by Ken Lozito
“How bad was the attack?” Connor asked.
“They came at us hard like they did before. Thanks to Diaz in the Hellcat and the weapons you brought, we managed to hold them off. There were some casualties. It seemed that the ryklars became even more ferocious before they suddenly broke off their attack and headed your way,” Mills said.
“We might have had something to do with that,” Connor said.
“Judging by how you look, it must have been quite an ordeal. There’ll be more of a debriefing when we get back. I wanted you to know that you’re still a pain in the ass, but if you ever need anything . . . let’s just say I owe you a few,” Mills said.
“I’ll hold you to that. And one more thing before we get out of here. I know there’s something going on with the colony and how we came to be here, and I’m not the only one. I know you and Mallory probably know more about our situation here than most,” Connor said.
The frown on Mills’ face became grim. “You’re right. We’ll talk more when we get back,” he said and walked away.
Connor watched him go. Mills hadn’t even tried to deny it, which bothered Connor more than he cared to admit. The rest of Lightning Platoon returned to the Hellcat, and Connor greeted them. He was relieved they’d all made it, although not entirely unscathed. Some of them had a few wounds requiring treatment.
Diaz shook his head. “You never let up. No sooner does one crisis end than you want to jump into the next one.”
“I understand the need for secrecy, but if what Noah found is really as bad as it sounds, everyone has a right to know,” Connor said.
“Right to know what?” Lenora asked. She carried a large backpack stuffed to the max.
“I’ll ready the Hellcat for takeoff, sir,” Diaz said and fled.
They went back to the ship. “One of Noah’s side projects. Something we were working on together,” Connor said.
Lenora arched an eyebrow. “Oh, you’re the other person. I knew he was working on something, but he wouldn’t say what it was.”
She stored her pack in one of the compartments, and Connor glanced at the cockpit.
“We’ve got a few hours’ flight back to the compound. You can fill me in on the way,” Lenora said.
She leveled her gaze at him as if daring him to tell her that he couldn’t talk about it.
“Why don’t you join us up front and we can talk,” Connor said.
“Oh boy, I get to sit up front with the big boys,” Lenora joked.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It had been barely two days since the evacuation of Forward Operating Research Base number 97. Connor had shared the information Noah had found with Lenora, and she was as perplexed as the rest of them despite her close friendship with Ashley Quinn. She advised him to take his concerns directly to Franklin Mallory and Tobias Quinn. There would be a debriefing at Field Ops and he’d use that opportunity to kick over some rocks and see what turned up.
Since Connor still didn’t have a permanent residence at the compound, he stayed at the barracks near Field Ops where he’d just returned to get cleaned up. There was hardly anywhere he could go in Field Ops without someone expressing an interest in joining Search and Rescue. Between answering questions about ryklar behavior for representatives from the field biologists’ office and checking on Sean and Noah at the hospital, Connor had very little time to himself. Sean and Noah had suffered some broken bones and Noah had a concussion, but otherwise they would make a full recovery. Quick healing treatments would have them back on their feet in no time. He’d also met with the rest of his platoon to go over the events that had transpired at the research base. They would be returning to the alien ruins to retrieve the armored ATV they’d left behind.
There was a knock on his door.
Connor had just finished dressing in a Field Ops green jumpsuit with the Search and Rescue shield on his arm. He opened the door to Sean and Noah.
“Shouldn’t you two still be at the hospital?” Connor asked.
“My leg has healing strips around it and I can walk on it now,” Sean said.
Connor looked at Noah with a raised brow. “You had a head injury. I know you’re not cleared to be here.”
“Oh come on, you don’t think I’m going to stay in bed while you confront Tobias and the others alone,” Noah said.
Connor considered having Noah escorted back to the hospital.
“Sir, I checked the readouts for the halo Noah’s been wearing. The numbers over the last twenty-four hours show that the swelling has gone down almost all the way,” Sean said.
“So you’re a doctor now?” Connor replied.
“No, sir, but you know my mother. Some of that stuff rubs off, and I’ve worked a rotation through the hospital.”
Connor speared a look at Noah. “Alright, but if you feel the slightest headache, dizzy spell, or anything like that, I want your word that you’ll speak up.”
“Yes, sir,” Noah said, his eyes shining with excitement.
They left the barracks.
“Haven’t they given you a permanent apartment yet?” Noah asked.
“I’m holding out for a place with a waterfront view and a boat,” Connor replied.
They walked to Field Ops Headquarters and headed to the upper levels. Diaz met them along the way and had Lenora with him.
“They moved the meeting to the conference room across from the command center,” Diaz said.
“Any idea why?” Connor asked.
“Above my pay grade.”
Connor smiled a greeting at Lenora.
“I figured I’d be here too, since you told me about Noah’s side project,” Lenora said and looked at Noah. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”
“I already told him,” Connor said.
They walked past Franklin Mallory’s office, and his son, Lars, was just coming out of the command center.
Lars’ eyebrows rose. “What’s going on?”
“Time to get some information about that thing I told you about,” Noah said.
Connor heard Lenora snort. “So much for secrets,” she murmured.
Diaz opened the doors to the conference room and they walked in.
Tobias and Ashley Quinn sat at the far end of the table with Franklin Mallory and Damon Mills. There were a couple of other people Connor didn’t recognize.
Ashley stood up and stared pointedly at her son. “I don’t recall inviting the two of you to this meeting. Or you, Lars.”
“They already know pieces of it, so whether they find out the complete picture now or I tell them later is up to you,” Connor said.
Tobias narrowed his gaze. “I’m surprised. I would have thought you of all people would be familiar with the concept of the need to know.”
“There’s a time and place for it,” Connor said. “I can vouch for Sean and Noah’s character since I’ve worked with them. And if Lars is anything like his father, that’s good enough for me. It’s not that far of a stretch that Noah discovered something he didn’t completely understand and asked his two closest friends for advice on how to handle it.”
“Indeed, the three of them are inseparable at times,” Tobias said and looked at the young men, considering.
“I suggest we let them put that youthful energy into something constructive,” Connor said.
Tobias glanced at his wife.
“Oh for heaven’s sake, sit down then,” Ashley said. “But fair warning to you three. You may wish you only knew the half of it by the time we’re done here.”
Connor sat down in the nearest chair, and Lenora sat next to him. Noah and the others filled the seats nearby.
Tobias cleared his throat. “I guess we’ll begin. To my right is Dr. Eric Zabat, astrophysicist, and next to him is Dr. Marie Parks, planetary scientist.”
Dr. Zabat was a small man whose facial features looked to have Asian ancestry. His beady eyes showed an active intelligence that Connor had come to recognize in the colonists. Parks was a plump woman who gave
Connor and the others a friendly smile in greeting.
“Why don’t you tell us what you know first, and then we’ll fill in the gaps as we go,” Tobias said.
“Sounds fair,” Connor said. “While at the training camp, Noah reached out to me about a data burst he’d stumbled upon from the deep space buoy network. I thought he was trying to play a joke on me at first, but the more he showed me, the more interested I became. Noah, why don’t you put what you found on the holoscreen so everyone can see.”
Noah used his PDA to activate the holoscreen in the middle of the conference table. Two holoscreens appeared so everyone around the table could see the data.
“The data header had this reference: EOD-Extinction Critical Alpha. What followed was a set of programming instructions for the Ark. There was also mention of M. Wilkinson, but I’m not sure who he is,” Noah said.
Connor’s gaze slid to Tobias. “Admiral Mitch Wilkinson, flag officer of the Battleship Carrier Indianapolis. I’d say that’s one hell of a coincidence.”
Tobias met his gaze and nodded.
“Before the attack on the research base,” Noah continued, “I was able to decode the remaining parts of the partial data fragment.”
“That’s a bold claim,” Dr. Zabat said. “How did you decode the message?”
“I had help,” Noah said.
Zabat looked over at Tobias.
Connor looked at Noah and pressed his lips together. “He had help from someone on the Ark. Now he’s got the entire thing decoded and I’m pretty sure he can find the rest of it. Now tell us what’s going on. Why was the Ark mission changed and what happened on Earth?”
Tobias sighed. “Why didn’t you come to us when you found the data burst?”
Noah stiffened. “I don’t know.”
Tobias regarded him for a moment and then looked at Connor. “Only the first group of us who were awakened know what I’m about to tell you. This won’t be easy for you to hear.”
Connor leaned forward and clasped his hands in front of him.
“When we first woke up we discovered that we were sixty light-years from Earth, according to the Ark’s nav computer. The journey had taken us over two hundred years. We only had fragmented records from Earth, which I’ll go into shortly. We knew that a Dr. Lucia Stone headed up the effort to override the Ark mission and that she was working with your friend, Admiral Wilkinson. You see, they’d found something in Earth’s oceans, some type of parasitic organism or virus. Marie, you’re better at explaining this than I am,” Tobias said.
“Of course,” Dr. Marie Parks said. “Dr. Stone doesn’t go into a lot of details about the origins of the virus other than to say that it came from the oceans and eventually spread to humans.”
“There has to be more than that. What does this virus do, exactly?” Connor asked.
“It’s hard to explain because in some respects it behaves like a virus and in others like a living entity. For example, viruses rarely cross from one species to another. This one does and on a wide scale, particularly among mammals. This virus can affect the DNA of the infected host and causes dormant genes within our genetic makeup to express themselves. This causes the infected hosts to die. Dr. Stone said there were theories that the virus was going through a growth stage as it perfected itself. Nothing was immune to it. They tried to find a cure using every means at their disposal, but the virus had found a rich genetic diversity in one of the most populous species on Earth,” Parks said.
“Humans,” Connor said, his voice sounding grim.
“Exactly. Scientists attempted to alter the virus since it couldn’t be cured,” Parks said.
“What’d they do?” Connor asked.
“We’re not exactly sure, but Dr. Stone said they made it worse. Instead of weakening the virus, they made it stronger somehow. This was all in the summary, which includes references for more detailed information, but the data is gone. Even parts of the summary don’t make sense,” Parks said.
Connor glanced at Tobias. “What do you mean the information is gone? Where is it?”
“Oh my God,” Noah said.
Connor looked at Noah, but he was watching Tobias, waiting for the governor to confirm what he was thinking.
“The deep space buoy network was designed to transfer data transmissions from Earth to our ship. The buoys bolstered the signal, among other things,” Tobias said.
“Right, so why don’t we have all the data this Dr. Stone sent?” Connor asked.
“The Ark didn’t arrive here entirely free from damage. We’ve had some system failures. The data was expunged by the Ark’s maintenance systems for managing data storage,” Tobias said.
Connor scratched the stubble of his beard and his eyes widened. “Are you saying some data janitor program deleted the transmissions from Earth?”
Tobias’s eyebrows pulled together. “Yes. There’s a fixed amount of data storage available. The updated mission program that included our amended destination took up a significant amount of space. The Ark’s systems rightfully determined that the lives of three hundred thousand colonists outweighed the updated information from Earth. The system had been designed for an eighty-five-year journey.”
Connor glanced at Lenora, and her mouth was hanging open in shock.
“Can’t we contact Earth to find out what happened?” Connor asked.
Tobias slumped in his chair. “We sent a response back, but you must remember that a small data burst will take over sixty years just to reach Earth and then we’d have to wait just as long for a response.”
Connor’s heart sank. “Can’t we recover the data somehow?”
“All attempts have yielded only fragments,” Tobias said.
Dr. Zabat cleared his throat. “We’re limited to the speed of light, but we don’t need to wait that long to see what happened to Earth.”
“Show them the model,” Tobias said.
Dr. Zabat opened the holoscreens, which showed a distant image of a star with nine planetary bodies highlighted.
“This was our home. The telescopes on the Ark took pictures of our solar system during the first leg of its journey. Here’s the image from farther away. I’m going to speed up the orbits of the planets and the simulation is going to emphasize the wobble in the light coming from our sun. This is normal,” Dr. Zabat said.
The image moved to the side so it only took up half the space. “This is the current image of Earth’s solar system. And remember, anything we see now is from sixty years ago.”
Connor watched as a secondary distant image of the solar system appeared on the second holoscreen. The image was from much farther away, but the wobble occurred more often than on the other screen.
“We think the increased wobble is from a massive debris field,” Dr. Zabat said.
Connor’s mind raced as he tried to think of all the space stations that had been built over hundreds of years—colonies established at places like Mars and Ganymede Station.
“Destruction on an unimaginable scale,” Tobias said.
Bile crept up Connor’s throat and he forced it back down. “This has to be some sort of mistake. What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. How did the virus lead to that?” Connor rose from the chair and started pacing. His thoughts were scattering to oblivion and he kept shaking his head.
“There are references in the data we received that talk about a massive war fought between Earth and the colonies. The virus altered human beings, making them into something else. There was more from Wilkinson. He was adamant about an unstoppable fleet,” Tobias said.
Connor wanted to hit something, anything, to distract him from what he was hearing.
“Connor,” Lenora called out to him.
Connor looked at her, not knowing what to say. Noah and the others had somber and pale expressions.
“This is a lot to take in. We’ll make all the data available for you to look at,” Ashley said.
“What was that about a fleet? Is this why they chang
ed where the Ark was going?” Connor asked.
“That’s what we think. Now we have a decision to make. This is something those of us in the room have been struggling with ever since we arrived on this planet,” Tobias said.
Connor’s hands came to rest on his hips.
“We have to decide whether to abandon this world,” Tobias said.
Leave! Where could they go?
“Are you crazy?” Lenora said and looked at Ashley. “Please tell me this isn’t true.”
“Why would we have to leave?” Noah asked.
Tobias cleared his throat. “We think there’s a fleet of these things heading here right now.”
Connor’s hands dropped to his sides.
“We didn’t have credible evidence of it until recently,” Tobias said.
“Help me understand something,” Connor said. “The Ark program took the combined resources of the solar system to build and equip the ship for an interstellar journey. It was the only one of its kind. So how could a fleet of ships that aren’t even designed for interstellar travel be coming here?” Connor asked.
Tobias shrugged. “I have no idea how, but the technology is there and we have evidence of something coming.”
Connor sucked in a deep breath and looked at the others in the room. “What have you found?”
“Dr. Zabat, if you please,” Tobias said.
“The buoys in the deep space buoy network can operate with a bit of autonomy, but they only keep track of the nearest buoys. They report the locations of each buoy in the chain to be sure it remains intact,” Zabat said and began updating the image on the holoscreen. “Based on the reports from the Galileo, there were thousands of buoys deposited on our way here from Earth. Are you with me?” Dr. Zabat asked.
Connor and the others nodded.
“We would expect to find a number close to the number of buoys deployed when the nearest one checks in, but the number of buoys remaining is less than a few hundred,” Zabat said.
Connor frowned in thought. “You think something is using the buoys to find out where we are?”
Tobias regarded him for a moment. “You have good instincts for gauging a situation. Given the evidence, what do you think?”