by Mars Dorian
She paused.
“Progress leads to profit, but first, it will piss you off.”
What a quotable line, Lo-Skova thought. She made a mental note and kept it in the hinterland of her mind. She was going to use it during an upcoming media event. She had to.
Dasai’s face went blank as though it were stuck in limbo. “You hate me, don’t you?”
At least he didn’t lack self-awareness.
“I think you’re overly paranoid, that’s all.”
“And I think your so-called new approaches threaten the existence of this corporation. If this operation fails, or worse, ends in a PR disaster, we—“
Lo-Skova cut him off.
“It won’t.”
She fell back into the water and floated on her back across the surface. Dasai’s eyes darted her like two barrels of a sentry turret. Lo-Skova’s Convince & Convert training deflected Dasai’s micro-aggressions.
“There’s a fine line between control and letting go, my dear Dent. Too much control, and you stifle innovation; too much letting go, and chaos prevails. I know how to balance between both worlds. Trust me, you’ll see.”
Dasai’s grimace stayed in charge. “I’m going to have a little talk with the board of directors. Let’s see if they agree with your lack of control over this operation.”
Lo-Skova sighed and dove down. Through the skewed view of the underwater world, she saw the prime investor marching away like a dummy bot with a servo-mechanical malfunction.
All attitude and no style.
Lo-Skova had to watch out from now on.
57
On planet Grisaille, Rosco regained conscience and pushed himself up from the ground. He checked his biometric status first. His HUD’s avatar shone in green and showed him zero armor penetration. Rosco exhaled. It was vital to keep the atmogear sealed at all costs. But it wasn’t all good news—his oxygen supply was down to fifty-one point three percent. And he had no clue how far he remained from his LRV and his crew.
Truth was, Rosco was still in hostile territory, and he still didn’t know enough about the aliens and their modus operandi. From the holographic illusions, to the beam fire and the azure blue fire flies, they obviously used technology focused on light manipulation and directed-energy weapons. But why didn’t they kill him on contact?
It was a mystery.
Rosco checked his gear, or lack thereof.
The aliens took his Rail Revolver and the LZR rifle, of course. But when he touched the secret niche pouch of his atmogear, he found his laser-cutter set still in place. Did the life forms miss to inspect his suit closely? Or maybe the aliens didn’t consider it to be a weapon, since it didn’t resemble a barrel-shaped firearm. The laser-cutter in particular looked like a high-speed dental hand piece.
Well, their problem was his opportunity. The cutter was a powerful tool that could melt through almost any alloy he had come across.
Rosco could work with that.
He inspected his surroundings. The alien’s version of a prison had crystallized walls that wrapped around him like a technological cave. He stepped closer and touched the surface. A circular ripple effect unleashed and registered as a faint vibration. Nothing bothersome, just weird.
Rosco formed a gloved fist and smashed it against the walls. The punch caused more ripples until they too died down.
No way was he going to break through that with raw, physical power. He walked in circles and tried to find anything suspicious—a window, a ledge, or anything that could help him out.
Nothing.
His next step was to try out the cutter, but what would he encounter on the other side of the wall? Guards, automatic sentries, or some wicked tech which would pulverize him?
Maybe rushing was the worst approach without gathering more intel. Rosco sat down on the ground and pondered his predicament.
With no immediate way out, the defeating thoughts knocked on his conscience. If he had a time machine, he’d travel back a week and slap his ‘younger’ self for accepting such a crazy mission. His discharge from ICED had made him desperate. Instead of carefully weighing in the pros and cons of the pioneering operation, he jumped into the CEO’s contract like a needy offspring unit hoping to get laid.
A moron’s mistake.
Lo-Skova must have known Rosco’s frustration when she proposed this suicide mission. If Rosco had slept on the deal for just one sol, he’d have never accepted this farce.
Taking a prototype ship to an unknown planet with a crew he knew nothing about. Seriously, how R to the Rookie could you get? M had always told him that he carried an impulsive streak that required self-discipline. Wise words, M, but they rang true a few hundred million kilometers too far away. Despite Rosco’s VR and on-mission training, the most important lessons always reached him when it was too late. Frustration surged within. Rosco clutched his fists and felt the urge to batter his left and right cheeks.
Rosco, you little creeper. You fellt for the frontier like a fool on Burrn.
And yet…
Complaining was not a business strategy, Lo-Skova once said. Probably the only useful piece of advice that woman had ever muttered. Rosco folded his gloved hands and thought of an escape plan. Challenging, considering that his experience with prison breaks equaled subzero.
He couldn’t recall one VR mission that involved a break-out scenario, but then again, ninety percent of his simulation training was spent on space combat, astro-engineering, and R and D. Urban warfare was an exclusive ground-pounder subject; the thought of which reminded him of the gentle giant.
Lieutenant Yeltzin shot back to Rosco’s mind; he wondered whether the soldier had made it out of the cave alive. The comlink was still activated, but no belligerent race would enable communications between prisoners.
Call it desperation, but Rosco entered the channel anyways. Even senseless actions were better than none.
“Lieutenant, can you hear me?”
Nothing but static answered, which was no surprise. He repeated his statement and was about to switch off the comm when a coarse voice replied.
“Captain?”
58
Yeltzin’s voice.
Rosco thought it couldn’t be, but it sounded exactly like him; unless the aliens were able to mimic equal parts of deepness and suaveness.
Rosco had to know the truth. “Is that really you, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir.”
He sounded almost elated. Rosco couldn’t hide his joy. “Don’t tell me you’re positioned next to me.”
The strange wall muffled Yeltzin’s voice, but it was still audible. The ground-pounder was imprisoned next to him, separated by maybe a meter or less. Rosco grinned from the inside out. His survival chances just doubled.
“Are you okay?”
“My body feels a bit groggy, but I did meditate to counterbalance the exhaustion. The nanobots did the rest.”
“How much oxygen do you have left?”
“Sixty-four point five percent.”
Rosco whistled. That was almost fifteen percent more than his. Maybe the giant’s meditative breathing pattern helped lower his consumption. He seemed to act calm and collected when the cave had drowned in crossfire. Speaking of which…
“What happened back there?”
“I think that blue swarm of fireflies attacked you. I reckon it was some kind of visual stun effect that brought you to the ground.”
It very well could have been. A blue flash was the last effect Rosco saw before he kissed the ground. The alien effect caught him by surprise and triggered the wrong fight or flight response—Rosco did neither.
“What about you?”
“They surrounded me. All of them had a clear line of fire, which rendered my defense useless. I thought it was smarter to lay low.”
No fight ‘til the bitter end then; looked like Yeltzin wasn’t so keen to join the afterlife anytime soon. Rosco moved away from the wall and focused on his comlink.
“Did you
see the aliens?”
“Barely. Their upper body sported humanoid features, but the part from the waist down was rather… snake-like.”
“Explain.”
“I don’t think they have legs, sir.”
Legless aliens. For some reason, Rosco had pictured bipeds, but maybe that idea was corrupted by all the science fiction he had consumed back on Mars. Despite all the intel and coordinates, he knew frighteningly little about their physical appearance.
“Why did they imprison us? They could have easily wiped us out. Hex, one direct beam hit, and my head would have popped like a frag grenade.”
“Beats me. Maybe they want to negotiate.”
“About what?”
“I wish I knew, sir. But Doctor Brakemoto’s the xenologist in our team.”
Ming Brakemoto and the engineer.
Rosco had forgotten about the other fifty percent of the team. Probably because they were the half he didn’t care about. One eccentric know-it-all and a disturbed freak stuck in the wrong dimension. Still, they were assigned to him and he had promised Lo-Skova to take care of everyone. Besides, he was still contractually bound, not that legal issues were of importance on an alien planet.
Rosco tuned into the group channel and tried to contact them. Unfortunately, neither of them replied.
“Channel’s dead, or they both switched off their comms.”
There was no reason to ever turn off a comlink, so the former case was more likely. Rosco walked around the tight space of his static prison and felt the urge to rebel.
“Yeltzin, you must have had a VR mission that taught you about prison-breaks. What do you propose?”
The soft but deep voice reverberated again. Listening to Yeltzin was like dipping your ears into thick, warm thermo paste.
“Since the aliens chose imprisonment over execution, sir, it’s likely they want something from us. I know this may sound too passive for you, but I propose to wait until they choose to approach us.”
Worst. Suggestion. Imaginable.
It wasn’t atypical for the gentle giant, but it violated Rosco’s code of conduct.
“Yeltzin, we’re imprisoned by a hostile life form. We suffer from limited oxygen supply. We’re separated from our team and lack access to our core weapons.”
Keeping calm under stress was vital, but with Yeltzin, calmness seemed to drift into lethargy.
“I don’t believe they’re going to wait that long, sir.”
“You can read their minds now?”
The giant sighed over the connection. “It’s a vibe I get from the ‘verse.”
Get outta here.
Fifty percent of Yeltzin’s sentences were smart and valuable. The other half was spiritual crap that made Rosco want to smash his head on a dura-steel plate. “Yeltzin, you’re starting to sound like Ming with that meta-love crap.”
The lieutenant didn’t sound in the least offended. “It’s hard seeing the cosmic path with our limited mindset, sir. Sometimes, you have to step aside from your inflated ego and see things as they really are without adding mind garbage.” He paused. “A wise poet from Earth once said—in stillness, everything happens.”
Whoever penned that phrase smoked the wrong substance. Rosco rolled his eyes. “You know what’s also still? Corpses that choked to death.”
“I’m sorry you see it that way.”
Rosco wasn’t.
Yeltzin chose to choke.
Rosco didn’t.
This desolate planet and its visual alien freaks couldn’t be the end of his career. He was still young and had so many accomplishments to unlock. Ever since he had stepped out of his first VR session, he knew he was destined to do great things, and not just because M had psyched him up.
Fate didn’t just flow; it was fabricated by strong individuals with steeled minds. They were driven enough to sacrifice whatever it took to accomplish their goals.
To be human was to reach one’s limits.
Every
single
sol.
The chanting resonated with Rosco’s body. He anchored his upbeat emotional state by patting his chest plate three times. Yeltzin must have heard him over the comm, because his voice sounded worried for the first time.
“What are you going to do, sir?”
“You must know my psychological profile by now to answer that question yourself.”
The giant sighed. “No offense, sir, but that’s a foolish decision.”
Rosco grinned at his comm and wished Yeltzin could see him. “A wise entrepreneur from Earth once said, stay hungry, stay foolish.”
And Rosco was plenty of both.
59
Yeltzin continued speaking, but Rosco assumed the soldier was just trying to talk him out of his venture. Nevertheless, he listened with perked ears.
“You’re the first person I’m telling this to, Captain, but I thought you should know. When I was still an offspring, I had a rather fervent conversation with my guardian because life wasn’t going my way and I had blamed her. Back then, emotions ruled my body. I was energetic and didn’t know how to handle all that excessive strength growing inside of me.”
He paused.
“That one day, when a debate with guardian got rather heated, I lost it. I grabbed her head and smashed it into a table’s corner. She ended up on the sickbay and needed half a face transplant. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the last person that needed medical help because of my actions.”
That was a story that didn’t fit the gentle giant’s demeanor. But apart from his basic CV, Rosco didn’t know anything about Yeltzin. He could have been a mass murderer as far as he knew.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I think there’s always a certain rush with younger men. That impatience can be good, because it keeps one going—especially during tough times—but it can also lead to complications. If you don’t control the fire inside of you, it eats you up; and the people around you.”
Yeltzin’s not so subtle hints at Rosco’s personality.
“Have you read my psychological profile? Do you know about M?”
“I’m just saying we should think about a better solution to this problem—together. We have more than enough oxygen. Time’s not an issue.”
Time was always an issue.
Seconds could foul up your fate.
One wrong move and you killed your career, which meant you basically pulverized your life’s purpose.
Rosco’s hand floated near the back pouch where the laser-cutter tool resided, but he remained curious. “Is that why you talk metaphysical all the time? Because you wanted to fill that deep void of yours with make-believe?”
“Every belief is made up, sir, that’s why it’s a belief. The opposite is knowing. And to answer your question—no, I didn’t feel a void. I just needed to find a mind model that helped me frame my outlook on life. Call it a constructive way to channel one’s drive into positive directions. The verse has helped me with that.”
“Good for you.”
Yeltzin wasn’t going to run out of words anytime soon. “We will find a peaceful way to leave this holding cell, sir.”
“I already have.”
Rosco snapped his laser-cutter device and squeezed its grip. He approached the nearest wall plate on the opposite side and activated the tool. His smart helmet dimmed the face shield so Rosco wouldn’t suffer eye damage from the sparks that spat from the burning. It took him a while, but the laser was sharp enough to even cut through the alien alloy. Rosco grinned and watched as his device burned through a man-sized square. The thin plate slapped on the ground. Rosco stepped out and found himself in a curved corridor with not a single alien around. This was too frigging easy, but maybe fate felt mercy for his past dilemmas and decided to be friendly for a change. Rosco walked a few meters to his right and knocked on the surface.
He spoke through the comlink. “Hear, Lieutenant? Why wait when laser-cutting gets you all the results you need?”
&n
bsp; The gentle giant seemed to move closer on the other side of the alien wall. “I hope you do the right thing, sir.”
“We’ll find out. But for now, step back. I’m going to get you out of here.”
60
Rosco cut open Yeltzin’s prison. They hugged each other and entered curved corridors with strange patterns snaking through the entire surface. Rosco’s scan-sensitive atmogear fingers touched the walls but couldn’t analyze the surface.
It was an unknown alloy.
He clenched the fist that wrapped around his laser-cutter. An old trick he had learned in basic when close quarter combat was taught. It was probably pathetic trying to use a cutter against long-ranged alien arms, but it did give him security.
Yeltzin followed him like a second shadow. “I still think this is a mistake, sir. We don’t even know where we are.”
“Then we’ll have to find out. You were trained for the impossible, act like it.”
They snuck along the curved wall with the pattern and reached an intersection. The corridors seemed to lead into all directions, including steep curves and descending pathways. Odd little niches were embedded into the walls on both sides of them and right to the floors.
Crazy maze in the alien base.
A thought of defeat creeped into his mind, but Rosco shook it off. He made it out of a frigging alien prison with nothing but a tool and his mind. He’d find a way out of here and fulfill the mission.
Men make fate. Not the other way around.
“Which way?” Yeltzin said.
“Well, what’s the verse telling you?”
It sounded more condescending than it had in Rosco’s mind. Not that the gentle giant minded.
“It’s not a GPS, you know.”
“Then any path is good.”
The captain chose a descending tube way believing it led to a level of importance. If the aliens were all about stealth, then the most secret space must have been down underground. Hidden from the surface where illusions and decoys shielded the life forms from foreign infiltration. Rosco’s motion sensor flickered.