by Ste Sharp
‘Yeah,’ John replied, ‘like seeing your own gravestone.’
‘Who were you next to?’ Samas asked and checked the neighbouring pods. ‘Isao and… oh.’
John rushed to Samas and read the panel: Samas Labashi. ‘It looks like we were neighbours,’ John said and recognised the look of shock and acceptance he had felt on Samas’ face.
‘Yes,’ Samas replied softly and moved to check his other neighbour.
‘Okay, I’ve got to find mine now!’ Crossley said with a tinge of annoyance and rushed off to check the remaining pods.
John walked over to help, casting a glance over his shoulder to remember where his pod was.
‘Wait!’ Samas shouted and John froze.
Samas was pointing to a new pod, which looked the same as the others, except that the name panel was green instead of yellow.
He was wide-eyed as he whispered, ‘Someone is still in this pod!’
*
Delta-Six scanned the long, grey spacecraft before him, dozens of circles and squares of varying colours flashing before his eyes as his systems analysed markings and materials. The Lutamek upgrades were kicking in, boosting his systems to scan in more detail and at twice the speed of their previous capacity. The only price he’d had to pay was giving them his remaining mini-sat and sharing any new information he gleaned.
He paced around a corner of the spaceship but didn’t expect to see much – these had been automated craft, so needed no driver or viewing plate, which would only have degraded the ship’s structural integrity. More red squares flashed before him, in a symmetrical pattern this time.
‘Ten-ten,’ he radioed across the frequency the Lutamek had selected, ‘looks like the engines were more powerful than we expected.’
‘Which means our calculated maximum acceleration and deceleration rates can be increased,’ Ten-ten replied.
‘So the journey time may have been shorter,’ Delta-Six said. ‘But still many years.’
A pause, then Ten-ten said, ‘We’ve received more data from the astrophysical analysis.’
A white diamond shape appeared on the left of Delta-Six’s view field and he registered it with a glance, allowing the data to upload. He sat down to concentrate on the three-dimensional map of the stars which appeared before him. He recognised star patterns as seen from their current location and focussed in on the highlighted stars. Pulsars and neutron stars. Numbers beside each point of light suggested their current age in relation to their known age as predicted from Earth, the Sorean world or Lutamek space. The projected ages were similar, which gave them a clear date, but it didn’t seem possible.
‘Are you sure these figures are correct?’ Delta-Six asked Ten-ten.
‘Affirmative. All data points have been rechecked multiple times.’
Delta-Six held back his initial response and flicked the star model away. ‘Then we need to get everyone together.’
*
Euryleia stretched her arms – all four of them – and changed her position as she sat and watched the rest of the army set up camp in preparation for another night outside the dome. They still had half a day left but, being one of the first to arrive, she’d picked a prime spot next to the wall of a spacecraft and had finished building her shelter with Lavalle before the last carts of supplies had rolled in.
Now, she took in the comings and goings of the humans, the cat-like Sorean and the huge, robotic Lutamek, who she hadn’t forgiven for blasting off her hand, even if it had activated her ability to regrow damaged limbs. Euryleia closed her eyes as images of another deadlier explosion came back to her. The blinding light and lasting imprint of flying silhouettes remained strong in her mind from when Ethan had self-destructed, taking the Brakari soldiers surrounding them, along with her original arms. She sighed and pushed the painful memory away. The arms had grown back quickly enough, just double this time.
She spotted Lavalle joining Nine-five, Jakan-tar and the two giant creatures Althorn had befriended. Her relationship with Lavalle had picked up from where they had left it after their quarrel, and Euryleia hadn’t mentioned Lavalle’s ‘Black Sword’ alter ego since. Although she hadn’t forgiven him, she accepted him for what he had been and could tell he’d been humbled. In the end, as she knew from the moment they’d first met, they’d been well suited in the final battle against the Brakari.
The group of leaders were still talking with Lavalle, and she didn’t want to wait to hear the information at second hand, so she joined them.
‘Ultimately, it doesn’t affect our current situation,’ Lavalle was saying as Euryleia approached the small gathering next to a makeshift table covered in paper. ‘We need provisions before we starve.’
‘No, we must find the Ascent that this one spoke of,’ the cavalry captain, Gal-qadan, replied in his harsh tones, with a nod toward Peronicus-Rax.
Euryleia looked at the one-eyed giant who stood a few paces back from the group. She felt unnerved by him but wasn’t sure if it was due to his silence or the weapons strung about his body like jewellery.
‘Our priority now,’ the Lutamek leader, Nine-five, spoke softly, ‘is to gain as much information as possible, whether it’s from the spacecraft, or the dome. Then we can fully assess our situation.’
Euryleia looked back at the immense grey–green shape of the dome looming over them. How could they get information from that?
‘In the meantime, we starve!’ Lavalle thumped the table with his fist. ‘We need water and food.’
Seeing Lavalle lose his temper made Euryleia cringe – she had to help him. She stepped forward.
‘We’re not going back into the dome,’ she said. ‘Whether it’s for information or for provisions – we can’t go back now.’
Eyes fell on her and, for a second, she felt the heat of their gaze. She returned each stare as she waited for a response.
‘This discussion–’ Gal-qadan started but was cut off by Lavalle.
‘Should be open, with everyone,’ he said, staring at the Mongol. ‘No one is planning on going back into the dome.’ Lavalle looked at her. ‘But there is another way to get the information we need.’
*
Samas peered through the glass shell at the dark shape of the human inside. Wires and tubes were leading out of the body at a variety of angles, and lights blinked on a panel to one side.
‘Is that a mask?’ John asked when he joined him.
‘Yes,’ Samas replied, ‘but it doesn’t seem as advanced as Li’s helmet.’
The visor was black, like the rest of the soldier’s suit, which showed no sign of electrical activity like Delta-Six or Li’s suits, but Samas knew he was hardly an expert on future technology.
‘Who is it?’ Crossley asked, bounding over. He crouched by the green nameplate and read it out loud. ‘Steve Smith? But…’ He peered into the pod and coughed a couple of times.
‘What are you looking for?’ John asked.
‘A shield,’ Crossley whispered back.
Samas held his tongue. This wasn’t the kind of soldier you would expect to be armed with a shield.
Crossley stopped and peered up. ‘Or was it Rogers?’ He shook his head and looked at Samas. ‘So what do we do to wake him up?’
‘I’ll find out,’ Samas said and tapped the plug in his ear, resulting in a crackling sound, as the Lutamek had explained. He just had to say the name of who he wanted to speak to and he would be in direct communication. ‘Ten-ten,’ he said.
‘Yes, Samas.’ The deep voice of the science officer sounded like it was speaking inside his head. If it hadn’t been for Mihran’s thought-cast system the device would have confused Samas but, if anything, this method was slower than Mihran’s. Samas looked to John and Crossley to see if they could hear it too, but they didn’t react.
‘We have a live human in the ship. Please advise how to resuscitate them.’
‘The systems showed no life signs,’ Ten-ten replied and almost sounded confused. ‘Our diagnostics suggest
the pods are deactivated when the ship docks at the dome cap, but I cannot access the feed externally. There must be a manual override.’ The Lutamek paused for a second, during which Samas guessed Ten-ten was accessing vast amounts of data from its huge brain. ‘Information from the crawler drone’s scans suggests the manual controls are below the identity plate.’
Samas ran his fingers across the smooth white surface of the pod where it tapered to merge with the floor. ‘Nothing here.’
‘Apply pressure a hand’s width directly below the identity plate,’ Ten-ten said.
Samas pushed, using his natural hand, felt the surface indent and, with a quiet pop, a fist-sized door opened to reveal a panel of lights and buttons.
‘Got it,’ Samas said and heard Crossley and John sigh.
‘The deactivation process should be simple,’ Ten-ten replied.
Easy for you to say, Samas thought as Crossley sidled up beside him.
‘There’re no markings,’ Crossley said, peering in, ‘but if I was a betting man, I’d say this,’ he pointed to a silver handle set in a black rectangle, ‘controls the temperature, and these buttons must be the release mechanisms.’
‘Yes,’ Samas said and nodded, knowing it was time to relinquish control. ‘Please start the revival process,’ he said, trying to maintain his authority.
‘I’d better see if there are any more,’ John said and walked off down the aisle with his gun-arm tapping against the pods.
The communicator in Samas’ ear beeped and Ten-ten said, ‘We are reconvening for briefing. Nine-five requests you join us.’
‘I’ll be there soon, don’t start without me,’ Samas replied, wondering what new news they had now. What could be more important than finding new soldiers? ‘The army are having another debrief but I need you two here,’ he told Crossley and John.
‘Right, don’t worry about us,’ Crossley replied. ‘I’ll have Steve unfrozen in double time!’
*
Euryleia gazed at the galactic map in awe, but tried to hide her amazement. The group’s leaders stood beside one of the spacecraft while a Lutamek projected the map. Euryleia didn’t understand everything but knew she was a part of this. She had been chosen to be part of what was happening here and it was huge!
Jakan-tar stepped forward and raised a paw to quieten the murmuring crowd. ‘We have decisions to make, none of which we will make lightly… and some new information which may help you decide when it comes to a vote.’
Nine-five gestured at the spinning cloud of stars. ‘We have left our home worlds behind, so any new information may seem irrelevant, but we share it all the same.’
Euryleia shifted her weight from foot to foot and crossed one pair of arms.
‘These spacecraft,’ Nine-five said and pointed at the metal hulk behind the leaders, ‘were designed for interstellar journeys. But even at the speeds they’re capable of, they should not have reached here in the time we now know them to have taken. Still, our calculations of the current year are certain, so it is undeniable that they did.’
‘What does that mean?’ Osayimwese called out.
‘It means our journey here was quicker than the laws of physics allow,’ Delta-Six replied.
‘And?’ Osayimwese asked.
‘And our current date is earlier than we thought possible,’ Samas said.
‘Pah!’ A Chinese soldier shouted and flicked his hand. ‘What has passed has passed.’
‘But if we want to move on, we must know what we are letting go of,’ Jakan-tar replied. ‘Over here is the ship which brought the Sorean,’ the cat-like warrior pointed to a ship, partially hidden by the crowd. ‘Over there is the Brakari ship and here,’ Jakan-tar nodded at a ship whose entrance was visibly open, ‘is the humans’ vessel.’
Euryleia saw movement in the doorway.
‘There are spacecraft like this beside every visible dome,’ Nine-five said.
Delta-Six said, ‘Although we don’t know how we cheated the speed of light – some kind of warping of space itself maybe by way of the anomalies Ten-ten mentioned, we don’t know – we have enough information from our star-aging analysis to show we are approximately in the Earth year AD 3000.’
Mumbles ran around the group but for many, like Euryleia, the number didn’t mean anything. Being frozen for 1,000 or 2,000 years made no difference.
‘That’s four acre, nine-ways,’ Jakan-tar explained to the Sorean contingent.
‘As we said before,’ Nine-five said, ‘this date makes little difference to our current situation, which we need to focus on now. Starting with resources.’
Lavalle stepped forward and Euryleia raised her chin and gave him a smile when their eyes met.
‘Our supplies are low but we have been fortunate.’ Lavalle looked at the spacecraft with the open doorway. ‘Ten-ten has discovered the location of nutrition and water stores within each ship.’ He raised a container holding a light-brown liquid, which he swilled around. ‘I am told this contains all the goodness we need to survive.’ He took a sip and Euryleia noticed how his jaw clenched. ‘Not the best taste, but—’
‘It will give us everything we need,’ Delta-Six cut in. ‘Vitamins, minerals, proteins and so on.’
Jakan-tar said, ‘A similar liquid has been found in our ship, and the Lutamek will extract what they need when they find their vessel.’
‘And the same will happen for Peronicus-Rax and Das and Pod,’ Lavalle said, ‘once their ships have been located.’
‘But we must leave now!’ Gal-qadan shouted from the back of the crowd, seated on his tocka and surrounded by his horsemen.
‘Please listen.’ Nine-five stepped forward. ‘We need time to locate the vessels and extract what we need, during which time we propose a mission to the dome cap.’
‘As I said before,’ Euryleia insisted, ‘many of us refuse to go back into the dome.’
A bang from the direction of the open spaceship made half of the crowd turn, but Euryleia was focussed on Nine-five.
‘We propose a small party will ascend the dome from the outside,’ the Lutamek leader said.
‘How?’ Euryleia asked, feeling her anger rise.
They should not be jeopardising their freedom, she thought, as an orange Lutamek strolled into view and deposited one of the large metal eggs the Lutamek had carried out of the dome.
‘This is–’ Nine-five started but was cut off by a disturbance at the humans’ spaceship.
A figure clad in black and wearing a dark helmet was stumbling away from the doorway, followed by Crossley and John Greene.
‘Steve, come back!’ Crossley was shouting. ‘We’ll explain everything.’
‘Steve Smith!’ John cried out. ‘Please stop!’
But the new soldier was clearly panicked and ran towards the gathering without looking up.
‘It’s the soldier they found in stasis,’ Samas said and stepped forward to greet the newcomer with his palms held out. ‘Please, take your time and stay calm.’
The new soldier paused for a second, looked Samas up and down and scanned the crowd around Euryleia, tilting its head when it saw a Sorean. Its gaze moved up to the nearest Lutamek and it stepped back, turning to see Crossley and John closing in from behind.
‘Please,’ Samas said, ‘we can explain everything…’
It was too much. The soldier let out a cry, muffled by its helmet, and sprinted away between the spacecraft, out of sight.
Samas turned to the crowd. ‘We have other news – as you can tell.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘A human soldier was found in stasis on our starship and,’ he gestured at Crossley and John, who now stood beside him, ‘thanks to these two, has been successfully restored back to life.’
‘If you can call that successful,’ Euryleia heard Crossley say.
John looked anxious, she noticed, as he was almost hopping from foot to foot.
‘So, to add to what Nine-five said, we also need time to search every ship for survivors.’
The
crowd were mumbling around Euryleia again until Delta-Six shushed them.
‘This is in our vital interest,’ Samas continued. ‘We may find new allies and, maybe… new weapons. Who knows what new tests we will face out in the desert?’
‘I agree,’ Nine-five said. ‘We must be prepared.’
John tapped Samas on the shoulder and, by the look on his face, whispered something important.
‘What is it, Samas?’ Euryleia asked.
Samas guided John forward and said, ‘I’ll let John tell you.’
‘It’s… well,’ John stuttered, still not keen on speaking in public, Euryleia thought. ‘While we were in the ship I checked the other pods and,’ he looked around from person to person, avoiding eye contact, ‘there are more frozen soldiers.’
Chapter 4
Gal-qadan was bored and had been since the end of the battle inside the dome. He was fed up with listening to the meetings, like the one going on now, annoyed with following orders and tired of milling around these old metal ships. The tocka seemed jaded too. They wanted to run free as much as he did, he could sense it. There was so much out there to explore and yet the leaders kept the army close to the dome like children clinging to their mother’s skirt.
He looked at the leaders – he was one of them yet he had no real power. He had the tocka and those men loyal to him, but he no longer had the powerful weapon, having handed it over to Peronicus-Rax. He felt further away from taking control of the army than ever. And what an army! The Sorean he could take or leave, but some of the humans, like Mata, were worth a hundred horsemen in battle, and the Lutamek were worth a thousand each. Since leaving the dome, Gal-qadan had daydreamed of riding into battle alongside those metal behemoths and commanding where to strike with their devastating force.
The discussions had gone on long enough, Gal-qadan thought. He stroked his metal-strong skin. Strange how it felt normal yet it could repel blades and arrows. He cast a glance down at the foot soldiers around him and spotted Isao. The samurai had once held his fascination as the Lutamek did now, but Isao was no longer a ghostly power. In fact, he seemed no different to any other swordsman: fast and technically efficient but with no signs of any useful mutation. Plus, Isao avoided Gal-qadan and sent furtive glances his way, suggesting he knew more than he should, which put him high on Gal-qadan’s watch list.