Excelsior

by Jasper T. Scott

  “What’s that?” Doctor Crepsin asked, coming up beside them. Alexander saw that he was pointing to a pair of shadows silhouetted to one side of the inferno.

  “It’s them!” McAdams shouted.

  They all ran to assist. Max stumbled along, half dragging, half carrying Korbin.

  “Hello,” Korbin said weakly over her helmet speakers.

  “Why didn’t you answer me on the comms?” Alexander demanded. “We thought you were dead!”

  “You tried to contact me?” she asked, sounding confused.

  “She took a blow to the head when those monsters brought everything crashing down,” Max explained. “She just came to a few minutes ago.”

  “We need to get her to the shuttle so I can examine her,” Crespin said. “Can she walk?”

  Max shook his head. “I think she twisted her ankle. It might be broken. Not sure.”

  “It’s definitely broken,” Crepsin said, pointing to the odd way it was bent. “Stone, would you help Maximilian to carry her, please?”

  Alexander looked on with a frown. “What about you, Max?”

  “What about me?” he grunted while handing Korbin over to Crespin and Stone.

  “Why didn’t you comm us for help?”

  “Or answer my call,” Stone put in.

  “Too busy saving Korbin’s skin. Besides what was I going to say? I’m under a heap of burning canvas, come find me! All that would do is get the rest of you into the same mess as us.”

  “Hmmm. Well, I guess you’re safe now,” Stone said.

  “What about the mission data?” Cardinal asked as the group began shuffling toward the nearest shuttle.

  Max shook his head. “We couldn’t finish the backups in time. I had to drag Korbin away.”

  “So we lost everything…” Cardinal said.

  “We can take new samples in the morning,” Alexander replied. “And as for the data, when was the last offsite backup?”

  “Three days ago.”

  “Good enough. We’ll rebuild from that as best we can. Add your observations from those three days to fill in what’s missing. It’s still enough to call this mission a success and go home.”

  “We’re going home?” McAdams chimed in. “I thought we were going to stay another week?”

  “No, you all wanted to stay another week, but we were going to leave soon anyway, and now we really don’t have a choice. We don’t have any more habs to deploy and all of our equipment is busy melting to slag.”

  “We could work from the shuttles. Use whatever equipment we have as spares on the Lincoln,” Cardinal suggested.

  “And wait for more dinos to come back?” Alexander shook his head.

  “I don’t understand why they came here at all,” McAdams said. “It’s not like they could have smelled us through the storm and the habs.”

  “Ryder suggested we might have attracted them with our floodlights. And speaking of Ryder, Fernandez should have reported in by now…” Alexander mentally placed a call.

  Fernandez answered a moment later, “I’ve got Ryder, Captain. He’s unconscious.”

  Alexander scowled. “Seems like everyone’s getting hit on the head tonight. All right, hang tight. I’ll bring over a medical team in the rover.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Doc, we have another head injury!” Alexander called out over his helmet speakers.

  “Take Ensign Perez and Rios! I’ve got my hands full.”

  The two nurses fell out of the group and joined Alexander on his way back to the rover. By the time they reached Ryder, he was already awake and lying outside of his broken mech. The Cheetah looked like it had been put through a trash compactor.

  “How’s he doing?” Alexander asked, suddenly worried.

  “I’m fine,” Ryder snapped, pushing away the nurses and stumbling to his feet.

  “Sit down, Mr. Ryder. You were unconscious. You’re not fine.”

  Ryder snorted, but allowed them to examine him this time. “What happened, Captain?”

  “They trashed our camp, but we Fernandez put them all down before anyone got eaten. We lost the mission data, though.”

  “Shit.”

  “We’ll rebuild it from backups.”

  “So now what?”

  “Now we get the hell away from this damn planet and go home.”

  “You think there’s a home to go back to?”

  Alexander frowned, and turned back to look at the flaming ruins of the hab complex. It still looked like a funeral pyre, but fortunately no one had actually died. The same couldn’t be said for all the fires that must have raged across the Earth in their absence. “I guess we’re about to find out,” he said.

  Chapter 29

  Twenty Minutes Earlier…

  Max watched Korbin racing from one terminal to another with a screwdriver, opening casings and yanking out data drives.

  “I thought we were going to do a backup?”

  “This is faster,” she replied, yanking out another drive. That did it for the ones in the quarantine module. “Let’s go!”

  “I’m under quarantine,” he reminded her.

  “Just put your helmet on. You’re your own quarantine module like that.”

  Max nodded and slipped his helmet over his head. It sealed around his collar with a squeal of pressurizing air.

  They raced into the airlock between quarantine and the rest of the complex. Korbin grumbled about being forced to wait for the decontamination cycle.

  Max smiled. He knew why she was so anxious to save the data. He was anxious for the same reason. This was her chance, and she wasn’t likely to get another one.

  Once the light above the airlock doors turned green and they slid open, Korbin raced out through the Mess like she was on fire. The next hab module was Cardinal’s greenhouse. His terminal was full of data on how to grow plants on Wonderland.

  Max watched as Korbin hurried to extract yet another data drive. She slipped it into an outer pocket in her suit, glancing his way as she did so.

  Did she think he would try to stop her? He wanted nothing more than to help, but it wasn’t as though he could tell her that. Or could he?

  Korbin ran from the greenhouse to Stone’s geological lab. She already had enough data, but the more the better. Stone’s terminal would have detailed info on Wonderland’s wealth of natural resources. Max followed Korbin there and watched as she removed yet another drive and tucked it into her pocket. Again, she glanced at him. “Aren’t you going to help?”

  “How are you going to explain stealing those?” Max asked, nodding to her pocket.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You need time to copy all that data, which means you’re going to need to come up with a good excuse to hang onto those drives.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but we don’t have time for this.”

  “Exactly. Tell them you tried to backup the data, but there wasn’t enough time. Rig this place to blow, and no one will ever be the wiser. We’ll say those monsters must have tripped over a case of grenades. They’ll be here soon. I stole one of their eggs.”

  “You stole a…”

  Max shrugged. “I lost it in the jungle while I was running from them, but they obviously don’t know that. They tracked us this far, so I doubt they’ll stop until they’ve turned this place upside down.”

  Korbin gave him a dark look. “You’ve put this entire mission in jeopardy!”

  “What do you care? You have the data; you’ve got what you need.”

  Korbin’s brow furrowed and she shook her head.

  Being subtle wasn’t working with her. “You have what you need for the Confederacy. All that’s missing is the nav data from the Lincoln, and I can help you get that, too.”

  Korbin’s hand drifted to another zippered pocket on her hip, and Max began to worry that she had a weapon concealed there. He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Wait. I’m on your side.”

  “I’m not so sure
about that anymore.”

  Could he have been wrong? No. His intel was rock solid. Max smiled. “You were the one who sabotaged the engine code. The Confederacy gave you orders to ax the mission, but it didn’t work. You’re not an engineer, and Davorian obviously knows his stuff, so he shut down the bad code before anything happened.”

  “I’m not a spy.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “I have two kids back on Earth—in the Alliance. Why would I risk their futures by betraying my own country? And why would I sabotage the Lincoln in a way that could kill me and leave them motherless?”

  “You’ve visited your kids exactly once a year for the past five years.”

  “I’m a Commander. I barely get shore leave. Besides, it’s easier for them not to see me too often.”

  Max shook his head. “No, you’ve been reconditioned to put group interests ahead of your own. That goes for putting group interests ahead of your childrens’ interests, too. What do two lives matter when compared with the greater good of billions? At this point, those kids are just another part of your cover. No one would suspect a mother of two of being a traitor. As for risking your life, you wouldn’t be the first spy willing to die for the cause, but since that didn’t work, you figured you could help your side by sharing the mission data. Well here’s your chance. Steal the data and say it’s lost.”

  Thunder boomed ominously.

  “At the risk of repeating myself, I’m not a spy.”

  “You were undercover in the Confederacy for three years. They captured you, and you escaped. Pretty lucky for you, but I think they let you go.”

  Korbin’s eyes hardened and she unzippered her pocket. “Sounds like you have everything figured out.” Korbin withdrew a small pistol, confirming his suspicions about that pocket. He held up his hands again. “I’m sorry, Max, but this is bigger than either of us. There’s a greater good at stake.”

  “I agree, so let’s trade—my life for the Lincoln’s nav data.”

  Korbin snorted. “You can’t deliver that.”

  “And what if I could?”

  “I can’t take the risk.”

  “I can show it to you.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t shoot.” Max slowly raised his comm band and mentally summoned one of the nav charts from the device’s memory. The chart sprang to life, projected in the air between them. It showed the Lincoln’s path through the Looking Glass.

  “How did you get that?”

  “How do you think the Confederacy got the nav data from our probe missions?”

  “That was you?”

  “I had help, but yes. You’re not the only Confederate sympathizer in the Alliance. It’s hard to badmouth a Utopian society that actually works. We’re stuck in the past, still thinking that socialism is the devil, and maybe it was back in the twentieth century, but that’s because self-interest is hard-wired into us. Ants are communists, and they make it work. There’s a reason they call us ants. Our brains have been re-wired to think more like them. We know how to put group interests ahead of our own.”

  “They reconditioned you, too?”

  Max nodded. An animal roar interrupted them, sounding distant and near at the same time. He turned to look out the nearest window, half-expecting to see a giant eye peering in. Instead he saw the headlights of the rover. “We don’t have much time,” he said.

  Thud. Thud. Thud-thud-thud…

  “Something’s coming!” Korbin screamed.

  The floor heaved under their feet and the ceiling came crashing down. Rock samples went flying. Canvas framing poles clattered and fell in a tangled mess, some of them clunking off Max’s helmet. Hab canvas swaddled them, and Korbin cried out, either in surprise or pain. The lights were gone, and the darkness smothered. Max felt himself being dragged along, then he heard another alien roar, followed by a ground-shaking boom as the beast fell, tripping over what was left of the complex.

  Max listened to the sound of his breathing reverberating inside his helmet; then came more roaring sounds as the monster began thrashing, trying to get back up. They needed to find a way out before it accidentally killed them. He activated his headlamp and sent a private comms to Korbin. “You okay?”

  “I’m… fine,” she managed.

  He looked around, casting twisted shadows in all directions. She was lying beside him under a pile of fist-sized rock samples. Max slipped out from under a bird’s nest of bent framing poles and looked around for an exit. The complex hadn’t completely collapsed, but there was no way they’d be able to make it to one of the external airlocks. They were going to have to cut a way out, but with what? Max waited a second longer, wishing for an exit to appear. There came another roar, and a giant billowing slit opened up right in front of him. “Let’s go!” He said, lunging for the opening before it disappeared. He reminded himself to think positive.

  Max heard Korbin cursing over their private comms channel, and he turned to see her collapsed and struggling to regain her footing. He ankle wasn’t cooperating. He grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her to her feet. “Come on!”

  Her leg buckled once more. “I think it’s broken!”

  Max grimaced. “Lean on me.” They hobbled away with the hab complex twisting and moving around them as their attacker continued thrashing on the ground. The tear in the hab canvas billowed wide, and they stumbled out. Max risked a look over his shoulder. The complex looked like a collapsed circus tent, but it was still more or less intact. The crew would find the missing drives as soon as they went back to assess and repair the damage. He stopped hobbling, a frown creasing his brow.

  “The Captain’s trying to reach me,” Korbin said. “I’m going to tell him where we are.”

  “Don’t answer yet. We need to go back in!”

  “What? Why?”

  “They’re going to figure out what we did! The habs are collapsed, not destroyed.” Max watched the thrashing monster. Hab canvas flapped and billowed. Max wondered how they were going to get back in with that monster in there. Then a pair of blood-red laser beams lanced out of the darkness, converging on the fallen beast. It screamed and lay still. Problem solved.

  “It’s too late,” Korbin said. “We’ll find another way to get the data.”

  Max frowned, not ready to give up yet. He wished for a solution to present itself. Then a bright golden glow appeared in the center of the ruined hab complex, illuminating the white canvas from within. That radiance grew steadily, and he smiled.

  “It’s on fire…” Korbin said.

  Max nodded. It made sense. Someone shot a pair of high-powered lasers into a pile of combustible material. He couldn’t have planned a better solution. Yet another coincidence on Wonderland—or maybe this time it was Fate.

  Turning to Korbin, Max said, “You’d better give me the drives. I’ll hang onto them for now.”

  He saw her eyes narrow suspiciously behind her helmet. “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you need an excuse for why you didn’t answer the Captain’s call. We’ll say you were unconscious. No one’s going to doubt that you could have bumped your head, but while they’re examining you, they might discover the drives in your pocket. No one will bother examining me. I’m not hurt.”

  “Fine.” Korbin unzipped her pocket and passed him all four of the thumb-sized drives. “Now what?”

  Max’s comm began beeping with a call from Lieutenant Stone. He ignored it. He’d say he was too busy fleeing from the blaze. “Now, we go announce our return from the dead and tell everyone the bad news about the mission data.”

  “What if they find something in the wreckage?”

  “They won’t. Trust me.” Not if Maximilian Carter has anything to do with it, he thought.

  Chapter 30

  Present Day, May 18th, 2791

  (Earth’s Frame of Reference)

  Catalina paused in mid-sweep of the grand ballroom-sized foyer of the Waltons’ home to wipe the sweat from her brow. The Waltons’ swe
eper bot sat neglected to one side of the room beneath an antique chair. The bot had broken down twice this week, and this time the failure was permanent until spare parts could be found.

  Unfortunately for Caty, whose job it now was to sweep every nook and cranny of the twenty-seven thousand square foot home, manufacturing sweeper bot parts was a low priority. Every spare scrap of metal was spoken for with government contracts, and every 3D printer and automated factory in the Western hemisphere had been commandeered (somewhat illegally) to produce components for new starships. War had never been a bigger business, and the Alliance’s cherished free market was starting to look dangerously like a command economy.