Equilibrium of Terror: Part 1 (Splintered Galaxy Book 3)

by Eddie R. Hicks

  “No, and neither did my agent unless invited.”

  … … …

  I need to stop forgetting this! Alisha thought as she stepped toward the security check point. “Good morning guys,” she said to them, waving her ID.

  “Ah, Alisha, starting earlier today as well?” asked the heavily armed ranger.

  “Well it’s our day off, I just forgot my data pad.”

  “Day off?” The ranger sounded surprised, as if something happened that was supposed to happen.

  “Yes. Something wrong?”

  The ranger faced his partner, who said with a confused shrug. “Three new lab workers checked in to your sector not long ago,” the ranger said to Alisha. “I assumed you all were having an early start today.”

  “If there’s something going on today, I wasn’t told,” she said. “I’ll see what’s up.”

  She crossed the check point and walked toward her lab. Seconds later from behind, one of the rangers at the check point shouted, “Wait!” She spun around to face them. “We’ll come with you,” the ranger said, adjusting some settings on his magmatic rifle.

  … … …

  “Anything else?” Heurol asked Vaishea.

  “The rest of the data is encrypted and pass code protected,” she said.

  “My psionics can only do so much when it comes to breaching computers and manipulating cams at the same time.”

  “Can we download it?” Jazz asked.

  “I can try,” Vaishea said, her fingers went to work on the keyboard. “But even if we bring it back, it’s useless unless we can crack it.”

  “I know a hacker that can,” said Jazz with a grin.

  “Really?” Heurol said to him with interest in his voice. “Where can we find them?”

  Jazz thought back to the incident in the city, and the last time he heard Eupiar’s voice. He wondered what became of her, Destiny and Veloshira, and the Silver Raven, his ride off this planet. Damn it, don’t tell me I’m stuck on this planet for good. “That’s a good fuckin’ question.” he said.

  A soft beep from the computer was heard as Vaishea inserted a data crystal onto a tiny slot next to the keyboard. “All right it’s downloading now,” she said.

  Heurol crossed his augmented arms and smiled down toward her while she manned the computer station. “Vaishea...”

  “What?”

  “Funny how quickly you became an expert at computers isn’t it now?”

  She turned in her chair and stared up at him with an unamused smile. “I’m a starship officer!”

  “And these aren’t starship computers, at least not ones you’d find on the bridge of the Abyssal Explorer or in another other major section of the ship,” Heurol said. “You must be programmed to remember your computer skills when necessary, like now.” She winced, turning back to the computer screen. “Deny it all you want, we must be getting close to your mission objective.”

  A lab worker and two rangers unexpectedly unlocked the door and entered the lab. Jazz, Heurol and Vaishea quickly found themselves to be the primary targets of two magnetic rifles, and quickly found themselves leaping for cover behind the equipment and large computers when the bullets started to spray. Heurol’s quick thinking conjured a purple shimmering dome over of them, deflecting the projectile fire that tore through their cover with ease.

  Jazz held onto the handle of his mag pistol hard, managed his now quick breathing and heart rate and said. “If they call for help—”

  “They won’t,” Heurol said, cutting him off.

  Heurol’s psionics launched the two rangers backwards while he created and flung balls of plasma toward them. Jazz and Vaishea capitalized on the situation, breaking their cover, and gunning the rangers down as their shields failed from Heurol’s psionic assault. Just one more to deal with, Jazz thought and shifted his pistol toward the now lone lab worker. He froze, shocked, dumbfounded and at a loss for words as he made eye contact with them.

  The long black hair, the alluring Japanese and French-Canadian face. It was Alisha. Jazz was quick to signal to Vaishea and Heurol to stand down as they were ready for a fight with her. He took a deep breath. It wasn’t enough, he did it again, then lowered his smoking pistol toward the floor. “Alisha?” he asked, even though he knew damn well it was a pointless question. It was her, no doubt about it.

  “Jake,” Alisha said to him in a shocked voice just like his.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Jazz paused. Not exactly the question he imagined himself asking her during a reunion. “Sorry, didn’t expect you to come walking in.”

  “You know her?” Vaishea asked.

  “She’s his ex-wife if I’m not mistaken,” Heurol said.

  Jazz stepped toward her slowly, observing that she’s aged a bit since he last saw her on Earth, not much however, just a few years. “Look uh,” he said as he got close to her and wondered why the expression on her face was so fearful. “There’s some—”

  Smack.

  The sound was her hand slapping across his cheeks. She was pissed, quite possibly more pissed than she was during the divorce.

  “Just get away from me!” she shouted at him. There was a vengeful hint to her porcelain face.

  “Yo what the fuck!” he said loudly. The side of his face was sore, it was a firm hand he never knew she had.

  “You fucking murderer!”

  “Hate to remind ya but I was a soldier, and now an assassin, killing people is my specialty.”

  “Even innocent people like Jason? What did he ever do to you?”

  Jason? But how did she find out. Given everything Jazz experienced after the invasion of Earth. Jazz putting Jason out of the airlock was a regrettable action, fueled by his mentally unstable mind. Never mind the fact that Jason was probably going to end up dead one way or another, though it would have been better for someone else to have done it and get the hatred from Alisha for it. But, it looked like the truth was out there. She knows he killed her husband, and there was nothing he could do to change it.

  “As much as I’m enjoying this human interpersonal drama,” Heurol said. “But we got stuff to finish.”

  “Yeah,” said Jazz. “We do.”

  Jazz moved toward the two dead rangers, plundering their rifles from their unmoving hands, tossing one to Vaishea while keeping the other for himself.

  Heurol’s head gestured toward Alisha to move toward the end of the lab, in the corner to be exact in which he moved closer to her in an imposing manner. A manner that made Alisha and Jazz both uncomfortable. “Easy man! She ain’t an enemy,” Jazz said to him.

  “The Celestial Order has influence all over this world,” Heurol said, extending one of his glowing arms toward Alisha. “Anyone could be an enemy.”

  “Even you?” Jazz asked.

  Heurol’s reply was a soft grunt. Jazz wasn’t getting through to him and stepped closer. Whatever Heurol had planned, it was going to be something Alisha was going to find undesirably painful. Something that might have Jazz go berserk.

  “So, Alisha, was it?” Heurol said, snapping the fingers on his glowing arm. Alisha started to hold her chest, she was in pain, he was torturing her with his powers. “I’m going to need to know everything that was going on here within the last six days or so.”

  She groaned in pain, while anger grew inside Jazz. “Stop!” he shouted at Heurol.

  “I have nothing to tell you,” Alisha said.

  “Have it your way.”

  “Bro.” The barrel of Jazz’s rifle pointed toward the side of Heurol’s head. It would be a point-blank kill if his pulled the trigger. “I said fucking stop!”

  “You still love her, don’t you?”

  “Do you really think fuckin’ Radiance or the order was going to let her in on their secret science project? She doesn’t know shit.”

  Jazz’s words were unheard. Alisha continued to scream. She fell to the floor, trembling. “I’m not convinced,” Heurol said. Jazz responded by placing his finger next
to the trigger. “You know, I could kill you right now, Jazz?”

  “But you ain't gonna, between using your powers to control the cameras, doing your fuckery with her. I’d say you’re tapped out. You ain’t no powerful psi, the fact you were shocked that the teleport worked shows that.” He pushed the rifle further, causing the end of the barrel to push against Heurol’s head slightly. Heurol had no shields up, proving Jazz’s theory. “So im’ma tell you what’s gonna go down, Vaishea is going to jam her gun to your head.”

  To Heurol’s surprise, Vaishea did just that. Two magnetic rifles were ready to blow his brains out. Jazz discreetly took a step to the side while aiming his rifle slightly upwards. The exit wound from Vaishea’s gun would kill him from where he stood. The same could be said about the original position of his rifle.

  “And you’re going to step off,” Jazz said to Heurol. “You could try and ice me, but you aren’t going to risk touching Vaishea, she’s your golden girl right now, you need her alive.” All glowing on Heurol’s cybernetics came to an end along with Alisha’s torment and pain. Heurol slowly backed away, his face scolding at both Jazz and Vaishea. “Alisha,” Jazz said to her. “Sorry you had to go through that shit, but we really need to find out what happened to homeboy’s agent.”

  She stood after a minute of being on the floor, weakened by the pain. “I don’t know I swear,” she said. “I shouldn’t even be here thanks to the deportation order. I was granted to stay until the project here moved onto living tests.”

  “And how far off were you on that?”

  “Still a few weeks at best.”

  “What do you know about the restricted area in the adjacent sector?”

  “Some techs came here a while ago to talk with the project leaders that’s it. Don’t know why, our two projects aren’t related. Then one of our workers vanished.”

  “Name?”

  “Her name was Katotea.”

  “You see the information you can get when you don’t torture people?” Jazz said to Heurol with a smug tone of voice.

  “Nothing of value, nothing new,” Heurol said.

  “Everything points to that restricted sector, so let’s go.”

  “And how do you suppose we get into a locked down area?” Heurol asked.

  “The way I see it,” said Jazz. “Someone’s gonna come looking for these guards who haven’t checked in. If we stay here, we’re fucked, we go there, we’re probably gonna get fucked too.”

  “And?”

  Jazz walked toward the door and looked out into the hallways to ensure nobody watched what went down. He was also trying to buy time for a heroic response to Heurol’s question.

  A response he couldn’t think of.

  “Yeah well, I wasn’t sure where I was going with that,” Jazz said. “Let’s just go and see what happens alright?”

  Vaishea removed the data crystal from the computer as the download had long finished during the conflict. They began to head to the door, while Alisha sat in the corner, still recovering from what happened.

  “What about her?” Vaishea asked.

  Heurol stepped into the halls and waved his hand toward the lab. The lights, computers everything inside powered off then he forced the doors to shut as Jazz and Vaishea exited. “No power, no computers, locked door,” Heurol said. “She can’t call for help, and nobody will have a reason go in there. She’ll be safe and not give us away.”

  Jazz would have preferred it that she came along, or at least went back to wherever she was living. But Heurol’s last statement, about her being safe in there got Jazz wondering about what they might encounter next in their journey. If this place turns into a warzone, then Alisha staying safe and locked up in that room would be the only place he’d like her to be.

  “I’m gonna assume it’s this way?” Jazz said, pointing down the hall.

  “I got my head in a directory now,” Heurol said, moving in the direction of Jazz’s index finger. “And yes, it is.”

  Labyrinths of brightly lit halls led them toward the entrance to a restricted zone. Jazz was grateful they didn’t encounter anyone else in the halls seeing how he and Vaishea were now armed with rifles, covered in dried blood, and Heurol was topless like the psionic warrior he was.

  A group of armed guards stood at a security check point. The trio hid around the corner out of sight, and not moving forward because of the blockade. “Any ideas on getting in?” Vaishea asked.

  “If Eupiar were here, I’d have her hack the systems to get us in,” said Jazz.

  “It was your idea to come here,” Heurol said. “I figured you’d have something smart planned.”

  Jazz took another peek around the corner. He saw what appeared to be a small tram platform several meters behind the guards, and a connecting hallway veering off to the left. Now if only those guards weren’t down that hallway. “Need a distraction.”

  Jazz pulled out his pistol, offering it to Heurol.

  “Guns blazing? Seriously?” Heurol said.

  “No, even better,” Jazz said to him. “Your psionics can tap into computers, right?”

  “Were you not with us in the labs?”

  “Shut the fuck up, it was a rhetorical question!” Jazz said, pausing to control his anger. Heurol was clearly upset at what happened and was now going use this chance to make Jazz look like a useless oaf. Time to reestablish dominance. “Use your fucking mind to tap into the computer of this pistol.”

  “And I’m looking for?” Heurol said while his mind connected into the pistol as requested.

  “Can the contents of the targeting screen beam into your head?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, use your telekinesis to have it fly above their heads.”

  “And?”

  “Think man, think! Use it as a fucking drone.”

  The pistol wobbled in the air for a moment as Heurol’s brain forced it to hover high up toward the ceiling, above the guards’ heads and above the check point.

  “All right human, you’re smarter than I thought.”

  Jazz peeked around the corner once again, none of the guards were aware of what happened, the makeshift pistol drone telekinetically floated in, while its screen projected what the targeting display saw into Heurol’s mind.

  “Okay, I see the main entrance,” Heurol said to them. “We have to board a tram, and we got some guards to the south.”

  “Pop ‘em,” Jazz said. “The rest will come running over, then we sneak in.”

  The pistol was long out of sight from where Jazz stood. He waited and waited until Heurol gave him the good news. “Get ready,” Heurol said. “One, two, three!”

  Multiple gun shots echoed in the distance causing all guards in the area including those at the check point to run over and investigate the matter. With the coast clear, Jazz, Vaishea and Heurol carried out the next part of the plan, sprinting onto the tram. A holographic interface caused the tram to power on and propel rapidly down the tunnel to their destination, deeper inside the mountain.

  A large lab almost like a warehouse came into view, the tram platform led them to a balcony overlooking several Radiance races in lab coats working while a dozen or more armed rangers patrolled back and forth. They ducked behind nearby cargo containers next to a staircase while periodically peeking over or around their new-found cover. Several cryo tubes were picked up by a crane and moved to other sections of the lab, the tubes still had people inside them.

  “Looks like they got test subjects inside,” Heurol said, gazing at a crane swinging a cryo tube past them. “All Linl?”

  Jazz popped his head up from the crate to take a glance at the same tube Heurol was looking at. From beneath the glass top of the tube, he saw a man wearing an LA Lakers’ T-shirt.

  “No,” Jazz said slowly. “These are humans, straight outta Earth.” Jazz took another look at the other cryo tubes, everyone inside wore clothing that would have existed twenty-two years ago, summer attire at that.

  “Humans?” Vaish
ea whispered to Jazz. “That can’t be right, your people never sent ships here. And the first transports sent between Earth and here are still in interstellar space.”

  “I’m here, so is Alisha,” said Jazz. “Though I cheated and went through a wormhole to get here.”

  “Alisha came with us via the Abyssal Explorer,” she said.

  “That explains that,” Jazz said, taking another look. There was a boy wearing a baseball cap.

  “These humans,” Vaishea said. “They must have been aboard the Explorer as well.”

  “I can’t imagine Radiance agreeing to do something like this, secret experiments on humans,” said Heurol. “The order on the other hand...”

  “We weren’t compromised, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Vaishea said to Heurol.

  “How do you know?”

  “These people are all wearing clothes from twenty-two years ago,” Jazz said as another crane moved a cryo tube past them. “And some of them look like they just left a warzone.” He turned to face Vaishea. “You remember the last known locations of the Abyssal Explorer before it came here?”

  “I was assigned to it a few months after it arrived at Lejorania Sanctum,” she said. “It went to Dark Lejorania to pick me up then was assigned to come here.”

  “And before that, it was at Earth during the invasion,” Jazz said.

  “The Explorer picked up many human refugees from Earth and delivered them to Lejorania Sanctum as I recalled,” Vaishea said.

  “And I’mma go out on a limb and say, not all of them got off that ship,” Jazz said. “Until now.”

  A lab worker pushed an anti-gravity cart across the lab. Looking down, the trio saw an assortment of small red gems on the cart. All of them glistening. “Those,” Heurol said, pointing at the contents of the cart. “That proves they are with the order.”

  Jazz gripped onto his rifle, holding back the fury burning in his eyes. “This gives us full permission to kill everyone,” he said.

  “What about the guards back in the tunnels?” Vaishea asked.

  They looked back at the tram they rode in on. Heurol stood and illuminated his cybernetic arms with psionic power. As they started to glow bright, he stretched them out toward the tram. An enormous plasma ball shot out, creating a thunderous and flaming explosion destroying the tram.