Merillian: 2 (Locus Origin)

by Christian Matari

  His contact was late, which wasn’t unusual, but given his surroundings it was starting to unsettle him, for all that his driver was less than a couple of hundred meters away, parked just outside the station’s southern steps, opposite Harland Park. A sudden rush of air popped somewhere below as an impossibly long passenger train shot out of one of the tunnels. Takahashi started to count the cars but soon realized that the train was traveling much too fast. Given its direction, it was likely passing through on its way to Belforth, a city not too far from the capital.

  He nearly leapt over the railing when he felt the tapping on his shoulder.

  “Ease up, old fool,” came the familiar voice of his contact.

  “Harkin! You should know better than to sneak up on an old man like that,” Takahashi gasped, clutching his chest as he struggled to catch his breath.

  “Hah. You’re not the only one the years have treated unkindly,” Harkin replied, leaning up against the railing next to Takahashi.

  His words rang true, although he hadn’t been much to look at in his earlier days either. He was completely bald, with oily skin which glistened under the fickle fluorescent lighting. Deep lines of worry covered his aging visage, and purple veins could be seen prominently on his cheeks, neck and forehead. His oversized ears drooped comically, and his bushy eyebrows had gone completely white.

  “So why did you call me this late?” inquired Harkin, stoically.

  “I’ve been out of the loop for a spell,” Takahashi ventured. “I need a way back in.”

  Harkin raised an eyebrow, astonished that his old acquaintance would not only ask such a favor, but to assume that he had the power to grant his request.

  “You presume a great deal if you think you can garner enough support to reclaim your old position. Especially having held it twice now,” said Mr. Harkin.

  “You misunderstand me,” Takahashi corrected. “C-CORE holds little interest for me in terms of position or titles. I seek only information.”

  “Ah,” Harkin replied, stuffing his hands in his pockets and fiddling with his coins, something he often did when he felt uncomfortable. “They said you wouldn’t leave well enough alone.”

  “Well, for once they were right,” Takahashi replied, smiling faintly. “I thought I could set it all aside, retire with at least a modicum of grace. But there’s something amiss.”

  “Oh?” Harkin probed, stretching his pants pockets outwards in an odd fashion as he continued to play with their contents.

  “You can sense it, can’t you?” Takahashi urged him. “The war, this… supposed economic reform. Something is stirring… something I fear…” he stammered as he tried to put his thoughts into words.

  “You’re not entirely incorrect,” Harkin confessed, reluctantly.

  “You know something?” pressed Takahashi, feeling a rush of relief at the revelation.

  “I’m not supposed to. But you know me, I always have my eyes and ears in the wrong places,” he smiled.

  “Well…?” Takahashi urged him.

  “The crystal… the one from the craft on New Io…”

  “What of it?” Takahashi demanded, worried about what he was about to hear.

  “It’s gone missing,” Harkin eventually replied, reluctantly.

  “Missing?” Takahashi blurted. “How?”

  “Misplaced, stolen, I’m not sure. It’s all very hush hush. Director Straub has gone to great lengths to make sure no one’s aware of the situation. I suspect he’s involved somehow… though of course, I can’t prove anything,” Harkin admitted.

  Takahashi felt an uncontrollable urge to lash out. Before he’d left C-CORE a few years before, he’d contemplated disposing of the crystal, thinking it unsafe to leave it in any hands but his own. Yet, in the end, he’d assured himself that if anyone could keep it from falling into the wrong hands, it would be C-CORE. To discover that his judgment had been so deeply flawed was not something he took lightly, and nor were the implications this could have for the future. His mentor’s plans depended on it.

  Harkin stood there in silence, rolling his feet on the ground, patiently waiting for Takahashi to regain his composure.

  “I… I almost can’t believe it,” Takahashi gasped after a moment. “Division 6?” he ventured a guess.

  Harkin nodded in agreement. “I suspect so.”

  “Then I truly stand alone.”

  “Don’t fret, old man,” Harkin said, reassuringly. “I’m still on your side, though I think I should leave you now. There are too many eyes and ears lurking down below, and I believe I see a pair of drones approaching, no doubt to deal with the riffraff in the underpass.”

  “Thank you, old friend,” Takahashi sighed as they parted ways before the hover drones could get within range to record their words.

  * * * * *

  "The similarities between the propulsion system of the craft and that of the Lazarus are astounding,” the scientist explained as they passed through the airlock, moving on to traverse the maze of corridors beyond. “As you well know, the original seed ship was outfitted with the alien drive technology scavenged from the craft found in orbit of Mars. Although Earth’s scientists did manage to install it on the Lazarus, we never did manage to reverse engineer it once we reached the Merillian galaxy.”

  Captain Intari was a full head taller than the excitable man, whose nervous facial tics had only intensified the longer he was in his company. The short scientist wore spectacles augmented with sensory devices along the upper rim of the left lens, with which he continuously fidgeted as he attempted to adjust the way they sat on his hooked nose.

  “Our scientists were close, very close in fact, to discovering its secrets. But when the Nyari bombarded Alpha Terra, the Lazarus was almost completely destroyed, setting us back decades. This new propulsion system is of a similar design, and we believe that true superluminal propulsion is now finally within our grasp, provided-”

  “Dr. Reisner,” Intari interrupted him, coming to a stop as he did so, forcing the diminutive man to stop with him. “Spare me the historical lecture. Just how fast will this new technology allow us to travel?”

  “Yes… of course. My apologies,” Reisner stammered. “We believe that a vessel equipped with this new propulsion technology will be capable of obtaining speeds several times faster than that of our current mass accelerators. Although just how fast, in practical terms, we haven’t yet been able to ascertain.”

  Intari resumed his stride down the corridor, this time at a speed with which Dr. Reisner had difficulty keeping up, at least not without foregoing grace. A pair of armed guards marched past them, outfitted simply in black uniforms bearing no markings or insignia.

  “It is possible that, with continued research, and the appropriate funding of course, we might be seeing a velocity increase of up to twenty times our current maximum,” the scientist proclaimed, brimming with pride. “But it will take time.”

  “Unacceptable,” Intari announced, without a hint of emotion or even so much as breaking stride. “I gave you a deadline. I want my prototype.”

  “That’s… not possible!” Reisner gasped, pushing his spectacles further up the bridge of his nose.

  In utter silence, Captain Intari came to a stop in the middle of a junction. Corridors stretched out in several directions, some straight and narrow as far the eye could see, others curving slightly, obscuring the view of whatever they led to. A row of heavy metal doors, manned by a team of guards, were laid out evenly along one side of the passage in front of them, and a motorized cart was approaching in the distance.

  Dr. Reisner tried to stand perfectly still under Intari’s fierce scrutiny, first clutching his arms behind his back, then folding them across his chest, then shoving them deeply into the pockets of his lab coat as he awkwardly tried to remain composed. A young lab technician emerged from a nearby airlock, entranced in the contents of his datapad as he passed them by.

  “You,” Intari snapped, focusing his gaze on the technician.
“Come here.”

  The technician faltered upon seeing who was addressing him, nearly dropping his datapad in fear.

  “Yes… yes Sir,” he stuttered, coming to a standstill in front of them.

  From his pocket, Captain Intari produced a metal cylinder, no larger than a pen and topped with a focusing lens. He held the device in front of the trembling lab tech, who tried to avert his gaze, but found, to his horror, that he was unable to do so. A flicker of azure light flashed from the device, beamed directly into the man’s eyes, which were wide open with terror.

  “Interesting piece of technology,” Intari murmured, “He’s now completely incapable of movement.”

  After a few seconds, the captain switched off the device and placed it back in his pocket, producing in its stead a small spherical object whose outer shell was lined with a mesh of coppery wires.

  “This device, however, serves a more sinister purpose,” he explained. “Once activated, it slowly begins to expand, growing up to four times its original diameter.”

  As much as the technician wanted to scream, to run away as far and as fast as he could, he found his body entirely unresponsive, frozen in place. If he had been paralyzed, he would have slumped to the ground, but instead every muscle in his body was locked, a minute spasm coursing through his frame, keeping him tense and unable to move.

  “The Nyari use them on captive soldiers, forcing them to swallow them, causing severe internal bleeding,” Captain Intari said, activating the device and watching as it began to slowly expand in the palm of his hand. “I prefer allowing them a moment to grow before inserting them into the oral cavity. That way, they can’t be swallowed.”

  “Captain, I-” Reisner blurted.

  “This man,” Intari cut him off, grabbing the technician’s chin forcefully to pull open his mouth, “Is about to learn what it means to be… expendable.”

  Reisner watched in terror as the captain inserted the device into the lab tech’s mouth.

  “It is a lesson I would rather not have to give twice,” Intari proclaimed, turning his cold stare on the scientist.

  Intari was already well on his way down the corridor when the muffled panting of the technician’s spasming lungs was replaced by the popping sound of his head being ripped apart from the inside out.

  Chapter 25

  The ferocity of the Ape’s charge against the Hrūll was unprecedented. Marcus felt as if they’d unleashed a caged beast, starving for blood. Although he’d been carrying his trusted Viking KRS-56, an enormous high-caliber machinegun, Jago used the butt of the weapon to pummel one poor guard into oblivion. With one Hrūll already down from Taz’s first frantic shots, the assault team made quick work of the remaining two guards.

  Pausing only long enough to tear Jago away from the corpse of the fallen Hrūll, the squad stormed on through the double wide doors leading into the station. The interior was not what the warren of claustrophobic tunnels Marcus had expected. It was one vast container, lined with a row of structures along each side, with a third row along the center dividing the long space into wide streets. The Tengri had docked in a bay at the very tip of the installation’s long spine, so the clones had emerged into a small area crowded with abandoned barrels and crates, facing the narrow end of these internal buildings, each of which was two or three stories tall, with stairways and walkways connecting them. It somewhat resembled an industrial version of the promenade on Alamo station back on Callisto.

  The two streets, which ran the entire length of the station, were populated by hundreds of drones, some the size of trucks, which moved back and forth carrying vats and crates while smaller units busied themselves with custodial duties or maintenance work. Countless overhanging wires and cables spanned the main streets, shoddy maintenance or poor design sending sparks flying through the air at regular intervals. Steam poured out from an array of rusty pipes which jutted out from the walls near the ceiling, pooling on the floor to form a layer of mist. Layers of rust and dirt stained every possible surface, a testament to the poor state of the facilities. The whole scene reeked of sulfur and ammonia, and although the atmosphere was safe enough to breathe, Marcus toyed with the notion of snapping an atmospheric filter into his helmet’s chin-slot.

  The constant clanging and clamor of metal grinding against metal echoed in his ears, and the dim, yellowy lighting made it difficult to see further than a hundred meters down the path before them, urging Captain Mitchell to signal caution. With a quick brace of orders, the squad split up into two groups of three, with Captain Mitchell, Jago and Doc Taylor taking the left street whilst Marcus, Taz and Reid took the right path.

  They’d barely made it more than a few steps into the station when Marcus heard the sound of gunfire from the captain’s team. The return fire from the Hrūll did not sound like projectile fire, but rather like bursts of energy, preceded by a soft popping sound, as if the water molecules in the air were instantly becoming superheated. It was difficult to make out, given the loud ambient noise.

  Marcus had to make the tough decision of whether to backtrack and assist his squadmates, or continue onwards and try to find a flanking position, and make it quickly. Deciding that the captain had both Jago and Taylor on his side, Marcus chose to move on, even as the gunfire intensified.

  The horde of robotic workers streamed back and forth around them, either unaware that the refinery had been infiltrated, or perhaps there was nothing in their programming that suggested any alternative way to react to the situation. Marcus hurriedly led his team through the mist-covered corridor. On each side, structures clearly marked with alien symbols lay vacant. They were crude blocks of metal, stacked side by side or on top of one another. Apart from the steady line of drones, there was no movement in sight. It was as if the station were largely abandoned. If they hadn’t run into the Hrūll guards in the docking bay, he would have thought that the entire outpost were completely automated.

  The shooting subsided suddenly, ending with a few shots which were clearly projectile in nature, leading Marcus to the conclusion that Captain Mitchell’s team had won the engagement.

  “Captain, what’s your status?” Marcus asked on the comms.

  “Two more Hrūll down. The Ape got a little singed, but nothing serious,” Mitchell replied, panting heavily.

  “Moving on. Out.” Marcus acknowledged.

  He signaled Taz and Reid to use the slightly uneven walls of the structures as cover, creeping forward up against the walls for a better chance of remaining unseen, and the fireteam began leapfrogging from cover to cover. Some of the structures had wide glass windows with rounded corners, stained with dirt and grime, so Marcus paused briefly every so often to peer through them, making sure that there was no one there to sneak up on them at a later time. They were all empty, but some were obviously meant to house personnel, filled with empty cots and what looked like cabinets, presumably for personal effects. Others were cluttered with all manner of machinery or alchemical equipment.

  Suddenly, a door on a structure ahead of them slid open, and out strode a Hrūll less stocky than the ones they had seen before, seemingly unaware of the Terrans’ approach. He wore a dark grey bodysuit and held a large datapad in both hands, his concentration fixed on the glowing device as he emerged from the doorway, turning his back on the assault team as if to walk up the street away from the docking bay the Tengri had used. Suddenly, the thin Hrūll – who was still significantly more muscular than Marcus – stopped short in his tracks, turning his head slightly to the side, as if suddenly sensing that he was not alone.

  Marcus shouldered his carbine with his right hand, giving the others a signal to remain still with his left. The three clones froze. After a tense moment, the Hrūll looked back at his device, poking and prodding at the screen with his plump fingers, as if he’d had a sudden revelation, slowly pacing forwards as he stared at the contents of the screen. Marcus snuck cautiously up behind him. Shooting an unarmed man in the back was not something he was willing to
do, even if that man was an alien, regardless of what he may have done to deserve it.

  Without warning, the Hrūll began loudly sniffing the air around him, quickly turning in his tracks. Sighting the heavily armed Terrans less than a few meters behind him, the alien instinctively threw his datapad into the air and began sprinting down the corridor as fast as his legs would carry him, shouting unintelligible words at the top of his lungs. Without warning, a well placed shot from Reid’s sniper rifle tore through the back of his skull, sending his lifeless body tumbling to the misty floor. Marcus cringed.

  He knew that strategically, Reid had done the right thing, but morally he’d have preferred a different outcome. He had hoped that their opponents would all have been armed, capable of defending themselves. Somehow that made pursuing this course that much more just. He hadn’t counted on the possibility of unarmed personnel occupying the outpost.

  * * * * *

  Having expected more resistance, albeit futile, Captain Mitchell was cautious about proceeding down the street he and his fireteam had taken. Feeling certain that more guards would eventually follow in the wake of those sent to meet the Tengri, he gave the order for his team to hustle and make as much ground as possible.

  There had to be a security station somewhere, he thought, a central staging area where the Hrūll raiders were keeping their captives and controlling the installation. Given the size of the refinery, there was no telling how large the opposing force could be, so stealth and speed were the keys to success.

  Having witnessed Jago’s regenerative abilities firsthand on the Strom sensor outpost, Mitchell made the enormous clone take the lead, Doc Taylor and the captain himself leapfrogging behind, taking cover every ten meters or so to scan the surrounding area, clearing the alleyways and quickly peering through windows. Besides, Mitchell told himself, once he started firing it, Jago’s weapon was sure to cause enough panic to buy them some time. The firearms the two guards his fireteam had encountered after splitting from the others had used were much quieter, and the roar of the Viking was something even the jaded captain respected.