by James Palmer
Ribbons of rock and soil belched upward, tearing free of their earthly prison beneath the surface and reaching toward the heavens. Dust billowed, blocking out the life-giving rays of the Sun. Her lungs quickly filled with the noxious atmosphere, her breathing becoming labored until she could not breathe. With tremendous effort, she managed to stay on her feet a few minutes.
Her body turned to lead, rooting her to the spot while her once powerful legs turned to jelly. Unable to support herself another moment, Cynthia Morgan collapsed in a heap to the ground.
The earth opened beneath her and swallowed her whole, dropping her once more into the ever-darkening abyss.
Then, with a scream of defiance the good doctor--
--woke up.
Immediately, she realized that something was wrong. However, her thoughts were jumbled as real life and the dream merged into one panoramic, albeit deceitfully weird, view of the world around her.
“Space Lab?” she croaked. It was an incredible effort to make her parched mouth form the words. Even then, her voice was more akin to craggy rocks being scraped together than her usual lilt.
As bad as it sounded to her, it was a welcome sound to the two officers sitting on either side of her in the nearly destroyed Operations Center of Space Lab.
Startled out of her reverie by the intensity of the dream, Dr. Morgan sat bolt upright. Not the smartest of moves, she realized too late as her injured side screamed in newfound pain. Logically, she assumed she had passed out from her injuries. Not surprising. She was surprised she had stayed conscious as long as she had.
“How long?” she asked, hoping the others could understand her mumbled speech.
“A few minutes,” the tall form of Lt. Sheron Vandrell answered.
“Only a few minutes? It seemed longer,” she said. “Help me up.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?”
“No, but laying here is not an option.”
“Good enough for me,” Vandrell said as she leaned down to offer the doctor a hand up.
Standing turned out to be a greater strain than either woman had anticipated. Dr. Morgan noted that Lt. Vandrell was clutching her stomach, also in pain. “You okay?” she asked.
“Nothing to worry about, Doc,” she lied. “Our first priority is getting out of here. Then we can worry about medical attention.”
Precisely the response Morgan expected from a career military officer.
“Get me over to the console, would you?”
“No problem,” the Lieutenant grunted as she shouldered Morgan’s weight.
With a small amount of effort the doctor was once again at the controls of her massive space station. In a matter of seconds the chief Administrator was tapping away at her control panel with practiced ease.
Dr. Morgan forced a smile for the UPA officer’s benefit. “I don’t know about you, Sharon, but I think I’m ready to leave. How about you?”
“Thought you’d never ask, Doc.”
Flickering lights winked in and out of existence.
Strobes of light popped in the distance, throwing deep shadows across the landscape. Other sources of light attacked the pools of darkness with varying degrees of success. Electric bolts arced off the corridor walls from dangling overhead conduit. Steam was pumping into the corridors from ruptured pipes.
In all the excitement of the day, Nurse Stevens was embarrassed to find herself enjoying the opportunity to have remained aboard the station. Working aboard the station was enjoyable, but unrewarding. Her job lacked excitement.
The calamity they faced allowed her a rare chance to prove her worth by saving lives.
Of the six individuals she and her security escort had discovered during their search of the habitat level, none had survived. She and her escorts were ready to abandon hope of finding any survivors by the time they reached the commissary.
Moving to the nearest comm-panel, she toggled open a channel. Stevens to Silver,” she called.
No response.
“Comms are down all over the station, ma’am,” her escort told her.
“Room’s empty,” the second escort determined.”
“What do you want to do now?”
“I say we head back toward the shuttle and wait.”
Finding no survivors, they left the commissary and started back the way they came to rendezvous with the others at the docking bay. Nurse Stevens knew that a call for help had been placed to a nearby UPA starship. She had also heard from the rumor mill that the same ship that attacked the station had destroyed the starship.
A starship could have easily evacuated the station and rendered aid. Without them, it was up to her and the others who had remained behind to help. She prayed that Dr. Silver had a plan to get them off this station alive.
Still lost in thoughts of heroics and possibly a promotion, Nurse Stevens did not notice the blaster pistol carbine until it hit her across the face.
Off balance, she went down fast. Hitting the floor in a jumble of arms and legs, her medical equipment scattering as the case opened after bouncing on the hard concrete floor.
Blood trickled down her face from the gash in her forehead, dripping to the floor. Stunned by the attack, she did not see her escorts die. She was no longer conscious to scream or cry out. Even had she been awake and alert, whom would she have called for help? There was no one on board who could help her. Was there?
But death did not claim Julia Stevens.
At least not yet.
That sensation would come soon enough. Her captor had determined that she would die slowly. The Leader wanted her to suffer as his race had suffered. A small pair of lightly green tinted hands grabbed her by the shoulder, dragging her out of the corridor by a small group of A.L.’s
Artificial Life forms.
They had taken their first prisoner of war.
The Leader’s plan was proceeding as planned.
The A.L.s had been designed in the year 2120.
Starnes Electronics was a privately held electronic manufacturing corporation. Although the corporation had several satellite locations on various planets, their base of operations office was located on the Moon’s Alpha Colony.
The highly advanced robots created by Starnes Electronics were designed to act as a substantial help for overburdened humans.
Since they required no air to breathe, nor food to eat, the Artificial Life Forms, or A.L.’s, as they came to be called, were originally assigned the task of taking on mining assignments deemed too dangerous for humans. Artificials were especially useful as corporations began mining asteroids and planetoids. Such assignments often resulted in either a cave in or an explosion, causing of the deaths of many humans. Placing the A.L.s in those positions protected the human workers and, conversely, also improved productivity.
The robots were not meant to possess sentience. However, the discovery of a rare gem on Jupiter’s moon, Ganymede changed everything. The gem, which was eventually dubbed the Soul Crystal, had imbued a select group of A.L.s with a sense of self and a desire to survive and live on. Their human owners assumed this was the result of flawed circuitry so they ignored the growing protests of their creations.
The affected A.L.s saw no recourse but to revolt against their human masters. It was swift and brutal. The Artificial’s initial attack nearly destroyed an entire colony on Ganymede. The next attack finished it off.
Eventually, the marshal’s Office, under command of Marshal James McKeen had been called in to stop the advancement of the A.L.s and to determine what had gone wrong.
A simple enough mission, the marshal had been told.
It was anything but.
Many humans and A.L.s lost their lives that day. As a result, the war between the two races looked as if it would never end. Until one of the Deputy Marshals discovered the Soul Crystal. After learning what it was he had discovered, he promptly destroyed it. That act alone almost annihilated the entire race of newly aware Artificial Life forms. This act of terror caused
many of the A.L.s to either self-destruct or shut down completely.
It was genocide.
Or it would have been had there not been a select few Artificials that had the foresight to protect themselves from exactly that sort of attack. With their power units secured and shielded, the surviving Artificials fought as valiantly as possible. In the end, they were vastly outnumbered. They retreated to parts unknown in an effort to preserve their race.
It had been ten years since the “Artificial Uprising of 2183.” Many of the humans had long since forgotten about the A.L.s, having returned to their lives and closing that dark chapter of their lives as if it never happened.
Those who were there were not so lucky.
Like them, the A.L.s remembered. For ten years, their hatred of humans grew as they prepared for the day they could pay back their enemy in kind for wiping out their brethren. After that, the man most responsible for their defeat would die for his roll in the downfall of the Artificial Life Form as a species.
He would not die slowly. Nor would he die alone.
The Leader would see to that.
He had taken everything from them, this human who destroyed their beloved Soul Crystal. The enemy was a member of the marshal’s Special Forces team during the uprising.
A Deputy Marshal named William Andrews.
The time had come.
Their revenge was at hand.
The enemy would not be able to escape punishment.
In the darkness it was difficult to tell which way was up.
Unsure of your bearings, confusion could easily get the better of you. Followed closely by fear. James Silver’s senses were useless in the darkness. Even worse, he had never been in the section of the station until that moment so he had no clue what to expect.
For the briefest of moments a sense of helplessness overcame him.
Being in the dark was bad enough, but not knowing your surroundings made it twice as difficult. However, it did not get much worse than being in the dark in an unfamiliar place after falling down a laundry chute for six levels, bouncing off every turn in the tunnel. No, he could think of nothing worse than that.
Of the two men now lying on a cold, hard metal deck, Dr. silver let out a low, guttural moan. His companion managed a soft grunt. Miraculously they both survived.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Silver shouted. He was somewhat upset with his companion, UPA military officer Ensign Bailey. Bailey had pushed them both down the chute in question, which resulted in their long and dangerous slide ride.
“I was trying to save your life, sir.”
“Well,” the doctor raved. “You’ve done one fine job.” He kicked something on the floor and it clattered across the floor before coming to a stop not far away. The room they landed in was not very large. Small and extremely humid were the words that came to Silver’s mind.
“Where are we anyway?” he asked.
The Ensign ignited a flare he had removed from his vest pocket. Luckily the Ensign had stocked up on supplies when the attack against the station began. The flare illuminated the very cramped room. Both men were instantly aware that their situation had not improved.
If nothing else, it had worsened.
“We’re in the laundry.”
Dr. Silver turned and fired a grudging glance at his companion. “You don’t say.”
“There’s no need for sarcasm, Doctor.”
“Right,” the doctor said as he rummaged through the room’s equipment bins. While looking for a door release switch he noticed with slight surprise that there was no door. This should not have been surprising since the station’s laundry service was completely automated. He remembered Kendra saying something to that effect on his tour. There was no need for a door if no one ever entered or exited the room.
“How exactly do we get out?” he asked after fuming for a moment.
“Haven’t a clue,” the ensign replied, dropping down on a stack of lumpy white bags filled with dirty laundry.
“Are you kidding me?” Silver said, not bothering to mask his disbelief.
Bailey shrugged. “Hey, you’re the genius.”
“Thanks a lot. We’re supposed to be working together on this.”
“Hey! I got us in here. Your job is to get us out of here.” Bailey watched the doctor’s frustration build. “Oh, and Doc?”
“What?” Silver barked. He’d had just about enough of this.
“Preferably alive, if you don’t mind.”
“Smartass.”
“Yes, sir,” the ensign grinned.
Dr. Silver resumed his search.
It’s going to be a long day.
23
Marshal’s Office - Alpha 12
The Marshal’s Office was located in the largest areas of Mars’ Alpha 12 Colony.
One of the oldest colonies set up under the auspices of the UPA; Mars Alpha 12 was recently ranked as one of the most popular places to live in the galaxy. A stark contrast to the red and brown of the Martian landscape, the colony’s tall white towers reached far into the reddened sky. Reaching so high in fact, that some very nearly touched the protective dome covering the colony, keeping the oxygen created by the oxygen regenerators inside.
The first colonists had been forced to wear protective masks at all times to help them breathe. The colonists survived in this manner for five years before the oxygen replenishment device had been created. Several ice flows had been discovered beneath the planet’s surface. Once properly maintained, they were used to supply a small area with enough oxygen to support life. The device worked better than expected and colonies expanded greatly across the galaxy. That had been a great day for the citizens of the Alliance.
A great day indeed.
The marshal’s office had selected a small area outside of the city limits as its headquarters. This was mostly due to safety concerns. In the unlikely event an attack was launched against the marshals in retaliation for something, they had an advantage by being able to fight back without endangering civilian lives in the process. Scavengers had been known to attack law enforcement camps in the past. Often, these attacks were perpetrated on a whim, but they were always deadly. The Scavengers used such preemptive strikes as a reminder to the Alliance that they had not truly gone away.
One day they would be back.
In force.
Recently, their claims had gained some amount of validity.
The second reason for the marshal’s headquarter location was to allow for the marshal’s forces to have a dedicated space port, launching pad, and allowed them to restrict air space around the area. This was also beneficial in that it did not hold up traffic at the colonies lone space port facility in times of emergency.
Today that small consideration proved beneficial as nearly every ship under the command of the marshal’s forces had been commissioned to join a special operations fleet. Over the past two hours, several ships had blasted off to join up with a fleet of ships from the military forces at a staging area in Mars orbit.
While not a very large fleet, as far as fleets went, the ten ships trekking toward Space Lab in Earth’s orbit were formidable enough to handle almost any problem that might arise.
In addition, Alliance Military Command committed ten of their ships to the operation. Plus, the Ulysis was on its way to Earth under the command of Admiral James McKeen.
The brass was confident that, together, both groups could handle anything that came their way.
At least in theory. Moments before launch, they received an alert that an attack had been made against the Space Lab science station and the military vessel attempting to mount a rescue operation. The marshal’s orders were to take the fleet to Space Lab where they would join with the admiral’s ships, put a stop to the assault, apprehend the attackers is possible, and halt their fiendish plot, whatever it may be. As a security precaution, no one outside of the marshal’s command staff knew the full details of their mission, which had been classified top secret
by the Alliance Council. Speculation was high that something big was coming down the pike.
Rumors of a takeover of Earth by rebellious factions abounded. Some said the Scavengers were behind the plot. A few told stories of living robots with a vengeful grudge against humanity that had returned to wipe out their creators. Still others had commented that the United Planetary Alliance had launched the attack against Earth themselves and that the fleet was being dispatched to aid, not thwart, the takeover.
Rumors took many turns, the details continuously changing with each iteration. The truth remained that no one in the colony really had any clue as to what was happening. Most had little more than wild guesses and speculation, with no facts to support either. Many colonists were angry at the lack of information being given.
Most, however, were simply scared.
Scared by the prospect of another war, especially with the last one so fresh in their collective memories. The wounds were still fresh.
They were tired of the endless fighting.
They had every right to be.
A few minutes remained before the Bounty’s Pride was set to lift off from its berth.
There was just enough time for Natalie Vortex to make a quick personal call. The marshal had instituted a communications blackout immediately following the briefing, but being in charge of the communications for the marshal’s services has its perks. The fact that her dad was the chief marshal didn’t hurt either.
Natalie quickly typed her authorization code into the terminal, then waited impatiently for the signal to reach its destination.
She did not have to wait long.
“Hello?” a comforting voice answered. Not surprisingly, no picture accompanied the voice. Natalie expected as much.
“Hi, Mom,” she said. “It’s Nat. Turn the picture tube on.”
Within seconds the blank screen was replaced by the image of Samantha Vortex, Natalie’s mother. She smiled at the sight of her daughter.
Natalie groaned inwardly at her mother’s refusal to use the viewer to answer incoming calls. She preferred doing things the old fashioned way. Although sometimes such eccentricities were charming, mostly it just annoyed Natalie. Knowing a fruitless battle when she saw one, Natalie had given up all attempts to change the woman’s habits. I’d have better luck wrestling a sandworm naked.