come out of there. Captain Everett knew. We were to rescue…or destroy.”
Wex complied, followed by Cine and Jude. She stood fully upright as she slowly descended the ramp. Head held high, her chest was covered in LASER dots.
Barcus felt Po tense. They both noticed the bullet holes in her gown as the LASER dots danced around them as she moved.
The suits advanced, placing themselves between Wex and the others.
“He was in the Citadel. In the dungeon,” Barcus said. They had not fed him food, or water, for seventeen years. “He was there when the Citadel was destroyed. He told me to tell Wex, that he was tired. That it would be all right. That he understood.”
“What the hell are you people doing?” Po pushed her way through and finally came to stand with the barrel of the Frange right against her chest. “She wasn’t the only prisoner on Baytirus. We all were! And, we are NOT free, yet.”
Hagan was suddenly not as certain. He was looking at Barcus.
“They called them a word that the AI would only translate to scarecrow. They crippled their own tech to keep it away from him. Away from her.” Wes screamed, “The defense grid here. It’s not for defense. It’s for permanent quarantine. A prison.”
“This was set up by the same bastards that destroyed the Ventura? Is that what you are telling me?” Hume asked, storming forward.
She stood between the suits, and the LASERs swung away from her. “That grid was set up by the same people that have been doing genetic experiments on Po and her people?”
Po stood next to Wex. She remembered her on her knees beside Barcus.
“To hell with them,” Hume barked as she accessed controls on a cuff device. “Warmarks: Stand down override. Authorization, Hume, Baker-Seven-Niner.”
The suits retreated and the weapons stowed away. They were no less intimidating.
“Where the hell did you get two Warmarks?” Jimbo asked, as Hume walked to the nearest war machine and opened a chest plate to reveal a control/status panel. She was obviously very experienced with them.
Hagan looked uncertain. He was staring at Wex and then Barcus. Becoming less certain.
“I, er um, we have sixteen of them in the lifeboat, sir,” Hagan answered.
Holding his side, Barcus asked, “How are you driving them?”
“I have a specialty HUD upgrade. It also identifies… them.” Oddly he was pointing at Barcus absently, not Wex. “But, I’m not driving them, ECHO is. The AI.”
Barcus, Jimbo and Hume stared at Hagan.
“You have an ECHO-class AI on that lifeboat? An Extreme Combat Hellfire Operations AI? What the hell is going on here, Jimbo?” Barcus growled, before stepping aside and throwing up an alarming amount of bloody chunks onto the hangar deck.
“Can we load this boat up and get the hell out of here? I need a nap.” He paused, and continued, “Sir, we will have five months to figure it out.” Barcus spat out another chunk.
“Captain.” It was Hume, calling out. She stood in front of the lifeboat. “There are also two Javelin modules over here.”
Jimbo looked at Barcus, who with a broad, bloody smile said, “Em must have gone back. Stu, did you bring these here?”
“Yes, sir. It was on my task list,” AI~Stu replied, actually sounding abashed. “After the plutonium was transferred to the fuel pods.”
“Load those up as well,” Worthington said. “We’re going home.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The Interim Report
“At this point, we have decided to submit this as an additional, interim report. The narrative attached is too important to await the full, final report. The recovered backups of the Emergency Module, the Shuttle Transport Unit and the Sedna have provided significant additional insights.
“Please note: The medical records found on the Memphis indicate that the following personnel received an ECHO module update to their Deep Brain Implant Matrix: Barcus, Worthington, Hume, Cook, Beary, Hagan, Muir, Elkin, Kuss, Shaw, Wood and the woman from Baytirus named Po. This detail was never mentioned by any of the survivors during questioning. Only one of the sixteen Warmarks were ever recovered.
“Conclusions: This report invalidates the charges leveled against Roland Barcus, regarding the destruction of the Ventura. It also calls into question assumptions regarding his role in the Solstice 31 Incident, and the deaths of 110 million people on Earth, on December 22, 2631.
“The Winter Solstice of 2631. The longest night in the history of Earth.”
--Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: The Memphis Recovery Team Digital Forensics Interim Report. Independent Tech Analysis Team. March 9th, 2663.
<<<>>>
Blood of the Scarecrow
by Martin Wilsey
This is the version I sent to my
editor on March 21, 2016.
This is the only copy that exists.
A single Proof.
This is a work of Fiction. All Characters and events p
ortrayed in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events is purely coincidental.
Blood of the Scarecrow
Copyright © 2016 by Martin Wilsey
All rights reserved, including rights to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Cover Art by Jessica E.
Edited by Helen Burroughs - [email protected]
Author Photo by Asher Roth
ISBN-13: 978-1511482615
ISBN-10: 1511482613
For more information:
Blog: http://wilseymc.blogspot.com/
Web: http://www.baytirus.com/
Email: [email protected]
The Solstice 31 Saga:
Still Falling (2015)
The Broken Cage (2015)
Blood of the Scarecrow (2016)
For Kevin Peck
Kevin was a friend when friends were a real thing. He died before he could read this. He will live on as the owner of Peck’s Halfway.
Blood of the Scarecrow - Solstice 31 Saga, Book 3
CHAPTER ONE:
The Ventura is Falling
“It all happened so fast. One moment it was just another day doing our mundane work. The next moment we were fighting for our lives.”
--Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: Captain James Worthington, senior surviving member of the Ventura's command crew.
<<<>>>
Chief Engineer Wes Hagan lived.
Everyone else in the engineering section on the Memphis was dead.
When the Memphis was hit so many things could have killed him. The debris that tore through the main engines had cut Granger in half. The huge hull breach sucked Holcomb and McHale out into space. The rest died of vacuum strapped into their seats.
The visor on Hagan's pressure suit auto-closed when the hull breached. The now mostly civilian crew had become lax in the boredom of the long survey mission.
“How did Captain Everett know?” Wes said out loud to himself as he unbuckled his five-point harness and hammered his fist on the emergency life boat access control only an arm’s reach away.
As soon as he was through the hatch it slammed shut behind him, and he felt the explosive bolts blast the life boat away from the Memphis. The lights came on full bright.
The pre-recorded voice spoke directly to his HUD in his mind.
“This is an Emergency. Please strap yourself in.”
Wes was in his light pressure suit and helmet. It was all that had saved him from the vacuum. It was slightly bulky as he began to float toward the pilot seat. The sudden impact to the hull drove him toward the front, ramming his ribs into the head rest of the pilots seat. He heard more than felt his ribs break.
Alarms began to sound. Proximity Alarms he recognized.
Fuck.
“Activate emergency AI. Navigation display. Do not crash this boat you stupid computer!” Wes was screaming on the edge of panic as he strapped in.
The pilots display dome activated showing the exterior view. The lifeboat was in a backward tumble. A display window showed the status of the AI initiating slowly.
“God dammit.” He hit the manual override and grabbed the grav-foil controls and started to slow the roll as he watched the moon's surface grow closer on every rotation.
The roll was under control when the AI initialization was complete. Hagan hit the decelerators hard and leveled off. His forward velocity was incredibly fast this close to the surface.
He could see chunks of various sizes impacting the moon all around him.
“Emergency Module this is Chief Engineer Wes Hagan. We are in deep shit. Plot a direct vector to a safe landing site. If we are hit by a big piece of the Ventura, we are dead.”
As if to punctuate the statement a giant recognizable piece of the outer ring impacted the moon's surface directly in front of them, forcing them to fly directly through the resulting cloud of dust and stones.
“Chief Hagan, allow me.” The female AI took control of the life boat without waiting for an answer.
Hagan let go of the controls and hugged his ribs. He realized that it was difficult to breathe. He scanned the display windows as the moons surface rolled by all to close in a blur of speed.
His eyes finally landed on the AI status display. ECHO systems active. Emergency mode. Survival situation.
“Echo, Status? What the hell?” Wes demanded.
“The Ventura has been destroyed by multiple nuclear missiles. The planet has an automated defense grid that was activated when the ship entered orbit. The Memphis was also destroyed by multiple severe impacts of large pieces of the Ventura. This life boat was the only one activated.”
“I have just detected a core detonation.”
Wes strained to turn around to look at this lifeboat. It had been heavily modified. Besides, the pilot and copilot seats it had only twelve seats. Only three rows of four seats with an aisle down the middle like a commercial shuttle, but less comfortable. Then there was a wall with a center door.
“Is the compartment in pressurized?” the computer didn't reply, but an additional display showed cabin pressure at almost zero.
A huge impact on the hull drove Hagan into his harness. There were pain and darkness.
***
Barcus was unconscious, secured inside his maintenance suit, docked on the bridge of the Shuttle Transport Unit 1138. His face smashed into the inside of his helmet. The STU was falling to the planet as debris.
Another, larger personnel shuttle, that was missing thirty percent of the upper aft section also fell toward the planet as debris. Master Chief Nancy Randal was trapped inside, in the dark, with all systems offline, desperately trying to get some kind of control.
Commander James Worthington with the help of what remained of his crew managed to set the Memphis down on the surface of the moon before crashing. It was only because they all looked like falling debris that they lived.
A young nearly starving woman was tending a kitchen hearth at an Inn when she saw the flashes, like silent lightning, momentarily fill the room she was in.
A man alone in the darkness of his lonely cell in the darkest reaches of the Citadel said out loud, “The end begins.”
***
Hagan was awakened again by pain.
He tried to clear his head rapidly to no avail. He was strapped into the pilot seat of lifeboat number four, moving at a high rate of speed along the moon’s surface.
He activated the ships log and began recording, “My name is Wes Hagan, and I don't know if this log will ever be recovered. I will transmit anyway... when I tell you. In case...”
He had a coughing fit, spitting blood into his helmet. The recording continued, “I'm injured. There is no Autodoc on this lifeboat. I did find the first aid kit. It is more complete than I expected. I have injected nanites. I now have medical monitors on. Data is being conveyed to my personal Heads Up Display.” More coughing forced him to stop.
“I think my ribs are broken, and I may have damaged a lung. My left wrist is probably fractured as well. I'm not bleeding anywhere externally as far as I can tell. My suit has not lost integrity. I'm not going to remove my pressure suit to find out just yet. I don't know if I have a hull breach. I'm getting pounded by debris.
“I managed to get to this specific lifeboat as ordered by Captain Alice Everett. She must have known this might have happened.”
I few loud impacts on the hull interrupted him.
“The Ventura has been destroyed. Utterly. The initial salvo had missiles, nukes. No warning. They were just entering orbit. I saw it all on my console. The Ventura was almost ten kilometers long, and it was gone in seconds. Two thousand people…”
He could not control the coughing.
“There were more after that. The Ventura broke up. The entire huge ship. They're all dead. I think the largest pieces were also targeted in the second wave of missiles.
The recording was stopped until he could control the coughing.
“I am bleeding internally. I just coughed up blood.”
He had to pause again.
“I'm, back. I added more nanites. This is going to really suck. This many medical nanites are going to hurt. Where was I? I think Captain Everett knew something might happen to the Ventura. Wait. Let me go back. Before I transmit. For whoever gets this, if anyone.
“I was on the galactic survey ship, the Ventura. It was a deep space metaclass ship. The largest in Earths survey fleet. There was 2072 crew. We just dropped out of FTL to have a look at a planet that probes found to be habitable.
“I didn't know why at the time Captain Everett gave me this assignment on the Memphis. The Memphis is the Captains Pinnace. Capable of FTL, and a crew of thirty-two, including me. Even though I was the Ventura's Senior Multi-Discipline Engineer, she had me man the sensor console in the secondary comms center on the Memphis.
“Now I think it was because it was directly next to the forward, starboard, hatch for this specific lifeboat. Because this thing isn't really just an escape pod... or a lifeboat.”
He had to stop and calm himself again.
“As a standard practice. When the Ventura would drop out of FTL, the Memphis would launch and run escort. We were headed for high orbit near the planet's single moon.
“I don't even know what the name of this fucking planet is.
“I saw it happen. Missiles were detected in the first wave. The Ventura never had a chance.
The recording continued, but Hagan was groaning in pain made worse by sobbing. All captured on the recording.
Solstice 31: The Solstice 31 Saga, Books 1,2,3 Page 73