The Planetsider

by G J Ogden

  Diana saw the chink in his resolve and continued to chip away. “The ship you recovered is a warship, Ethan,” she said. “They want it for only one purpose, which is to destroy this station, and everyone on it, once and for all. To end the war they started.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Ethan, his head in a spin. “You started the war, not them!”

  “They are the aggressors, Ethan. They always were,” said Diana, coolly. “The story you have been told is a twisted fiction. And deep down, I think you know it.”

  Ethan shook his head again. “But I saw the images; they showed me what you did.”

  “A fabrication,” said Diana. “We can make the holos show whatever we want, just as they can.”

  Ethan paced up and down the walkway. “This is crazy,” he said, despondent. “You’re telling me that they lied, but how do I know you’re not lying too?”

  “I understand your predicament,” said Diana, the softness returning to her voice. “It’s why I have chosen not to show you holos, or give you the alternative, real, history. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what happened all those years ago. What matters is what happens next, and what you do.”

  “But why am I so important?” said Ethan. “They needed me to get this ship, but what do you want from me? You already have the ship.” Mention of the warship, if that was what it was, reminded Ethan of the suited figure he had encountered inside. “Wait, you sent your own man to the ship,” he said. “You didn’t need me at all?”

  Diana’s eyes dropped to the floor. “Ah yes, we did sent a pilot,” she said. “But like our friends on the moon base, we also can’t tolerate the levels of radiation out where the vessel became stranded. However, once you inserted the spike and re-enabled the ship’s systems, we only needed a short time to hi-jack the controls.”

  “But then why not kill me, or throw me out?” Ethan challenged her. “He had the opportunity...”

  “She, actually,” interrupted Diana. “And she died. She was dead before the ship even reached this station.”

  Ethan was dumbstruck. “She’s dead? You sent her knowing she would die?”

  “No!” said Diana, firmly. “She volunteered, knowing it was the only way.”

  “And what about the attacks on the base, were they also the only way?” said Ethan, pushing.

  “If we had succeeded in disabling the UEC’s remaining fleet and launch bays, there would have been no need for Kayla’s sacrifice,” said Diana, angrily. “That was her name, by the way, in case you care at all?”

  The last remark was deliberately spiteful, and Ethan could see by the tightening of her expression that Diana immediately regretted it. Ethan had finally pushed her into an emotional reaction, but it had only reinforced his feeling that she was sincere, and made him doubt the UEC even more.

  Sensing her emotions starting to take over, Diana tried to compose herself. She took several deep breaths and gripped her hands even more tightly in front of her, and when she spoke again, she was more restrained. “I am sorry, you did not deserve that,” she said. She stared down at her hands. “I am not an unfeeling woman, Ethan,” she continued. “Perhaps now you see how serious this is.”

  Ethan gripped the railings tightly and again stared down at the people below. His mind was a mess of conflicted emotions and conflicting information. Was it true that he had been lied to and manipulated? Had Maria been complicit in that? Or was he being lied to and manipulated now? It was impossible to know one way or the other. But his instincts told him there was at least some truth in what Diana was saying. He sensed a sincerity he had never felt from Archer.

  “So, if you’re not the aggressors, what is it that you actually want?” he asked levelly, still looking out across the chasm occupying the centre of the station.

  “We want to return to the planet,” said Diana, confidently and without hesitation.

  Ethan was stunned. He turned to face her. “Return to the planet? Why?”

  “The warship,” said Diana. “We can convert it from an instrument of destruction into a vessel of salvation, literally. We can use it to transport our people off this station, and take them home.”

  “But why?” said Ethan, incredulously. “The planet is a wasteland. You have more here than we could ever dream of down there.”

  “Ethan, I am the third generation to be born on this station,” said Diana. “We are all children born after the event you call The Fall. And like you, we bear no responsibility for it. Or blame. The planet is still our home, just as it is yours.”

  Ethan shook his head. He was trying to process Diana’s words, but it went against everything he thought he knew to this point. “This is hard for me, Diana, I just don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  Diana moved closer to Ethan and rested on the railings next to him, so that they were almost touching. If she had offered to hold his hand, or even hug him, Ethan would have probably accepted. She didn’t, but still he appreciated the closeness of another person.

  “Much of what you were shown in the holos is actually true,” said Diana, “at least in terms of how things happened. What is different is who played which part, and the parts we play now.”

  “I used to believe that knowing the truth about The Fall was the most important thing in the world to me,” said Ethan, sadly. “But when I was finally told what had happened, or at least the UEC’s version of it, I wished I didn't know. The truth is, I really don’t care anymore. I came here only to save Maria. I left my family and friends behind for her, because she told me she would die if I didn’t help her. But if what you say is true, she is the biggest lie of all.”

  Diana shrugged. “For generations, people on both sides have grown up hating each other, and believing the other to be at fault. She perhaps believed the deception to be necessary; that it was the right thing to do, from her perspective.”

  Ethan hadn't expected Diana’s response to be so diplomatic or balanced, and he admired her for not using his doubt over Maria to press her advantage. But, the realisation that Maria may well have been deceiving him was hitting Ethan hard.

  “As to the question of why,” Diana continued, “that’s the simple part, Ethan. It’s simply one side wanting to defeat the other. Two old enemies, unable – or unwilling – to reconcile their differences. The finer details are unimportant now.”

  “Talia warned me, but I wouldn’t listen,” said Ethan, solemnly.

  “Talia, is that your mother?” asked Diana with interest; encouraged that Ethan seemed to be opening up to her more.

  Ethan laughed. “No, I suppose she’s a bit like you;” he said, “a leader. She warned me that we’re better off not knowing about The Fall. She told me that we needed to create a future free of the past.”

  “She sounds like a smart woman,” said Diana with obvious admiration.

  “Could you even survive?” said Ethan, returning to the subject Diana had raised earlier. “Down on the planet, I mean.”

  “Yes, for a time,” Diana said nodding, the thin smile returning to her lips. “Your natural resilience is down to being born on the planet, as a descendant of a survivor who also possessed an innate resistance,” she continued. “It is woven into the very fabric of your body, in a way that no medicine can replicate fully. But there are treatments that can counteract the toxicity, and extend life-expectancy, hopefully by long enough.”

  Ethan gave her a puzzled frown. “Long enough for what?”

  “We hope…” and then Diana paused for a moment and corrected herself, “…my hope, Ethan, is that we too can build settlements and have children. And that our children who are born Planetside will possess a powerful natural resistance to the radiation, just like you.”

  “Your children would have a better life here,” said Ethan, looking around the vast structure of the space station.

  “More comfortable, perhaps,” said Diana, “but not better. Either due to the UEC, or simply the advance of time, eventually this station will decay. Many sect
ions already have, and many others have been adapted and repaired so many times that it’s a miracle it’s still functioning at all.”

  “Is it worth the risk, though?” wondered Ethan. “Maybe you could defeat the UEC, or destroy their ships. Then you would be safe.”

  Diana thought for a moment before answering. “Do you ever have nightmares, Ethan?”

  Ethan swallowed hard and a knot tightened in his gut. “What?” he asked, shaken.

  “Nightmares, bad dreams,” Diana clarified, unaware of his discomfort. Ethan didn’t reply. He fought back the images in his mind. “I often dream about the station being attacked,” Diana went on. “Sometimes, I wake and it’s actually real,” she added, wistfully. “But, sometimes I have the same terrible dream. The station is burning, people are dying. There are UEC soldiers everywhere, killing men, women and children, indiscriminately. I try to get to my office to broadcast a warning and to tell people to escape, but instead of my office, I step onto a ship, dead in space, and I’m looking out of the cockpit at the station. It’s no longer burning, but it’s broken, crippled. And inside are bodies, pressed against the windows, with tormented looks on their faces. Hundreds of tormented dead bodies, and all I can do is stare. I can’t look away.” Diana swallowed hard, paused for a moment and then stared blankly at the plaza below. “Then I’m standing in the middle of the plaza,” she continued, eyes fixed on the circular GPS motif in the centre of the floor. “Everything is smashed, the lights are out, and dead bodies are floating all around. And they are all staring at me. Judging me with their dead, unblinking eyes...” She paused again, and closed her eyes tightly.

  “That sounds horrible,” said Ethan, his mind filled with images of his own nightmare.

  “Yes,” replied Diana, weakly. “Yes, it is. And it’s what I fear will happen if we stay. I fear this place will become a graveyard, and that nothing of who we are – the people we are now – will survive. I couldn’t bear that, Ethan. Can you understand that?”

  Ethan shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted, as much to himself as to Diana. “If you’d have asked me before all this had happened, I would have said no, because I didn’t see a future for me, or for anyone Planetside, if I couldn’t understand what had brought us to this point.”

  “And now that you do understand?” Diana asked.

  Ethan exhaled deeply. “Now I see how precious what we have on the planet really is,” he said. “A new beginning, free of the past, and not condemned to repeat the same mistakes. We came together in our bleakest moment, and we survived and still look out for each other today.”

  Diana nodded. “Yes!” she said with renewed vigour. “That is what I want for the people living here; a new beginning. Even if it means we have to struggle and endure, even if many of us die to get there, or die on the planet. It would be worth it so that we can begin again, don’t you see? So that our future generations will survive and thrive, free of the past, just as you are.”

  Ethan thought of Elijah and felt deeply ashamed. “I can’t help you,” he said. “I already had what you want, and I turned my back on it.”

  “There’s still time,” said Diana. “There’s still time for us both.”

  Ethan looked at Diana leaning over the railings, her head turned towards him, her straight, red hair hanging down over her cheeks, hiding her ears and drawing even more attention to her powerful, green eyes. Recent events had made him question his ability to judge character, but Diana was heartfelt and seemed deeply sincere. He wished he had paid more attention to his doubts when on the moon base. Compared to Diana, Archer now seemed so obviously fake, and there had always been something nagging at the back of his mind, telling him that all was not as it seemed.

  But then there was Maria. She had been a little more guarded and formal perhaps, which was understandable once she was back amongst her superiors, but she was undeniably the same Maria, the same headstrong woman who had woken up in his bed, and made him feel furious and terrified, but also wonderful and alive. More alive than he had felt in a long time, not since that one stolen kiss with Summer years ago. But if what Diana said was true, Maria had played him for a fool. He didn’t want to believe that he could be so easily manipulated, and despite his gut feeling that she was telling the truth, he didn’t want to rule out that it could still be Diana herself that was the master manipulator. But then, if she was manipulating him, to what end? She already had the ship. If she was the aggressor, she would have already used that ship to destroy the UEC base, and would have no need or reason to talk to him. No reason to keep him alive. Or at least, no reason that Ethan could think of. And this was still the missing piece. What did Diana want with him?

  “Assuming, for a moment, I believe you...” Ethan said, before hastily adding, “and I’m not saying I do. But, if I did, you still haven’t explained what you need from me.”

  “We want you to be our emissary,” said Diana, again confidently and without hesitation.

  “Emissary?”

  “We want you to be our representative,” Diana clarified. “To introduce us to your people, to show them we are no threat, and to help us become a part of your world.”

  Ethan remembered back to the meeting hall in the settlement, and to what Administrator Talia had said about the other off-worlders that had come before. He knew how deep their resentment was for these people, because they represented a dangerous link to the past. At the time, Ethan had found this view narrow-minded and xenophobic, but after seeing what he’d seen, he was beginning to understand Talia’s concerns. These people, whether UEC or GPS, or whatever they were calling themselves now, did represent the ‘old’ world. And despite Diana’s claim that they were separate from GPS and their generations-long war with the UEC, they were still a part of a world that the Planetsiders had chosen to leave behind, and forget. Ethan knew that they would not be welcomed. They would be seen as dangerous relics, who could use their knowledge and technology to rebuild the cities and begin again on the dark road that had originally led to The Fall. But this was not something he wanted to bring up with Diana now. Besides, he still wasn’t sure how much he could trust this woman, or even if she was genuinely telling the truth. The only thing he knew for sure was that someone was lying. Whether it was Maria and the UEC, or Diana, he didn’t yet know. And that meant Ethan could only truly trust himself, and his own instincts. Those instincts told him to keep this hidden from Diana, until he knew for sure that she was telling the truth.

  “You’ve given me a lot to think about,” he said finally.

  “I understand,” said Diana. “I will leave you to think. Take your time, and go anywhere you wish. Down to the plaza for some food, or simply wander and explore the station. When you are ready, come back here and then…” she paused, trying to find the right words, “...and then we’ll see what happens next, together, okay?”

  She reached into her right trouser pocket, pulled out a small, rectangular card and handed it to him. Ethan took it and looked at it. It was similar to the one Maria had used to open doors on the moon base.

  “This is an access pass,” said Diana. “It is a copy of my access pass, in fact. I told you that there would be nowhere on this station that is off limits, and I am true to my word.”

  “So with this I can go… anywhere?” said Ethan.

  “Yes,” said Diana, “although I’d advise against the air-locks leading into space.” It was obviously intended as a joke and she smiled. Ethan did not – he was reminded too much of his earlier visit to deep space, and did not want to think about it again.

  “Simply touch it to the silver pad beside the door you want to open and when the panel surround turns green you can enter,” Diana explained. “Or leave, depending on which side of the door you are, of course.” Then she gestured down towards the Plaza. “You can also use it to get food, if you wish.”

  “And I meet you back here?” said Ethan

  “Yes,” said Diana. “My offices are back through that door.” S
he indicated back towards the door they had gone through earlier in order to reach the balcony. “Till we meet again, young Planetsider!” she said, enthusiastically. And then smiled and walked back towards the door she had just pointed out to Ethan.

  ***

  With Diana gone, Ethan was surprised to find himself feeling anxious and even afraid. He was used to spending time alone on the planet; it was actually something he needed and actively sought out. But here, in this alien environment he felt exposed and vulnerable. Before, he could think of Maria and draw comfort from knowing that she was with him, and that he was doing something to help her, and to help them be together. But if what Diana had told him was true, he was being used to help kill hundreds, maybe thousands. Who knows how many people lived on this vast floating city, but whatever the number was, he did not want to be responsible for their deaths. He craved the hill and the old tree outside the settlement on the planet, where he would go to seek solace. He missed Forest Gate far more than he had ever expected.

  Eventually, he summoned up the courage to push off from the railings and began to wander around the balcony, not really paying any attention to the doors, corridors and rooms that he passed. This circular, central area was huge, he observed, perhaps two-hundred metres across, and each level seemed to have its own network of adjoining areas, like a huge three-dimensional spider web. Strangely, while he could see people walking around on the levels above and below him, there was almost nobody on the same level as he was. He’d seen perhaps only two or three others, far on the opposite side of the balcony.

  This thought was rudely interrupted by a loud gurgle from his stomach, and he realised that he was actually quite hungry. He fiddled with the square slab in his trouser pocket, remembering what Diana had told him about it also allowing him to get food, and decided to make his way down to the plaza. He looked around for an elevator, or at least something that resembled one, surmising that they must look pretty much the same here as they did on the moon base. He spotted a likely candidate about twenty metres away and started walking towards it, but then something caught his eye. It was a huge door, set back from the balcony edge. It reminded him of the doors in the city space port back on the planet, where he had first met Maria, and where he’d later made the fateful decision to have himself blasted into space with her. Ethan approached it more closely and noticed a sign, surrounded in a red and white striped border that read, ‘Restricted Area – Level C9. DO NOT ENTER’. To the side of the large door was a smaller door, and next to this was a square, silver pad. Ethan reached into his pocket and pulled out the square card that Diana had given him. Written on it was, ‘Diana Neviah – C9’ and a picture of Diana’s face, framed by her red hair. He looked at the picture. The green eyes stared back. The thin, red lips were pressed together, not smiling. She looked younger in the photo and, despite not smiling, somehow happier. He read the name again, ‘Diana Neviah – C9’, then looked again at the sign on the door: ‘Restricted Area – Level C9’.