SHU'KAN

by Martin Durst

  ‘Sir, there’s something more you need to know.’

  The Admiral sighed and relented. ‘What is it, Ensign?’

  ‘What’s unusual is who we found. Seaman Taylor Martin. He’s a cook, Sir. Why would he be in engineering? –Especially during off duty hours. His DNA sample records less than eight hours old.

  –Exactly the time he was on his rest cycle and should have been in his quarters, the recreation deck, or something like that.’

  Admiral Cook was impressed by the Ensign’s deductions. He made mental note to talk to his supervisor to ensure he got a commendation. ‘Nice work, Ensign. We’ll speak to Seaman Martin later. Keep this information between us for now, understood?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’ He resumed his duties allowing the Admiral to focus on the mission at hand.

  If it was Seaman Martin, he went through a lot of trouble to cover his tracks, but right now, he had more pressing matters. ‘Navigation, are we in a stationary orbit yet?’

  ‘Affirmative, Sir.’

  ‘Good. Chip security. I want a three man detail ready to go in thirty minutes. Inform the Doc that I want him to stand by in case there’s anything left to examine. –Welcome to Mars, boys! I wish we were here under better circumstances. –XO, take the Bridge.’

  ‘Aye, Sir.’

  He left the Bridge and made his way to the launch bay. Four levels and three sections later, he arrived to see his requested team already suiting up outside the command shuttle. He pulled an environmental suit from the storage locker and began suiting up. As he dressed he gave a long nostalgic look at the rows of fighters on the flight deck. Though the Carthaginian was past her prime, her fighters were top of the line. An entire new fighter class now filled the hangar. Their capability was far superior to the fighters used during the Hiver’s engagement. The maneuver thrusters were totally computer controlled with anticipation software. The slightest movement on the stick by the pilot pushed the fighter in whatever direction desired. There was even an auto pilot if necessary. The new system even monitored mass to inertia ratio to ensure pilots were protected from blackout. –A pivotal upgrade since there was no atmospheric resistance in space. If a pilot braked too hard in relation to their velocity, the result could be deadly. He’d observed the pilot training. The ships literally danced in space.

  Suiting up beside him was senior chief petty officer Nicholas Grimmett. He was head of ship security. He had the reputation of being a hardball with his men, but he got the job done. It was why he was on his ship. During the battle with the Hiver’s, Chief Grimmett served on the supply frigate E.F.S. Forger. The Hiver’s boarded it and nearly captured the crew. Chief Grimmett and three of his men, armed with heat rifles, pushed over a dozen Hiver’s into the shuttle hangar bay, then decompressed it blowing them into space.

  ‘I don’t recall specifically requesting you on this mission.’ He grinned waiting for the Chief’s usual witty rebuttal.

  ‘Someone has to keep your sorry butt out of trouble,’ he chided. ‘Besides I can’t let my lackeys have all the fun. –‘Cept for young Seaman Tassone here. This lad may make a good soldier yet!’ He gave Seaman Tassone a hearty slap on the back that almost knocked him off balance.

  Chief Grimmett liked to bark at his men, but he was fiercely protective. Nobody messed with his boys.

  ‘Roger that, Chief!’ Seaman Tassone replied.

  ‘Let’s get moving. I don’t want to be down there more than a few hours.’

  All the men gathered around on cue. The Admiral was talking.

  ‘We know there won’t be any survivors, but you may encounter remains. If remains are found, then we’ll maintain orbit a few more days to bury them. This is a reconnaissance and damage assessment mission. We’re not here to explore every nook and cranny. Each of you need to keep a chip file for debrief upon return. –Questions? –Let’s go.’

  They boarded the shuttle and strapped in. Admiral Cook took the helm and powered up. Chief Grimmett took the co-pilot seat. He leaned over to keep his voice from projecting.

  ‘Talk about me. –You having a mid-life crisis?’

  ‘Whatever are you referring to, Chief?’ he asked feigning innocence. ‘Even Admirals need to log flight time to keep their piloting skills sharp.’

  ‘You’re full of crap, too. –Know damn well you could have tasked a pilot for this mission. –Having trouble letting go of the reigns?’

  He laughed. –His men strapped in the rear seats wondered what the joke was.

  ‘Ok. –Got me there. I just wanted some stick time.’

  Chief Grimmett let it go. He knew what the Admiral meant. The only trouble with getting promoted was all the fun got left behind.

  Thirty minutes later, the shuttle slowed for a landing. Standard procedure would have been to land inside the hangar bay, but with no one left at the colony, the team would have to dismount and enter through the air lock.

  The colony was built with size in mind. The thick plastisteel dome was a mile wide. It was now missing a chunk from the side like a cracked eggshell. Once it was ruptured, the colonist had little chance. The thin atmosphere of Mars simply sucked the oxygen out.

  ‘Sir, you notice anything odd about that hole in the dome?’

  He looked to see what Chief was talking about. He suddenly realized what he was missing. ‘There’s no debris. Something punctured it from the outside.’

  They both nodded in agreement and returned to the task of landing the shuttle.

  The footer of the dome was concrete and steel. It was here that the hangar entrance was constructed. It was also subterranean. It sloped sharply underground and under the settlement.

  Chief Grimmett took point as the team walked to the lock. He opened the hatch and allowed the team to file in. Admiral Cook grabbed the inner door and gave the locking latch a hard turn. It screeched with the sound of rubbing metal. He pushed it open and stepped through.

  ‘You better brace yourselves gentlemen. There are corpses.’

  The colonist had put up a fight. A few frozen corpses littered the piazza. The Hiver’s obviously preferred their meat fresh. A wide long walkway stretched the entire length of the dome. On either side, buildings of all shapes and sizes, some double story, stood as sentinels over the dead. The buildings where the dome was shattered were mostly piles of debris, but the buildings on the opposite side were still intact.

  ‘We’ll divide into two teams,’ Admiral Cook ordered. ‘Chief, I’ll take Seaman Tassone here, and you take your other two men. Search the damaged areas for anything of interest or indicators of exactly how the battle happened. I’m going to the Command Center. Everyone needs to stay chipped into their suit coms. If there are any issues, I need to know about it, Chief. ‘

  ‘Aye, Sir. –Tassone, you be sure to cover the Admirals six.’

  Seaman Tassone snapped to. ‘Roger, Chief!’

  Each party moved in separate directions. Admiral Cook led with Seaman Tassone in pursuit. He made a bee line straight for the Command Center. The schematics were readily available in the ships database, so he’d uploaded them to his chip prior to leaving.

  For over fifteen minutes they lumbered in their suits. He could hear Tassone breathing through his com system. Along the way they passed several more corpses. Two of them were children. –Both girls. The Hiver’s had picked the bones pretty clean. The meaty portions of the bodies seemed to be the favorite parts. The skin of the corpses were peeled back to reveal the softer tissue. From the neck up, the victims were eerily untouched. –Skeletons with undead heads. –Or so it seemed. Because of the freezing temperatures, their remains were perfectly preserved. Every victim looked the same. Their eyes permanently frozen open as the Hiver’s ate them alive. It was a horrible death that many victims of Earth shared. But at least on Earth, corpses decompose.

  The Admiral was so engrossed in his thoughts he hadn’t heard Seaman Tassone’s question. ‘I’m sorry, say that again?’

  ‘Sir, I think I’m going to be sick.’r />
  ‘You chunk in that helmet, son, no one has to smell it but you. You need to stop to take a breather?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘-Here. Park it on this slab.’ He pointed to a concrete wall section that had collapsed from a building.

  He looked around more closely. He was beginning to understand the drama that unfolded here. ‘Look at the building windows and doors, Tassone. All of them have grates and bars welded over them. The settlers didn’t die over night. They’d fought and held their ground for some time.’

  He impatiently looked at the chronometer on his suit. ‘We’re almost there. I’m going to walk a little ahead. I’ll be right back.’

  He continued forward a few more buildings to where a walkway turned to the left. This was where the command center was. He followed it to the entrance. The doors were half-ripped from the building. It was clearly their last stand.

  He entered the building. The schematics labeled the communications center on the second floor. He turned right and found the stairwell. On the second floor he found the com center. It was destroyed. The Hiver’s made short work of the staff. Seven corpses littered the floor. One of them was slumped over the communications console. He must have been trying to send a final distress call to Earth; unaware that it was being attacked as well.

  He pulled the corpse gently aside allowing it to slide to the floor. He punched in a run command praying enough power remained to retrieve the station records. The main com screen sparked to life. A few seconds later, a directory appeared. He studied the screen. He found the log and selected the last entry. The face of Doctor Donald Stoddard, Director of the colony, appeared. He looked haggard and had a deep gash along the right side of his cheek as he began to speak.

  This is Doctor Donald Stoddard, Director of Mars Colony! –August, 2238! We’re under attack again by the alien species! We tried to send an envoy back to Earth, but our shuttle was intercepted by one of their ships and is trying to return to the Colony. –There is little time! Earth may be next! We held off their prior attempts, but the dome’s cracked! They’re overrunning our security teams! Tell my wife and chil-

  The transmission abruptly ended. He looked down at the corpse. It was the Director. Earth never got his transmission or the shuttle team. They never knew Earth had been hit first.

  ‘Sir, this is Chief Grimmett,’ his suit com squawked. ‘There’s something here you need to see.’

  ‘Roger, Chief, I’m on the way.’

  In twenty minutes, he’d policed up Seaman Tassone and humped it to the Chief’s location. ‘What’d we got, Chief?’ He noticed the Chief had his heat rifle charged.

  ‘-Inside, Sir. We found one. –Darn near got my head bit off. We slammed the hatch on it to wait for you.’

  ‘What!? How is that thing breathing?’

  ‘-Don’t know, Sir. But apparently it can breathe carbon dioxide as well as oxygen.’

  ‘-And the difference in atmospheric pressure?’

  ‘Well, Sir … I just don’t know.’

  Admiral Cook examined the airlock. It was the personnel entry to the Hangar deck under the colony.

  ‘We started noticing corpses that had fresh bites the closer we got to this side of the colony,’ the Chief continued, ‘so we suspected we might find something. It looks like this wasn’t the only one. We found hundreds of cleaned off Hiver’s corpses. It looks like they fed on each other to survive; preferring fresh meat over the frozen food section,’ he said waving his hand over the human corpses. ‘This one seems to be the last survivor.’

  ‘-Explains why they’re constantly looking for a new food source,’ he interjected.

  ‘-Yeah. But what I can’t figure out, is how these mindless freaks are able to possess or even use the technology they have?’ Chief Grimmett checked the setting on his weapon. ‘-And now we gotta kill it.’

  ‘Negative, Chief.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘We’re going to capture it.’

  ‘Sir, are you sure that’s a good idea? –That thing gets loose on the ship….’

  ‘We need to capture it, Chief. Earth can use it as a specimen.’

  Chief Grimmett didn’t look too convinced, but he would follow orders. ‘Aye, Sir.’

  He sent Seaman Tassone and another team member back to the shuttle to get some cargo netting from the hold. While he waited, he thought through the events here.

  For one reason or another, they decided to crash into the dome. Things weren’t adding up. Why would they spend so much time here, but not on Earth? What purpose would it serve? He nudged his coms with his chip.

  ‘Seaman Tassone, this is Admiral Cook.’

  ‘This is Tassone, Sir.’

  ‘Once you get the netting back to this locale, standby for our return. Chief Grimmett and I are taking a short walk.’

  ‘Aye, Sir.’

  ‘What’s going on, Sir?’ Chief asked.

  ‘We’re going to check out the perimeter of the Colony. –Try to figure out why the colony was so damned important to the Hiver’s.’

  ‘Aye, Sir.’

  They carefully made their way over the rubble and debris till they found a semi-clean walkway. He checked his suit Chronometer. They had less than three hours to bag the Hiver and find his answer. They continued hurdling sporadic chunks of rubble and finally came to the breach in the wall. He looked up and examined the hole in the plastisteel dome.

  ‘Whatever the Hiver’s used against this dome must have been big,’ he said. ‘These domes are engineered to handle meteorites traveling over fifteen hundred miles an hour.’

  ‘-Probably the same weapon systems that chewed up the fleet, Sir.’ Chief Grimmett caught his breath. ‘I’m sorry, Sir. I wasn’t implying that any of it was your fault.’

  ‘Forget it. We got our butts kicked, and I know it. –No, the colony Director said they crashed through. Let’s get some altitude.

  They walked to the nearest building and made their way through to the roof. They could see most of the colony from their vantage point.

  ‘There!’ he said pointing. ‘See that swath of destruction? It looks like their ship landed a couple blocks that way. Let’s go!’

  They hurried to save time and both were sweating in their suits by the time they got to the crash site. Lying on its side, the ship was definitely not Earth origin. He touched it with his gloved hand then wrapped it with his knuckles. He could barely hear it through his helmet. ‘-Definitely some kind of metallic alloy.’

  It was long, but obelisk in shape. Engines of some design obviously protruded from one end, so they moved toward the other. It was at least eighty yards long and scarred from taking weapons fire.

  ‘Here, Sir!’ Chief Grimmett was standing on some rubble peering at the side of the ship. ‘You can’t see from down there, but there’s an open hatch here.’

  He watched the Chief pull himself up, and then he climbed up behind him. Standing on what was now the top of the ship, he kneeled and peered inside the hatchway. Some of the interior was visible but not much.

  ‘-C’mon Chief. Let’s take a look.’

  Chief Grimmett rolled his eyes. ‘Sir, every time you say that, you get me in trouble.’

  They climbed in one at a time and switched on their helmet lamps. The causeways weren’t quite high enough for humans, so they crouched as they walked.

  ‘The other direction is where the engines are, so this way should hopefully lead to some kind of control center or Bridge,’ he said.

  They concentrated on walking and stepping over the occasional entryway. They peeked in each to see if anything of interest was inside. But all of them had some kind of equipment or dead carcasses; sometimes both. They eventually reached a closed doorway. Pulling from the bottom, they tried to open it. After several attempts, the door still refused to budge.

  ‘Wait a minute, Chief. What if this opens from the bottom? –Then we need to pull from the side since the ship is on its side.’

  Chief Grimmett gave h
im a look of disgust. ‘I’m glad young Tassone wasn’t here to see what we just did.’ They grabbed it from the side and pulled. Slowly it opened with a loud shrilling protest. A couple more tugs gave them just enough room to squeeze through.

  The room was pitch black. The lamps from their helmets provided the only illumination.

  ‘Chief, pop a flare.’

  Chief Grimmett pulled a flare from his cargo pocket and lit it. Instantly the room came to life. They both stumbled backwards. A Hiver’s corpse hung limply from hundreds of cables and wires.

  ‘Good God!’ he exclaimed. ‘What is that?’ He instinctively tried to cover his mouth before realizing he still had a suit on. ‘That thing seems to be … wired into the ship.’

  They stepped closer to get a better look. It was suspended by a type of hammock. Its entire head was encased in a metal helmet that had hundreds of wires attached to it. He looked up to see where the wires went, but they disappeared into the darkness.

  ‘Well, this could explain how they use their technology. Maybe some of them are intelligent.’

  Chief Grimmett was trying to pry the helmet off its head. ‘This … thing didn’t get out much.’ He strained harder then gave up. ‘That’s not coming off.’ He looked at his gloved hand then rubbed it on a suspension cable to get something sticky off.

  ‘Chief, this could be the key to their operational ability. We’ve been stumped as to how they make intelligent decisions when we’ve only encountered mindless animals. Clearly this one played some role in operating the ship and maybe even exercised some kind of control over the others.

  Chief Grimmett considered the possibility. ‘That’s plausible. This thing is hardwired into the entire ship. It wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to see it somehow controlling the rest of them. –You suppose the rest of the ships got some kind of setup like this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘This one doesn’t look any different than the rest of them, though. I’m storing images and data on this. I’ll chip in the ships database when we return and send it urgent to Earth Fleet. This is good intel. We’ll let the boys in the think tanks sort through it.’