Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1)

by Robin MacMillan

  “How long have you been up for?”

  “A while,” is all she says, she looks at me like she’s afraid.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, I’m your friend not your enemy.”

  She gets up and rushes to me, she tries to wrap her arms all the way around my body. I bend down and hug her back; even though I don’t know her at all it still feels nice to have a connection.

  “You wanna stay in here and keep her company while I try and get us some food?”

  She nods vigorously, she must be terrified enough of something to want to stay confined in a room, maybe she’s afraid of crowds.

  “Ok I’ll be right back. Um, just talk to her; apparently they can hear still when they are in a coma.”

  She hops up on the bed and stares at me; she doesn’t utter a sound though. It’s possible that what she wants to say she can’t say in front of me, children eh? Always shy of their true feelings.

  ****

  Day 33: Cycle 3: Period 2: Year 2397

  It takes me nearly a half hour in the mess hall to get some food, the line is just terrible. Luckily, it’s easy to get back, the hallways have died down a bit, with the occasional group of people scurrying about.

  I open the door to Syreenas room. Kate’s still sitting on the bed, although this time she isn’t talking; she’s braiding Syreenas hair. I actually laugh at this, it takes a lot for me to laugh nowadays. I’m actually surprised that a girl this young knows how to braid someone’s hair, especially if it isn’t her own. It must be hard seeing that Syreena can’t move her head at all.

  I smile, it’s strange; at this moment I’m the most peaceful state that I’ve been in since I was captured. It brings a strange image into my mind; it’s my family. It makes perfect sense for Kate to stay with us; if her entire family’s wiped out then she might want to find a new one. Once we’re through with this mess I could adopt her.

  I shake my head, a lot of my plan that my mind has just devised relied on a lot of ‘ifs’. It’s bad to think like that, the only thing that you need to do to survive is live in the moment.

  “Having fun are we?” I must’ve startled her when the words came out of my mouth, her head snaps around to see who’s in the room.

  “Oh it’s just you.”

  “Who else would it be?” I set the food down on the table.

  She jumps up and runs for the food, she must be starving to move that fast.

  “There was a Doctor in here,” she shovels in a spoonful of oatmeal, “he came in here after you left.”

  “Was his name Zanning?”

  “Can't remember, he went to her and then left,” she never lifts her gaze from the food.

  Curiosity takes the best of me, what if it was another traitor? Although, how would they know who to target? “Did he do anything to her?”

  “All he did was look at those screens over there, and then he wrote them down and then he left.” She manages to say behind a mouthful of food.

  I don’t know for sure that the information’s accurate, if that was really what the Doctor was doing, as far as I know Kate wouldn’t lie to me, intentionally at least.

  “Leave some of that for me ok?” It isn’t much food, but I always try to be the nice guy, out of the entire heaping plate all I need is a little bit of it.

  Kate nods at me before she swallows, “thank you for getting this.”

  “Don’t worry about it kiddo. It’s not like I was going to let you starve. What kind of person would I be then?”

  Right when Kate starts to say something back the door squeals open. Doctor Zannings head pokes through the gap, “Am I interrupting anything?”

  “Not that I know of, please come in,” I gesture to one of the chairs, “why don’t you have a seat?”

  “Ah, thank you. As you are wondering about our previous discussion, I do believe that we are ready to revive your wife and then put her in cryo.”

  “Already?” It doesn’t seem like an hour’s passed already.

  “Yes, yes; if you and the girl want to come to the cryo chambers then we can begin.”

  “Can't we just do it in here?”

  “What part?”

  “The talking part obviously.”

  “No, no; we can't revive her in here. If we do that and she goes into a catatonic state then she will not last long. If we do it in the chambers then that will no longer be an issue seeing as we will be ready to put her in stasis.”

  He does have a valid point there; I lean over to Kate and whisper in her ear. “Was that the man that came in here earlier?”

  She shakes her head.

  I look up at the ceiling, there’s possibly security cameras somewhere in the room, it takes me only seconds to locate it.

  “Is there a security room somewhere close by?” I ask Zanning.

  “Why?” He raises his eyebrow dubiously.

  “Because I asked, that’s why.”

  “There should be one just down the hallway here. Is something wrong?”

  “We will just have to see in a sec now don’t we?” I usher him out the door, “come on Kate, you can bring the food with us if you want,” I wave over to her to follow me. She grabs the plate and runs over to my side.

  I let Zanning lead the way through the corridor, the security room hopefully recorded what transpired when I was in the mess hall.

  “Surely a child shouldn’t be going in here, for security reasons.”

  “You’re kidding me right?” I scoff at him, “like you said, she’s just a child what could she possibly do that would harm anyone?”

  He doesn’t acknowledge that I said anything, but he doesn’t push the matter further. He makes a few turns in the corridor, “here we are,” he takes his security pass that’s hanging around his neck and swipes it inside the door pad.

  The guard inside is already standing up on full alert with his hand down by his hip, in case he needs to draw his weapon.

  “Relax Jeremy, it’s just me,” Zanning says.

  I look at his uniform; he appears to be military, which makes no sense, why is he stuck in this room being a security guard? Surely there are better things that he can do with his time.

  I quickly identify his rank that’s embroidered onto his shoulders.

  “Sargent, I take it that you keep records of all the footage from the security cameras?”

  “For security reasons of course,” he replies.

  “Can you pull up the previous footage from room two-oh-three?”

  “Sure, just give me a second,” he scrolls through the monitor icons and finds the files that have the time signature on them from the time when I had left for the mess hall.

  “Sir, is there any reason why you are doing this?”

  “If you must know there was a man in that room that was doing something to my wife’s monitor, I want to know if he tampered with anything while he was in there.”

  “How do you know that there was a man in there Sir?”

  I gesture to Kate, “she was in the room when he came in.”

  “And he didn’t notice her at all while he was in there?”

  I look at Kate, “did he know that you were even in the room?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Sorry Sir, but there is nothing in this footage, see?” He points at the screen, “there’s you leaving the premise and the girl is just sitting there, alone. Even if I scroll through all this footage till you time you return -which I already heave by the way- there is still no one in the room, she is constantly alone.”

  I look at Kate again, “are you sure that a man came in the room Kate?”

  She nodded her head, “he was there, I saw him.”

  All of a sudden the security room is just one big alarm going off, communicators on all frequency are going haywire.

  “What in the hell?” The guard says, his hands fly all over the intercoms. “Sir, I’m getting reports that people all over several medical levels are dying, all at once.”

  “Doc is
that possible? Do we have a contagion on our hands?”

  “Not likely, we scan everyone before we take them in; there have been no known diseases or anything like that in this base yet.”

  “Sir, take a look at this,” the guard points back at the monitor that’s in front of him, “is that the guy?” He asks Kate.

  She looks up at the monitor for a second to verify his identity; she nods at all of us.

  “How long ago was that recorded?” I ask him.

  “Sir, this is not a recording, this is real time; this man is in your wife’s room right at this moment.”

  My heart begins to race all of a sudden. I bend over the security guard and grab his sidearm that’s attached to his hip. When I walked into the room before I looked around for any weapons, just in case a situation arose and I needed a gun.

  “Hey! You’re not authorized to take that!”

  “I’m your superior officer; I will take it if I need to,” the words barely leave my mouth before I’m out the door and sprinting down the hallway.

  It doesn’t take long for me to reach room 203. I charge into the room, weapon held high. The man that’s standing over the bed has a startled look on his face. He’s a rather small person, probably around the same size as Syreena; that works to my advantage. The only way that the man will be able to beat me is if he has a weapon of some kind, it won’t even matter though. A man his size won’t be able to take me out, I won’t let him take me out; too much is at stake.

  “Hands on your head! Now!” I shout at him. I aim my gun directly over his heart. Most people would think that you’d aim at his head so that it’d be a one shot kill. It also makes a very large mess to the face and it makes it a lot harder to identity your target. The heart region is a clean and quick kill, if your aim’s true however.

  He slowly moves his hands over his head; what happens next is odd, he face brakes into a giant smile, words then follow, “you’ll never stop us.”

  “Yeah, ok, we’ll just have to see about that.”

  He opens his mouth wide and bites down hard. Before I realize what happened the man’s knees buckle and he hits the ground. I move as fast as I can to him, I’m too late though, by the time I reach him his mouth is frothing up and his eyes are rolling into the back of his head. It must’ve been a very powerful poison to have killed him in only three or four seconds.

  I stand up and instantly disregard any thoughts towards the man, I walk over to Syreenas bed and make sure that everything’s alright. I bend over her and place my hand on her neck, she still has a pulse; a huge sigh of relief escapes me, it’s either luck or someone above is watching over me, it doesn’t matter which though.

  The alarms from outside are getting louder and more frequent, I don’t give it a second thought though; I’m not going to leave her side until I know that she’s completely safe. I pick up the gun and walk over to the door, it sounds like footsteps are approaching. I don’t get to the door in time though, three figures block the exit. I raise my gun and point at the middle one.

  “Whoa! It’s just us Colonel,” Zanning throws up his arms to cover his face, even though it’s a pointless gesture against a gun.

  I lower my gun, “what's going on out there?”

  “We figured that all military personal that are hospitalized or their close friends and family are getting assassinated while they’re here. These people that are doing this are trying to damaged us and hurt us where we are already wounded.”

  “Well luckily I got here in time to stop that guy,” I point over my shoulder to the dead man.

  “Why did you kill him? We could have interrogated him for information concerning anymore operations going on within their organization,” the guard states.

  “I didn’t kill him; he committed suicide when he realized that he wasn’t getting out of here alive. And what are you doing out of the security room?”

  “Power was cut off to that section of this level.”

  “Just one exciting thing after another eh?”

  Zanning motions to Syreena, “we should get her out of here before anything else happens, and we have no idea if power will also be cut to these rooms, fortunately that hasn’t happened yet,” he walks over to the monitors; his fingers are flying over the interface menus.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m preparing to move her to the cryo tanks before more issues come up.”

  “Good idea,” I turn towards the Sargent, “you can leave now if you want, I think we should be able to handle this,” I give him a quick salute.

  He salutes me back, “yes Sir! May I ask that I have my sidearm returned?”

  “Sure thing, you probably need it more than I do, here. Still a full magazine, I never fired a shot,” I pass him back the gun.

  “Good to know Sir,” he takes the gun from my outstretched hand and goes to the door, his weapon is held high just in case he needs to fire.

  “Come over here, all you need to do is grab this and push,” he points to the back of the bed; all of the monitors are connected still, “there should be a lift at the end of this hall; we take a right at the end, then another right.”

  “Lead on. Com’on Kate, follow us and stay close ok?”

  She nods her head.

  I completely forgot about what Kate had done only minutes before, somehow she had seen the man in the room before it had ever happened. I’ll definitely have to ask her questions later when we have a little more privacy, hopefully I’ll then be able to shed a little light on the situation.

  Most people thought that predicting the future was an impossible feat. When I was in my first year of training in the T.A.R. Division, a very smart scientist had sat down with me during one time in the mess hall. He mostly talked about how he was going to make earth-shattering discoveries that would change our entire outlook on physics.

  At first, I hadn’t really paid much attention and just nodded along to what the man was saying, but as soon as the conversation of ‘seeing into the future’ and ‘time travel’ wafted up I had immediately started paying attention. It had been my dream since childhood; going back in time so that I could save my dad. One of which every childless parent probably thought. One day maybe, one day.

  The bed is surprisingly light and easy to move, it glides over the floor as if it was on wax. Since the alarms had gone off the hallways have become chaotic once again, maneuvering the bed is easy enough though. It doesn’t take us long to get to the end of the hall.

  “Turn here,” Zanning points to the right.

  We go around the corner, “and again,” he says.

  After making the two turns, the corridor turns into a dead end, sort of. At the end is a grey lift, the door looks older than any other door here.

  “Push that,” he points to the tiny black button by the side of the door.

  I let go of the bed and walk over to the door; I press the small button, surprisingly it’s an actual button and not a touch pad.

  The door creaks open.

  “How old exactly is this compound actually?”

  “Sorry Colonel, I’m not authorized to tell you that.”

  “I want answers once we are done all this.”

  “I can't promise anything, Colonel.”

  My mind is spinning, everything that he’s said in the last five minutes has only made my theory seem like it can be more and more right.

  We hurry inside the lift, it’s a tight squeeze to get in with the bed; the lift probably isn’t designed for something this large in the first place.

  Zanning is the one that’s squished up against the back of the lift. “Hit level C-One.” He says as he points at the button at the bottom of the control panel.

  I hit the button and the lift lurches downwards.

  “Someone is going to owe me and explanation when we are through with his mess,” I say in distaste, in my mind I’d done a great service to my planet before I had been captured. Others must not think the same thing seeing as the
y’re keeping me in the dark of what might have been one of the greatest secrets of Terra.

  It took only a minute or two before the lift stops at level C-1. The doors open up to reveal a white light hallway. It looks similar to the interior of the ships that I’ve been on, only on a more advanced level, the light doesn’t originate from anywhere, but at the same time though it comes from everywhere; including the floor.

  “What is this place?” I look back at Zanning, hoping to get an answer.

  Zanning just looks at me and diverts his attention to Syreena, “she’s not doing so well.”

  “I thought you said she would be fine?” I say it a little louder than I had in mind. That one sentence got my heart racing to an almost uncontrollable level.

  “That was before we moved her, I had no idea that her body would respond like this. There’s no telling if she will survive long enough for her to be put into the cryo pod,” Zanning half mutters into his white jacket, it sounds almost like he’s blaming me for what’s happening.

  “Don’t think like that; she’s gonna make it.”

  It’s one thing to talk negatively, but you can’t help yourself from thinking in a negative way.

  She has to make it, she just has to.

  I shake my head; it’s bad to let the mind wander into disturbing places. I know it in my gut though that everything’s going be alright. Too much bad has happened lately, something good has to come forth and rise up from the darkness at some point. Hopefully that’s today.

  Thirteen

  Day 33: Cycle 3: Period 2: Year 2397

  My heart is still racing by the time we reach the end of the blinding white hallway.

  “Ok, where now?” I ask, it stumps me for a second, nothing’s at the end; it’s just, well, nothing.

  “There should be a panel somewhere along here,” Zanning says; he raced his hand all over the wall.

  “You mean you don’t even know where it is? I thought you had been down here before.”

  “As you notice Colonel,” he says curtly, “this whole place looks the same, now why don’t you be useful and help me look for the pad.”