Chamberlain's Folly (The Terra Nova Chronicles)

by Robert Dean Hall

  “Who was in charge of screening when Yuen was passed,” Chamberlain inquired.

  “You are the screener listed for Yuen,” Artie said.

  “How many members of the mission crew have personality maps that do not meet the required indicators for the minimum confidence level,” Chamberlain asked the AI. He was now almost in a panic.

  “There is one,” Artie replied instantly.

  Chamberlain thought about Artie’s assessment long and hard. He felt a sickening building in the pit of his stomach. He alone was responsible for Yuen’s recruitment for the mission and his ultimate selection. He would also have to take the blame for ignoring his own protocols and failing to review Yuen’s personality assessment.

  He always felt that Dennis and he were on the same page about most things. He wondered if he hadn’t had some suspicions all along, but didn’t want to admit to himself there was something to them. He also wondered to himself if his need to get certain things done quickly had hampered his ability to do them correctly.

  Chamberlain wondered what other unpleasant surprises were awaiting him due to his own impatience and carelessness.

  “Would you suggest I remove Dennis Yuen from my list of sleeper candidates,” he asked. “Even though you have determined him to be the most qualified to lead this mission?”

  “If your intention is to pick an individual that would make the majority of command decisions as you would, Dennis Yuen does not belong on your list,” Artie replied. “According to the parameters of the original query, he cannot be relied upon to carry out your stated agenda for this mission.”

  Chamberlain remembered back to his conversation with Chertow on the bridge.

  “I wonder what the Hell Gabe would say at this moment,” he asked himself. “I don’t imagine he’d stop at a simple I told you so. I must have passed off the negative results of Dennis’ battery as insignificant. Why do I want to trust him so badly I would ignore a protocol I put in place to protect the integrity of the mission?”

  “And your selected parameters are really the best indicators of a leader that would carry out this mission the way I envisioned it,” Chamberlain asked.

  “They are the parameters you modeled when recruiting for this mission,” Artie replied. “By your own reasoning, the candidates on my list would be the most likely to carry out the mission as you would.”

  “Okay then, Artie,” Chamberlain said. “Let’s start over. Initiate Command Option Five.”

  “Command Option Five is now being initiated,” Artie announced. “Please confirm your five choices for sleeper status.”

  Chamberlain spoke up. His list was a combination of Artie’s and his own choices.

  “My sleeper candidates are Ryoki Tan, Davis Meredith, Jr., Gabriel Chertow, William Black Bear and Mary Margaret Russo.”

  Part VI - Prisoners of War

  Chapter 30

  3-December-2192

  Alpha woke up in a bunk that was much too short for his two-and-one-quarter meter tall frame. He didn’t know where he was, but the place was cool, dark and quiet.

  His head throbbed violently and his vision was blurry. He didn’t discover he was in a bottom bunk until he sat up and knocked his head squarely against the edge one of the top bunk’s slats. The blow caused a sharp pain to surge through his scalp at the point of impact that amplified the throbbing inside the rest of his head.

  “Son of a bitch,” the feline yelped rubbing his scalp.

  Alpha crouched down and turned to the side, throwing his legs out of the bunk quickly and placing his feet flat on the cold floor with a firm slapping sound.

  “I’m barefoot,” he thought.

  The floor was cool and not entirely uncomfortable. The coolness soothed the sting in the soles of his feet that came from carelessly plopping them down flat on the cold concrete floor. He then became doubly angry when noticed he was wearing some sort of mittens, evidently to protect whoever had captured him from his feline claws.

  “I haven’t had to wear any damned gloves since I was in school,” he muttered.

  Alpha stood up in the darkness and tried to take in his current surroundings. His feline eyes were able to see in dim light, but the sedative hangover he was suffering from made it difficult to see things clearly. He patted the top bunk to see if there was anyone there.

  His probing elicited an irritated and slightly slurred, “Hey. Watch it.”

  “Identify yourself,” Alpha said sternly. “I can’t tell who you are. I’m having trouble focusing my eyes.”

  “Sorry Sir. Sierra here,” said the feline in the top bunk. “Holy shit. We’re alive. What happened? Where are we, Cap?”

  “Not so loud. I just woke the Hell up, myself,” Alpha answered back covering his sensitive ears. “I was hoping you knew. Avoid mentioning rank from now on. We’ve been captured by the enemy.”

  Alpha took a few heavy breaths trying to overcome the waning effects of the tranquilizer darts the natives used against him and his team.

  He reached up and rubbed his still throbbing head once more. He could feel a wet patch on his forehead where he banged it on the top bunk. He cursed under his breath at the split in his scalp and the situation he found himself in.

  Wherever he and Sierra were, there was little light, and what light there was seemed to come from somewhere far off to the left of the bunks. Alpha made his way to the head of the bunk and felt a wall. It was solid and he could tell it was cold, even with the mittens on.

  “Concrete,” he asked himself out loud. “Or maybe block of some sort?”

  He placed his smarting forehead against the cool wall for a few seconds. It felt good. He started to feel as if he might fall back to sleep. He fought the urge and stood straight up.

  Still unable to see clearly, he made his way from the head of the bunks down toward the foot. He reached out toward the right side of the bunks and found bars wherever he put his gloved hand.

  “Great,” he whispered to Sierra. “We’re in some sort of bloody jail cell.”

  Alpha made his way along the bars to what he surmised to be the front of the cell. The tranquilizers in his system were wearing off rapidly now. His head still throbbed, but his eyes were beginning to focus.

  He looked around through the bars trying to get a good feel for his surroundings. He could make out a corridor going from right to left in front of him with cells on both sides.

  Light was coming from a flickering exit sign over a door at the left end of the corridor. At least Alpha thought it was an exit sign. The characters on it were back-lit, and in some unknown form of writing. Alpha couldn’t make them out.

  A voice came from the cell directly across from Alpha’s, startling him slightly. The shock helped clear his head a bit more. It was Kilo.

  “Are you finally back among the living,” she asked.

  Alpha nodded.

  “Foxtrot and I came to, yesterday,” she said. “Charlie and Tango are to your right. They haven’t made a peep. I guess they are both still breathing, but I can’t tell. Our captors don’t seem too concerned about them.”

  Alpha asked, “How long have we been here?”

  “I don’t know how long it was before I came to,” Kilo answered. “I’ve been over the sleeping darts for at least a full day. I can’t tell you exactly how long. They took my chronometer.”

  Alpha quickly checked to see if he still had his chronometer. He found that all he was wearing was a bright yellow-green jumpsuit with no belt, and his mittens. He looked back over at Kilo and realized she was wearing an identical jumpsuit. After seeing her, the thought flashed through his mind that although the jumpsuits were identical, she looked much better in hers than he did in his.

  “It looks like we are in a civilian jail,” Kilo continued. “I’ve seen a couple of men in what look like military uniforms roaming about infrequently, but the guys who have been bringing us food and water for the last day aren’t in uniform.”

  “Food and water,” Alpha said
as if that was the only thing he picked up on from Kilo’s assessment. “That sounds good to me. How do we get their attention? I’m starving.”

  “You can try yelling, but I don’t think it does any good,” Kilo told him. “They either can’t hear us, which seems unlikely; or they are just ignoring us. Unless I miss my guess, our jailers should be turning on the lights and bringing breakfast around soon, anyway. The food isn’t bad, actually. I can’t give you any kind of a sit-rep because I don’t know if they are listening in and can understand us.”

  “Understood,” Alpha replied.

  Any time the term sit-rep was used, it meant that any further voice communications would be formally coded so there were no misunderstandings.

  The felines had learned to transmit strategy and tactics clandestinely via casual conversation from their Special Ops training. The chat thus far had given Alpha the actual situation report. Any casual conversation from that point on would actually be a discussion of their escape strategy.

  Kilo had told Alpha everything she knew for certain about the surroundings, the erratic schedules of the guards and the estimated number of personnel, both military and civilian. It also meant that Kilo had seen enough to start formulating a plan of escape.

  Alpha would have to watch for at least a day, to confirm Kilo’s assessments.

  She had also made him aware that, although the native captors had tried hard to make it look as if they were not monitoring the activity inside the cell block, she was almost certain there were listening devices of some sort around, but she hadn’t positively identified any.

  “Have they removed you from your cell at any time for recreation or a medical checkup,” Alpha asked.

  “No,” Kilo replied. “This is all I’ve seen of the place. It doesn’t feel like such a dungeon when the lights are on. Not that it’s all that colorful or cheery when lit up, but at least it doesn’t feel as claustrophobic.”

  Alpha hoped Kilo was wrong and they weren’t underground somewhere. There were no windows on any of the walls, but Kilo had just indicated to him she thought she saw some natural light coming in when the door was open. Alpha would have to look for himself and make an assessment. If they were underground, that would explain where all the natives on the surface were coming from.

  Alpha wanted the rest of the team up and ready for action if the opportunity for escape presented itself. They would worry about getting their bearings and making it out of the city later.

  Alpha went back to the bunks and nudged Sierra.

  “Get up,” he whispered. “And, stay alert.”

  He then walked back to the front of the cell and whispered to Kilo, “Get Foxtrot out of her bunk. We should all be awake and cheery when the lights come on and our friends bring us some breakfast.”

  “Sure thing,” Kilo said as she nudged Foxtrot.

  “I’m awake,” Foxtrot said. “Tonight, I want the top bunk.”

  Foxtrot climbed out of bed and started doing calisthenics to limber herself up. She had to be careful. The top of the cell was only about three meters off the ground. Jumping jacks were pretty much out of the question. She stuck with simple stretches and toe touches.

  “How do you like your mittens,” Kilo asked. “Foxtrot and I aren’t all that fond of ours. They fit too tightly. We tried to make the guards understand last night, but they didn’t seem to catch on.”

  “Did you try to show them,” Alpha asked.

  “No,” Foxtrot said. “They completely refused to look at them for us. Kind of reminded me of when we were kids back at the compound.”

  “Made you feel nostalgic, did it,” Alpha asked.

  “Not at first,” Foxtrot replied. “But, now that you mention it, I am starting to get a bit misty.”

  Alpha took a close look at the mittens the Terra Novans had put on his hands. They weren’t exactly like the ones the creators put on juvenile felines to prevent nasty scratches and gashes from the retractable claws, but they served the same purpose.

  The gloves put on feline children were non-slip, form fitting, and had separate fingers with impenetrable tips. They enabled the children to use their hands freely but prevented them from injuring the human teachers, other feline children or themselves with their claws; either on purpose or by accident.

  What Alpha’s team had been given by their captors were heavy leather mittens with thumbs. The team would be able to grip larger objects easy enough, or smaller ones like eating utensils with some difficulty, but it would be nearly impossible to manipulate anything tool-like with precision.

  Alpha examined the straps to see if he could somehow loosen them and work the mittens off. There was a band of hook and loop fasteners around the wrist that protected what seemed to be a buckle. Alpha couldn’t get at the strap with his other hand or his teeth.

  Foxtrot had found a way to get them off, though. Her ability to get her gloves off when growing up in the compound was legendary. As a child, she was even able to remove the special locked gloves the humans reserved for ‘naughty kittens who refused to wear their mittens’.

  “I see what you mean, Foxtrot,” Alpha said. He would need some sort of tool to pry the fastener strip away enough to grip it with his teeth if he wanted to get at the buckle like Foxtrot had been able to.

  “These mittens are quite annoying,” he said. “I hope they don’t interfere with breakfast.”

  “I don’t know if they will or not,” Foxtrot replied. “I didn’t wake up until lunch time. I didn’t have any trouble eating lunch with them on. Although, I did have to use my fork to cut the meat the jailers gave us. They didn’t provide a knife.”

  Kilo spoke up. “I did have breakfast, and it was about the same,” she said. “I would have gotten you up but you looked like you needed your sleep.”

  “That was considerate,” Foxtrot replied. “I was pretty much out of it.” She smiled and asked, “You weren’t too bored sitting around all by yourself were you?”

  “Quite a bit,” Kilo answered. “But, it gave me a chance to think about things.”

  Kilo looked in the direction of Tango and Charlie.

  “Are they still sleeping, Alpha,” she asked.

  “I’ll check,” Alpha said as he made his way over to the side of the cell and peered through the bars at Tango and Charlie’s bunks. His eyes were no longer blurry and he could make out slight up and down movements in each bunk.

  “They’re still breathing,” he told Kilo. He then shouted at the pair trying to wake them.

  “Charlie. Tango,” he yelled.

  The two of them stirred.

  Alpha yelled again.

  “Wake up you lazy sons of bitches’. That’s an order,” he chided. “The sun’s been up for hours. You’re burning daylight.”

  “Firstly,” Tango retorted. “I have no mother. And if I did, I would take particular offense at you calling her a bitch, Cap, seeing as how I’m a giant cat, and all.”

  Alpha, Kilo, Foxtrot and Sierra laughed out loud in unison.

  “And another thing, damn it,” Tango continued, as if he had either forgotten Alpha carried a higher-rank, or he didn’t care. “This godforsaken rock has two suns. It’s rare that one of them isn’t up.”

  Charlie, still drowsy, but aroused by all the yelling, sat up in the top bunk and spun around to step out. He grabbed on tightly and barely avoided falling forward when he noticed that his feet didn’t touch the floor.

  “My mouth tastes like a poorly prepared shit sandwich,” he said.

  The others looked around among themselves with amused curiosity.

  Alpha said out loud, “I don’t want to even think of how one would go about determining the difference.”

  Everyone, but Charlie was laughing when he spoke up again.

  “Am I anywhere near the floor,” he asked, sounding somewhat frightened. He was probing around below him with his toes and not touching anything solid. “I really need to go take a leak.”

  Before anyone could answer, the
sound of the cell block door being unlocked and opened caught the team’s attention. The more alert members turned toward the door to get a good look at what lay beyond.

  Just as it opened, fluorescent tubes over top of the cells and down the center of the corridor ceiling started flashing and before long were brightly glowing. The felines shielded their sensitive eyes until they could get used to the brightness. The guards were inside and the door was shut before the feline prisoners could get a good look outside.

  Once they had adjusted to the light, the felines could see six Terra Novans standing just inside the door. All were dressed in uniforms devoid of anything that looked like military rank. The shirts were gray and had buttons up the front, but no breast pockets. The guards had no badges, but there was an insignia embroidered on the right side of each shirt where a pocket should have been.

  Alpha checked for differences in the insignia on each guard, but couldn’t see any. “No indication of rank there,” he thought.

  The rest of the guards’ uniforms were identical black slacks with white stripes down the outsides of the legs, and black shoes that didn’t have laces.

  Alpha saw no pockets in the slacks either and there were no loops for belts. He wondered if it was a cultural thing or the designers had intentionally made them that way. “Either way there isn’t much to grab onto during a scuffle,” he thought.

  The Terra Novan out in front of the rest of the guards barked a command and held up a small device of some sort. The guards fell in single file.

  Alpha checked to see if there were any weapons on the guards. There were none. He quickly looked around him to get a look at everything he failed to see while the lights were off. He saw pairs of Terra Novans in almost every cell that wasn’t occupied by felines.

  The guard in front barked out another command. Alpha turned toward him, just quickly enough to see him press a button on the device he held.

  There was shuffling among all of the Terra Novans in the cells. They all stepped away from any cell bars.