Of Crimson Indigo: Points of Origin

by Grant Fausey

  The two pilots planted their feet against the throttles. Rooka braced himself and pressed hard. The Dragon Wing separated from the hauler in a rush of compressed air, leaving behind the cargo pods and fan arrangements. The lander had already started its descent. Jake slipped the lander off autopilot and held on for dear life. The craft dropped through a whirlwind of rising smoke and dust, punching a hole through a cloud of flying debris and shattered stone to clear a landing site near the outer rim of a derelict mining rig platform.

  “Touch down,” yelled the pilot, only to be refrained by the smile that crossed Rooka’s face. The ship’s four wave engines shuddered against the ground, rattling the fuselage mainframe. Jake throttled back the controls. The sooner they sat the charter on the surface, the faster they would be outbound. A fact Rooka expressed excitedly with a full set of teeth; he was definitely relieved. The starship was face up with no visible damage, except for the diagnostics panel warning light hovering over the number four-engine. Nevertheless, just being on Sodin made the lab rat uneasy. Any prospect of an extended stay was down right unbearable. Jake glared at the illumination on the warning panel, raised an eyebrow. The NO-GO lamp for all intents and purposes was a dead giveaway. There was every possibility they wouldn’t have enough power to make orbit, let alone escape the moon’s gravity well. But they were down, in one piece. The only real way to find out what was going on with the number four engine was to pull the cowling and take a look under the hood.

  Jake nodded his approval. He would take care of offloading the passengers and play babysitter, while Rooka ventured a look at the engine. The copilot knew the drill. He took a moment to breathe then slip down a tether line to the ground and secure the hatch ladder, before lowering the main ramp out of the bottom of the hauler. “Welcome to Sodin ladies and gents,” screeched the hauler captain, babbling like an elevator attendant: his hair blowing in the chilly morning air. “First floor: sediment, fractured stone, lingerie and a shit-load of debris. Anything else you want––I’ll be on the bridge.”

  Rooka scanned the immediate area behind the pilot, taking in every fissure and jagged rock formation with a cautious eye. Krydal smiled, amused by his antics. There was nothing but rubble rats and a few tumbleweeds; a lifeless desert covered in a barely breathable, thin atmosphere. “All right, people,” said Brennan. “Let’s get unpacked. We’ve a little under twelve hours, so we’d better get a move on.” The copilot checked his six, glanced back to where Jake stood at the base of the cargo elevator and slipped under the cowling on the number four-engine and did a little reconnaissance. Brennan on-the-other-hand was handing out orders like a drill sergeant. Twelve hours seemed appropriate. Half a rotation was acceptable, even with his anxiety.

  “Excuse me, skipper …” Krydal nodded in Jake’s direction, sneering at the old technocrat but agreed with him, nonetheless. It was time to schmooze the hauler captain––get what she needed with an inviting smile, anything to get his attention. “Can I have a word with you?”

  Jake did a sashay number crossing the landing site ready for a piece of that action. But Krydal had other ideas. “I know it’s not in our contract,” she said, networking definitely in her nature. “But we need to get our equipment to the platform on the other side of that rig.” The corporate liaison cheerfully pointed in the general direction of the mining rig complex, which was barely visible beyond the range of reddish orange mountains encircling most of the landing site. “Do you think you could break out a skimmer and …”

  “No problem,” interrupted Jake, all smiles. “You want it––you got …” The pilot stopped mid-sentence and flatly refused. The opportunity of a lifetime presented itself, but vanished just as quickly. Krydal went silent, hoping to slip one past Jake. He wasn’t too bright when it came to matters of negotiation. “Wait a minute,” the pilot said, annoyed. “What about the fuel?”

  The corporate liaison throttled back, thought about it for a moment then put a hand to his chin and batted her eyes.

  “Who’s going to pay for this?” asked the ship’s captain. “It’s not coming out of my share!” Krydal nodded to Renniska Brennan. “Oh, no––” said the hauler pilot. He wasn’t falling into that trap, not if old technocrap was in charge. “Brennan wouldn’t give his mother money to save her life, let alone sponsor a …”

  “Then do it for me,” said Krydal softly, tilted her head slightly to one side as she interrupted him.

  Jake melted; he looked up at her through big puppy dog eyes. “You’re gonna need the Chariot, huh?”

  The pilot shook his head.

  “Thought so …” said Rooka. The copilot walked over and pulled the cover off the hydraulics lock and yanked the lever, releasing the mechanism. A rush of air hissed out. “Gamy,” he told the pilot shaking his head. “She better have a litter, after all this …”

  Jake huffed, visibly embarrassed. Their budding romance was on hold and would have to wait. The Chariot needed to be unloaded, packed with supplies and on its way to the other side of the largest consortium off-world mining operation he had ever seen. More important, he had less than an hour to do it.

  TWENTY-FOUR: Tanis 489

  • • •

  The Tanis planet rig stood sixty stories tall, a masterpiece of engineering genius, four kilometers wide; nearly a kilometer deep, and housed drilling operations anchored atop four main pylons; each as big as a mountain. The landing platform spanned the forward compartments, giving the complex the appearance of a squatting man with open arms. A foreboding place, even if it was abandoned. There was still a sense of activity on the rig, maintenance drones mostly, spidery-looking biobots with a bunch of antenna, scurrying along the etched surface keeping close tabs on metal fatigue, while making repairs to the superstructure. Jake thought it was odd the Industrials would desert such an enormous operation, unless they had tapped into something they didn’t expect. He wondered what exactly he was getting himself into. The Industrials had pulled out rather hastily, adding another layer of mystery to the exact purpose of the operation. It was hard to imagine some ritual capable of scampering big, burly shaft workers into the ethers of another existence, but something had scared the pants off them. Either way, the Industrials didn’t just abandon multi-million dollar equipment without a reason. It was definitely a mystery worth investigating.

  Rooka dropped the chariot out of the bottom of the lander, setting the trackless wonder on the ground between a set of double rollback doors and punched it, sending out a cloud of exhaust half way across the splintered landscape. The nearest pylon disappeared in a trail of toxic fumes. The ground transport had obviously seen better days, but the skimmer truck would do in a pinch. Rooka handled her like a pro, holding on for dear life with one paw while steering with the other. Both his feet bounced in time to the rotating exhaust ports, lisping from one side to the other on a steady course through the countryside until the reached the confines of a turn of the century boomtown. The whole place looked like it had been sucked out of one era and placed in another.

  Jake scratched his head. It was truly a spectacle. Yet, the damndest thing he had ever seen. Planetary mining operations were a dime a dozen, but this one was way off the well-worn path of colony traffic. Rumor had it that the platform was the testing ground for some sort of failed primordial experiment. The Industries were developing planets made-to-order, terraforming shit that didn’t even have a name, let alone an atmosphere. Sodin, however, presented its own unique set of circumstances: It was already made-to-order.

  “All right, people,” announced Brennan. “Let’s get a move on.”

  Hudson Warner gripped the transport’s railing like a gymnast and dropped over the side, landing square on both feet. A puff of rich, reddish-orange soil blasted out from under his shoes just as Brennan jaunted past him up a small grade to where Krydal stood on the structure’s main service platform. “The entrance should be over there,” he told her. “At the base of that scaffolding.” The corporate liaison gazed over at th
e location. The entrance was completely undetectable, hidden in the pouring rain, but the downpour was traveling horizontal toward the threshold of a place, which supposedly circumvented the continuum, sidestepping the limits of both time and space. Contrary to popular belief, it was the Industries most closely guarded secret, a portal hidden within the confines of an experimental laboratory.

  Hudson Warner went right to work, scrambling across broken deck plates to take his place at the end of the platform, next to the transport. He had no problem catching the heavy packages Jake tossed off the back of the skimmer. Jennifer Hudson, on the other hand, had no problem following the chain of command. Any fresh face, especially someone straight out of the corporate talent pool made Renniska Brennan’s personal list of new toys. Jennifer Hudson was no exception; he was sizing her up for his latest conquest.

  “Krydal,” shouted Brennan. His voice crackled over the others. ”You and Riggs are with me. The rest of you help Warner get set up. The regenerative processors go on line in just under twelve hours. We don’t finish on time, we don’t get off this rock alive.”

  “What did he say?” asked Jake. The pilot did a one eighty with a sudden twitch in his eye. “If we don’t finish, we what?”

  Jason Maccon slipped off the back of the transport with two small metal briefcases in hand. “We don’t get off this rock alive!” he told him, holding up one of them for the pilot to see.

  “If he’s trying to be funny … I’m not laughing.”

  Jake dropped a box of widgets. A hundred spare synthetic sensors piled out on top of the rodent’s foot! “Rooka––” shouted the pilot.

  “Yeah, boss! I’m right behind you.” The rodent did a one-eighty. “I’ve got your back.”

  Maccon stepped over the contents of the broken crate, noticing the fanlike pattern of the spare widgets, stepping lively up a ramp and across the platform into the outskirts of the boomtown trying to keep up with the pilot. The place was abandoned except for a couple of rubble rats, which made Rooka feel right at home. Most of the buildings were in disrepair, missing a wall here or there, broken shards of glass were everywhere. Whatever was holding the place together, no longer existed. The town felt like a facade. The complex was crawling with insects. Obviously, he had come to the right place; he just had no idea of what they were up too. Something had spooked the locals, sending them packing. The thought of the drilling rig hanging in halves over his head surely wasn’t enough to facilitate an evacuation. But the complex wasn’t finished. Whatever scared the workers did so with enough uncertainty for the crew to leave their lunch in unopened containers on the scaffolding. The place was abandoned, and that frightened Jake.

  The pilot entered a wooden outcropping, standing in what used to be the town’s general store. He had his hands on his hips, waiting for any sign of movement as he ventured a look, taking in the center of town. The facility’s main deck, the mining rig; even the upper layers of the platform were all sandwiched between the manifolds and a dozen or so floors off the scaffolding. It was exactly what he expected: A cheap corporate rendition of an old west mining town, complete with a hotel, marshal’s office, bakery, a general store, even a version of Rusty’s bar. He could almost imagine the transports arriving and departing, the pile drivers burrowing deep below the surface; even the deafening roar of gas jets streaming from the magma chambers, while molten lava from the mantle spewing into winding pools on the surface. The thought was magnificent. They devoured entire planets, taking everything from the core to the outer edge of its atmosphere. Nothing was left to waste, not even the indigenous population. Everything was recycled in the reclamation process.

  Seismic charges cracked the surface; nuclear marbles shattered the mantel, splintering the planet into more manageable pieces. The planetary engineers churned out a steady flow of debris to the feeder stations, which in turn flooded the refinery platforms with rubble. Mineral extraction was down to a fine art, decomposition and routing all in a day’s work. The operation took months, leaving a ring of asteroids in orbit around a vacant star. Even Rooka found the Industrial folly imposing, the operation impressive, although the fate of his own world had met with a head-on collision with the industrial excavators, being devoured in the name of progress. Perhaps that was why he loathed the establishment, planning their eventual demise regardless of the consequences. Jake knew he would one day be called upon to help Rooka rid the universe of the menace. Yet, in the end, it was a journey of retribution. The freighter pilot knew the Industries had failed. They were ruthless, inhuman monsters with a single-minded agenda: They meant to devour everything in the universe, but the future was altered in someway, allowing the past to blend with the future, as if nothing before existed. Yesterday became tomorrow.

  Jake choked on the thought, if he had a handle on anything; it wasn’t this. There was something odd about the survey team, something mysterious, as if they didn’t belong. Jake wondered what made the group seem so familiar. They acted like a squad of soldiers, yet they were so damn polite. He was definitely out of the loop. Sodin was mysterious all by itself, but this complicated matters. The truth was like an itch he couldn’t scratch, and that was something that irritated him.

  “It’s okay,” insisted Krydal. Brennan crossed the platform behind her into a maze of interconnecting vapor lines and simply vanished under the transfer pipes ahead of Jake. The pilot stopped dead in his tracks. The corporate suit vanished right in front of him, stepping out of existence so to speak.

  “Whoa … where did he go?”

  “He’s still here,” said Krydal, curiously. “You just can’t see him is all; he’s on the other side.”

  “The other side of what?”

  Jake went silent. He had seen a lot of strange things in his short twenty-nine years, but this wasn’t something he was prepared for. The hauler captain demanded an explanation. Krydal raised an eyebrow. The corporate suit never made a sound, not a swish or creak. Nothing. Brennan was on the other side of the rain-soaked derrick, alone, and invisible … but why? What was on the other side of the platform and why was it wet; there wasn’t so much as a cloud in the sky.

  “Where’s Brennan?” insisted Jake visibly distressed. He was getting angry. “He vanished right in front of me!” Krydal held her breath, put her hand up in front of the pilot to stop him. “What do you take me for, a fool? There’s nothing there but tumbleweeds and rubble rats,” said Jake, furious. There was every prospect his passengers were going to get themselves killed, so he needed to work quickly, consider the probability of a secret chamber, or family jewel It definitely wasn’t man power they were after.

  “I want to know what you guys are up to!” insisted Jake. “Why did I bring you here, Krydal Starr?”

  “All right,” said the corporate liaison. “Let me explain.” The lab rat furled his brow. The young woman pointed in the general direction of the place where Brennan disappeared, took a moment to compose herself then let Jake have it.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing you need to concern yourself about.”

  “Don’t give me that. The guy just disappeared right in front of me … and what’s this other side you’re talking about?”

  Rooka stepped up the ramp and sniffed, his nose in the air. There was a sense of danger.

  “Don’t worry, hotshot,” said Krydal. “The corporate liaison lowered her eyes. “ He doesn’t want us to screw this up; that’s all. You’ll get what’s coming to you.”

  “Bullshit,” said the pilot. Jake took offence with her tone. She was lying to him, covering something up she didn’t want him to know. He could feel it. Jake’s instincts lit up like a neon strobe in the dead of winter. Whatever was really going on was definitely a secret; she was hiding the truth, pointing in the general direction of the mining rig.

  “Maybe Rooka and I better wait in orbit. This place gives me the creeps.” Jake sneered at her. He could feel the rise in his blood pressure. Krydal, however, didn’t take the request ligh
tly; the young woman knew the pilot had no intention of getting caught up in something he couldn’t get himself out of, especially in this god-forsaken place.

  “All right,” said Brennan jibber-jabbering under his breath as he stepped up behind Krydal unannounced. He came out of nowhere, reappearing almost as quickly as he had vanished. “I’ve located the laboratory,” he said. “Everything looks intact.”

  “Laboratory?” asked the pilot. Rooka’s ears perked up. There was something definitely wrong. He could feel it. His little rat nose was twitching. Jake felt the rush of fear course his bones.

  “Seems our pilot here is a little edgy,” said the young woman. “He’s considering waiting for us in orbit.”

  “And miss all the fun?” Brennan rejected the thought on the spot. She was highlighting the situation, bringing him up to speed. “C’mon, old man––”said the corporate suit, putting his arm around Jake’s shoulder. “You have a front row seat for the most spectacular show in town, and you wanna leave?” Brennan was sidestepping the facts, and Jake knew it. He wasn’t taking any chances. The pilot’s cooperation was on the chopping block, but the mission came first. He was more concerned with the operation than the welfare of the group and had no intention of letting the pilot get under his skin. Better to cower and bide his time then be left behind. The corporate suit was obviously nothing more than an errand boy, but for whom?

  “C’mon, Jake,” said Brennan. “Do you mind if I call you Jake?” He had to get to the bottom of the mystery, and quickly. He was running out of time. The pilot glared at the corporate supervisor, visibly disappointed.