by Dan Davis
The shuttle shook with growing intensity and then the vibration lessened, replaced with a steady hum as the engines settled into a cruise state.
“We are clear of the shuttle bay,” Cassidy announced through internal comms. “Our pilot is stabilizing our spin and we are heading for Orb Station.”
Bediako sat beside him in the other huge reentry chair. There was no final training assistance that the old guy could advise on but he was there as a backup. If Rama was rejected by the Orb, for some reason, then Bediako could take his place. No one wanted that to happen, not even Ram.
Accompanying the heads of departments were selected members of the training, medical and intel teams. Medical personnel were there to give Ram his final injections and to scrape up his remains from the floor of the arena. The communications personnel and intelligence officers who would record everything from inside the Orb for later study and perform their own experiments in a quest to better penetrate the depths of the structure with their scanning equipment.
Milena looked calm as she always did, leaning back in her seat, peering at the screen in her hands. Ram knew he should be mentally preparing for the fight but all he could think about was Milena and how much he wished he could remember the night they had spent together. He felt like he’d been robbed.
Ram closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. Still, the thoughts that bubbled up were of death and violence, blood and a giant yellow monster. Three-dimensional red words shot up at him from the darkness. HUMANITY and FUTURE and DESTRUCTION and LOSER. He allowed the thoughts to flow through him, observing them and passing no judgment, granting them no emotional power over him.
Kind of.
Who was he kidding?
Captain Cassidy called out. “We are coming up to the outer hull of the Orb now. I recommend that you check your screens for the live feed from the forward cameras. I’ll throw it up on the cabin monitor.”
“Look on this, Ram,” Milena's breathless voice next to him as she held up her screen. “What an incredible thing to witness.”
It was just like watching the replays of the earlier missions. Ram had viewed them so many times that it was like a reply all over again.
The Orb was exactly the same as it had been in Mission Three, Mission Two and in Mission One. It was only their approach angle that was slightly different as the shuttle eased its way through the roughly hundred-meter square opening at the equator. The shining black shell reflected the shuttle lights as well as the ranging lasers and illumination from the Victory before she went over the horizon.
Even though he had seen it so many times in replays and he was watching the images through a wall screen rather that with his own eyes, the alienness of the thing was never more apparent as when the shuttle flew inside the open bay. The black mirror exterior was inhumanly perfect and seemingly timeless. Even knowing that the outer surface was capable of changing to white, to a silvered reflective shine, to red and blue, it didn’t seem possible.
“I still wonder whether the Orb Builders are hiding inside,” Ram whispered to Milena.
“A pleasant fantasy,” she said. “But honestly, best guess is that the Orb Builders are busy overseeing the galactic network of empires. I have to go along with the common UNOP conclusions that they operate the Orbs remotely or perhaps the Orbs are run by some form of AI.”
“Another part of me likes the idea that the Orb Builders are themselves AI.”
“A common hypothesis and a reasonable one. There’s no way of knowing at the moment. In time, if and when humanity works its way up through the ranks of species in the arenas across the galaxy, we may meet the Orb Builders themselves. But not today. Now, you need to stop intellectually and emotionally avoiding the fight and start focusing on the Wheelhunters.”
Ram imagined that the alien shuttle would be entering an identical hole on the opposite hemisphere while the Victory and the alien ship continued to orbit opposite the other, each hidden from direct view by the Orb itself. Ram wondered what the Wheelhunter was feeling in that moment, on its own shuttle. Was it afraid? Did it even feel anything like emotions at all? There was still so much about them that no one knew and yet Ram had to kill it.
“Do you think I have a chance?” Ram asked Bediako.
The instructor turned to Ram and looked him in the eye. “You have the best chance of anyone. We can say no more than that.”
Thanks a lot, asshole.
“Doctor Fo,” Ram said. “You believe in me, right?”
“Oh, absolutely, yes, of course I do. Yes, indeed. You are most impressive, everyone says so. And well done for thinking positive thoughts, good for you, that’s the spirit.”
“Quite the vote of confidence, Doc.”
Milena patted his forearm. “That’s what you get for requiring external validation.”
Ram looked at the vast Orb filling the screen. The shuttle was almost at the surface.
“I wish I’d learned to meditate,” Ram said. “I’ll never get the chance now.”
“The main thing is that you resist being a slave to your emotions. Decide what you would like your thoughts to be about and think those thoughts.”
Ram nodded, looking at her. “I know what my last thoughts are going to be about.” He raised his eyebrows.
Milena smiled back at him, though there was a sadness in the corners of her eyes. He was glad to see it. He hoped that she really did feel something for him and the whole thing hadn’t been purely for the sake of the mission.
Crazy, really. He was facing his own death, the failure of the mission and UNOP itself and being responsible for the destruction of humanity and yet he was feeling smug because a beautiful woman seemed to care for him a tiny bit. His gratitude for her was completely pathetic. And yet, he could think of nothing better to be his last thoughts that her tits and her ass and her lips.
He wished he had more time.
On the screen, the black hull of the Orb filled the screen. The shuttle, descending along the equator, came up to the vast, square, open door of the shuttle bay.
“Three minutes until landing,” Cassidy drawled, as if he was on a pleasure cruise.
The craft’s engines vibrated heavily right before they shut down and the shuttle pilot used the monopropellant thrusters to arrest their speed in relation to the surface until they coasted over the hundred-meter square opening.
Thirty-one people in the passenger compartment held their breath as the pilot rotated the shuttle, maneuvered inside and set the craft down on the floor of the huge space. A short series of thuds sounded on the hull as the shuttle landed and everyone let out a huge sigh of relief.
“This is your pilot speaking. Solid landing is confirmed. Welcome to Orb Station Zero.”
Ram slapped the quick release on his harness and grinned at Milena.
“Alright, let’s do this.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO – ARENA
The inside of the Orb hanger was a featureless black cube. The shuttle lamps illuminated the solid surfaces around them with bright blue-white light and the walls, ceiling and floor emitted their own soft glow. The hanger bay was one hundred meters on all sides with a fifty-meter opening on the wall opposite the outer door.
Silently, they watched on their screens as the outer hull doors slid shut behind them with a smoothness that no human machinery could touch and air howled around the outer hull of the shuttle. The breathable gas mixture produced by the Orb was heated and the action of the hot air on the frozen outer hull caused the passenger compartment to ring with the sound of expanding metal panels.
Ram stood, stretching his legs and back. The epinephrine in his blood hummed throughout his body and he itched to be moving.
The pilot’s voice came through on the shared channel. “Outer door closed behind us right on schedule. Air inside the shuttle bay showing as the standard Orb mix. Sensors show gravity nominal. Radiation within safety parameters. Filters are picking up no contaminants or life signs. We are green across the board. Al
right, over to you, Captain Cassidy.”
“Okay, listen up,” Cassidy said, standing by the side door which would open into a loading ramp. “My Marines will exit first and establish a perimeter. I will then call the teams out in the prearranged order. We’re all excited and we’re all afraid but we will do this calmly and we will do this professionally. There is plenty of time before Zero Hour and so we will not rush or make mistakes. We will do this exactly as we have drilled it.” Cassidy paused, looking around at the Marines and crew staring at him over the seat backs. “Having said that, if anyone sees or hears or smells anything that is unexpected, anything that you feel may be a threat or simply something you notice that you have not seen in the previous mission replays then you will let me know immediately. And for Christ’s sake, don’t touch anything weird, alright? Okay, let’s make history, people.”
He punched the door release code and the side of the shuttle opened with a banging, whirring noise. The external air whooshed in and mixed with the shuttle air. Ram instinctively held his breath, unwilling to trust the alien air. But there was only so long he could do that.
The Marines flowed down the ramp even before it locked in place. They worked quickly and efficiently and they covered the exits of the shuttle as the boarding party teams unbuckled themselves and prepared their equipment.
Ram started toward the exit. Bediako stopped him with an open palm on Ram’s chest.
“Wait until the Marines have cleared the area,” Bediako said.
Ram couldn’t stand being cooped up on the shuttle anymore. He wanted to set foot on the alien space station, if for no reason other than to be actually doing something. He took a breath and controlled himself before he smashed the instructor in the face and ripped his head off.
“Come on, man,” Ram said, through gritted teeth. “We know there's no one here. The Orb Builders are not here. The Wheelhunters are embarking on the opposite side of the Orb Station and there’s no way for them to get to us. I mean, there’s no reason to expect anything has changed since the last mission and the one before that and the one before fucking that.”
Bediako looked up at him. “Rama Seti, you are currently the most important human being in the Sol System. We cannot afford to make any assumptions or take even the slightest unnecessary risk with your person.”
It couldn’t have been an easy thing for him to admit, even though it was technically true. The real truth was, Ram couldn’t bear to think about the fact.
Ram controlled his breathing and tried to make light of things. “I guess I should enjoy my status while it lasts.”
“Indeed.”
While they waited for the equipment to be unloaded on their wheeled cases and for the Marines to sweep every millimeter of the hanger bay, Milena took Ram's right hand in both of hers and held it to her chest. “You must cultivate a positive mental attitude, Ram.”
“I am positive,” he said, automatically placating. When she didn’t respond he looked down at her. “Seriously, I'm looking forward to you dosing me up with some of your homicidal maniac cocktail. It will be great to be out of my mind.”
“I'll be there with you,” Milena said, meaning of course that she would be there in spirit, in his head. “But with the advances that you have made the last few weeks, I expect that you will be able to achieve victory with minimal support from me.”
“You don’t need to bullshit me, Milena. I mean it. Don't hold back with anything. Use everything you have on me, turn it all up as high as it goes. It will take everything that I have, everything that you have plus all the luck in the world. Burn through everything, don’t save a drop and neither will I.”
Her head was a meter below his own but she looked him square in the eye. “Agreed.”
Of course she would. Only a psychotic would put the wellbeing of a single man before the existence of all humanity. A dead man walking, to boot. It was a completely unnecessary thing to urge her to do but he was nervous beyond words and his mouth and mind were running wild.
He had to get himself under control.
The Captain's voice called out for the last of the boarding teams to disembark.
Milena squeezed Ram's hand for the last time and let it drop.
Ram followed Bediako down the side ramp and into the Orb hanger space. The shuttle sat in the center of the huge cuboid like a stocky, remote control airplane in a toy box, engines still cooling at the rear. The ceiling, 300 feet above, was vertigo inducing. Ram took a deep breath of the alien air. It smelled just fine, other than the chemical stink of the shuttlecraft and the animal sweat of the hardworking boarding team.
I’m on an alien space station.
“This way,” the Captain said. He and his Marines moved the group through the space to the fifty-meter open door in the wall in front of the shuttle’s nose. The corridor was a straight line through the center of the Orb toward the arena, a kilometer-long cuboid leading to the heart of the station.
They went in relative silence, in the order they had in their own simulations. Everyone seemed to know where their place was and where they were all going. A squad of four Marines guarded him and Milena, even though it was unnecessary. There was nothing that would harm him before he got into the Arena. Two Marines in front, two behind, with their weapons ready and Bediako positioned himself in front of the Marines, as if placing himself in potential harm’s way. If Ram wasn’t feeling so psychotically aggressive, he would have been touched by his concern. By his display of duty over his personal feelings.
Ram allowed himself to be brought along by the mass of bodies and the trundling of the alloy trolleys while he focused on staying calm and attempting to retain his own center.
He looked around at the smooth, black walls far away on either side and considered where he was. His mind ran immediately into the astonishing fact of the thing, which set him off wondering again what the Orb Builders were like and whether they were still around anywhere in the galaxy. Whether any of the hypotheses so far dreamed up about them even approached the truth. He imagined the network of galactic civilizations that maybe collectively created some kind of super culture, an information and trading and even political network of cultures that humanity was potentially going to be a part of, one day. That humans might be given access to distant star systems, technological advances or, at the least, gifted advice or information which would enable humanity to join that galactic community.
But only if humans could win a fight against a giant yellow wheel-shaped monster.
Only if Ram could win. Today, right now. He was out of time, humanity was out of time. It was now or never.
It was too much for Ram to take in. The responsibility of it too great. His hands and lips tingled with the adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream.
Milena could sense his rising anxiety. Just seeing her face as she glanced up at him calmed him a little and he remembered to control his breathing.
He remembered that he was made for this. Designed for it, decades ago, bred for it and ultimately trained for it. Ultimately, he was the only person, out of the billions of people in the Sol System, who even had the remotest chance.
I can do this, he told himself. A mantra, repeated in time with his footsteps on the black floor.
I can do this. I will do this. I can do this.
Together, the boarding team followed the route through the Orb. The team were generally quiet, although there were plenty of fraught whispered discussions about equipment and with verbal updates amongst the Marines and between Cassidy and the two Marines, shuttle pilot and crew left back in the shuttle bay. Two of the crew stopped in the corridor behind the group to set up some sort of scanning experiment. Bediako was silent. Even Dr. Fo barely spoke, other than to hurry his medical team along.
There was not far to go but Ram paid less and less attention to his surroundings. Most and more he focused on his breathing. Feeling the air rush in, cool and yet warm, in through his nostrils and filling his chest. His lungs expanded to enorm
ous proportions and his chest grew with every breath in. Controlling the air as it left his body, he modulated the flow so that it was as close to perfectly constant as it could be. No doubt, to the boarding team around him, breathing with such precision made Ram sound like a machine or perhaps a lunatic.
Instead, his guts were filled with the wriggling worms of anxiety. And just the thought of having a panic attack was enough to start him down the road to having one.
“Milena,” he said.
“I know,” she whispered. “Here.”
A moment after she tapped her screen, Ram sighed a huge, juddering sigh. And then breathed a little easier.
“Orb Arena staging chamber, right ahead,” the Captain reported as the corridor ended in a translucent swirling, smoky gray wall. “Set up, people. You know your routines. And make sure, for the love of Jesus Christ, that you stay away from the smokescreen.”
While the Marines held Ram back momentarily, the crew trundled their equipment to their areas around the open space and unpacked with practiced efficiency. Machines started up, blinking and whirring into life. After a couple of minutes, Cassidy nodded the Ram was clear to enter.
Just like on the footage he had watched, just in like the Avar he had walked through a dozen times, the end of the corridor came out into a hundred-meter cube space that had, decades before, been labeled the staging chamber. It was the same dimensions as the huge shuttle bay. Walls, floor, ceiling made of the ubiquitous black metallic-ceramic but the wall opposite the corridor opening was different.
That fifty-meter square section over the one wall of the staging chamber. The semi-transparent film of plasma that was impenetrable apart from when the Orb turned off the plasma flow. That flow would be stopped only twice. Once to let the champion into the arena and then to allow the champion to leave at the end. If the champion was unable to leave, the Orb allowed the support crew to go and collect the remains before being asked to leave again almost immediately. Some crew said it was a force field but most called it the smokescreen because of the way the surface of it swirled as if it was filled with smoke.