Oblivion: The Complete Series (Books 1-9)

by Joshua James

  “Now what?” asked Ben as he looked at all the guns lining the Vassar-1 entrance. Thick iron gates slowly started to close, cutting off any entry.

  “Now we get serious,” answered Morgan as she tapped one of her screens. A schematic image of the Lost’s thrust assembly appeared. At least, that’s what Ben assumed it was. He’d seen something like it when he’d been hiding in the tinker room earlier.

  “We probably should have done that sooner,” Ben suggested.

  Morgan mashed down on whatever portion of the schematic display she’d enhanced up on her screen.

  “Maybe,” she said. “You should hold on.”

  Twenty-Five

  If anybody on board had an inkling that Morgan wasn’t what she seemed, the fact that she’d installed outsized AIC superthrusters on the Lost would remove all doubt.

  It would also make them seriously question her sanity. The ship wasn’t rated for them for a good reason. It was probably going to damage the ship’s superstructure to the point that it would never leave orbit again.

  But that was a problem to deal with once they were on the other side of the gate.

  The superthrusters were stationed in between the main engine exhausts in the back of the ship. There were three of them, and together they would provide about a minute of added boost to the Lost, assuming it survived the strain that long. And if it didn’t, well, they’d be dead in moments, so who would know?

  Morgan’s artificial eyes lined up the best path in through the closing planetary entrance doors, and she started the Lost into another barrel roll. Except, this time, she activated the superthrusters just as the ship started to spin.

  The vomit express left the station.

  The turrets that lined the planetary entrance opened fire. Spinning at ungodly speeds, some of the rounds hit the Lost, but others were deflected off by the pure centrifugal force.

  Ben lost the contents of his stomach, which swirled in midair in the cockpit. As did Ace.

  Morgan could hear, over the sound of large caliber bullets hitting their vessel and deflecting off, Tomas and Ada throwing up in the back, too. Francesca had already passed out. The others began to pass out as well.

  Morgan’s artificial eyes, the things allowing her to manage such ridiculous maneuvers, sent signals into her brain and body over and over, preventing blood from pooling in her feet and legs and keeping her awake.

  In spite of it all, she still came in and out of consciousness. When she was awake, she heard sirens and alarm bells, and saw everything in the cockpit bathed in red emergency lights. Then it’d all go black. Again, she’d awaken briefly to the sight of a vast city through the Lost’s front viewing windows. Finally she fully regained consciousness, and immediately wished she hadn’t.

  “Wha…?” Ben’s voice drifted over her shoulder. She could hear the others struggling as well.

  The superthrusters had died, but the damage they’d done to the rear thruster assembly was catastrophic, or nearly so. Morgan struggled to tame the wiggling piloting stick.

  “What happened?” Ben said again, finally finding his voice.

  “Good news, bad news,” Morgan replied. “Good news, we made it through the gate. Bad news, we took too many hits doing it.”

  “And that means?” Ace asked.

  “I’m not gonna be able to land her,” Morgan said. She could feel her face was covered in sweat. Sparks flew from instruments in the cockpit as things short-circuited. Smoke was billowing out from the back shared space, where Ben could hear Ada, Tomas and Francesca coughing.

  “Can you at least crash-land her?” Ben asked.

  Morgan could tell he hated the prospect of the reality of the words coming out of his own mouth. “I can try,” she said. “Let me see if I can find water or something. Anything but a damn building!”

  Ben glanced out the Lost’s viewing windows, and Morgan knew exactly what he was seeing. There was nothing but buildings as far as the eye could see. It would’ve been quite impressive, Morgan suspected, his first glimpse of Vassar-1, if not for the mortal danger that came hand-in-hand with it.

  “Over there!” Ben pointed towards what looked to be some kind of massive pool of water in the distance.

  Morgan followed his line of sight. “Shit,” she cursed under her breath. “I see it.” She did her best to turn the Lost towards the distant body of water, even as she considered the tall buildings on one side of it. She aimed to come in shallow from the other side. It would give them the best chance of making the water without ending up in the side of something solid.

  Air currents began to buffet the ship. The Lost was designed for aerodynamic flight, in fact had been doing so ever since they’d first encountered the edges of the outward-facing gravity generators, but down here, this close to the building that comprised practically every square inch of the surface, the winds were unpredictable.

  The stick started to grow heavy in her hand. Morgan doubted at this point that she had much if any control left over the flight surfaces.

  “Everyone hang on!” she shouted. “Touching down in five, four…”

  Twenty-Six

  Ben watched as the city of Vassar-1 got bigger and bigger the lower the Lost got. He grabbed his seatbelt buckles and tried to prepare his body for the big jolt to come.

  “Three, two…”

  So he didn’t accidentally bite it off, Ben stuck his tongue back away from his gritted teeth. His eyes were wide and alert. His heart threatened to burst out of his chest.

  “One!” Morgan finished as the Lost dropped toward what seemed to be a long, shallow pool.

  A moment before they hit, Ben spied a large, solemn-looking building rising out of the water at the opposite end from where they were landing. He recognized it instantly. Even a child of Earth knew what Jennifer Vassar’s tomb looked like.

  This was the reflecting pool outside her tomb. One of the most sacred places on the planet. He wondered if there might not be some kind of security in place here, but he knew it was mostly ceremonial.

  The Lost bounced off the surface of reflecting pool and briefly bounced up in the air before it descended again. This time it spun across the water as physics tried its best to slow it down.

  And it would. The thick concrete lip of the pool would eventually stop it.

  Ben’s, Morgan’s, and Ace’s heads and bodies whipped around violently as their ship crashed. Pieces of the cockpit flew all around it, cutting Ben’s face. The sound, the bottom of their ship scraping along the water and losing parts along the way, was so loud, a change from the silence of space. And then it came to a sudden, appropriately jarring stop when the Lost hit the lip of the pool.

  For a moment there was only silence. Ben’s chest felt like someone had jumped up and down on it. He felt pain where the harness straps cut into his shoulders.

  He slowly opened his eyes. He was hanging nearly upside down. He unbuckled himself, and immediately tumbled onto the grated metal floor of the Lost’s cockpit. Blood dripped off his face as every inch of his body hurt.

  There was no time to rest or feel pity for himself, though. Surely the authorities would be after them.

  Okay, Ben. You’re alive. You made it. Now get up.

  Ben used one hand to brace himself and help himself push up off the cockpit floor. The second he stood up, he was extremely dizzy and stumbled around, almost falling, but he ran into one of the sides of the small space that held him up.

  “Everyone okay? Sound off!” Ben said.

  “Alive? Yeah. Okay…?” Ace unbuckled himself. Instinctively he reached for the nearest gun. It was a rifle. He used it like a crutch, helping himself get up out of his seat.

  Ben looked over to Morgan. She was unconscious. As the pilot, she was closest to the front window, which had broken open during the crash landing, letting water slowly flow into the cockpit.

  In the back of the cockpit, shielded better than the rest, Ada, Tomas, and Francesca were all still strapped into their jumpseats. Toma
s and Ada sounded off, and indicated Francesca was okay as well.

  Only able to see Morgan from behind, Ben figured she was just knocked out by the impact of the sudden stop. He stumbled his way over. Through the broken window he saw a crowd of Vassar-1 citizens gathering, looking inside the ship and at them, wondering what the hell was going on.

  When Ben reached Morgan, he saw that she was in much worse shape than he’d initially thought. A sharp, jagged piece of the viewing window’s glass had somehow made its way into her stomach.

  “Ace,” Ben snapped. “Get over here and help me.”

  “M-Morgan,” Ace stammered when he joined Ben.

  “Get her legs,” Ben said as he slowly lifted her out of the pilot’s seat, careful not to stress her stomach as he did so.

  “Hear that?” Tomas asked, pointing up at the ceiling of the ship. “We gotta move.”

  Ben took a deep breath as he heard the sirens of police and emergency vehicles coming their way. He nodded down at Morgan. “It’s not going to be that easy.”

  “Oh, shit,” Tomas said, quickly moving to join them. Ada was right behind him.

  “We gotta take it outta her,” Ace said, looking at the piece of glass in Morgan’s gut.

  “Absolutely not!” Ada said. “That could be all that’s stopping her from bleeding out. She needs medical help that we can’t give her. We need to go to a hospital.”

  Morgan coughed up blood. Her eyes opened.

  Ben put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Morgan. We’re gonna get you some help. Okay? Just hang on.”

  Morgan took a long, ragged breath. “Of course I’ll hang on,” she rasped out. “You think I’m gonna die for you assholes?” She tried to laugh, but it turned into a wince and a cough.

  “Hell no, you won’t,” Ben said. He glanced at Ace and Tomas. “I’m gonna climb out, and then you can hand her to me. With this tin arm here, I should be able to carry her.”

  “I don’t like moving her,” Ada reiterated.

  Ben was about to explain why they didn’t have time for a debate when Morgan grabbed his shirt to get his attention. “What?”

  “HUD, transfer secure file T4876 to Ben Saito. Authorization, Zulu, Echo, Four, Lima, X-Ray,” Morgan said.

  “What’s this?” asked Ben as a holographic exclamation mark notified him that he’d gotten a file transfer.

  “Safety,” Morgan wheezed. “Follow it.”

  “Okay,” Ben agreed, even though he had no idea what Morgan was talking about. “HUD, open file.”

  As soon as his HUD opened the file, things became a little clearer to him. It was a location on Vassar-1’s map. As Ben climbed out the broken viewing window of the Lost he instructed his HUD to set a waypoint for them to follow. The waypoint was the mark on the map that Morgan had transferred to him.

  He jumped down into the shallow water. Ada, Tomas, and Ace managed to get Morgan over to the broken viewing window and pass her off to Ben. He cradled her with his metal arm as Tomas injected her with a stim shot. She still screamed out in pain. Ben wasn’t a doctor, but this was bad.

  Once everyone was out of the Lost, the group found themselves in a reflecting pool—which was a strange place to stand in—on a strange planet, in a strange city, with a now fairly large crowd of strangers staring at them.

  The sirens were getting very close.

  “We need to go now,” Tomas said as he helped Francesca out of the ship. She looked like she was in shock, staring at the blood smeared down Ben’s front from Morgan’s wound.

  “Where?” Ada hissed. “Where the hell do we go?”

  “Anywhere but here,” Ace said. He pointed his rifle up in the air and fired off a few rounds, dispersing the crowd. “Get the hell outta the way!”

  “I know where we can go,” Ben said as he stared at the holographic path laid out before him by his HUD. “Follow me.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Ada’s legs burned. How long had they been running? She made the mistake of looking behind her in one of Vassar-1’s many alleyways. A bullet whizzed by her face, hitting a nearby concrete wall, sending pieces of it flying in every direction.

  She fired her pistol behind her wildly, not wanting to actually hurt any of the Vassar-1 City Sentinel officers, as the megacity’s police force was known. They were just doing their job and, in their defense, the Lost had just crashed into a monument to a beloved hero of the people.

  Ada had agreed to take up the rear of their little group as they raced towards an unknown point on a map that Ben had somehow gotten from Morgan. The details were fuzzy, but nobody cared. It was their only hope at this point. Morgan wasn’t going to last long without help, and the rest of them weren’t going to last long without shelter.

  In front of Ada were Ace, then Tomas, then Francesca, and leading the pack, Ben. Ace turned a corner up ahead and disappeared. Ada followed, barely avoiding getting shot again. As soon as she turned the corner as well, she was surprised to find herself pulled hard by her shirt and pinned against the wall.

  Ace motioned for Ada to be quiet, one outstretched finger against his lips. He pointed in the direction the group was going. At the end of the alleyway, an AIC tank passed by.

  They’re bringing out tanks for us? I don’t know if we should be flattered, terrified, or both. No, definitely just terrified.

  Ada stared at the tank as it rumbled past. Then she realized that Ace was signaling something behind her. She turned as he motioned that someone was tailing them.

  Ace flipped his rifle around so the butt was at the ready and acted as a club. As soon as one of the Sentinels turned the corner, he bludgeoned him in the head.

  That Sentinel went downing a heap, blood pouring out his nose. A second Sentinel, clearly having seen what happened to his buddy, took a more measured approach. He caught the butt of Ace’s rifle and punched him in the gut.

  Ace grunted and doubled over, but the Sentinel only had a moment to enjoy the victory before he saw Ada standing right behind Ace. She pistol-whipped the officer before he realized what was happening. He crumpled to the ground as Ace caught his breath.

  “I had it!” Ace yelled in a whisper.

  “You’re welcome. Are there anymore?”

  Ace reached over Ada and looked around the corner. Three or four shots flew past his face. “Yup. A couple.”

  “We need to keep moving,” Ada hissed up to the front of the group. “We can’t stay in this alley.”

  Ben seemed to get the message, and he started moving forward into the street again, holding Morgan’s slumped form in his arms. The rest of them followed.

  Ada kept her pistol trained as she hurried backwards. One Sentinel turned the corner into the alley, and she unloaded a few rounds into the nearby wall to keep him at bay.

  When she emerged from the alleyway, Ada didn’t expect to be exposed to a city in chaos. The tanks weren’t for them, she realized. On the street, she had to push through a crowd of panicked citizens, some covered in dust, dirt, and blood. What were they running from? And what had their group stumbled into?

  Ada’s group went from alleyway to alleyway. The young Swedish Marine wondered where the hell they were going. She didn’t question their direction, because she knew nothing about Vassar-1. She wished she did. Right now, there was no way to tell if they were running into a trap, a riot, or maybe—just maybe—a slim chance of safety.

  Sentinel patrol vehicles flew overhead. “Citizens of Vassar-1,” boomed a transmitted voice. “Please be calm. We have the situation under control. Please be calm. Stay in your homes.”

  “Do any of you know what the hell is going on?” Ada asked.

  Ace turned to her. From the look in his eyes, like an intense reflection off a TV screen, she could see that he was watching something through his HUD.

  “It looks like we had amazing timing. From what I can see, it’s terrorist attacks. All over the city,” he said. “You guys should tap into my HUD feed. This shit is…I can’t explain it, you need to
see for yourself.”

  Tomas knelt down in a firing position, his rifle trained on the entrance to the new alleyway. “I’ll take your word for it. Right now, we got more important shit to do than worry about these people’s problems.”

  There was a callousness in his voice that Ada didn’t care for. Then again, he’d spent more time fighting the AIC than Ada had. A lot more time. There was plenty of history there. She had a feeling that Tomas wasn’t going to be the most sympathetic person when it came to the fate of the people of Vassar-1.

  Ada caught up to Ben and the rest of the group. Morgan was alive in his arms, but did little more than moan. Blood seeped through the captain of the dearly departed Lost’s fingers. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why are we stopping?”

  “It’s a dead end up ahead,” Ben said. His face was covered in sweat. One of his arms, the still human one, shook. Ada figured he must’ve been thankful in that moment to have a robotic one as well.

  “That’s…not good. Is there any other way through?” she asked.

  “How the hell am I supposed to know? I’m just following this damn map.”

  “We can’t go out there in all that,” Ace said. “As much as I’d love to, we’d lose each other in the crowds.” Ace was actually turning down a chance to participate in chaos. Ada figured hell must’ve frozen over.

  “Whatever we’re gonna do—” Tomas opened fire. The Sentinels were still after them. They must’ve figured the group was part of the terrorist attacks. “We better do it fast!”

  Ben looked both ways down the alley. His vision focused on an old-school wooden door that led into a mystery building that could’ve been anything. With a single kick of his mechanical leg, he broke the door frame and tore the door off the hinges.