Spectra Arise Trilogy

by Tammy Salyer

  It’s hot inside the elevator, but there’s more than enough room for all of us and we spread out. A touch screen is mounted on one wall, and David steps up and slides his fingers along the activation bar. The doors close and a basic structural schematic showing three levels flashes onto the screen. The first is labeled “Vessel Dock,” the next is “In-processing,” and the final is labeled “Research.” A shudder runs through me. A lab, here, at a penal colony. I don’t have to wonder what that means.

  “Take us to the bottom,” Brady says, his voice thick with either rage or something close to derangement as he reacts to the schematic.

  David swipes the screen and a female voice says, “Enter the security clearance code.”

  He turns around, eyes wide and uncertain. “I’m not sure how to override this. I thought I had it at the control console.”

  Vitruzzi activates her VDU. “La Mer, do you copy?”

  A few seconds later, La Mer’s voice comes through, but it’s choppy. “…here…every…okay…over.”

  “Must be distance,” Desto says.

  Vitruzzi grimaces and tries another tactic, this time using the elevator intercom. “Doug, come in.”

  Mason responds immediately, “Mason here.”

  “Get in touch with La Mer. Ask him if Quantum gave him anything that might be an elevator control code.”

  “Roger. Wait one.”

  The seven of us wait tensely as the minutes pass by, pressure building with all the force of tectonic plates in a subduction zone. The schematic fades from the screen after a few seconds, but it might as well be burned onto my retinas. Desto stands in front of me and sweat begins to bead up on his thick neck and run down between his shoulders beneath his heavy body armor. I wipe my hands against my pant leg; I don’t want them to be slippery if shooting starts. The wind outside blew my hair helter-skelter and I brush the tangles out of my eyes, feeling bits of damp spray still clinging to them. The waiting becomes interminable.

  “V, do you copy?” Mason, finally.

  “Go ahead.”

  “He said he found a master security code, but he’s not sure it’ll work for the elevator.”

  “We’ll take it.”

  “Okay, here it is.” As he reads it off, David reengages the touch screen and repeats the string of numbers and letters into the voice console. I pull a marker out of my equipment vest and hastily write the code on the inside of my wrist. When he’s done, he asks Vitruzzi, “Which level?”

  Before anyone answers, Mason clicks back on. “Hey!” His voice is more excited than I’ve ever heard it. “Venus says she picked up active tracker feeds.”

  “Hallel-goddamn-ujah,” Desto says. “That kid is a genius.”

  Breathlessly, Vitruzzi cries, “How many?”

  “She says it looks like everyone. All of them.”

  “Take us to the docks. Now,” Brady orders.

  Finally, some good news. David makes the pick and the clicking sound we’d heard earlier repeats, this time much louder. The lift starts down.

  In less than a minute, we come to a smooth stop. Before David opens the doors, Vitruzzi says, “Okay. Keep low, move fast. Don’t make yourself a target. We can’t get locked down in here. Aly and Rajcik, take point.”

  Suddenly I remember something. “Wait, don’t open it yet.”

  David’s nerves sizzle almost audibly, and he responds with a short, “What?”

  I reach into another pouch on my vest and show them what I have.

  “What the…Aly, did you take that from the ’Rize?” Rob knows immediately what’s in my hand.

  I don’t look directly at him, feeling a touch of embarrassment at my thievery, but it turns out it was a good idea. “This is a holographic imager,” I explain to the others. “It can hide us behind a fake projection of the inside of the elevator when the doors open. Whoever’s in there won’t be able to see us through the image, and we can get a fix on the room. Then surprise them.”

  Rob is annoyed, but the others are quick to adopt the plan and we set up the cloak.

  When it’s ready, Rajcik and I move up against the opposite side of the doors, our actions coordinated from long practice. As much as we’ve come to hate each other, we still retain the survival instincts that once made us a good team. Before he tried to kill me. For a second, he looks me in the eye as the doors slide open: Are you ready? I nod.

  The doors stop. And—nothing. Just more silence. Simultaneously, we lean out to get a snapshot of what lies outside.

  We’ve arrived at a belowdecks boathouse underneath the main platform. A dock extends directly from the elevator over placid water, one side flanked by a squat, flat, open-top cargo carrier with a covered steering booth and not much else. The other side of the dock is empty.

  The rest of the bay is dark, but there are no other visible structures or watercraft. “Looks clear,” I comment, stepping forward.

  The rest file out, Rob hesitating long enough to pocket his projector. The local personnel must use the cargo ships to transport people to and from land. Thick walls drop from the edges of the platform overhead and disappear below the surface of the water at some depth we can’t make out. The entire space is barely illuminated; the only light coming from inset lighting tracks that extend to the end of the dock and from within the elevator itself. I move at a jog to the end of the pier to get a better idea of what there is and Rob follows at an interval behind me. We arrive at the end without incident, no spotlights flashing on or gunfire breaking the silence. The boat bay is just as uninhabited as topside. Brady and Rajcik climb cautiously aboard the carrier and do a quick pass. They locate the hold controls and open it up. No one’s below.

  Confused, nervous, and ready for a more complete picture of the space, I turn on my scope light and sweep it around.

  “Hey, Rob. A submersible.” I wave my light over the craft’s sleek hull where it floats at the dock’s terminus, its hatch a few steps down a short ladder.

  He gives it a quick look and says, “No, too small. Looks like a recon or scout sub. We couldn’t get everyone aboard.”

  “True, but—”

  Before I finish the thought, Vitruzzi uses the elevator intercom to call Mason and ask him to find the controls to open the launch-bay doors, then grab Thompson and meet us down here. We need them on the island more than guarding the platform. Within a minute, the giant bay doors rumble open and suffuse the chamber with outside light. The elevator disappears, returning with Thompson and Mason.

  As we wait, Brady tells the rest of us, “We’ll take the carrier to the penal colony. We should be able to find the settlers quickly and get back here and off this rock.”

  “Did they evacuate the whole complex because they saw us coming?” Thompson wonders aloud. “That could mean they’re waiting for us on land. Or, who knows, maybe they went over there to pick up some fresh meat.” He must have read the levels schematic, too.

  “We’ll know soon enough,” David says.

  Rajcik had sketched out what else he knew about the prisoner colony on our way from Letum Uti. When he was here, there were two main housing barracks, each six stories tall with plumbing and electricity. They desalination plant also fed a turbine generator that provided power. The prisoners mostly stayed within the complex, but with almost no security oversight or controls, many had ranged afield and set up pseudo-tribal factions that vied against each other for whatever they could get. There had been around six hundred other inmates on the island, the most hardened and violent men and women the system had produced. Problem is, like Rajcik said, it’s been twenty years since he was a prisoner here. The hard truth is, we have no idea how many people besides the Beachers we can expect to encounter on the rock. The more of us there are, and the more hardware we bring, the less interference we should encounter while we search.

  But there is something else I have to do.

  As the crew loads aboard the carrier, I lag behind. Rob, sensing my hesitation, turns to me, his eyebrows st
eepled questioningly. “We better get going,” he says.

  “I’m not coming.”

  He snorts with a tinge of irritation. “What do you mean?”

  The others turn to look at me, surprised.

  “It’s only been forty-five minutes since the shuttle went down. He could still be out there. I have to know,” I try to explain, but I can see that I don’t have to. Not to them.

  Rob walks back onto the dock, his deep brown eyes filled with concern. “Aly, look. I get it. You were in love with him”—he puts a hand on my elbow, exerting the slightest pull—“but there’s no way he survived.”

  I take a small step back and let his hand slide off my arm. “You’re right, Rob. I did love him. And I still do. I’m taking the sub. Please, just let me go.”

  His mouth curls downward in a frown, and he glances back over his shoulder at the others. Then he moves closer to me, speaking in a whisper that only I can hear, “Aly, if you go out there, I may not be able to help you.”

  He’s so sincere that I feel like I must be misunderstanding something. Does he mean that if I choose Karl, there’s no life for me as a citizen? The choice is easier than I would have expected. “It’s okay. I understand.”

  David starts to walk toward us, and I put up a hand to stop him. “It’s all right. It shouldn’t take me long. I’ll meet you at the colony dock.”

  “Can we get the hell out of here?” Thompson asks.

  Rob doesn’t say another word, but I see the dark flames of anger burning behind his eyes. He turns around and steps aboard the carrier.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  As the engine powers up, I load the shuttle’s crash coordinates into the sub’s nav-system. The sub cycles through a maintenance and safety checklist and prompts me to activate detachment when all readouts are green. There are no portholes to see into the water outside, but the front half of the cockpit is embedded with screens video-linked to exterior cameras, every image enhanced to achieve perfect clarity. After diving a short distance, it begins to propel backward toward the crash site, its design negating any need to turn around.

  Sub training is part of every Academy student’s routine, but it’s been at least ten years since I’d been in one and I’d forgotten the feeling of being underwater in a tiny tin can. Human perceptions aren’t developed enough to detect the difference between pressurized, climate-controlled interstellar versus underwater crafts, yet my senses are alight with anxiety, my innate fear of tight places making even my skin feel as if it’s shrinking over my muscles, choking me. I’d rather not know it, but even the smallest breach of the hull will quickly lead to an implosion, letting billions of gallons of crushing water obliterate me. Something about that sounds much worse than having my blood boil out of my pores in the middle of space.

  The sub moves as soundlessly and smoothly as a ray and I arrive at the wreckage site in under twenty minutes. The video-link shows nothing but black empty water. I raise it above deck and activate the long-range radar, searching the area for anything still above water, hoping Karl was able to get free of the shuttle and find something to float on while waiting for a rescue. The scan shows nothing. I force the craft into a steep dive until the pressure gauge blinks a warning and auto-adjusts the speed to keep me from descending too fast. Within moments, it comes to a stop and a voice from the console tells me I’ll have to don the onboard pressure-control suit if I want to continue. Frustrated, I quickly slide into the suit. It’s stiff and much too bulky to allow optimal freedom of movement, and I won’t be able to grasp my carbine—not that I’d want to shoot anything down here.

  Another three thousand meters and the video-link scans the ocean floor, but I’m no longer looking. Karl is dead. There’s no sign of the wreckage; underwater currents must have swept it away. It’s useless to search. Even if he survived the crash but was stuck inside, he’d have died long before he got this deep. Tears burn my eyes and slide down my cheeks, a flood of pain and anguished guilt. Why had I been so stubborn? Why hadn’t I ever told him how I felt? What the fuck is wrong with me?

  Staring unseeing at the control panel, I cry until my eyes feel like overheated ball bearings, until they go dry and rub my sockets raw. The suit holds me erect, keeping my sagging body from spilling bonelessly onto the floor. Time passes, I don’t know how long, and I consider what would happen to me if I took the suit off and let the sub resurface. The agony of nitrous bubbles stabbing through my blood, skin, and bones would almost be welcome as long as it could overcome the torment I feel in my soul. What had Karl felt? Was he still conscious when he hit the water? God, I hope it had been quick.

  But I’m not ready to die. There are people here who can maybe still be helped. David would never forgive me. And there’s T’Kai. Above all else, he’s behind everything, the reason everything has gone to shit. I finally understand Rajcik’s rage, and like him, it makes me want to live long enough to see T’Kai squashed and bleeding like an insect beneath my boot heel. Quantum should be transmitting in another day, if he hasn’t already, and I plan to convince Vitruzzi to go back to Obal 10 and watch the Admin deconstruct from the inside.

  Pulling it together, I reengage the sub’s controls, letting it rise to a shallower elevation and deadhead toward the island. On the way, I set one of the console arrays to cycle through feeds from the multiple scanners installed throughout the platform and sub-complex, wanting to be warned if watercraft or aircraft arrive. It shouldn’t take more than half an hour to get there, and I begin playing with the sub’s transmitter to try and notify the crew I’m on my way. An image flashing on the scanner console catches my eye and makes my lungs lock around my breath. There’s another ship landing on the platform, and it looks familiar. It’s the Red Horizon.

  Confused, alert, and prepared for anything, I alter course to pass closer to the platform. What the hell is the ’Rize doing here?

  Anxiously, I watch the bioreadouts on the pressure suit, itching to get out of it and back in control. As soon as I have the green light, I shed it and jack the sub’s speed up a few knots, all the while keeping my eyes locked on the cycling video feed. The ship sits quietly, none of the hatches opening. And then the feed shows something else unexpected: the Sphynx is coming in to land, too.

  What’s going on? Did they find the settlers already? The fire racing through my nerve endings warns me that isn’t it. I try the com console again but nothing happens. It’s either broken or being jammed, and I can’t pick up or send anything. I’m only a minute or two from the platform and I have to make a blind decision—get to land or find out why Venus and the ’Rize have docked.

  I reach the docking bay and kill the sub. If Venus and La Mer are in trouble, right now I might the only one who can help. Steering the sub to its magnetic anchor point, I scramble out and onto the pier. The elevator is still where we left it. Saying the code I’d written on my arm, I bring my carbine up to firing position and prepare for the doors to open topside. Fleetingly, I wish I’d taken the cloaking projector back from Rob, then let the thought fade into oblivion. It doesn’t matter what I wish.

  The lift comes to a stop and I open the doors. The control room is just as we’d left it. Empty. Carefully, I make my way toward the exit, listening for the sound of footsteps or a ramp opening, but I can’t hear anything over the wind. A quick look outside shows both ships still sealed. Backing up into the alcove, I try to contact Venus through my VDU. Nothing but silence from her end, so I try Vitruzzi. Same issue.

  Seconds tick by as I try to imagine what could be happening. There’s only one reason Venus would have landed; someone from the crew hailed her. Yet, my gut and the unexpected presence of the ’Rize tell me something else is going on, something not part of the plan. Something wrong.

  The longer I hesitate, the worse the scenarios I imagine become. It comes almost as a relief when the cargo ramp on the ’Rize opens and four sets of legs begin to descend. A second later, they’re in full view standing at the bottom of the ramp.

&
nbsp; With another glance around the edge of the alcove’s protective wall, I recognize T’Kai immediately though he’s shorter than I’d pictured, barely a few centimeters taller than me. He stands in front of Venus and La Mer, both standing with their hands linked behind their heads, eyes cast down. Rob’s crewmember, Baker, is a few steps behind, a carbine pointing at their kidneys.

  T’Kai looks in the direction of the control room and calls, his voice malicious and all business. “Come out where I can see you, Ms. Erikson. You’re friends should also be along shortly.”

  I don’t believe it. Thompson had been right. Rob’s crew is Admin. We’ve been betrayed.

  “I’ve got a bead on you, T’Kai. Let them go or you’ll take one in the heart. I won’t miss at this range.”

  His expression doesn’t change. “Your pilot and wire-rat deserter friend will be next. You don’t want to cause their deaths, do you? No, of course not. Now, I’ll give you five seconds to come here. And be smart. Keep your weapons in a neutral position.”

  Too enraged to even speak, all I can do is what I’m told, not doubting for a second that the bitch Baker will happily fill Venus and La Mer with holes if I give her a reason. I approach holding my AK-80 and Sinbad by their barrels at arm’s length.

  “Very good. Soldier, take those from her,” T’Kai orders Baker.

  For a moment, I consider ending everything right here. All I have to do is raise the ’Bad, pull the trigger, and T’Kai is done. Then, so are my friends and I.

  I reach the group and stand stiffly in front of Baker. She sneers at me, a look that reflects my own loathing for her, and motions for me to drop my weapons. I do it. She pushes them back toward the ramp with her feet without taking her eyes from mine.

  T’Kai walks to my Sinbad, picking it up and turning it over in his hands thoughtfully, noting the disabled ID reader. Putting it into the waist of his pants, he leans toward me and speaks close to my ear. “You see. It’s people like you that make the work I do necessary.” He steps away and nods at Baker.