Home Planet: Awakening (Part 1) (6 page)

I picked up and re-stowed the ax in my suit leg. Wondering what I might find, I entered the pitch-black stairwell. With soot-covered surfaces and no light strips, only the meager light from the corridor helped me see. The explosion had badly twisted the handrail on my left. I didn’t dare lean on it and looked over to look for evidence of light from below. All I saw was the blackest of black. It’d be pointless continuing with no light, so I went in search of a flashlight.

Opening the first of the closed cabins, I knew exactly where to look for the emergency flashlight. After all, in my mind, it felt like just a few hours since I was in a room just like it. It felt like only a few hours since we all walked merrily toward stasis. I reclosed the door and removed the emergency escape kit from the hook on the back of the door. Laying it out on the bottom bunk, I didn’t bother unzipping the pressure suit bag. Instead, I went straight for the flashlight in a pouch at the front. I pressed the button but didn’t see it light up. It
felt
like just a few hours but wasn’t. I tried the next room, then the next. Sixteen rooms later came a cabin with personal effects—some clothes, bathroom products, an unmade bed and a different kind of flashlight. One in a box, unopened, its batteries still as sealed as the day they were made. I’d never been so excited to see such a mundane item before. Having installed the batteries, I pressed the switched and it worked. I clicked it off straight away and headed toward the dark, damaged stairwell.

On reaching the landing past the bulging doors, I switched on the flashlight and listened while surveying the blackened scene. At the bottom of the first flight of stairs were three bodies—or sets of skeletal remains, to be more precise—their whiteness contrasting the battle-scarred walls around them. The walls around me had taken the full force of the blast, the panels either missing, having fallen to the deck, or bulging outwards. The blast had even deformed the deck plate a few inches. I about-faced and looked at the rear of the doors to the corridor. As expected, pockmarks from shrapnel and small arms fire peppered them all over. What I’d not seen so far were the effects of laser fire, their impacts distinctive with once-molten rims. I descended carefully to the next landing and the three deceased. All three wore tattered uniforms. All three wore body armor and helmets. These three were marines. The one on the left lay face down clutching a laser assault rifle—probably an ML-15. The silvery links of the dog tag caught in the light. I bent down and read the tag.

Diamond, Richard K.

565-85-1120

B NEG

Jewish

“Rare blood group … What happened to you and your buddies, Richard?”

I leaned over and picked up the laser rifle. Dead.

The center marine still sat up, propped against the wall facing up the staircase. His helmet lay by his side bearing some serious blast damage. I shone the light at his skull, the empty eye sockets and toothy grin seeming to stare at me for a moment as if longing to tell me what happened. The jagged, half-inch hole in the forehead did a better job. I didn’t bother looking, but I was sure if I had, there’d be a nasty piece of metal somewhere inside his head. This guy and his friend lying to the right in the corner both had laser rifles too. Both guns were chargeless. I examined the third marine, but his remains told me nothing more. I recovered three spare clips from the marines’ handguns. All full, all with twenty rounds. I replaced the one in my handgun with a full clip and placed the spares in my fleece pocket alongside. There was nothing more to see there. Three marines had died and a serious battle had taken place.

I respectfully passed Richard and his brothers-in-arms and descended the opposing flight of steps. If anything, the battle scars got worse. As I swept the steps in front of me, I noticed something about the landing outside the double doors to the next level—it wasn’t there. And I could feel it too, the staircase beginning to flex under my weight the closer to the bottom I got. I shuffled cautiously toward the mangled inside handrail. Casting the light down the stairwell, I saw only clear space for at least two floors with a tangled mess of metal topped with human remains. The force of the blast had splayed the doors to Level 19 to such an extent that they pointed inward toward the corridor. They were as blackened as the stairwell. I saw little point in continuing. Perhaps there was more to learn, but the risk wasn’t worth it at that point. I climbed the stairs, past the three marines and back to the corridor on Level 20.

The time had come to leave Module 4—once a bustling place full of people and energy, full of hope and expectation. Now, there were only battle scars and the dead. Glad to see the back of Module 4, there was one last place I needed to look.

Up ahead, three-quarters of the way from the bulging doors to the Module 3 blast doors, was the door I was looking for. Although it looked the same, unlike the cabin doors, this one bore the simple label that read,
Cupola.
I opened the door and climbed the double flight of metal steps. The word
Cupola
was Italian was
dome.
On reaching the top of the staircase, I saw the door to the viewing room and a sense of excitement grew inside me, not because I’d reached the cupola but because of what I saw at my feet. Unless there were some inexplicably bright lights inside, the yellow light leaking under the metal door was from a star—a very nearby star. On opening the door, sunlight filled my eyes for the first time in … what felt like forever. Its power forced my eyes to squinting slits, the yellow light warm and welcome on my face. We weren’t lost in space, drifting light years from our destination as I’d feared. I laughed uncontrollably at what I’d found.

“We made it after all!” I said quietly but excitedly.

Then I took stock and reminded myself that most hadn’t.

After my pupils had time to adjust, I looked through the six-foot diameter viewing-dome above the twelve-by-twelve foot room. The surrounding ceiling only stood six feet from the floor, a hair’s breadth from my head. Cushioned benches ran around the perimeter of the cupola room—a nice place to meet, star gaze and see the outside world. All the serious observation took place in the Science and Research module—my next destination, Module 3. Shading my eyes from the direct starlight, I began to realize how warm the greenhouse-like place had become. On emergency power, without air-conditioning the room must have been over a hundred Fahrenheit. Shielding the direct glare of the star, I scanned around for planet Aura-c but saw nothing. From training, I knew Aura—the star—was a G-class star, just like Earth’s sun. The yellow light filling my eyes corresponded to what I thought it’d look like and what they’d shown us. That was another good sign. Most of the simulated views I remembered were the same
size
as I was witnessing through the dome. That gave me hope that the ship was in planetary orbit around Aura-c.

So where’s the planet at?
I asked myself, concluding it was simply below the cupola’s field of view.

There would be other places I could look, and right now, all I could see was the brilliant starlight of Aura. Every time I saw its brightness, it lifted my spirits, something logical, but also something primeval. We humans needed sunlight even if it was from a distant cousin of Sol. I told myself again that we’d made it and smiled. Once again a correction:
I
had made it along with a man called Arnold Reichs and no more than a few hundred others who hadn’t perished in their stasis pods. From the battle that had raged in the decks below, I wondered how many of that few hundred were still alive. And how many of those had made it down to the planet?

It was time to go—my time in Module 4 was through. I descended from the cupola feeling the chill of the ship’s air hit me immediately, the gloom of the interior far worse than before. After feeling the warmth of the alien sun, I yearned to leave this floating hulk any way I could. Eventually, that was what I needed to do.

I could see the open blast doors ahead. The link tunnel to Module 3 was beyond them, then finally the closed doors to the science module itself. Following the same drill, I went about manually opening them just enough to get through while wondering what I’d find. Would there be life support and gravity? Would there be survivors? Only time would tell, I told myself, slipping through into a corridor so similar to the one I’d just left. I felt a sense of déjà vu. If I remembered rightly, this top level was devoted to offices, meeting rooms and a few small labs. All the interesting stuff—the observatory, life sciences and hydroponics labs and so on—were spread over the nineteen decks below. They’d planned for the entire module to continue as an orbiting university and research center once we’d established the colony. There would be a lifetime of research to conduct on and around the planet. Much of it would be applied research in aid of the colony below. One of the early priorities had been working out what crops to grow there. The atmospheric composition had already been deduced from near-Earth telescope arrays, as had the presence of green vegetation and liquid-water-containing oceans. These were some of the primary confirmations of Aura-c’s habitability. From there, the plan was that the fast recon probes would’ve filled in a lot more of the details by the time we all woke up in the months before arriving. Launched in 2050, the tiny nano-probe cluster could be accelerated to velocities several times that of the massive
Juno Ark’s
. If all went according to plan, it meant the fast recon probes could send back data as the
Juno
made its way here.

Of course, I had no idea whether any of this happened or not. If it did, then without other survivors it would do us little good,
us
being the elusive Reichs and whoever else had made it. If it was
just
Reich and me then the human population here would remain at an exact figure of two. That was assuming we couldn’t get the artificial wombs working—I guessed that would not be a straightforward task for laymen. Maybe Reichs knew how. I sure as hell didn’t.

I passed the first doors—one on the left, one on the right, both closed. These were offices, as the plaque read. The corridor was, again, poorly lit on emergency lights, the once-white panels deteriorated with age. There were still no signs of life, just the sound of the air trickling from fluff-covered overhead vents and the sonorous creaking of the
Juno Ark
so far from home.

I called out again, not excepting a reply.

“Hey! Anyone home? The name’s Luker, Dan Luker ... If you’re there I’d love to meet you!”

Only echoes returned as I wondered how long it’d be until I started losing my mind. Days, weeks, years? Perhaps I’d end up talking to Tiro or my intercom badge just to stay sane. The intercom badge—I hadn’t tried it since the stasis module. I double-tapped the little device on my chest and it sprung to life with its happy four-note jingle.

I said, “Tiro, connect me with the nearest crew member.”

Like last time, only the pre-recorded message replied, not Tiro.

My computerized female friend said, “Tiro is unreachable. The communications network is inactive.”

“Intercom, initiate direct badge-to-badge comms. Any active node you can find.”

“Active node SD-057 is within range. Connecting ...” it said, accompanied by an intermittent chiming.

“Yes! Someone’s
here
!” I said, excitedly.

Seconds later the chiming fell silent.

A second after that it said, “No active intercom nodes within range.”

“What the ...? Repeat last command!”

“No active intercom nodes within range.”

“Last command damn it—badge-to-badge communications, any active node!”

“No active intercom nodes within range.”

“So what happened to node SD-057?”

“Unknown.”

Just as quickly as my hopes had risen, they came crashing back down. Maybe a short circuit—some damaged equipment with only intermittent operation. But how intermittent? I could try forever and never get another connection to SD-057, whoever that was.

I continued along the corridor, straight toward the other end—the quickest route to Module 2. Then I heard something up ahead and froze to the spot, listening intently. After pausing for a full minute, I detected no further sound. I considered for a moment whether I’d heard it or just imagined it.

Was it an early sign of the hallucinations that would surely come if I remained alone?

Up ahead, about sixty feet away and halfway to the next module, an overhead light flickered on and off at seemingly random intervals. On the floor below it lay a jumbled mess of what looked like mainly office furniture—a couple of upturned desks, some chairs piled in no particular order and what looked like the remains of yet more of the dead. I counted four as I got closer. This time, they were crewmembers in their blue flight suit uniforms. Continuing to listen, I realized this was a barricade as evidenced by the liberal spread of laser marks and bullet holes. I checked the crewmembers’ four handguns—apparently their only weapons—and found not a single round remained. Same in the magazines on the floor. Same in their pockets and equipment belts. Whoever they were fighting had simply waited until they were out of ammo. It must have been a desperate situation to make a last stand with handguns behind some upturned tables and chairs.

Not for the first time, I wondered who was fighting who. Crew versus marines? A split based on national lines? Or something else completely? What could have happened to have started such violence? One of the things we’d learned during training was how human conflict presented the biggest challenge for long-term space missions. The mission designers thought they’d solved it by having a spacious, well-equipped ship that could double as an orbital command when we arrived. That and the fact that everyone would be in stasis for most of the journey also helped. My stomach growled, reminding me I had a limited fuel supply and, therefore, a time limit before I’d need sustenance. I had to keep moving.

The double doors to the stairwell stood just past the barricade on the right-hand side. One of the two sliding halves was open and this time there was no bulge, no signs of explosion or fire, only a few pockmarks from stray rounds. I set about sidestepping through the gap between the tables in the barricade, knocking over a chair which came clattering to the ground. I cleared the barricade and observed that further along, just fifteen feet from the link tunnel, a set of double doors were wide open on the right—perhaps a lab or conference room. And that’s when I heard the faint whirring noise emanating from the same open room. Once more I froze, but this time the noise continued, definite enough to reassure me that my mind wasn’t tricking me. It grew louder and more familiar—the sound of electric servos—the sound of what came marching thirty feet in front of me. The metallic humanoid form of a security droid.

In the moments before it clocked me, I couldn’t decide if it was a good or bad turn of events.

Then the droid turned with its handgun raised, its body in a firing position.

Its commanding, synthetic voice called out, “Surrender now. Lay down your weapons. Mutiny is a felony offense!”

I said, “Okay, I surrender! I’m reaching for my gun, then I’m gonna lay it down on the deck Okay with that?”

The bot stood still and repeated, “Surrender now. Lay down your weapons. Mutiny is a felony offense!”

Not a good sign. I picked out the handgun from my fleece pocket, holding it by the barrel, crouching down then laying it on the ground. I got up but didn’t kick it away.

With my hands raised, I said, “I’ve laid down my weapon. I surrender. Lower your gun security droid.”

“Surrender now. Lay down your weapons. Mutiny is a felony offense!” came the now, familiar reply.

Something was wrong—it wasn’t recognizing my surrender.

I sank down, attempting to grab my gun and that’s when the droid opened fire, advancing as it did so. I dove to the floor, rolling from where I’d been toward the stairwell doors but failed to retrieve my weapon.

“Damn it!” I said as I crawled prone through the open door and into the darkness, shots coming all too close to my legs.

I could hear the approaching bot, the whirring sound mixed with soft, regular footfalls. I got to my feet and rushed down the stairwell aided by the emergency lighting strips. When I heard the droid reach the landing above, I realized the doors to Level 19 were closed and probably unpowered. There was no time, so I went down another floor, then another until at Level 17 I found the doors open. I listened, poking my head into the stairwell, but the droid wasn’t pursuing.

I caught my breath and exhaled deeply. I’d escaped the malfunctioning droid but now had to decide how to get past it. With no weapon other than my ax, it would be no trivial task. The ship’s security droids were efficient and deadly when they needed to be. This one seemed to be deadly even when it
didn’t
need to be. To last this long at all meant that it still had access to a source of wireless electric power. That might even be the reason it hadn’t pursued me. Although designed to last for the mission’s duration, the batteries may have been less efficient by this point, requiring wireless power to supplement them. Interesting, helpful even, but ultimately academic.

All I knew was that there could be more lurking around, so I decided two things. First, that I needed a new weapon. Second, I wouldn’t try to get past the droid; I’d just go around it. Since Level 20 was at the top of the cylindrical module, it meant that on that particular level there
was
no way around. In the short-term, though, I had no choice but to hunt around for a weapon and a do my best to avoid further contacts until I found a way out. The other link tunnel connected the modules on Level 1, seventeen floors down. That was where I would head to next. Eventually, I may need to face off against the droid or an equally dysfunctional counterpart, so I reconsidered my next destination. There was nothing else for it—next stop, the weapons lab.

***

When I’d started from Level 18, I’d had no idea where to find the weapons lab. The hunt had taken me down four additional floors—searching each one in turn—before I found it. In Module 3, I’d been through everything you’d expect to find at a major technical university from test labs to classrooms, from offices to stores of spare parts. But I didn’t think you’d find a weapons lab like the one I entered on Level 14. With its own branch corridor, the place was like its own mini-institution. Until I’d reached it, there had been only intermittent signs of conflict. I’d counted a dozen dead—all died of laser or gunshot wounds. Two marines, four crew and six colonists. I did a brief search of each and got another handgun to replace the one I’d lost. I got a couple more clips and found an unopened ration bar, too—chocolate and banana, apparently. It didn’t taste like it and I wondered what effect it’d eventually have on me consuming such out-of-date food. The sugar felt good, though, but made me thirstier than I already was. I eventually found a small coffee break room with a faucet with some undrained water in the pipe next to some offices. I drank greedily until it stopped. Again, I wondered what the plastic pipes had donated to the water over so many years. It was hardly an immediate concern, though.

In hindsight, I could’ve used the escalating level of damage and battle scars to find the weapons labs—the closer I came, the more damage I saw. I eyed the scene of complete devastation that was in the weapons lab entry corridor. What had been double glass security doors lay demolished—shattered on the deck, one on top of the other as if felled by a rampaging giant. The charring and twisted frames and the devastated wall and ceiling panels told me that giant was a powerful explosion. Once again, I paid silent tribute to the ship’s designers for its ability to withstand such punishment. Remnants of a guard box still stood to one side. Only its footings and some nearby grime-covered debris remained. Further down the corridor was dark, so I switched on the flashlight. Scanning the floor with it as I advanced, I witnessed bone fragments and a part-melted laser rifle. Ahead were four wide doorways with no signs of doors. I guessed there were probably more, but the collapsed ceiling further along the main branch corridor was a mess. There was no way through.

I searched each of the four labs in turn. All were severely battle damaged. All contained yet more skeletal remains. Whoever had attacked these labs had emptied them of most of the weapons. In one, some sort of heavy energy weapon stood bolted to its mount, maybe too difficult to have hauled away. Another lab still held a few assault rifles of a type I’d never seen before. It was clear they were also energy weapons. None of them worked. It was becoming increasingly clear that the weapons labs were a waste of time. In the end, the only useful thing I salvaged was the lightweight body-armor vest still in its test mount. Once back in the dim light of the main corridor, I donned the vest over my stasis suit and replaced my fleece. After listening out for any approaching droids, I leaned against the wall, to gather my thoughts.

Why was the droid that attacked me talking about mutiny being a felony?
I felt sure it was no coincidence with all the violence I’d seen. The question now was
why?