by Ste Sharp
Delta-Six pressed a few buttons and changed the images on the screen before he replied. ‘You remember that shark in the dome?’
‘Who could forget it?’ Crossley said.
‘Well it looks like the ship brought us here with extra cargo.’ He pointed up through the window. ‘The level we arrived on is currently full of the most dangerous creatures from this species’ home planet.’
John frowned. ‘But how did they keep a shark up there without any water?’
‘And the giant eagle,’ Osayimwese added.
Rar-kin cleared its throat and said, ‘I believe they were adapted to this new environment.’
‘That’s some adaptation!’ Crossley said. ‘How on Earth did they make a fish breath air?’
‘It appears the systems activate genes within each creature’s DNA,’ Delta-Six replied.
‘So they can fly through the air?’ Osayimwese asked.
Delta-Six shrugged. ‘Something must have pushed them beyond their natural abilities.’
‘Is that what happened to us?’ John asked. ‘Did they change us when we were brought out of the ship?’
Crossley shook his head. ‘Doesn’t make sense. I mean, I didn’t get my abilities until days later.’
‘Mine took five and a half days to establish,’ Rar-kin added.
Osayimwese said nothing and stared out of the window.
‘My theory,’ Delta-Six said as he tapped more buttons, ‘is the time we spent in stasis had a degree of influence on how we adapted. One of the transmissions from the Synchronisers mentioned telomeres – they’re part of our DNA molecules.’
‘Synchronisers?’ Crossley asked.
‘The creatures running the dome cap,’ Delta-Six snapped, clearly feeling rushed. ‘They were measuring telomere latency, so let’s search for any information on that,’ Delta-Six said.
‘What a minute,’ John said, and rested his gun-arm on the panel, ‘if the top floor is full of dangerous creatures, how are we going to get back to One-eight-seven and back down to the ground?’
‘That’s what I need to fix,’ Delta-Six said, and looked to Rar-kin. ‘I need your help.’
Rar-kin’s eyes dilated and it moved its head in a triangular motion.
‘We need to fix the hole from the outside and bring One-eight-seven down a level.’
‘Those Synchronisers must know we’re here,’ Crossley said. ‘They’re way more advanced than us.’
Delta-Six shook his head. ‘The security systems aren’t set up like that. All I’ve seen are external weapons pointing upwards and the odd pulse weapon pointing down into the dome… probably the one that shot me down.’
‘To stop anyone flying up to the cap?’ Osayimwese said.
‘Most likely,’ Delta-Six replied.
‘But they hadn’t banked on anyone climbing up from the outside?’ John said, remembering an aerial attack he’d seen in the trenches, trails of dots dropping from a biplane. The machine guns had been fixed on the enemy trench, so they’d been defenceless.
‘It seems that way,’ Delta-Six replied. ‘So once we’ve patched up the hole, there’ll be no sign we were here.’
‘Look at this!’ Osayimwese called out.
He was at a new set of panels covered with screens.
John leaned in for a closer look, resting his gun-arm on the metal panel, and jumped back in pain.
‘Shit!’ he shouted and grabbed his arm with his good hand.
‘Quiet!’ Delta-Six hissed and peered around the corner.
‘I just got bloody shocked!’ John growled through clenched teeth.
The pain hadn’t been as bad as when Delta-Six’s automatic defence systems had shocked him, but his gun-arm tingled with pins and needles. He spun a bullet in the chamber to make sure it was still working, then let the energy spin away.
‘You okay?’ Crossley asked.
‘Yeah,’ John replied.
‘You got the panel working,’ Osayimwese said, turning dials beneath a screen which now flickered with images.
‘It’s showing inside the dome,’ Rar-kin said.
Delta-Six moved forward to take a look. ‘There must be cameras inside the dome… and they’re preparing the land for the new species. They’re called the Tathon according to the records.’ He pressed more buttons and the whole array of screens flashed into life. ‘This is great – we need anything you see on how the new species are brought in.’ Delta-Six looked to Rar-kin. ‘Let’s go. We’ll be back within the hour.’
‘Right then,’ John said as he, Crossley and Osayimwese sidestepped from screen to screen, zooming in and around to get the best views of what was going on.
‘I’ll take this one.’ Osayimwese’s screen showed the lines of glass pods inside the docked starship.
‘Mine shows where they’ll deposit the soldiers,’ Crossley said, pointing at his screen. ‘So far they’ve built a hill, covered it in some kind of algae that’s spreading like wildfire.’
‘And there’s the obelisk,’ Osayimwese said, peering over at a black obelisk identical to the one John had seen on their hill, only instead of humans it addressed the Tathon.
John searched for a suitable screen and found an image of a symmetrical shape which looked familiar to him.
‘Be careful with your arm,’ Crossley called over. ‘No more shocks.’
‘Yeah, okay,’ John said and pulled his webbing straps to tighten his numb arm against his chest.
He swiped his metal strip over a red light and played with the dials, zooming in. The shape was ovoid, with a small blue circle in the centre with a thick red line on its right edge. The blue lines thinned then radiated out to create dozens of islands. To the left of the central circle, John saw a swathe of brown marked with hundreds of tiny white dots.
‘It’s a map!’ John said.
‘What?’ Crossley was soon by his side, followed by Osayimwese.
‘A map of the dome,’ John said. ‘These islands are where we started out. Over here’s the lake we sailed on the rafts, through the red cliffs here.’
‘And that’s the plain of battles?’ Osayimwese asked and pointed at the area of brown.
‘I think so,’ John replied, ‘but I can’t work out what these white dots are.’
He twisted the dial to zoom in but the dots didn’t come into focus.
‘How about this one?’ Osayimwese said and touched the screen with his forefinger.
A line of text flashed up straight away:
On this spot, the Nama-Gametiads and their allies were victorious over the Ilanos.
‘They’re battle obelisks!’ John said.
‘Jeez, it looks like we only passed through a quarter of them,’ Crossley said.
‘Can you see anyone down there?’ Osayimwese asked.
Crossley laughed. ‘Sure. Like it’s a live map?’ He took a step back. ‘This is great, but we don’t have time for heading down memory lane – let’s get the info and scram before those Synchronisers work out we’re here.’
Osayimwese shrugged and pointed at his screen. ‘Look, they’re waking up the new soldiers.’
John glanced over to see a white robotic arm pressing buttons on a pod and what looked like a needle pressing into something white and gelatinous that reminded him of tripe. What were these strange Tathon creatures?
*
Delta-Six lay the newly cut metal section of outer wall on the floor and double-checked his scans: no new movement or activity to suggest the breach had been registered.
‘Right.’ He turned to Rar-kin. ‘I can fly us up to the next section so you can bring One-eight-seven back down while I fix the hole.’
‘I understand,’ the Sorean replied.
‘Sorry, but I’ll need to carry you,’ Delta-Six said, and the small, furred creature thrust out its arms like a small child waiting for a hug. ‘Thank you.’ He picked the Sorean up, fired his propulsion system and glided out of the hole and up to where One-eight-seven swayed silently, attached to the ca
p wall.
‘The curvature is low,’ Rar-kin said as Delta-Six placed it on the trapeze.
‘Pardon me?’
Rar-kin pointed to the horizon. ‘The curvature is less than expected for a world this size.’
‘I’ll calculate it,’ Delta-Six said and opened up an analytics window to scan the horizon, then apportioned 2 per cent of his processing systems to calculate the size of the planet. ‘I’ll get the results shortly,’ he said and drifted up to One-eight-seven’s head to ask it to move to the new hole.
A series of lights flickered and a click signalled the release as it drifted away from the cap.
All good so far, Delta-Six thought, and leaned in to focus on the chamelo-cloth stretched across the hole. There were no signs of damage but he couldn’t risk leaving it here with the creatures roaming inside the top level.
Ten minutes later, and despite the attentions of a flock of inquisitive, hummingbird-like squid, Delta-Six had fixed the hole from the inside and gathered footage on the creatures and the processes they had undergone. He’d seen a series of robotic devices, controlled by the Synchronisers, injecting and spraying the creatures with a host of chemicals Delta-Six’s systems hadn’t recognised. He presumed the same processes were taking place on the soldiers inside the ship, so he navigated through the dome-cap systems until he found a list of active systems used by the group of Synchronisers.
That’s interesting, he thought and focussed on a task labelled ‘Acceleration’.
*
John concentrated on the screen and rubbed his forehead as the buttons he pressed refused to work in the same way they had done five minutes ago. He was desperate for answers but couldn’t make sense of the diagrams and numbers.
‘We haven’t got long until the new soldiers are ready,’ Osayimwese hissed.
‘I know!’ Crossley replied before John could. ‘I’m still searching. Delta-Six said telomere latency, right?’
‘Yeah,’ John replied and Osayimwese nodded.
They’d found records for all species brought into the dome and needed to transfer any info about humans, Lutamek and Sorean onto the thin sliver of metal Ten-ten had given them. Just thinking about it gave John a headache; his reading had never been great, and after he had left school he hadn’t had much need for it delivering veg or defending his trench.
‘It would be quicker if Delta-Six was here,’ Osayimwese said.
‘Sure it would,’ Crossley replied, ‘but he’s off on another of his missions, so…’
John looked around the curved room for any telltale shadows. Rar-kin was outside, tending One-eight-seven, so any shadow would belong to Delta-Six or one of the Synchronisers he’d mentioned.
John stared through the window above the computer screen at the docked ship. He was still amazed by the thought that he and his friends had gone through the same process as these squid-like creatures when woken from stasis.
‘Ah, what’s this?’ Crossley said and John leaned over to see a list of names.
‘Looks like us,’ John said with a smile and tried to find his name.
‘Just save it to that… piece of metal,’ Osayimwese said.
‘Already on it,’ Crossley replied and swiped the grey sheet as Delta-Six had shown them. ‘Just move that there and some more files here… Lutamek, Sorean and the new guys, the Tathon. Here’s the Brakari,’ he gave John a wink. ‘Might as well have them too, eh?’
John looked away and wondered what ever happened to Millok, or General Panzicosta? He glanced at the screen with the map, but a sound made him turn.
‘Do you hear that?’ he whispered.
‘Yes.’ Osayimwese was already in a defensive position, holding his spear and eggshell dagger. ‘Someone is running.’
‘What do we do?’ John asked. ‘That’s the way out.’
‘I’m still saving the information,’ Crossley said.
An elongated shadow appeared on the distant, curved wall as the rapid footsteps came nearer, followed by a distant shout.
‘Retreat!’
‘That’s Delta-Six,’ John said and looked at Crossley. ‘Come on, something’s up.’
‘Alright, alright!’ Crossley replied.
Delta-Six rushed into view and sped up to them. ‘Come on, we’re running out of time!’
‘Is it the Synchronisers?’ Osayimwese asked.
‘No,’ Delta-Six replied, ‘the Tathon. I… there’s been a malfunction and I need to communicate with Command.’
A flashing light on one of the screens caught John’s eye and he saw an image of the new hilltop in the dome, now covered with the Tathon, huge, octopus-like creatures whose skin flashed with waves of colour. They were all shaking and writhing in a way that reminded John of Doctor Cynigar, the Brakari who had mutated himself.
‘What happened?’ Crossley asked.
Delta-Six looked away as he spoke. ‘I attempted an interface with the sequencing technology to understand how the rejuvenation process may have stimulated our mutations, only,’ he looked at each of the men, ‘I inadvertently increased the parameters and now the Tathon are…’
‘You boosted the power?’ Crossley asked.
Delta-Six nodded. ‘We have to get out of here before the Synchronisers work out what’s happened.’
On the screen, John saw the results of the boost as the Tathon’s tentacled, large-eyed bodies warped in size and shape, their mutated DNA struggling to assert itself.
‘They’re mutating right now,’ John said.
‘Shit!’ Crossley stayed rooted to the spot and ran a hand through his hair. ‘This is bad. I mean, we thought we had some tasty powers, but these guys…’
‘I know,’ Delta-Six stood impatiently, ‘which is why we have to leave – we’ll deal with the consequences after, okay?’
‘Sure,’ Crossley said and swiped his metal sheet over the screen to capture the recent footage.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ John said, eyeing both ends of the corridor nervously, trying to keep up with Delta-Six, who jogged to his new hatch in the wall.
‘Right,’ Delta-Six said and peeled back his chamelo-cloth to reveal the distant desert vista and a waft of fresh air.
He stuffed the cloth in a pocket and stuck his head out, looking left and right, then up.
‘Come on,’ Osayimwese said, ‘where are they?’
Delta-Six turned back and, for the first time John could remember, looked genuinely shocked. He took some effort to open his mouth and whisper, ‘They’ve gone.’
Chapter 6
Samas toured the camp and found himself staring at the variety of shimmering trinkets the Sorean had pulled out of their starship. His understanding of this new technology was limited, and when Ten-ten had tried to explain their workings, Samas had to remind the Lutamek that he had been fighting against Alexander the Great’s army just a few weeks ago as far as he was concerned. Thousands of years might have passed for others, but that was how it felt to him. Everything here was new – a culture shock, as Li had called it. Just like going into battle for the first time or your arm turning to stone, it took time for your mind to make sense of events and to accept what had changed.
Samas clenched his stone fist, feeling the strength it held, and remembered that, despite the advances in weapons and armour, tactics on the battlefield had changed little – as the battle against the Brakari had shown – and he had been chosen as leader of the human army because of his experience.
‘Are these essential?’ he asked Jakan-tar, who was overseeing the loading of carts the Lutamek had constructed from external parts of the starships.
‘We have few rations,’ the Sorean leader replied, ‘so we’ll need goods to trade.’
It sounded like an answer Mihran might have given, but without the accompanying sneer.
‘Good,’ Samas replied. ‘The Lutamek say the light patterns on the tower suggest activity around its base.’
‘Where else would they have gone?’ Jakan-tar asked.
&n
bsp; Samas looked around and nodded. Just like the obelisk on the first hill, the tower was a beacon for anyone leaving their dome. He looked up at the imposing shape of the dome and squinted at the dark-grey cap on its top. Maybe Delta-Six and the others would bring them the answers they needed?
‘We’ve had no communication from them.’
Ten-ten’s metallic voice made Samas turn.
‘Delta-Six said they would maintain communication silence,’ Samas replied. ‘We should only hear from them when One-eight-seven is returning.’
‘Our scans suggest the ship is nearing the completion phase,’ Ten-ten said, ‘which means they are running out of time.’
Samas wasn’t sure how to read the Lutamek, with their lack of expressive face and tone, but he knew they were essentially animals inside their metal bodies, which would explain why Samas had the feeling Ten-ten was sad.
‘I’m sorry to hear about your ship,’ he said.
Samas had been taken to the broken ship with a burned, torn hole on one flank, like it had been peeled open. It had proven to be devoid of any Lutamek technology, let alone hibernating soldiers like they’d found in the other ships.
‘We didn’t expect looters.’ Ten-ten turned to look through a gap between the nearest ships and across the desert to the cluster of domes.
Samas could never read the Lutamek but wondered if they had taken something from the ship they didn’t want him to know about. After all, if it had been looters, why hadn’t more ships been destroyed or ripped apart?
‘Are your new recruits adapting well?’ Ten-ten asked.
Samas laughed and remembered Steve Smith running off into the desert. ‘After our first attempt we managed a little better, thanks,’ Samas said and pictured Yarcha and the other new recruits. ‘Four in total and I understand you have woken several other species?’
‘Yes,’ Ten-ten replied, ‘the slow rejuvenation worked well. Also, we found sufficient rations for our journey, so we’re on course to leave tomorrow at sunrise.’
‘Yes,’ Samas said and paused. Ten-ten seemed distracted by the dome. ‘What is it?’
‘We have received transmissions,’ Ten-ten replied.