by Allen White
"Move!" His eyes locked on the blood that was oozing from her stomach. She grabbed for his arm, and pulled him with her toward the launch pad. "It's just a flesh wound!"
"You have any idea what a stomach wound can do to a person?" he asked. "If you don't get treatment fast you'll die."
"I'm choosing to ignore it, you should too."
They sprinted the rest of the way; she held her gun taut with her left hand, and kept constant pressure on her stomach with the other. She stopped, then limped forward and raised her gun, shaking all the while. The pain was almost unbearable, but she’d been trained to handle it. She let three shots off in the release switches.
Adrenaline, Reina thought. It turns you into a monster.
The hexagonal door hissed open, she grabbed him and threw them both through the opening. Five goons scurried up the ramp, she aimed her gun, shot the first one right through the head, then rolled back to her feet and slapped her hand down on the control panel, closing the door.
"I have... have to lock them out." Her hands bounced off the screen, locking the terminal and, hopefully, the door, as well.
"Your stomach..." James said.
"I'll manage," she said. “There’s a first aid station on the shuttle. That’ll hold me for a little while.”
She turned around and looked up at the shuttle.
"Get on," she said.
*****
“We’re almost there,” James said.
He unbuckled himself and allowed his body to float back toward Reina. She was lying on a medical stretcher, her eyes halfway open.
“Good,” she said.
“How you feeling?” James asked.
“Probably ten kinds of horrible.” She smiled. “But that’s what morphine is for.”
He eyed the wound, and the temporary nano seal that had been applied to keep her from bleeding out.
“The machine says there’s still a lot of internal bleeding,” James said. “You won’t last long.”
“I’ll last as long as we need me to.”
James frowned, but nodded and turned back to the shuttle controls. The research station was just a few hundred meters away, and what a sight it was to see. It was a large ring, a tube, really, with a large tower like structure in the center. As they got closer, he could see little details, like windows, and lights, as well as individual tubes that stretched out to the outer ring. To think, he was the first in his family to venture into space.
Then he saw it, just beyond the research station. Hanging there, almost completely cloaked in darkness. It wasn’t much larger than the research station. He could see a small crescent of light on its golden surface. Finally, he could see the Harbinger Beacon.
The shuttle began the procedures to auto-dock.
“Shuttle Helion 11678,” came a voice from the console.
“This is a restricted facility. Please identify yourself.”
James muted the microphone and turned to Reina. “What do we do?”
Reina struggled to sit up, and limped her way over to him.
“We’ll have to upload a virus into their system,” she said. “Force the computer to think there’s an airlock breach.”
“We have a virus?”
“I had to do something while I was being evaluated down
on Earth.”
“How long will that take?”
“Long enough. Let me talk to them while I make the upload… I have a bone to pick with those idiots anyway.”
James un-muted the microphone.
“Shuttle Helion 11678,” the voice said. “Please reply.”
“I hear you,” she said. “This is Doctor Meredith Reina, get Professors Braun and Erickson on this channel immediately.”
“Doctor Reina, you no longer have clearance to board this research station. Please turn back immediately.”
She sighed, gripping her side. “No, you listen. I’m getting back aboard that station whether you like it or not. We’ve brought with us a weapon powerful enough to pierce the hull, and we’ll use it if you don’t let us dock.”
“Reina?” Erickson’s voice echoed over the comm. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What I have to,” she said. “You better tell them I’ll do it.”
“You don’t have to do this, we’re close to unlocking the secrets of the probe!”
“You still don’t get it, do you? I already know its secret, but you wouldn’t listen to me. You ignored my experience, because it insulted your own preconceived beliefs.”
She looked down at her data console, the virus’ upload progress was at eighty-nine percent.
“If you do this,” Erickson said. “You’ll rot in a prison cell for the rest of your life! What will your family think of you then?”
“Where’s Braun, Erickson?”
“What?”
“What happened to him, why isn’t he standing there with you?”
Erickson grew quiet.
“I’ll bet he interfaced with the Harbinger Beacon, just like me.”
“That’s above your clearance level…”
“And I’ll bet he’s been bedridden ever since, just like I was.”
“What’s your point, Meredith?”
The progress bar reached one-hundred percent.
“You better carry him to an escape pod, Erickson. I’m coming aboard.”
“What… what’s happening?” Alarms began to sound over the intercom, voices screaming and yelling unintelligibly in the background. “You crazy bitch!”
“Yes, I’m crazy.” She leaned forward. “I just blew a hole in your hull. You better escape with the rest of the crew.”
“We’ll seal the breach and alert Capcom to what you’re doing! You’ll be blown out of orbit!”
“Sure, you could try to seal it, but not before I blow another hole in your hull. As for Capcom, I think they’re a bit preoccupied with a terrorist attack.”
The communications channel fell silent. Reina leaned back in her chair, groaning.
“You think they bought it?” James asked.
“We’ll find out soon,” she said.
Sure enough, within ten minutes, the escape pods began to jettison from the research station. James watched, as almost twenty spherical pods silhouetted against the brightness of Earth below. Reina’s plan worked, and she couldn’t help but be amused with herself.
“This is it,” she said, trying not to cough. “Let’s dock.”
James nodded. “There’s no one aboard now, though. How are we gonna’ accomplish that?
“Already taken care of. Just initiate the automatic docking system.”
Minutes later, they were aboard the research station. James helped Reina into the airlock.
“I’m okay,” she said.
“You don’t look it,” James said.
She glared at him. “You’re wasting time. You need to go to the airlock I mentioned on the way up here, and get suited up.”
“Are you sure? We could take a detour to the sickbay and see if they have any medical supplies for you...”
“No!” She pushed him away. “Get going before I shoot you!”
James watched, as she slumped against the wall, and fought against the artificial gravity. “Okay.”
He backed away, and disappeared down the curved hallway.
She stood there for a few minutes, coughing up blood. After she felt semi stable, she reached for her tablet and accessed the research station’s remote control system. With a few swipes of her finger, she deactivated the artificial gravity, and pushed off the wall, allowing herself to float down the hallway to her destination.
James struggled to remain in the moment, hanging above the Earth, with nothing but several layers of pressurized Kevlar and armor to protect him from the vacuum of space. The Harbinger Beacon hummed, pulsed, and sent a wave of blue light out at him; the images washed over his eyes; tragic, familiar images.
"What are you trying to show me?"
"What's it doin
g?" Dr. Reina asked over his suit's intercom. "Things... things are starting to fade over here."
"I'm not sure..." he said. "Hang in there, Doctor."
The last half an hour was a blur to him. Reina would die from her wounds soon if she didn't get medical attention, and considering the rest of the crew of the research station were now drifting toward the Earth's atmosphere in escape pods, she'd be lucky to last through the hour.
"Answer me!" he said.
The Harbinger Beacon pulsed again, its glow shifting from blue, to a brilliant red.
His head seemed to swell, and he became dizzy. He keeled into himself, floating weightless as the colors inside the Harbinger swirled into a messy vortex.
"Yes, that's it, that's the frequency of thought!"
*****
He woke to find himself on the surface of a dreamlike Earth.
"I hope you didn't experience any discomfort during that transition." A voice echoed around the walls of the dream world. "I couldn't answer without direct contact with your mind."
"Then you'll answer my questions?" He stood up and looked to the clouded blue sky, from which the booming voice seemed to be coming.
"I will."
The sky rumbled and thundered. The clouds swirled together, and took the shape of the Harbinger Beacon. Once complete, it floated down to his level, and faced him.
"Friend James," it said. "I have been interested in you since my arrival. Your consciousness is on the edge of enlightenment."
"Careful how you follow that up," James said. "I've had all the enlightenment that I can stand for one day."
"Yes, the Cult of the Old-ones has been impeding my efforts. They are dangerous to the completion of my mission."
"Which is?"
The ground quaked, split into three separate sides, like slices on a 3D pie-chart. Each showed a facet of what he'd seen in his dreams, Earth's destruction by asteroid, by water, and by interstellar war. "They twist history's truth toward the aims of our slave-masters, and creators. The majority of mankind has been wiped from the Earth three times before, but it's not because of some natural cycle, as the Cult of the Old-Ones want you to believe."
"The old gods have been engineering it?"
"Yes." The slice of land which contained the asteroid impact dream widened to encompass James' view. "They came to our world when we were very young, before Earth's consciousness could allow us down a less primitive path."
James watched a group of prehistoric men walk with a herd of Mammoths, several feet from his position. They were running and playing with their children, and interacting with the animals as if they were their pets...
"They look so happy like that," James said. "Why did the aliens change us?"
"This we could never figure out," it said. "In all three ages, the creators never thought us worthy of an explanation for their motives. We were the lowest of the low to them. Slave fodder."
The dream progressed, and the harbinger showed the first aliens descending from the heavens and interacting with humans, sizing them up.
"They brought several key humans up with them, for research and experimentation."
The land transformed into the inside of an alien ship. The chamber appeared very dark, lit only by small organic lights. The stars and the sphere of Earth loomed beyond the ship’s windows. James watched the rotating 3D image; featuring a small grey creature presenting two naked human beings to a council of similar beings.
"After many failures, they created something more in line with our present form."
"So, what happened to the others?" James asked.
The room returned to prehistoric Earth. James' eyes lit up when he saw the asteroid explode in the atmosphere. "They were exterminated, so that the new humanity could reign."
The slice containing the world of the second dream expanded, stretching a wall of water all around the horizon.
"What was wrong with us now?" James asked.
"A few of you have already begun to answer that," it said. "As your religious and ancient history have hinted. The creators thought humanity's genetics had grown impure, and feared that their experiment had failed. They found a few who had not fallen prey to the temptations of inbreeding... and drowned the world to cleanse humanity of the remaining impurities.
"The age that followed -" the dream world shifted again, and transformed into the war torn landscape that he had seen in the third dream - "was significantly shorter than the previous two periods. Humanity began to grow more distrustful of those that ruled over them as gods, and rebelled. This is the age that I came from, the most advanced age of man." The land shifted through many battles, where human and alien ships battled all through the heavens. "We fought hard, and even felt as though we could be victorious..." The dream world transformed into a very different scene. The tables were turned on humanity; ships blanketed the sky, like a plague of locusts, marching humans around in chains and shackles. "They slowly wore us down, until all of our resistance parties had been eradicated."
The nightmares faded, and the dream world took on a more passive state.
"So, how does this tie into our age?" James asked.
"The creators felt that humanity's rebellion was due to their physical presence in our culture, and upbringing. They felt that they should try to erase themselves from our memory, and control us in the background instead."
"Organized Religion?"
"Correct. Without the physical presence of an actual god, humanity lacked a physical entity to question, and so our rebellion against the gods would result with war amongst ourselves."
"Okay..." He scratched his head. "Mission accomplished, right?"
"No. Your age is grabbing at dangerous technology that it does not fully comprehend, and has nowhere to focus its destructive nature."
"All right, but what does this have to do with you? Why are you here?"
"I was created toward the end of the third age, before humanity's memories of the ancient world were purged. I was supposed to serve as a warning, a trump card that would serve to wake you up so that you might finish our fight against the creators.
"I was built to transmit the memories and theories of our age to those that had the correct level of consciousness, and were ready."
James closed his eyes, and crossed his arms. "People like... me?"
"Correct. You feel disconnected from the world that has raised you. This is because subconsciously you have sensed that it's only a facade. Your uneasiness is a result of that inner knowledge."
"What do we do about it?"
"Unfortunately, your people have already begun to fear me. The creators have targeted me by creating storms on the surface that your government blames on my presence here. Either they, or your people, will destroy me before long. If that happens, the fourth age is doomed."
"So, that's it?" His fists clenched. "We're just going to go back to square one? Isn't there a way to stop them?"
"It is unlikely that a fifth age of man will even begin. If the creators feel that they have wasted their time on humanity a third time... then they will likely just exterminate you."
"And your presence will help stop that?"
"Perhaps." The machine paused, a humming sound vibrated through the air as it considered a plan. "If you could stop your military, and the creators, from destroying me, then my message could continue to broadcast through the minds of the willing. Though, it would not guarantee victory."
James smiled, and looked up to the harbinger's golden face. "How will we know if we don't try?"
"Save me, Friend James, so that I might save your age from the horrors that befell mine."
*****
The harbinger's hull rocked, shocking James from the dreamlike world. Sparks flew through the air, complex lights dimmed, and his heart rate accelerated.
"What's happening?" James asked.
This time, the harbinger didn't answer. The circular door that had let him into the central core, into the transmitter, opened to the cold
vacuum of space. James knew what this meant, but he wasn't ready to flee.
"No, I'm not going anywhere," James said. "I can still save you, give me a way to pilot you down to the surface!"
Another impact. James slammed into a console, breaking everything his body touched. The lights continued to dim. Blood had splattered inside his helmet, and all he could see in one eye was a blur. The core of the Harbinger Beacon struggled to surge. Its energy was failing, and with it their hope was dying. He kicked off the metal wall, and clawed for the core. He had to save it, he couldn't let it end this way!
The core gave one final surge, and a crimson shockwave spread out and slammed into James' chest, forcing him out and into space…
His consciousness returned. He was drifting farther and farther from the harbinger's fire-bombarded surface. Its golden gleam was now twisted and wrong. The Earth's curvature framed the scene, its peaceful blue surface was almost blasphemy in context to what was happening. Two missiles slammed into the harbinger's golden surface, and James' eyes traced their trajectory to a small military fighter craft, hovering in geosynchronous orbit next to the research station.
"Reina..." he said. "Are you there?"
She didn't answer.
Then it's just me, he thought. It's over.
With a last, desperate effort, he tried the thrusters to get back to the Harbinger Probe. It exploded, sending a colorful shockwave of debris and thought charged energy toward himself and the Earth below.
As the shockwave of energy passed through him, the words echoed in his mind; "I'm sorry, Friend James."
The shrapnel passed around him, several pieces colliding with his air tubes, rupturing them. He sighed.
"I'm sorry too, my friend," he said. "We failed you..."
It wouldn't be long now. He'd die once his air ran out. At least he had the Earth to look at.
Then his body began to spin out of control, flipping faster and faster away from the Earth. Something massive passed him by. His heart raced. He had to know what it was. He clawed for the controls to his air-jets and, in his struggle, he caught a glimpse of a dark shape approaching the Earth. He grabbed the control stick and ignited the jets, stabilizing himself and cutting his air supply down past the point of no return.