by Lea Tassie
However, deep in the darkness of space, a Gray ship, watching and waiting, stirred to life as Charger's ship flew toward Neo Terra. It began to follow him.
***
Dart speaks to Reader:
All the data, photos and scans that Charger sent raced at near the speed of light to Neo Terra as Charger's ship plodded through space.
You bet they were upset, Reader! The reaction on Neo Terra was one of horror, and then fury, as every single remaining human began boarding massive war ships, fully geared and prepped to do battle with whoever was responsible for the genocide. Massive Tasker-style tanks and biomechanical mechanoids, with heavily-armored humans, set off toward Earth. Sometime, in the darkness of space, the path of Charger's ship crossed that of the battle fleet. No one saw; all were in cryogenic sleep.
The Gray ship following Charger turned around and began following the Neo Terra fleet back toward Earth.
Yes, it was lucky the Gray didn't follow Charger, because this one simple act lost the location of Neo Terra to the Grays.
Could they plot where it was? No, the planet was a rogue, black and hollow, wandering an erratic course through the depths of space. Even if the Grays had managed to plot the course of Charger's small craft to its destination, the destination was in motion in such a random fashion that finding Neo Terra again would have been almost impossible without a locator signal. The only way the original Earth fleet had been able to retrace the path the Mahouds, the first invaders, had taken was from back engineering their ships.
What happened to the Neo Terra fleet? I'll describe it for you.
Fifty battle cruisers, twelve dreadnaughts, a type of short-range fighter-bomber craft, and thirty-five heavy transports approached Earth. These were filled to maximum capacity with every human that could be found on Neo Terra, all determined to fight to the death in defense of Earth.
They did not have long to wait.
Following this massive armada was the lone Gray ship. It had sent a signal to its home world, informing the leaders that more humans were approaching the ironbound planet.
Sixty thousand human troops were held in stasis as the fleet plied black space and began to slow as computer programs prepared the ships for orbit. Each ship had a dedicated group of pilots and engineers who were first to be drawn from hibernation. They were integral to the fleet's ability to find a safe orbit. They were, perhaps fortunately, the only humans to be awake as the fleet settled into a stable orbit.
An armada of Gray spacecraft suddenly appeared, as if from nowhere, all around them. No, the Grays did not arrive from some wormhole in space and no, they did not drop out of hyperspace, or warp into an orbit with a commanding advantage over the helpless human battle fleet.
How did they do it? The Grays had discovered a different and amazing method of space travel. They would send quantum entangled particles across space, powered by dark energy, the wave particles linked to dark matter, traveling faster than the speed of light. These particles could manifest themselves at a point in space in mere moments, as they tunneled through the fabric of spacetime to meet their twins with the opposite charge. With the two particles linked over the vastness of the cosmos, the connection created a bridge between the two states, allowing the Grays to blink into existence as if by magic.
They had simply always been there. Though they were from a distant galaxy, their universe was in existence in tandem with our own. Quantum entanglement had long shown that two particles could exist at incredible distances from one another and still be linked by 'spooky actions.'
The Grays' actions were now obliterating every human battleship in orbit around Earth. The burning hulks fell into Earth's gravity well, while the only humans awake on the bridges of these ships screamed in fear. Their broken ships plummeted through the atmosphere and smashed into the ironclad planet.
The Grays fired advanced weapons at the human ships, obliterating them from existence. If the humans had had the opportunity to fire back, they might have caused some damage.
However, this day was the last for humanity. Every ship fell, like a burning lava stone cast from an angry volcano, onto Earth, which humanity had once called its home. The Grays simply swatted the fleet aside, much as humans had swatted insects from buzzing about their ears.
There were no Gray casualties.
There were no human survivors.
Chapter 10 Charger on Neo Terra
Charger's small spaceship finally reached the vicinity of Neo Terra and he was revived from his long sleep. He ate some food, then staggered to the control center of the craft to contact the space port orbiting the planet. He placed the communication module over his ear and spoke into the microphone. "Transit module 1555, in proximity of com stock control, do you receive, over." There was silence. He tried again, "Transit mod 1555, in close orbit to com stock, you guys home over there?" Still silence.
Charger tried several other frequencies but all were silent. He resorted to pounding the communication module with his fist, then finally gave up. "I'm not sitting up here till you idiots get it together. I'm landing. Deal with it, you princesses!" Tossing the module to the floor of the craft, he took control of the ship and started the landing procedures. There was only one entrance to the interior of Neo Terra, a dark, narrow, twisting tunnel cut into the planet's crust. Usually the computers took control of an approaching vessel and guided it in, but Charger found the task wasn't that difficult.
His ship squeezed through the dark tunnel until, like a submarine surfacing from under water, it lifted upward and broke into a pressurized air pocket that was the landing bay proper. The systems shut down upon landing and Charger made his way to the exit hatch.
The bay was cold and dark, the two things Charger liked best. He wandered through rooms and down corridors, using communicators to search for anyone who might be around. After a few hours, it became obvious that no one was there. How refreshing, Charger thought. No humans!
He wandered the city streets to an old café he liked to visit. It was empty. He made himself a coffee, sat in the solitude and silence, and breathed in the smells of the deserted city. His mind returned to the time when he was still joined to Jill and Mac, and to conversations they'd had, hashing over points of view and having arguments. He sometimes thought about the love and compassion they said they had for people in their past, before their conversion, but he could not empathize.
Those conversations had been so long ago, so long. Then, as was typical, memories of their deaths returned, the feeling of holding Jill against him as he took her life and the involuntary jerk of Mac's body. A burning hatred of humanity welled up again from deep in that black pit containing his heart.
It was good to be alone, good that no humans were around wanting to make small talk with him. Even better if he could be forgotten and set free of this long life. Since the Mahoud-Earth War began in 2030, he'd had two hundred and twenty-five years of watching humanity fight and squabble, of being asked to kill in order to save the humans he had grown to despise.
A plan began to form in his mind. "I will be a god. I will be a god of this world." With no one else on the planet, he could turn off the locator beacon and forever lose this world in the depths of space. The rogue planet would be free to wander, and he would be free to create new life, life he could teach, control, and guide.
Mac had often said to Charger that his Jewish faith told him Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, rejected by an angry god. But Charger kept arguing his own belief that Adam and Eve had rejected god and that, in a sense, they kicked god out of Eden. Charger had no doubts about rejecting all notions of a creator. He argued that humans had never left Eden.
Well, Neo Terra would now be Eden. He decided to give its new inhabitants free will from the moment of creation, free will with no restrictions.
He sat on a hill talking to himself for a while, letting his plan take shape.
***
Silence. Everywhere there was silence.
&
nbsp; Charger walked the deserted streets of the city, quietly looking into empty stores and restaurants, never finding a single living being. Half-full coffee cups remained unfinished next to the half-eaten, decaying food on plates. It was as if, during the call to action in a vain attempt to save Earth, every human that had called Neo Terra home suddenly and spontaneously deserted the hollow black world. They had left the power on, though, and the computer grid that kept the city functioning worked efficiently.
Three days after Charger landed, he went to the city operations building. Here he would access the main network hub and attempt to scan the planet for life forms. The building was old, very old, for it had once been the central temple of the great city of the Mahouds. From this building, they had piloted the ancient city through space, traveling the stars, only to crash and be buried deep inside this hollow world.
The main network-hubs control office was a marvel of ancient Mahoud technology, now mixed with Earth's and New Eden's advancements. Charger found the computers humming, keeping the city working. He gently pressed buttons on the keypad, trying not to let his great size and strength damage the controls. After asking the main hub to search for life forms, he lowered his great bulk on a sofa. He sat there for the better part of three days, neither eating nor sleeping, just breathing deeply and staring off into space.
On the third day, with the drone of ceiling lights in his ears and the dry static air arcing from his fingertips every time he scratched his scalp, there came a decisive click. The sofa groaned as Charger rose. He approached the keypad and carefully clicked a few keys. The network had not detected any humans. Even his own form registered nothing.
"Piece of shit, can't even see me," snarled Charger. But this was to be expected, for he presented such a low profile of what humans considered life that he was the perfect stealth, all but invisible to detection.
The following two days found Charger again wandering the deserted streets, sometimes stopping in a coffee shop and brewing a pot, sometimes entering a market and scrounging for food. On the second morning, Charger sat facing a small pond in the market square, tearing at a piece of raw meat that he'd taken from a freezer, when he was struck by an emotion.
It barely even registered in his mind at first, and it took a few moments before he realized that the emotion was loneliness. He had no idea how to react. Never, in all his nearly two hundred and fifty years, could he remember experiencing loneliness.
Charger sat for some time, trying to come to grips with the feeling, when it struck him that the feeling didn't belong to him. Somehow his brain had connected with a moment in his past, a lonely moment Jill experienced as she endured her bond with Charger's unemotional mind and Mac's confining oppression. Trapped between the two, Jill had been a lonely puppet dancing on frayed and twisted strings.
'I'm going to be a god,' Charger repeated. He heaved his great mass off the bench, retreating from the solitude of the pond, and returned to the city center hub. He programmed the computers with his task: take the seeds of life stored in his cargo ship, meant to be kept safe for the future, and use them.
Then he returned again to the sofa, which complained bitterly at his great bulk. This time Charger slept, with long, fitful dreams of times past, where he was forced to count those he had killed as they walked slowly past him. Later he wandered the streets, eating, stopping here and there, sometimes sleeping in the alleyways like a hobo. A small computer module connected to his chest armor showed a progress bar as the main hub labored to complete the task Charger had set in motion. He checked it often.
Several years passed. He discovered an area away from the city, a place where crops were once grown to feed the city's masses. Trees and streams grew there now and flowers bloomed, attempting to attract insects. Small animals scurried from under his feet. In the false sky an artificial replica of the sun burned Charger's armor and flesh every time he was exposed to its rays. Something in the light disagreed with his biomechanical armor.
He continued to program changes to the environment through his small computer interface, which the main hub carried out using drone Taskers. Sometimes it would rain in the agricultural area and Charger liked to be there when it did. Because he had armor, he hadn't used clothing since the conversion. Unable to shed the armor, he found the rain removed the pungent odor he always emitted.
The day finally came when the first artificially grown human was ready to enter consciousness. She was a young girl, the age Jill had been before her conversion to a Lycan and, for a moment, Charger felt a kind of bond. He stared at her perfect naked beauty for a few minutes as she slept, not yet fully revived and ready to enter this new world Charger had made.
His reverie was broken violently by alarms and flashing lights, momentarily sending him into a battle stance in anticipation of a fight. He frantically checked the computer monitors to find the cause of this chaos. What he found spurred the brand of fury that had always terrified others.
Deep in the bowels of the city, a strange program completed its designed task and a man stepped from the containment pod he had locked himself into some three hundred years before. A man so hated and despised for his actions during the wars that warrants for his arrest had been issued on all the inhabited worlds of that time. A bully and a tormentor who wielded power over others and sent millions to their deaths. A man who made the skin crawl with his very presence, the only being ever to rival Charger in fear generated and disgust created. General Harris, long thought dead, had hidden himself away in hopes that one day he could again try to control all of humanity.
He spent time adjusting his fake war medals on his chest and fixing his weapons to his belt. He stood now, free of his deep confinement below the surface of the city. With a few quick key strokes on the computer, through an upload port on the side of his skull, he absorbed into his brain all the details of what had happened on the planet.
"Charger!" spat Harris. "I get to kill you after all." General Harris was considered the greatest mass murderer in the history of humanity, putting all previous historical figures to shame. He had cared only about winning the war, and to hell with the humans he condemned to their graves. Over six billion lives had been lost during the conflict, at least a billion or more due to General Harris's tactics.
Replacing the computer cable in the port to his skull with a wireless model, Harris began using the computer to plot the best strategies for defeating Charger and seizing the newly created humans. He needed an army to replace those he had used up. The next step he intended to take was to return to Earth and subdue humanity in preparation for the Grays to take over.
Two side tunnels and a staircase led him to a room where he emerged just behind Charger. "Good, it seems you know I'm here. Then you will also know who it is that kills you," snarled Harris as he locked his weapon on active, and energized a small portable blinding field. This made him invisible to Charger.
Charger was crossing the room that led to the lower areas when Harris came up behind him. Two short blasts from his weapon and a section of Charger's left arm was blasted away. Charger reeled from the impact, staggering, and turned to counter the attack. He could see nothing but a muzzle flash. Then part of his leg armor and enhancement shattered, bursting across the room. He staggered headlong into where the blast had originated, sweeping a great arc with his swords.
In an attempt to evade him, Harris lurched to the side, crashing into the wall and damaging his blinding field generator. Now the field worked only intermittently, showing his position to Charger.
Like a bull elephant, Charger covered ground fast and struck Harris, causing him to slide backward across the room, and wrecking the weapon he had used on Charger. The blinding field became active again, and Harris quickly slipped from the room, heading in the direction Charger had come from. He emerged in the medical area used for creating new humans, and saw a young girl.
Charger thrashed about, swinging blindly with his great swords, hoping to make contact, but finding nothing. T
hen his keen hearing caught the sound of Harris stumbling toward the medical area, loading a small arm weapon as he moved. Enraged, Charger pursued.
The young girl was waking and rising from the growth pod, while a small Tasker waited to clothe her, when Harris burst into the room. She screamed in terror as Harris grabbed her and forced a gun against her head. He waited for Charger to enter the room, while the girl struggled.
Charger was just outside the room and knew the only exit was through him. He stopped and yelled, "Come on, you bastard! Let's get this on."
The irate Harris ranted, "I know you're bleeding, I can smell your stench. You can't stop me. I'm taking what's mine, you freak, and I'm going to conquer Earth with the new army you made for me."
He's been in stasis, Charger thought. He doesn't know humanity has been destroyed and Earth is encased in iron.
Minutes passed and Harris realized that Charger was not coming into the room. Nervous, he switched tactics. "Join me! Together we can finish this, we can rule Earth together. Nobody can stop us if we team up!" A small bead of sweat formed on Harris's brow as he held the gun tight to the girl's head, choking her with his arm tight around her neck. "You better decide fast, or I'm going to kill this one, and then one more every minute you delay. I cannot be stopped!" A slight tremor shook him. "I'll count to three, then I'm killing this one and starting on the next! Hear me! I mean it. ONE!"
Charger opened the door.
Harris crowed in delight. "You can't kill me, anyway, Charger. You have to obey me. I'm your creator."
Four yellowed fangs appeared at the corners of his mouth as Charger smiled. "But I'm good at math." Something else Harris didn't know; beginning on Mars long ago, Charger had broken the programming which demanded obedience from him.
His huge body occupied the full space of the door to the medical room as he stepped through it. Raising his blazing plasma sword in his good hand, without hesitation or emotion, Charger thrust it hard through the young girl's chest and deep into General Harris's body. The girl's eyes opened wide and her screaming stopped.