Proxima

by Chase Hildenbrand

  Hundreds of armed guards patrolled the camps. Several of which oversaw the gate door they were ushered through joining the throng of others who appeared to be in terrible condition. Many sat on the ground, others seemed to be doing some kind of work to the exterior of the ship. All appeared disheveled and hopeless.

  The Linwood was a giant, standing over them several stories tall and a mile long. It was amazing they were able to successfully navigate these ships down to the surface and equally lucky the plains were flat enough to land them on.

  “What now?” Blaire asked.

  The rest of their cellmates dispersed amongst the crowd, no doubt seeking friends or family. Ann and Blaire had no one.

  “Maybe someone around here knows what’s going on,” Ann said.

  They walked along the length of The Linwood until they found a group of men carrying boxes inside the ship on a loading ramp attached to one of the docking bays.

  “Excuse me!” Ann shouted, getting the rear man’s attention before he got too high on the ramp. He sat the box down by his feet and wiped his brow then spoke to them in Russian. Of course, the ship was constructed in Russia so the odds were most in this camp spoke Russian.

  “Never mind,” Blaire said, then to Ann: “You don’t speak Russian, right?”

  “No.”

  “Alright then. Let’s keep looking.”

  They made their way further along the ship, stopping workers as they went until at last they found one who spoke English.

  “What are you all working on? We’ve been locked inside that mountain for weeks,” Ann said.

  The woman they spoke to was young, early twenties. “Exchanging parts mostly.”

  “Why?” Blaire asked.

  She shrugged in response. “If I had to guess, we’re retrofitting the ship to fit their needs.”

  “The Proximians?”

  “Sure, if that’s what you want to call them. They supply us with vague written instructions and equipment and we do all the hard work.”

  “What parts of the ship are you making changes to?” Ann asked.

  “I’ve been working on the engines. Changing out our EmDrive for whatever the fuck they’re making us build.”

  “Why the hell would they not want the EmDrive?” Blaire asked.

  “I don’t know. But they’ve killed several of us for not going by their instructions. They send in their own every few hours to inspect our work. I better get back to it before I’m next. Good luck.”

  “Thanks for your help,” Ann said.

  The young Russian woman grabbed her box of supplies and went up a ramp into the ship.

  “I guess that’s why so many are sitting around and only a handful are working. Not many people have the knowhow to make changes to the ship. But why are they wanting it changed?” Blaire asked.

  “They want to leave,” Ann said, the answer coming to her out of nowhere.

  “Leave the planet?”

  “Of course. Why else would they be going through this? Think about it. Their ancestors long ago observed us as we constructed our fleet. They probably intercepted enough information to know the general capabilities and schematics of our ships, but maybe not enough to do all the work themselves. They’re forcing us to work on our own ships to apply their own designs while keeping everyone else alive to use as leverage. When we’re done, they’ll take our ships and leave.”

  “And do what with us?”

  “They’ll either kill us or leave us behind. But without our supplies on board and Inizio destroyed, our fate may end up the same.”

  “Obviously they’re intelligent and advanced. Which begs the question...” Blaire trailed off allowing Ann to reach the same conclusion.

  “Why didn’t they just build ships themselves? They had a thousand years notice that we were coming. We built our fleet in only a few years, why couldn’t they?”

  “Bingo. We’re missing something.”

  “I know. But until we come upon the missing piece, I’m afraid we have no choice but to cooperate.”

  Chapter 26

  DYRAN’S SHIP SETTLED into orbit around Mars. Their pickup mission at Spring Haven went off without a hitch a week prior. All their dropships deployed at once from orbit and brought back three hundred and twenty three fighters in only twenty minutes. The local authorities were too few and not quick enough to catch them. Dyran’s dropships were climbing the upper atmosphere before they even realized an illegal landing had taken place.

  Phase two of the plan was much riskier.

  To Liam’s discordance, their leadership group consisting of himself, Percy, Crouch, Rednour, Zale, and Dyran voted in majority to not risk bringing the Z48s up, under reasoning that Dyran’s dropships would suffice. They would only attempt to extricate the twenty Z56s out of lockup and fly them to Dyran’s ship. Once everyone was on board, he would immediately activate the wormhole drive transporting them to Proxima.

  Liam, Debra, and eighteen pilots waited to depart on a dropship to take them to the impound inside the atmo-dome of Pearl City. Zale also rode along because the entire plan rested on her credentials gaining them access.

  “Standby for ship release,” came the disembodied voice of Dyran’s translator over the speaker.

  The dropship was attached to the outside of the vessel by a detachable airlock mechanism. Once released, the airlock would detach and the ship would be free to move around in space. It would take only minutes to navigate into the atmo-dome according to the dropship’s pilot. The EPSD impound was on the outskirts near the glass edge away from much of the city’s population.

  “Release.”

  The dropship rocked back and forth slightly as they were detached from Dyran’s corporate vessel. Liam noticed Zale’s unsteady reaction. “You alright over there, Zale?”

  “I’ve never left a ship like that before—direct airlock disconnection.”

  “I used to jump out of the back of airplanes.”

  Her eyes widened and she shook her head back and forth. “Hell no.”

  Liam shrugged and closed his eyes for the remainder of the journey. To the pilot’s credit they were through the atmo-dome with no problem and came to a landing only seven minutes after airlock release.

  “You’re up, Zale,” Liam said. He stood to see her out and offered some last words of encouragement. Quietly so the others couldn’t hear, he said, “I know you feel you’re betraying your people. I get it.”

  “It’s a small betrayal. I’ll get a slap on the wrist, but hopefully no more than that.”

  “You’re helping save so many lives.”

  Zale nodded, knowing he was right. Her potential career sacrifice was nothing compared to the lives of a hundred thousand people. “Let’s get this done,” she said.

  “See you in a minute.”

  She exited through a door behind the cockpit and found herself standing in the landing zone in front of the EPSD impound. A one story building composed the few offices at the location and behind it was the impound lot surrounded by an electric fence twenty feet high. Behind the lot was the bottom of the atmo-dome. Two feet of thick glass was the only thing separating Pearl City from the terrible atmosphere of Mars.

  Inside the impound office she flashed her credentials to the man in the front and scanned her pupils in the iris identifier.

  “What can I do for you, Mrs. Alday?”

  “I was on the EPSD vessel that brought in the crew and passengers of that rogue STS ship last month. I need to go over the weapons we brought in. Make sure all are accounted for. My supervisor is worried we may have missed some and the last thing he wants is weapons like those on the street. I told him I’d check today.”

  “I can assure they’re all here, but you’re more than welcome to have a look. Let me pull up the log.”

  A moment later he handed her his tablet with a detailed record of every weapon confiscated from The Hawking.

  “Thank you. I won’t be long.”

  Approximately ten to fifteen
officers usually staffed the building at any given time according to the logs she researched on the way here. A quick tally as she walked through the building put the number at thirteen today. Zale hoped that wouldn’t be an unlucky omen.

  On her way to the weapons she glanced outside and saw the Z56s parked in two rows with the Z48s bordering the back. She couldn’t stop to count, but she estimated all twenty were present. At the end of the hallway to the rear of the building was the makeshift weapons locker. They had to clear out some old stuff to make room for all the confiscated weapons. In the old days weapons like these would have been stored in police headquarters in evidence lockers. But there was no such place like that in Pearl City. The crime rate was next to nil and there hadn’t been weapons in the city since shortly after they were outlawed in 2617. So they brought the weapons here and allocated them to the back room of the impound building while the PAG debated about what to do with them.

  Zale checked the log the attendant gave her for the weapon Liam told her to grab called a sonic pistol. According to him it would fire a non-lethal sonic pulse that temporarily rendered the person on the other end unconscious, but the aim had to be perfect—right at the victim’s ears. There should be ten confiscated from The Hawking in a box labeled ‘Non-Lethals’. She found the box in the back and grabbed three of the guns and tucked them behind her jacket.

  Next, she began loading the arsenal of PL-6’s onto a nearby cart. This wasn’t part of the original plan, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up. The plasma rifles were quite impressive and she wondered what it would’ve been like to be an officer in the more violent past and firing weapons like these. She imagined it would make the weapon’s user feel empowered. The only weapon she carried was a Taser and she’d never had a reason to use it.

  After waiting an appropriate amount of time, she left the cart of PL-6 rifles behind the closed door and bid goodbye in a friendly manner to the attendant at the front desk as she handed him back his electronic log. She made it out without arousing suspicion and breathed a sigh of relief as she walked back to the dropship.

  “Got ‘em?” Liam asked as she reentered the craft.

  “Yes, I have three.” She handed one each to Liam and Debra and kept the third for herself.

  “Are you ready for this?” Debra asked.

  “No. But it’s now or never. I managed to load your plasma rifles into a cart. So instead of you all grabbing as many as you can, I can roll the entire lot of them out here once we clear the way.”

  “That’s fantastic, Zale!” Liam said.

  “It’s nothing. So, how do you work this thing?” she asked, holding her sonic pistol.

  Liam showed her how the gun worked and how to properly aim. He thought it was curious how security officers that patrolled an entire solar system had no idea how to fire a gun. Each sonic pistol fired ten shots before needing a recharge, which took one minute. Thirty shots to subdue thirteen people. Liam hoped that after the first couple were knocked out the others would surrender without a fight. They probably never participated in a real conflict before so he liked his chances.

  “You’re ready,” Liam said to a nervous Zale.

  “Pilots, wait for our signal then be ready to move. We have to assume they’ll be calling for reinforcements,” Debra said. Then to the pilot of the dropship she added, “You know your role, right?”

  The pilot nodded an affirmation and wished them luck.

  “Let’s go,” Zale said.

  She led the way followed by Liam then Debra. The sonic pistol gripped firmly in her right hand. She pushed open the door into the front lobby.

  “Back already?” the attendant asked. His eyes went from her face down to her arm and landed on the pistol in her hand. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Liam stormed in behind her and aimed his gun at the man. “Don’t move,” he said. “Hands where we can see them.”

  The attendant, not of a time accustomed to holdups with guns, raised his eyebrows in confusion.

  “Who are you?” he asked Liam as Debra joined them with her gun raised.

  “There’s things in here we need. You’re going to let us have them. Put up a fight and we take you down.”

  Realization of his situation began dawning on his face. The attendant knew there was an emergency button around here somewhere. He was shown its location on his first day, but hadn’t thought about it since. If he could press it, it would automatically trigger a distress signal to the EPSD headquarters six miles away.

  Where was it?

  Oh, yes. He remembered. It was underneath the counter behind the mini-fridge he installed two years ago.

  Great.

  He dropped to the ground, grabbed his mini-fridge and tried pulling it out of the way, but it was heavy and he was old and slower than he used to be. The younger man with the gun jumped the counter and was on him in seconds throwing him back and firing his weapon. An unbearable ringing noise threatened to burst his ear drums and the last thing he remembered seeing was the man mouthing ‘Sorry’.

  “Did he push it?” Debra asked.

  “No.”

  “Hey! Who are you?” a voice shouted from down the hallway in front of a back office. Roused by the commotion, others left their offices as well and within seconds they were faced with the remaining twelve who filled the wide hallway they needed to get out of the building and into the impound lot. The officer closest to them took out her Taser.

  “Please, we don’t want to fight. There are things we need and we’ll be out of here,” Zale said.

  “What are you doing, Alday? Why are you helping these people?” one of the officers asked.

  “Because no one else will. I’m sorry.”

  The officer in the front with the activated Taser charged at Zale who fired her sonic pistol at her head. The officer stopped in her tracks putting her hands to ears, but stayed upright.

  “The hell?” The officer shook it off and ran again at Zale tackling her to the ground. Zale gripped the officer’s arm that held the Taser and pushed it away from her.

  Meanwhile, the officers behind the one that charged Zale took out their Tasers and eyed Liam and Debra.

  “Don’t miss,” Liam said to Debra. He fired his pistol into the hallway knocking the first man out with one shot. Debra fired hers and the second one went down landing on top the first.

  Catching on, the others in the hallway spread out and ran at them while moving their bodies unpredictably to make it harder for Liam and Debra to aim.

  Liam wasn’t fazed by their evasiveness and dropped another two before they reached them. When they were too close he stopped firing the pistol and used his fist instead, slamming a cross into an officer right before his Taser reached him and knocking the man back into another of his comrades. To Liam’s right he heard Debra scream along with the electric buzz of a Taser. Liam turned in their direction and fired his sonic pistol inches away from the Taser-wielding officer.

  On the floor, Zale wrestled with the officer that tackled her moments earlier. She managed to roll them over and climb on top, grab the officer’s wrist of the hand holding the Taser, and slam the arm down to the ground knocking the weapon out of her hand. With the other arm, the officer on the floor punched Zale’s jaw sending her reeling.

  Debra’s body convulsed after being shocked. She tried to aim her pistol, but her arm was too unsteady. She resolved herself to fire wildly when she saw a woman at the rear of the crowd had taken out her phone and was speaking with someone—presumably the ESPD headquarters. She fired in her direction, but her aim wasn’t true and she hit no one.

  “Liam, she’s on the phone!”

  “Stay here!”

  Liam shot at two more while dodging their advances. He jumped over their falling bodies on his way to reach the woman on the phone.

  Zale got to her feet as the other woman found her Taser. The officer was about to strike, but Zale stepped out of the way just in time, locked the woman’s arm with her own, th
en fired her sonic pistol at the woman’s ear. She fell instantly.

  It was now up to Zale and Debra to face the remaining three officers in the lobby. They each raised their pistols taking aim; Debra’s arm still shook. The officers made one final attempt to charge the two women. Zale and Debra fired rapidly in sweeping motions bringing them down, the last only inches away.

  Liam reached the woman on the phone and knocked it out of her hands. She flinched as he pinned her to the wall.

  “They’re on the way. You aren’t making it out of here.”

  He stepped back and fired his pistol, dropping the woman to the floor.

  “We have to go!” he shouted.

  “Straight back that hallway and to the right is the backdoor. I’ll grab the gun cart and signal the pilots on my way out. Good luck,” Zale said.

  Debra ran to Liam while Zale went to the weapons locker. They split up at the backdoor. Zale grabbed the cart and rolled it between the fallen bodies and out the front, signaling the pilots it was safe to come inside. She passed them on her way to the dropship and boarded as the last one exited. The dropship pilot assisted in helping her load the cart and as soon as they were on board, the dropship took off from the ground flying in the opposite direction.

  Liam and Debra were climbing into their respective cockpits when the rest of the pilots burst out of the office’s backdoor. Liam estimated they had two to three minutes before trouble. The pilots found their own Z56 and climbed into the respective cockpits. The engines roared to life beneath their seats and seconds later they hovered in mid-air.

  “Radio check,” Liam said.

  One by one the pilots signified they were ready to go.

  “I got lead,” Debra said.

  Her craft rose higher than the rest and accelerated out of the impound lot. Liam let the other pilots follow and he took the rear.

  “Company!” Debra said.

  A quarter of a mile away, six EPSD vehicles flew their direction flashing bright blue lights.