by Ellis,Tripp
“I wish they would have engineered us.”
“Yeah, well, they didn’t. They couldn’t afford it. So get over it.”
“Honestly, I like the way I am,” Timmy said, giving it some thought. “Those engineered kids are all the same.”
“I guess you’re not too bad.”
Timmy was silent a moment. “Thanks for coming back to get me.”
Presley was surprised. Getting a thank you out of Timmy was usually something that had to be extracted under some type of threat—usually grounding. It made her heart melt just a little.
“Anytime, little brother.”
They sloshed through the canal in silence for a moment.
“I’m worried about mom,” Timmy said.
“Me too,” Presley stammered. She really didn’t want to tell him right now. “I’m sure she’s fine.” She reassured him. But her voice had a grim tinge to it.
An explosion suddenly rocked the passageway. The boom was deafening. The shock wave rushed through the tunnel, blasting Presley off her feet. She and Timmy flew through the air and splashed into the foul water.
In a confined space, like a sewer tunnel, blast overpressure can be particularly damaging. The ears are the most susceptible to trauma, followed by the lungs and other organs. At 2psi, eardrums can rupture. At 5psi, fatalities are likely. At 10 psi, severe internal damage can result.
Presley was dazed, and her ears were ringing. She felt like she had been slammed with a wrecking ball. It took her a few seconds to regain her composure. She staggered over to Timmy.
“Are you okay?”
“Huh?” He could barely hear what she was saying.
“Are you hurt?”
“What?” Timmy shouted.
She frantically looked him over. He didn’t have any visible signs of trauma. No broken bones or punctures. But internal traumas could be insidious things that would take hours to show up.
“I’m fine,” he said as the ringing in his ears began to fade.
They hadn’t been that close to the blast. Any closer and they may have been seriously injured. They got lucky.
Presley helped Timmy up, but they weren’t going to make any forward progress. The sewer was caved in ahead. They were going to have to surface, then drop back down on the other side of the debris.
Several more explosions rumbled through the area, farther down the tunnel. The earth shook and debris rained down, splashing into the water. It sounded like incoming artillery rounds. The UPDF was likely trying to hold back the Decluvian forces long enough to make the evacuation.
Presley scanned the tunnel for an access point. She sloshed through the murky water to the rungs and climbed to the manhole cover. This one was stuck. Years of grime and corrosion. She couldn’t get it to budge.
“We’ll have to find another way.” She climbed down, and marched back a block to the next cover. Then climbed the rungs and wrenched the cover open. The steel lid was heavy as hell, but she managed to slide it aside, grinding against the concrete.
Presley pulled herself up and out of the hole. She was met by the barrels of several Decluvian weapons.
30
Revenant
“How is he, Doc,” Zoey’s face was creased with worry. She had rushed down to the med center to check on 8-ball. Corpsmen scurried about, treating the wounded from Rourke’s failed engagement with the Decluvians.
8-Ball had been put in a state of quantum suspension after multiple gunshot wounds. It was a stop-gap measure to save his life until he could get proper medical treatment.
Dr. Jackson’s face was grim. “I’m sorry. I hate to tell people bad news.”
Zoey’s eyes pooled, and her jaw went slack. She could barely choke out the words. “He’s dead?”
Jackson scowled at her. “No. The poor bastard lived.”
Zoey scowled and smacked Jackson in the arm. “I hate you. Don’t do that to me.”
“You should thank me. I saved his life.”
“Where is he?”
“Bay 6.”
“Thank you.” Zoey kissed him on the cheek and wiped the tears from her eyes. She rushed to find 8-Ball.
At bay 6, she peered in through the privacy curtain. 8-Ball was bandaged and lying in bed, semi-conscious.
“Hey,” Zoey whispered.
8-Ball’s eyes perked up. He flashed a drug-induced smile. “Man, when you get shot they give you the good shit.” The words slipped out of his mouth and glided across the room like an opium cloud. “I might have to get shot again just get some more of this stuff.”
“No more getting shot for you.”
“I don’t know. This doesn’t seem too bad. I get a little R&R. Pretty girls come and visit me. What more could a guy ask for?”
Zoey smiled. “I don’t think you’ve ever had a problem getting pretty girls to come and visit you.”
“I’m just waiting for the right one.” He smiled a stoned smile.
“Tell you what… you take it easy and get yourself well, the drinks are on me.”
“That sounds like a reasonable exchange. It’s a date.”
“Don’t go getting ahead of yourself,” Zoey said.
“It’s definitely a date.”
Zoey rolled her eyes. “I gotta get back to the CIC. I just came down to check on you.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were worried about me.”
“You’re a good pilot. We don’t have many of those left,” she said, playfully.
“I see, I’m just another piece of equipment to you.”
“You’re a high value asset.” Zoey’s eyes sparkled at him.
“You definitely want to go on a date with me.” 8-Ball grinned. “I’m just going to keep saying that until my words hypnotize you. Then one day you’re going to be walking down the hall and you’re going to think, hey, I should go on a date with 8-Ball. Then you’re gonna come crawling back to me and say, 8-Ball, how did I not see all along, you’re the one for me. But, I’ll probably have moved on by that point, because I’ve had lots of girls come visit me already. And you’ll be heartbroken. See, I’m just trying to save you from making a mistake you’d regret for the rest of your life.”
Zoey chuckled. “You absolutely have no filter when you’re high.”
“Shit, I won’t remember any of this tomorrow.”
Zoey kissed him on the cheek.
“I’m definitely getting shot more often.”
“Since you’re not going to remember this… I may have been a little worried about you.” She measured out a quarter inch between her thumb and index finger. “Just a little.” Zoey smiled. “Get some rest. I’ll check on you later.” She slipped out through the privacy curtain.
8-Ball was in heaven. But he wasn’t going to be grinning so much when the pain medicine wore off.
31
New Earth
The soldiers marched Presley and Timmy through the streets, weapons pressed into their backs. The aliens forced Timmy to hobble along on his wounded leg. This infuriated Presley. The muscles in her jaw flexed.
“Where are you taking us?” Presley asked.
One of the soldiers muttered something and jammed the barrel of his weapon between her shoulder blades. She couldn’t understand the language, but it wasn’t hard to figure out what he was saying. He was telling her to shut up and keep marching.
“Timmy, are you doing okay?”
He nodded.
Presley felt another sharp jab in her back. She craned her neck, looking back over her shoulder and gave the soldier the evil eye.
He brought the barrel of his weapon up to her face, threatening to pull the trigger.
Presley grimaced and looked forward. She kept marching. Now was not the time to be a smart-ass.
The war-torn city was devastated. It barely resembled its former self. It looked like the pictures of war-ravaged colonies that she had seen on the news. This kind of thing wasn’t supposed to happen here.
The soldiers marched
them to a forward operating base. Soldiers scurried about. Commanders barked orders over comm lines to troops in the field.
The Decluvians were holding human prisoners within a temporary containment field. Portable shield projectors on the ground formed a large rectangle. There were relay projectors placed about every ten yards. The force shield was impenetrable, and reached 12 feet high. When activated, the passive gravitational mass of the projector units multiplied by a factor of 1000. They became impossibly heavy. You couldn’t just kick one of the devices out of line and disrupt the beam.
The soldiers pushed Presley and Timmy toward the entrance portal of the containment field. An officer at the entrance stopped them. He had noticed Timmy’s limp. The officer looked the boy over with disapproval. He barked a few commands at the soldiers, and one of them grabbed Timmy by the arm and dragged him away.
A look of horror washed over Presley’s face. Her eyes widened as she screamed for Timmy. She lurched toward him, but a soldier jabbed the stock of his rifle into her belly. She doubled over with pain and dropped to her knees.
Two soldiers grabbed her by her arms and drug her into the containment area. Presley was twisting and turning and kicking and screaming. They threw her to the ground, then marched back out of the containment field.
Presley lunged for the portal, but it reactivated before she got there. She slammed into the beam. It was like hitting a brick wall. She kicked and pounded the invisible barrier, but it was no use.
Timmy was screaming and crying as they dragged him away.
Tears streamed down Presley’s cheeks as she screeched in terror.
Another prisoner put her hand on Presley’s shoulder, trying to comfort her. “I’m sorry. He’s wounded. They don’t keep the wounded. Too much trouble to care for, and they can’t work.”
“What are they going to do to him?” Presley’s face was pale. Her lip quivered.
The girl frowned, and her eyes fell to the ground. She didn’t have to say anything. Presley knew. They were going to kill him.
“They’ve done this on every colony,” the girl said.
Presley screamed until her voice was raspy and raw. She felt nauseous and shaky. Her legs felt like jelly. She crumpled to the ground and sobbed. Not Timmy. They can’t do this to him. He’s just a boy.
Her eyes were puffy, and her nose was runny. She gasped for air between sobs. But crying wasn’t going to change anything. It wasn’t going to save Timmy. She had to pull herself together and think. She wiped the tears from her eyes and tried to get her emotions under control. She staggered to her feet. The girl helped her up.
“There’s got to be a way out of here.” Presley’s eyes scanned the containment field. There were dozens of ragged prisoners with dirty faces and tattered clothes. Men, women, and children. But none of them were old or infirmed.
There was no roof over the containment field. The force field was just a high-tech fence. But a high-tech fence that you couldn’t climb.
Across the base, the Declivian soldier pulled Timmy into a back alleyway. Timmy’s eyes widened as they turned the corner. The dead-end alley was full of bodies, piled up against the far wall. Dozens of people had been executed here. People that didn’t fit the Decluvian’s plan.
Timmy tried to resist, but the alien was too strong for him. The lanky creature had incredibly strong muscle fibers. Pound for pound, they were twice as strong as humans.
The soldier tossed Timmy to the end of the narrow alley. The boy had nowhere to run. The only way to escape was to barrel through the alien. But that was never going to happen. No matter how fast Timmy could run, he couldn’t get around the Decluvian.
Timmy stood trembling. The metallic smell of blood and rotting corpses filled his nostrils. It was a warm day, and many of these corpses had been there for several hours. Timmy felt his stomach rumble. He wanted to hurl. The sour acidic taste crept into the back of his throat.
The Decluvian brought his rifle to the firing position and took aim at Timmy’s head. His lanky orange finger wrapped around the trigger.
Timmy closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. The pain would only last an instant. Then it would be all over. At least he’d see his dad again, he thought.
32
Revenant
“The system is fried. It needs a new oscillator and a thermal capacitor,” one of the repair techs said.
There was still haze in the air. The CIC smelled like burnt electronics and melted polymers.
“Can’t you borrow one from somewhere else?” Slade asked.
“The parts are specific to this particular unit. Unfortunately, they don’t interchange with anything else on the ship.”
Slade’s face tensed.
“Look, it’s an old ship. Everything is interchangeable today. These old destroyers are a little bit fussy.”
“So, we have no offensive capabilities?”
“As it stands,” the tech said.
“We’ve got another problem,” Zoey interjected.
Slade arched an eyebrow at her.
“Jenkins says we’ve got one jump left in the quantum field generator.”
Slade sighed and she clutched her forehead in despair. “What else can go wrong on this ship?” Zoey was about to say something, but Slade caught her before she could speak. “Don’t answer that.”
Zoey hesitated. “The dynamic field coupler got overloaded during the last jump. Just so you know.”
“Unfortunately, they’re not making anymore of these parts,” the tech said.
“I guess were going to have to go to the junkyard,” Slade said.
“The junkyard?” Zoey asked.
“Plot coordinates for the Scorpion. We’re gonna strip what we can from her.”
“Sir, she’s in pretty bad shape. We don’t even know if the parts we need are functional. We could get stuck out there.”
“It’s a risk we’re going to have to take. We don’t have any other options.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Give me another half hour to finish repairing helm and navigation,” the tech said. “Better safe than sorry.”
“You’ve got 15 minutes.”
“Aye, sir.”
Slade leaned against her command console as teams of technicians scurried about the CIC. Slade picked up the handset. “Engineering, conn…”
A moment later, a thin voice crackled back. “Conn, engineering. Go ahead.”
“I need a status update of the quantum field generator. Are we safe for one more jump?”
“It depends. How far do you want to go?”
“Back to the Scorpion?”
The Chief Engineer paused for a long moment. “Thats a tough call.”
“I need an answer.”
“If it were me, I wouldn’t do it. The farthest I would go would be three sectors. The Scorpion is six.”
“Thanks.” Slade frowned and put the handset down. She contemplated all of her options. She looked over the nav charts. There was a habitable planet, M9777-46A in the Lyrava sector. It was small—about half the size of New Earth. But it had water and breathable air. And it was in range.
It was completely unsettled. If Slade brought the crew there, they would be starting from scratch. Humanity was on the brink of extinction. She was going to have to make a choice. Take a chance and fight, or attempt to colonize M9777-46A and potentially save the human race.
There were 1429 crew remaining. Enough to make a start, but the long-term odds of survival were slim. It wasn’t really enough to maintain genetic diversity over time. Without a broad enough gene pool, the new tribe would be susceptible to disease and other abnormalities. Forty or fifty thousand people would make a better start for a new colony. And how long would it be before they were discovered by the Decluvians or the Saarkturians, or someone else?
Slade made her decision. “Zoey, plot coordinates for the Scorpion.”
“Aye, sir.” Zoey engaged the quantum drive. The dynamic field generator seem to be holding u
p. But for how long?
There was a brief fluctuation in the quantum field. The distortion rippled through the ship. It felt like they were going to drop out of slide-space for a moment.
Zoey and the captain exchanged a nervous glance.
“Something tells me the old girl’s going to hang in there.” Slade said the optimistic words to the Revenant, as much as she did to Zoey.
“I hope so, Captain.”
Walker’s voice crackled over the comm system. “Captain, you might want to come down and see this.”
“What is it?”
“I think it’s better if I show you.”
“Zoey, you have the conn.”
Slade made her way down to the detention area.
Walker greeted her in the corridor. “I swear to God, I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
Slade’s curious eyes narrowed at him.
Walker opened the hatch and they pushed into the detention center. They strolled past the command station to the cellblock. All of the prisoners were dead, including Rourke.
Slade’s eyes widened. “What happened here?”
“They all suffocated. Life-support for the entire cellblock failed.” Walker opened Rourke’s cell.
Slade stepped inside the tiny compartment. Her eyes fell over Rourke’s lifeless body. She didn’t take any joy in his death. She didn’t feel vindicated. She just saw a man who was once her friend. Her eyes brimmed, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. “We’ll give them all a proper burial, with full honors.”
“Aye, sir,” Walker said. “I’m not sure how this happened.”
“Maybe the ship didn’t care too much for Captain Rourke.” It was the first time she had acknowledged his rank.
33
New Earth
Timmy stood there, trembling in the alleyway. The Decluvian’s orange finger squeezed the trigger.
KABOOM!
The receiver exploded. Bits of shredded metal sprayed out. The soldiers three fingers were severed. Green blood spewed from the stumps. Blistering shrapnel peppered his face, gouging out his protruding eyes. The alien fell to the ground, screaming in agony, clutching his mangled face.