AMP Rebellion

by Stephen Arseneault

  I jumped as the Colonel banged his big fist on the table as he spoke, “Lunch is good. Let’s all meet back here in say… two hours.”

  The room quickly cleared as the thoughts of food and a much needed break settled in. I took Ashley by the hand and we walked to a special picnic I had set up in the Alpha bay landing port. With no ships entering or leaving, the giant gravity wall that separated the bay from space was the only thing that stood between us and an instant death.

  The panoramic view offered by sitting out on the edge of the gravity wall was the best that could be seen from anywhere on the station. With no traffic moving, the lighting in the port was shut down to the bare minimum. It was as close as one could get to actually sitting out in space, hurdling forward at more than 1,000 times the speed of light.

  We sat on a blanket and I removed the cork on a bottle of wine from the Grid vineyards that I had purchased earlier in the day. Two generous glasses were poured. After taking a sip, I leaned back on one arm as I rolled onto my side, my head propped up on my hand.

  I spoke as I looked out at the starry sky beyond the wall, “You know, every one of those stars out there has the possibility of a new world to explore or a new civilization to interact with. I was really hoping we could stick it out in the Mensa sector and make a go of Jarhead.”

  Ashley sat with her legs out to one side, propped up by her right arm. “I think you might have had to change the name if you wanted Humans to settle there. Don’t get me wrong, as a veteran myself, I respect the other vets and their contributions, but that’s just a horrible name for a home planet.”

  I replied, “Yeah, I kind of threw that one out there because I had nothing better at the time. I don’t think anyone ever thought enough about it to push for a change. We had bigger things on our minds.”

  I took another sip and then set down my glass. “You know, I used to daydream about us.”

  Ashley replied with a coy smile, “Really, daydream?”

  I raised my hand as if to outline the top of a mountain. “We would be walking on a ridge on Jarhead; the cool fresh mountain air would be blowing gently through your blonde hair. I would look deep into your eyes and then pull you in for a long passionate kiss. I look back now and I think that was the moment I fell in love.”

  With that statement Ashley set her glass down and moved closer. We were soon embroiled in that same passionate kiss that I had imagined. The following day we were standing before a magistrate.

  Ashley spoke, “Do you think Frig will be offended that he was unable to attend?”

  I replied, “He would have wanted to be here yes, but he has bigger worries to think about now, such as the fact that he will have a new partner in the Swift.”

  Ashley smiled as she replied, “Maybe he will like the fact that with a few kind words he can have a controlling interest in the decision making.”

  I replied, “You would sell out against me with that short-armed Gambit cowboy? I guess I didn’t know what I was getting into.”

  We were quietly married and went about our daily business as the Grid hurdled towards its new destination. Time passed quickly and we were soon faced with a station that was slowing as it entered a new sector.

  I sat down to a council meeting to discuss the destination information we now had in hand.

  Admiral Zimmerman spoke, “We should come to rest a quarter of a light-year from a young blue star. We have five hydrogen harvesters ready to begin work on refilling our tanks. The system has four planets. None are inhabited that we can tell. We should be able to pull resources from two of them. We have two harvesters ready when we stop. I realize these numbers are not adequate, but we need more resources to build more ships. It will take us most of six months to bring the needed harvesters online. From that point we should begin immediate work on warships. Those big guns surrounding this station are all we have for defense.”

  I stood and spoke, “I would like to volunteer as a pilot for one of the harvesters going down to those planets, my beautiful wife and I that is. We travel as a team now.”

  The Colonel replied, “Always having to poke your nose in things Grange. We have trained pilots to fly those things and we need those resources.”

  I replied, “We will take one of those pilots with us Colonel. I’m starting to see why I became a Messenger in the first place. It will do me good to get off this station, but only if Ashley now comes with me.”

  Admiral Zimmerman spoke, “Nobody has issue with you doing just about anything you want Don. But those harvesters only support a crew of two, and one of those needs to be a pro. We have the entire Grid relying on those two harvesters. So, if you go, you will have to go without Mrs. Grange.”

  Ashley stood and spoke, “Go on your little adventure Don. You’ve earned it and I will still be here when you get back. I can always use a little ‘me’ time.”

  I stepped around the table and planted a big kiss on Ashley in front of everyone.

  The Colonel spoke, “You know Grange, those displays of affection used to be all cute between you two, but now it’s just sickening… hahahahaha!”

  I replied, “It’s not sickening to me Colonel. And thanks for the opportunity everyone. I’ll do my best to get that first load of refined ore back here for final processing.”

  I stood and left the room to prepare for two days on a new planet. After gathering my duffel bag I began to make my way to Beta bay and to the harvester that waited. When I arrived at the harvester a tech was waiting.

  The Technician spoke, “Mr. Grange, the Colonel sent me down with this. It’s a new hybrid suit with some of the things we learned from the Durians. It should offer you far more protection than a battle suit. The Colonel says the atmosphere on that planet looks active. If there are high winds this should protect you from flying debris.”

  I replied, “Thanks, and tell the Colonel thanks, but I don’t plan on being outside.”

  The tech persisted, holding out the hybrid suit. “Sorry Sir, I was told that if you didn’t put this on, the mission was going to be scrubbed.”

  I replied, “Scrubbed? It’s a harvest run. There is no mission.”

  The tech persisted.

  I spoke, “Fine, I’ll take the suit.”

  I threw the suit over my arm as I picked up my duffel.

  The Tech stood in my way.

  The Tech spoke, ‘Sorry Sir. I was given instruction to help you suit up before you got on that ship Sir.”

  I grumbled as the tech snapped, zipped and pulled the suit into place. The hybrid suit had a soft rubbery feel to the exterior.

  I spoke, “You know, it doesn’t feel all that bad. It’s a bit more flexible than our battle suits. Kind of comfortable in the right places you know.

  The tech then pulled out a metal pipe. “It feels nice doesn’t it Sir. Almost like a thin coverall.”

  I replied as I rubbed up and down on the arms with my hands. “Not bad at all…”

  The tech then turned and swung the metal pipe violently at my crotch as he screamed. My only reaction was to go rigid as I waited for an impact which never really came. At the instant the pipe made contact with the suit the inner layer hardened. The pipe stopped abruptly as the energy from the mass was spread across the suit’s entire forward surface.

  I looked angrily at the tech. “I should beat you over the head with that pipe!”

  The tech replied, “Sorry Sir, the Colonel insisted that you be shown what the suit would do.”

  I replied, “So the Colonel thought it would be funny to hit me in the crotch?”

  The tech chuckled, “No Sir. That was the other guys in the lab Sir. They thought it would have a more lasting impact if you will. That was the only test Sir. You are free to board the harvester now. And one last thing Sir, the manual for that suit has not been fully written yet. You will find a temporary copy in the harvester’s memory. I would sugges
t you read through it on your way down. It will be erased in a couple hours as that harvester computer is not meant to be very secure.”

  As I turned back towards the ship Ashley was standing with her hands on her hips.

  Ashley spoke, “That was an impressive demonstration there big guy. Have you been holding back on me?”

  I replied, “Har, har. I almost pee’d myself when he brought that pipe around.”

  With the few minutes I had left I shared more small talk, gave Ashley a long embrace and then boarded the harvester. Duane Freeman was sitting in the pilot’s seat waiting.

  Duane spoke, “Welcome aboard harvester 99 Sir. I call her the Beast. Get yourself strapped in and we will get the Beast moving.”

  The ground harvesters were massive digging machines. The pilot would fly over an area while scanning for resources. From the scans he would identify the highest density concentrations and then settle on the surface for the dig to begin. Half a day later we were sitting on a rich vein of Iron ore.

  I spoke, “So, you basically just sit here for two days while this machine does all the work?”

  Duane replied, “Yep, sounds exciting doesn’t it. I fly over and press a scan button, and then, we land and I press the dig button. I was all excited the first time I rode along in that chair. That excitement lasted for about ten minutes until those laser drills took us below the surface. After that there was nothing much to see.”

  I sighed as I looked out of the cockpit window. The planet’s surface was cold and desolate with high winds having worn down any surface variations to nothing more than slow moving sand dunes.

  I spoke, “Well, let’s get this show on the road. We got ships to build.”

  Duane pointed at the Dig button. “I’ll let you do the honor Sir. There is nothing like pressing that Dig button for the first time.”

  As I reached out to press the button Duane quickly grabbed my arm. “You better strap in with that shoulder belt Sir. It can get bumpy.”

  I cinched the shoulder strap down and again reached for the Dig button. A giant wheel on the front of the harvester began to spin. Several seconds later the wheel turned down into the soil and the laser cutters began to slice into the earth below us. The harvester then lurched downward as the digging cups plowed through the Iron encrusted dirt, feeding it into the micro refinery we had on-board. The “Beast” as Duane had called it, began to jerk and buck as rocks and differing densities of soil were encountered.

  I looked over at Duane as my head bobbed back and forth. “It’s not like this for two days is it?”

  Duane laughed as he replied, “No Sir. This will settle down as we hit the vein. She’s fairly smooth in consistent soil. Give her about ten minutes and she should settle down.”

  I rolled my eyes as I gripped the armrests on my chair. Several minutes later, just as Duane had predicted, the violent jerks slowly subsided and were replaced by a smooth grinding vibration. I settled back in my chair and put my boots up on the console. Duane looked over and smiled as he flipped on some music in the cab.

  Duane spoke, “Hope you don’t mind the tunes Sir. Makes the days pass a little faster.”

  I shook my head. “It’s your cab. You can…”

  My stomach was suddenly up in my throat as the harvester broke through into a large hollow cavity that had not shown on the scans. We found ourselves falling nearly a hundred meters before the harvester came crashing to a stop on solid rock. The laser wheel separated from the ship and the spinning, hardened metal cups soon ground upwards into the base of the cab. I could hear air escaping at the same moment the power went out. Emergency lighting kicked in and Duane got to work looking over the console instruments.

  Duane spoke, “I would suggest putting on your helmet Sir. We are going to be out of air in about two minutes. I’m shutting down the recycler and storage so that we can preserve the oxygen we have if we are able to repair her later.”

  I pulled on my helmet and quickly flipped the latch as I twisted it in place.

  I spoke, “Has this ever happened to you before?”

  Duane replied, “I’ve been in this cab for 15 years and this is a first. Scans usually pick up the hollows and we know to avoid ‘em. I’ve never heard of anyone dropping through like that.”

  I unhitched the strap that held me in my seat. “If we get that air leak fixed are we going to be able to get out of here?”

  Duane stopped and turned his head in my direction. “I think our best bet is just to survive until someone comes looking for us. The ion thrusters were on the base of this rig and I would say they took the full brunt of that fall, along with the cutting wheel.”

  I replied, “Well let’s raise the Grid ops on the comm and get somebody down here.”

  Duane shook his head, “Sorry Sir, but when you get into an iron vein the comm system on these diggers doesn’t have the power to broadcast through it. That’s been a safety concern for years. This is the first time in my memory that it has been an actual problem. But I wouldn’t worry too much about it Sir. They know where we started and that’s where they will begin their search. We made a big hole up there, shouldn’t be too hard to find it.”

  With the remaining oxygen secured we opened the cab and stepped out onto the maintenance deck. Shredded, bent and torn metal made half of the deck impassable.

  Duane spoke, “We aren’t repairing the Beast Sir. She’s had it. Those cups ripped right through her guts. She’s got nothing left but spare parts on her now.”

  Duane turned and placed his hand on the cab. “Goodbye old girl. We had a good run.”

  With the harvester down I turned my focus to the expansive cavern that was now our home. As I aimed my helmet lights around I took note of the smooth walls that surrounded us.

  I spoke, “Uh, Duane. Do those walls look a bit unnatural to you?”

  Duane replied, “Not as unnatural as those tracks down below Sir. I would say we crashed through into someone’s tunnel. I can’t imagine they are going to be too happy about that Sir.”

  I replied, “I don’t imagine they will. I think we grab our blasters, top off our air and see if we can find a way out before anyone shows.”

  Duane stepped back towards the cab. “I will do you one better Sir. I’m going to set everything to ‘automated’ so it looks like no one was on her. We’ll take all the rations with us. That way, if it’s hostiles that own these tracks, they might not look very hard for us.”

  We emptied the cab of the harvester of all evidence that suggested the craft had been piloted. Duane worked on the flight logs, destroying evidence of where we had come from and of any living being having been aboard at the time of the crash. We soon found ourselves wondering down the dark tracks of the tunnel, our helmet lights illuminating all that we could see.

  As we walked along Duane ran a diagnostic on the tunnel’s atmosphere. “Air looks thin Sir, but breathable if the density picks up. I would guess most of it has rushed up through that hole we made. That would mean these tracks would have terminations or safety doors nearby.”

  I replied, “Safety doors?”

  Duane stopped and slung a duffel bag of Human evidence over his shoulder.

  He then continued, “Safety door, you know, If you have a long tunnel, you don’t want a single point failure to shut the whole thing down.”

  I replied, “Airlocks?”

  Duane chuckled, “Yes Sir. airlocks. Sorry about that. I’ve been calling them safety doors since I was a kid. Bad habit.”

  As we reached a distance of several hundred meters away from the harvester I looked back over my shoulder. As the image faded into black it was suddenly silhouetted by a light coming from the other direction. The light grew in intensity as we began to run down the eight meter wide tracks.

  I reached and grabbed Duane by the shoulder. “Over here! There’s some kind of a control box we can lay behind!”

  I tossed the duffel I was carrying
against the wall behind the control box. Duane followed suit and we both hit the rock floor at the same time.

  The wide, tunnel maintenance vehicle came to a stop in front of the damaged harvester. It sat for several minutes as the crew scanned the wreckage. The Beast was soon crawling with maintenance workers. They were bipeds, as were most of the sentient beings we had encountered throughout our travels. It seemed that those with a similar build to Humans, had evolved.

  The yellow, bumpy, leather like skin of the alien workers told of a hard existence. Additional work-lights were set up and the harvester was soon dowsed in bright white light. Strange bold lettering was visible on the front of the alien vehicle.

  I spoke, “Duane, has your translator picked anything up from that lettering?”

  Duane replied, “Only a partial. It’s broken into three words. The second word is ‘Mines’.”

  I replied, “I’ve got that along with the first one. Looks like ‘Emory’ or ‘Embry’. It doesn’t have a lock yet. Wait, the last word is filling in… ‘Embry Mines’ and then below that ‘Colossus’. Looks like we gummed up someone’s mining operation.”

  Duane began to reply then stopped short. The maintenance workers all began to scatter and step away from the harvester as a new vehicle approached from behind. Wide doors that ran the length of the vehicle opened and armed soldiers jumped out onto the tunnel floor. Our translator soon began to fill in bits and pieces of their comm transmissions.

  “… fall… tracks… air…”

  As the lead soldier stepped up to the closest worker he was nearly twice their height. The gear he was wearing had a gold stripe on the shoulder of an otherwise sand colored, hard cased battle suit.

  Commander Og spoke as the translator locked at 93%, “Who is the foreman!”

  A worker quickly ran up to the soldier and knelt. “First Foreman Riekef Sir.”

  Commander Og continued in a thundering voice with a harsh tone, “What is this that impedes progress at my mine?”

  Reikef replied, “We do not know Sir. It does not appear to be Colossus.”