by Allen Kuzara
He wanted to be anywhere but here. He thought about Nadia and Adam, and if he would ever see his family again.
He stared at his ID beacon, the only blinking signal on the map. Then it stopped blinking and faded out like the others. Alvarez squinted and pulled his wrist closer in view. He shook it, trying to make it work again. Then inexplicably all the IDs, including his, disappeared before the map itself went blank.
“No, no, no, no” he trailed off. His voice stopped to choke back tears.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. I shouldn’t even be here, he thought. I should be home, on vacation, or on to my next career. His family had no idea where he was or what he was doing. And now, he was going to die in the explosion or worse, encounter another creature.
His fear turned to anger. He gripped his weapon. “Not like this,” he said aloud. “I’m not going to die like this.”
He threw the bandolier of shells over his shoulder. He counted six shells and fed the tube magazine. He headed back north towards the entrance. He didn’t need the map. He knew the way. It was a straight shot back to the shuttle.
He picked up his pace. Every time he passed glyphs on the wall, he imagined one of the beasts coming out to get him. The more his fear mounted, the angrier he became. And the harder he pushed himself. He didn’t look at his feet where his headlamp shined but ran with his head up, eyeing the darkness in front of him.
He checked the countdown. More than eight minutes remained. He was going to make it. Alvarez’s anger turned to hopeful exuberance. He was going to get off this rock. He would go home to Nadia and Adam and finish that fishing trip.
He saw a faint glow in the distance. It was the entranceway.
As he neared the exit of the tunnel, he checked his time: six minutes. Like a marathon runner bursting through the finish line, Alvarez ran his hardest as he entered the lit room. He stopped to catch his breath, doubled over.
“Well done, John,” said a voice.
A million thoughts ran through Alvarez’s mind. They all pointed to the only conceivable answer.
“Michael?”
Between Alvarez and the steps to the surface stood Michael Brennen
Chapter 21
The two men stood motionless. Brennen’s skin was an unnatural, dull gray. Alvarez watched him. He couldn’t tell if he was breathing. The tone of Brennen’s voice had been sarcastic, but his face was expressionless. Lying crushed on the ground next to Brennen was the sensory image generator.
“John, I know what you’ve done. It’s not going to work,” Brennen said.
“What I’ve done?” Alvarez pointed at the broken generator. “What have you done?”
“All in good time, my friend. What’s important is that you give me the code to the detonator and let me shut it down.”
“Shut it down? Didn’t you see what those things did to the rest of the men? They’re all dead. For that matter, you should be too.”
“Why the hostility, John?”
“I’m not the one being hostile. You shouldn’t be breathing this atmosphere. You shouldn’t even be conscious.”
“Those things that you murdered were sentient beings,” Brennen said. “We’re invading their territory, their space, and their outpost. Now you’re about to commit an act of war.”
Alvarez felt like he’d never reach the bottom of this rabbit hole. “How do you know that? How come you have your helmet off and appear fine? And why did you destroy the sensory image generator?”
“John you seem to have a passion for ignorance. I thought you would understand by now.”
“All I know is that you’re acting stranger than normal, and this thing is about to blow. We’ve got to get out of here. Come on.”
“You just keep mucking around with things you don’t understand. Give me those codes, and I’ll show you everything.”
Alvarez looked at his wrist console. “There’s less than four minutes before detonation, Michael. Even if I wanted to turn it off—which I don’t—there’s no way we could get back there in time. It took twelve minutes the first time and half as long sprinting back. It’s too late.”
“Four minutes is plenty of time for me,” Brennen said.
Alvarez would have laughed if he didn’t know Brennen was serious.
“This is an outpost, John. The beings that put this here are part of a collective, sharing consciousness and intent. They placed this outpost as an attempt to contact life forms. That’s what the plasma bursts are all about.”
“You’re saying alien life designed this outpost with plasma bursts to make our probes go wonky and kill people?”
“Life isn’t really the right word for it.”
“If they aren’t alive, what are they—dead?”
“John, how unimaginative. The bodies of those beings you slain were once life forms. They were alive before their metamorphosis. Those beings, the energy source you’re trying to destroy, and this entire solar system are influenced by something as unique and incomprehensible as life itself.
“Enlighten me,” said Alvarez unimpressed.
“All life forms serve certain entropic functions. Despite seeming to be higher forms, they break matter and energy into lesser forms. It’s a paradox; the higher the life-form, the more destructive it is. Humans have gone beyond their biological function and have learned how to destroy the atom itself.”
“Michael, you’re just talking about the nature of the universe. Everything decays. Everything is breaking down and spreading out. What does life or human beings have to do with it? Get to the point.”
Alvarez could see the entrance staircase behind Brennen. If he kept this up, Alvarez would have to force his way past him.
“John, life is like an enzyme. It’s a catalyst for this decay. The collective offers us so much more.”
“The collective? Those bloodthirsty monsters?”
“Those monsters were thousands of years old. They have no natural life span. They’re beyond life and death. Their destruction could only come from external violence. This collective, this source is able to penetrate all life forms of any size, from bacteria to human as well as inanimate objects—any intelligent structure, even computers. The consciousness that is shared and expressed is directly proportional to the entity’s embedded intelligence, regardless of whether it be via biochemical or electronic pathways. What matters is that there is a logic system. Bacteria become part of the collective, but in a less forceful, less contributive manner. It’s a continuum. Our consciousness merges with the collective. We don’t have to be destined to eighty years and then nothingness. We don’t have to participate in an expanding universe that ends in a big freeze. We can change reality. We can change the universe. Join them. John, join us.”
Brennen sounded like a cult leader to Alvarez. He wouldn’t take him seriously if he didn’t know Brennen; he didn’t joke around, and he should be dead right now.
Brennen stepped toward Alvarez.
“That’s close enough, Michael.”
“It’s painless. Just take off your helmet. Within minutes you will transform. Everything will make sense then.”
Brennen continued toward him. Alvarez pointed his shotgun in Brennen’s face.
“John, if you don’t join me, you will die. It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“Now who’s being hostile?” Alvarez asked. “I don’t know what happened to you, but I certainly don’t want it to happen to me.”
“It’s a gift, John. Haven’t you ever wondered why everything degrades? The primary source of every corporate settlement is its nearby star. And people call this sustainable energy.”
“It beats fission.”
“Lum-power only seems sustainable relative to more destructive forms of energy production like fission. Every star will die. Every form of built-up energy, after it’s spent, falls into useless, meaningless, base forms. Doesn’t it seem pointless to you? Doesn’t it seem like you’re just putting off the inevitable? Each day you unwittingly c
ontribute to the entropic problem. By merely surviving, you only assure mankind’s ultimate destruction. How can you find meaning in that? Existence doesn’t have to be meaningless. Life is without purpose, without balance. To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The continuum, our collective consciousness is the universe’s overdue reaction to life. We can reverse all of this. We can balance the scales. We can give meaning to existence.”
“I’m sorry you feel like your life is meaningless, Michael. But mine isn’t. I have people I love, and they love me.”
Brennen head twitched. “If I can’t get the detonator code from you,” he said, “I’ll take the shuttle myself. I’ll get on the Constance and go back to Novos. Don’t you want to see Nadia and Adam? I do.”
“Wrong answer, Michael. Time for chit-chat is over. You can come with me peaceably, or you can stay here. Personally, I don’t care. I’m leaving.”
Alvarez still pointing his shotgun tried to walk around Brennen, but Brennen moved in tandem, blocking his way.
“Out of my way!” shouted Alvarez.
Brennen grabbed the barrel of the shotgun. Alvarez squeezed the trigger, but it was too late. Brennen pushed the barrel to the side. The shot blew off part of Brennen’s hand.
Alvarez looked. There was no blood. Brennen used his nub-for-fist to punch Alvarez in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him and forcing him to the ground.
Brennen turned and calmly approached the exit. Alvarez picked up the gun and shot Brennen in the back. He racked the gun as Brennen turned to face him.
“John, you can’t kill me.”
“Let’s see about that.” He fired the tube’s remaining five shots. Large chunks of Brennen’s body blew off, disintegrated. Still no blood. Alvarez stepped back with each shot as Brennen continued his approach.
Brennen fell face down, what little was left of him. On a different day, Alvarez would have been shocked, too troubled to press on. But today he had already reached that point and had come out the other side.
Alvarez ran past the body and up the giant steps. It was a strange sensation. With each step higher, he felt the gravity lessen. At the surface, the gray landscape was an unwelcomed sight. He now loathed the color gray.
He was too scared to check his time. He had to just move. He maxed-out his propulsion jets; half-running, half-flying to the shuttle. Even if I get off this rock in time, the explosion could still get me, he thought.
He passed through the shuttle’s open door and slammed the button that closed the hatch. He didn’t bother with re-pressurization. He jumped in the pilot seat and initiated the startup sequence. The engines roared to life, and the shuttle blasted away.
He couldn’t see the Constance, but he didn’t care. It didn’t matter which way he headed, as long as it was away from the outpost. And fast.
Now he waited. He looked at the wrist console. Nine seconds remained.
Part 4 - Breakdown
Chapter 22
The outpost explosion wasn’t audible, but plenty of other sounds were. The engines whined as Alvarez taxed them at unsafe levels. The shuttle shook.
Alvarez gripped the control stick with both hands, and then it happened; the explosion sent debris and a greenish-blue burst of light in every direction. On the view-screen, Alvarez watched the wave envelope the shuttle which twisted and turned from the shock of energy and debris.
It was several seconds before Alvarez regained control. “Computer, run diagnostics,” he said. “Status report.”
“Confirmed,” a synthetic voice said. A pause. “All systems are functioning within normal limits.”
Alvarez breathed a sigh of relief. He knew it wasn’t over, but at least he could make it to the Constance from here. He hoped Parker and York had the engines back online. And he hoped that the burst from the explosion didn’t cause him or the shuttle irreparable harm.
He looked on his navigational display, found the Constance, and laid in a course to its coordinates.
“Constance, this is Alvarez on the shuttle. Do you read me?” he said over the comm. There was no reply.
“Parker. Thomson, do you read? This is Alvarez.” Still nothing. Alvarez feared that the burst hit them too. He wanted to believe that they were still behind the asteroid, protected from the blast. But at best, their communications were down.
Maybe the burst created some sort of electromagnetic interference, he thought. He would know soon enough.
He rounded the asteroid’s edge and glimpsed the Constance, still attached. Like a lighthouse, the warm glow from the helm’s observation windows greeted him. Looks like they have power, he thought.
He tried the comm again. “Constance, this is Alvarez. Anyone read?”
He heard a crackle on his headset but nothing intelligible. He hoped their computer could receive and transmit. Otherwise, he didn’t know how he would get the bay door open.
He slowed the shuttle and flew along the Constance’s underbelly. Alvarez held his breath; he needed some good news. He saw the closed service hatch. But then his heart sank; the combustion chamber was still tethered to the rail.
“What have they been doing this whole time?” he said.
When the shuttle reached the aft of the ship, the bay door was open. I’m either lucky or they are expecting me, he thought. With the day he had so far, he doubted it was luck.
In the cargo bay, the shuttle’s landing gear clicked into the cleats especially designed for it. Unprompted the bay door closed. Usually this action was initiated by the shuttle crew. Alvarez couldn’t see anyone in the cargo bay. Maybe they did it at the helm, he thought. Then he felt the AG return as his body sunk down in his seat.
He dreaded the decontamination process. He had kept his spacesuit on for a reason. He knew he was contaminated from being in the outpost. The shuttle was too, and by consequence, so was the docking bay of the Constance. But he had no other choice.
He couldn’t simply re-pressurize the shuttle and take off his helmet. If he did, he would turn into something like Brennen. He just hoped they could zap this thing before it got into the main living quarters of the Constance. If not, he might have to stay in quarantine the whole way back to Novos. Or worse, he would quarantine the Constance and wait for a rescue party.
He opened the shuttle door expecting to hear a whoosh but heard nothing. The cargo bay was still in a vacuum.
“Computer, initiate pressurization of cargo bay,” he said. There was no response. The door worked. Lights were on, and AG was restored. But that was all he could determine.
He wondered if his transmitter was broken. He went to the door console and tried to initiate the re-pressurization sequence from there. His commands were accepted, but they had no effect. He could access information, but the console arbitrarily chose which commands to follow.
He initiated a full-diagnostics. Maneuvering engines were off-line, but interstellar travel was still possible via the warp-field generator. Lights, heating, and ventilation all appeared to be working.
If ventilation is working, why can’t I re-pressurize? he thought. He opened the sub-file for ventilation and life-support. Something was wrong. The rest of the ship was full of atmosphere, but the mix was off. CO2 and nitrogen were too high. Too little oxygen. Alvarez resisted the thought that this was sickeningly familiar. He clung to hope. “There’s a malfunction,” he said.
With his suit still on, he ran to the decontamination station in the corner. Usually this was a long process with several bioscans, safety precautions, and a complete broad-spectrum spray-down of the entire bay. He stood in the containment booth and selected a default program with which he was familiar. Something’s better than nothing, he thought.
The booth came to life. Intense lights shifted up and down on rings. A draft of positive and negative air pressure tugged at his suit, followed by anti-microbial gases and a clack-clacking rattle of the radiation array. His suit was supposed to protect him.
After the quick wash-down was comp
lete, Alvarez supermanned out of the booth and ran toward the main corridor. He kept his suit on. No use taking chances, he thought.
He used the manual over-ride to open the door. After a series of locks were disengaged, he spun the giant wheel. He heard a loud sucking sound and hiss as he opened the door.
He tried to enter, but his shotgun barrel caught against the door. He had forgotten he was still wearing it. The sling was over one shoulder, and he still had the bandolier of shells.
“I don’t guess I need these anymore,” he said. He left them on anyway.
Something was wrong in the main corridor. Lights flickered, and all the doors were sealed shut. Someone had to do this manually, he thought. The computer could open exterior doors, but not these.
Alvarez heard thumping coming from the sealed doors. By the door to the aquaponics station, there was a message written in red marker.
DON’T LET HER OUT
He saw more writings down the hall but couldn’t make out the words. The knocking from the aquaponics door was steady.
“Can you hear me?” Alvarez said.
“Colonel, is that you? This is York.”
“What happened? Why are you in there?”
“It was Parker,” she said. “He went crazy. I don’t know where he is, but be careful. He’s dangerous.”
“Don’t worry about me. Let’s get you out of there.” He turned the wheel. There was a click as the lock disengaged. Suddenly the door bolted open, knocking Alvarez against the wall. He slid to the ground.
Terra York emerged from the room, her naked body large and unnaturally muscular.
“You’re going to pay for what you did on the outpost,” she said.
Alvarez, still on the floor, twisted his shotgun around, racked it, and pulled the trigger.
Click.
He had forgotten to reload the magazine.