The Planetsider

by G J Ogden

  He stood for a time with the square card in his hand, looking at the door. Diana had made it clear that nowhere was off limits; she had made of point of it more than once. But she hadn't mentioned any restricted areas. Did she secretly want him to go in here? Or was she just trying to show that she trusted him, by giving him access to all areas, but trusting also that he wasn't stupid enough to enter a restricted area? He flipped the pass over and over in his hand, tossing the different possibilities around in his mind. Maybe behind this door there was something to help confirm Diana's story, or throw it into question. The temptation proved overwhelming. Ethan walked up to the door and pressed the pass against the silver square to its side. Moments later, a green border lit up around the square and he heard a solid, mechanical thud from within the door. He pulled the handle, and it opened.

  chapter 25

  Ethan walked through the door and let it close behind him. As the latch clicked into place he heard the same mechanical thud as the door locked shut again. He was in an empty room, colder than the balcony area and with only one dim lamp for light. The air smelled stale. At the other end of the room, about ten metres away, was another door, the same size and shape as the one he’d just entered through. He walked over to it and saw another sign. It was covered in a layer of black dust, which was slightly damp and as a result had turned into a sort of oily grime. He touched the door and it felt colder than the first. Using the sleeve of his flight suit, he wiped away the grime on the sign, leaving black smears on the coarse fabric and on the smooth material of the sign itself, but it was still clear enough to read. There was a word he did not recognise followed again by, 'DO NOT ENTER'. He looked for the silver square, and found it, masked by grime, in the same location as on the other door. He wiped away the grime as best he could and stood looking at it.

  The first door had been a simpler choice. There didn’t seem much danger, and curiosity, fuelled by a resolve to this time not be coerced or hand-held had made it a relatively easy decision. But this room was different. From the taste of the air, and the dirt and darkness, it was clear that no-one had been inside for a long time, and that this second door had stayed shut for at least as long. Ethan’s senses were heightened, on edge. He knew this was dangerous, reckless even. But it was recklessness that had led him here, alone, the only Planetsider to have left the planet behind and step back in time, into the middle of an ancient war in which he had become a key player. The risks he had taken to be here had been because of someone else. This he would do for himself; his choice for his own sake. Perhaps behind this door there was something to help make sense of everything, or perhaps it was part of another trick, another lie.

  Ethan pressed the card against the grimy, silver square and waited. Nothing happened. He removed it and scrubbed again at the panel, clearing more of the black sludge away. Then he took a deep breath, exhaled, and pressed the card to the panel again. A few seconds later, a dim greenish border appeared around the panel, followed by three dull, mechanical thuds, heavier-sounding than with the first door. Thud… Thud… Thud. A hiss of air escaped through the cracks and the door crept open, creaking at the hinges, and scraping away a layer of dirt to reveal a clean wedge of grey flooring. Ethan nervously looked through the crack that had opened. Beyond was a corridor, again dimly lit, but the air smelled fresher. He pushed at the door to widen the crack far enough to squeeze through and stepped into the corridor beyond, leaving the door open behind him.

  Ethan walked cautiously forward, wincing at each thump of his boots on the hard floor, which seemed abnormally loud in the total silence of this environment. The corridor widened into an open area, which looked like a smaller version of the central plaza, with glass-fronted rooms lining the walls, and benches and stalls in the centre. Some of the windows were smashed and Ethan could see, further ahead as the space opened wider, that there were metal beams hanging down, with bundles of cables tangled up with them, and debris littering the floor. There was some artificial lighting, at a high level, above the glass-fronted rooms, and some at floor level, like illuminated paths, but the main light source seemed to be ahead, filtering down from above. Ethan walked further into the space, tip-toeing around the larger chunks of debris and trying, unsuccessfully, to avoid stepping on glass. The sound of it shattering underfoot was excruciating. He reached what looked like the central point of the wider space and looked up at series of balconies layered above him. It was exactly like a smaller version of the plaza area he had just left. Some of the glass-fronted rooms on the lower level had displays of items. In one, dusty clothes hung from life-sized models of people, arranged into strange poses. Other rooms had different objects inside, and some rooms appeared empty. He looked for an elevator, but then thought better of it. This place was old and broken and the last thing he wanted was to get stuck here. Instead, he dusted off a bench and sat down to think.

  It would have been an impressive place once, Ethan considered. His gaze landed on a part of the dome at the very top of the central area, through which the starlight was shining and casting a silvery glow over everything beneath. A large section of the dome was covered, as if a huge hole had been gouged out and then hastily patched up. It reminded him of how the dome on the moon base had ‘healed’ itself after the attack. Then Ethan noticed other similar sections of patchwork in the walls, like old scars that had never fully healed. The damage suggested the reason this place had been evacuated and now lay abandoned. But it was clearly intact and habitable, and would merely need some cosmetic improvements, so why had it been left to rot, Ethan wondered?

  Then there was a sound, like a shard of glass scraping along the hard floor. Ethan froze, trying to place it, trying to confirm if it was real or his imagination. The air was completely still again. His pulse began to climb. He held his breath to remove even the sound of his own breathing, and listened hard. The sound came again, and then movement. There was the unmistakeable sound of footsteps, but these were not clean steps; it sounded as if the boots were stepping and then dragging along the floor. But where was it coming from? And how many feet? Ethan could not tell. He stood up, very slowly, trying to remain silent and calm. He closed his eyes, trying to pinpoint the location of the sound. The slow, drawn out steps were coming from inside one of the glass-fronted rooms. He couldn’t tell exactly which, but he could place the direction, and it was from behind him, between him and the doorway to the main part of the station. He backed away, trying to manoeuvre himself to the opposite side of the corridor to the footsteps, and started to slowly retrace his path. He looked around and saw a section of metal pipe about a metre long on the floor. He picked it up, and it felt reassuringly weighty in his hand. It would suffice as an improvised weapon, should one be needed. He hoped he wouldn’t need it. Ethan tried to quicken his progress without making too much additional noise. He stepped sideways, facing where he thought the sound was coming from, but as his pace quickened, so did the frequency and volume of the noise from the darkness ahead of him. He was being stalked, or hunted.

  “Show yourself!” shouted Ethan into the blackness, and then immediately regretted it, as his voice sounded weak and unconvincing. Come on Ethan, pull yourself together… he chastised himself. He looked towards his destination. He was perhaps a hundred metres from the corridor leading back to the second door, but in less than twenty metres the space between him and the other side of the corridor would narrow, and whatever was lurking in the shadows would be forced to show itself. He continued on, stepping side-to-side, metal bar raised, gripping it so tightly that his fingers were beginning to numb. Then he stumbled over some loose rubble that was littering the floor and fell. The bar slipped from his hands and rolled down the corridor away from him. The noise was agonising, like a bell being rung, inviting whatever hunted him to attack. Ethan scrambled to his feet, but remained crouched low, ready to spring in any direction and sprint to safety. The bar finally came to rest and there was again silence, for a short time, before the scraping resumed. Ethan stayed
low, motionless, watching. Slowly, out of the darkness a figure emerged. As the silvery light caught its features, Ethan recognised it immediately and his stomach twisted into knots. Panic threatened to overwhelm him. It had the same long, grey face, the same sucked in cheeks and straw-like grey hair, lifeless like dried weeds. And the same cold, black eyes, which were fixed on his. It was one of the Maddened, there was no doubt in his mind, and Ethan knew that he had to run.

  He pushed off and accelerated as fast as he could, using all his effort. The harrowing sound of scraping glass and debris behind him told Ethan that the creature was chasing him. The detritus littering the hallway made it difficult to accelerate, and Ethan found himself struggling to get a good footing and run at the speed he knew he could, and that he knew he needed to in order to evade this thing. He approached a broken wooden bench and pushed it as he passed, scattering fragments of wood along the hallway in the hope of creating an obstacle to his pursuer’s progress. He chanced a look back and wished he hadn’t, as the maddened creature ploughed through it, undeterred.

  Ahead he could see the second door, still ajar, and he pushed on harder, gasping stale air into his lungs. The distance was narrowing, but then his foot landed on a shard of glass and slid out from under him. He fell, hard, and tumbled across the floor, the scattered mix of broken wood, metal and glass bruising and cutting at his skin, and came to a painful stop against the door, his momentum pushing it shut with a heavy thud. He heard the familiar sound of the bolts inside locking, and knew he was trapped. There was no option now but to fight it. Without a weapon, he knew his chances were slim, even with his abilities. The Maddened were strong, resilient, belligerent and – ironically for something already so close to being dead – very hard to kill.

  He pushed himself to his feet. His head was bleeding and dripping blood onto his cheek, and he could feel glass and shards of metal sticking into his legs and arms and back. He was panting heavily, exhausted from the anaerobic sprint, and he felt dizzy, but there was no time to recoup his strength. Ahead of him, the creature had slowed and was advancing towards him patiently, like a wild animal that knew it had a sure kill. Ethan raised his fists. In his head were thoughts of Elijah, Katie, Summer and the great tree under which he had found such solace, but that had also fuelled his curiosity and led him to this end in such a dark and unfamiliar place, led him to abandon his family, led him to be deceived and used as a weapon, led him to an early death, alone and far from home. Maybe it was what he deserved, he thought.

  The creature was now just a few metres away, black eyes fixed on him. Ethan knew that it would charge at any moment. But he would not go down without a fight, not to this thing. If he was to die, he’d die a Ranger, doing what he was trained to do, what he was meant to do. Perhaps there was a sliver of honour to be regained in that. It was all he had now. With all the strength he had left, he thrust himself towards the creature, screaming as loud as he could, arms outstretched and aimed towards its throat. He surged forward, but was then slammed backwards. He landed hard again against the door, and looked up, expecting to see black eyes staring down at him, but it was not there. Instead, there was a series of bright flashes and deep, unnatural, pulsing sounds. Hovering about two metres off the floor in front of him was a dark metallic object, about twice the size of a human head. Pulses of light emanated from it, striking the creature in the chest, and pushing it back and away from Ethan. It wailed horribly as the flashes of light struck, but as much in frustration or anger as in pain. Three more beams hit it in rapid succession and this was enough to turn it away. It fled down the corridor and back into the silvery shadows where it had been lurking.

  The object span around slowly and emitted another beam of light, this time towards Ethan. He raised a hand to shield his face, expecting to be pushed backwards, as the creature had been. Instead, a thin strip of light panned up and down Ethan’s body, accompanied by more of the unnatural squawks and beeps that characterised the technological devices used by both the UEC and GPS. The beam shut off abruptly and the round object shot rapidly upwards and out of sight. Then there was silence again.

  When it was clear that both the maddened creature and the object had gone for good, Ethan got up and carefully dusted himself off, cautiously removing some of the larger pieces of glass and metal that had stuck into him during his fall. He ached all over, and his chest burned from exhaustion. Reaching into his pocket, he searched for the small, square card, and to his despair found it missing. The last thing he wanted to do was go back and search for it, but he had no choice. It seemed likely that there would be more of these things lurking in the shadows, but he tried not to think of how many there could be. Perhaps his spherical metal friend would come to his aid again, he wondered, but it was not much comfort. He sighed heavily and, gingerly, started to walk back out into the narrow corridor ahead.

  He hadn't gone far before a sound from behind startled him and caused him to swing around. It was the unmistakable sound of the bolts in the door, sliding open. The grime-covered panel beside the door lit up green and the door swung open slowly, its old, worn hinges groaning as it widened. Two figures in black outfits and black face masks rushed though, holding weapons. Ethan instinctively held up his hands in submission, but the figures moved swiftly past him, and Ethan watched in confusion as they took up kneeling positions, covering the corridor with their weapons.

  “You do enjoy an adventure, don’t you Ethan?” He swung around again this time to see Diana, standing in the middle of the room beyond the door. “If you’d please come this way,” she said in her usual, affable way, red lips pressed into a gentle smile. “I can’t go any further into the quarantined area, you see. I’m afraid I don’t possess your natural resilience.”

  Ethan said nothing, and simply did as requested, stopping in front of Diana feeling hazy and dazed. The two black figures returned swiftly behind him, and one pulled the door shut. The three bolts fell into place. Thud... Thud... Thud.

  “Thank you, you may leave,” Diana said to the black figures, who nodded and left promptly, without a word. Ethan was still very out of breath, and he was suddenly aware of feeling extremely weary; the effects of the vast surges of adrenalin were wearing off. “Shall we?” said Diana, motioning towards the door leading back to the main concourse. Ethan looked at the door and walked through it, without looking at Diana or acknowledging her. He went to the balcony, and leaned heavily on it with both forearms, his hands clasped together in front of him. He felt strangely calm and at ease. He wasn’t thinking about what had just happened, and the fact he had been moments away from a gruesome death. He was thinking about the settlement. He was thinking about home.

  He heard the thud of the bolt securing the door behind him, and the delicate tap, tap, tap of Diana's footsteps approaching from behind. A few moments later, she appeared at his side. She faced in the opposite direction and rested with her back on the railings. She casually crossed one ankle over the other and waited, head angled towards Ethan, green eyes fixed quizzically on him.

  “You knew I’d go in there, didn’t you?” said Ethan, calmly.

  “I suspected you probably would, yes,” Diana replied.

  “Why didn’t you tell me what was in there?”

  “Because I knew you had to see for yourself,” said Diana without hesitation, obviously expecting this question. “You’ve been lied to continuously for days, Ethan. I didn’t expect you to just take my word for it. It was a gamble.”

  “A gamble with my life,” said Ethan, candidly.

  “You were never in any real danger,” said Diana. “Our Sentry – the metal ball you encountered – was always watching you.”

  “It would have been nice to have encountered it sooner,” said Ethan with a hint of annoyance.

  Diana laughed. “Yes, well I did say it was a gamble,” she said. “And I understand that you’re angry, but hopefully you can appreciate why it was necessary.”

  “I’m not angry,” said Ethan. “I’m tired
, tired of tricks and lies. No more games.”

  Diana nodded. “Agreed. Here, swallow this.” She handed him two small capsules. “They will help with the pain.”

  Ethan was only vaguely aware of the soreness in his body now, but he took the capsules and placed them in his mouth. They liquefied on contact with his tongue and, as with the medication that Angela Salus had given him on the base, he began to immediately feel more invigorated. He wondered what role Angela had played in the UEC deception. Was she even Maria's sister? he asked himself.

  Ethan turned around and faced the door to the quarantined zone. “What happened in there?”

  Diana stood away from the railings, and her expression changed again, showing the sadness that Ethan had seen before when she talked about difficult events. “There was an attack,” she said. “One of a kind that has, thankfully, never been repeated.” She walked back towards the door to the quarantined zone and stopped about half way. Ethan followed and stood next to her, looking at her in anticipation. “We have always been closely matched in terms of combative and defensive capabilities,” Diana continued, “which is why this war has gone on for so long. But then they tried something new. They loaded a small fighter craft with semi-refined orrum, reclaimed at great risk from a section of the destroyed Refinery, orbiting behind the planet, so we couldn't see what they were doing. And then they flew it into the station.”