Habilitation, page 5
“Where do you think you’re going?”
My response was a needle to his neck as Cal took out Evans.
“Now Strata!” I scooped up Johnson’s gun and Cal and I herded the aides, including Angela, into a side room. Strata fired two shots at The Onyx, one crippling their engines and the second destroying their communications. They were dead in the water. One last shot and their hull was punctured, their oxygen cascading out into space. It was all over for them in less than ten seconds.
With the aides locked away I slipped my hands into the controls and we blasted away without a second thought. Abandoning their crew to die as they had abandoned our people on Kepler.
Chapter 8: Rescue
The roiling blue clouds of Kepler greeted us, impenetrable and ominous as they thundered around the atmosphere. We sat quietly in orbit, each of us mentally preparing ourselves, pushing away the feelings of betrayal that were haunting us.
The biodome was hailing us, again and again. I punched the flashing blue button and Staff Sergeant Nichol’s voice sounded across the bridge.
“This is Biodome 354 to unknown vessel. Please identify yourself.”
"Staff Sergeant Nichols, this is the Professor."
"Professor. It's good to hear your voice. Where's Captain Anderson?"
"The Onyx was lost unfortunately. And the Captain with it."
I sat on the bridge of The Wilhelm, my hands dug into the sides of the oversized arm chair. Had I been back in my alien body, my Original, this seat would have fitted my frame perfectly. Anger was coursing through my veins now. The trip back had been short, only a few hours but the memories that had come flooding in to each of us had given us an unbelievable rage that seemed barely contained within these capsules of flesh and bone.
“What happened?” His voice was dark.
“I would worry less about him and more about yourself. We know, Nichols. We know everything.”
The hiss of dead air answered us as we waited, patient, our anger abated for now.
“What do you want Professor?”
“You came around quicker than expected.”
“Well when you’re surrounded by a dome of glass on a poisonous planet you have nothing to barter with.”
“I’m glad you see it that way. We’ve come for what’s ours, to rescue whoever has survived from those you left to die. Leave us be and we will leave you to live out the last of your oxygen. I’m guessing that’s close to a year and a more than fair exchange since you left my people less than that when you found them.”
Another long pause, an audible sigh and a defeated, “Very well.”
I looked to the others, "Prepare for terrestrial landing." I crossed to the door where Angela was kept and helped her to her feet and out onto the bridge as the ship descended through the cloudy atmosphere.
“I am sorry I had to lock you up but had this gone badly I wanted to spare you blame.”
“I know.” She squeezed my arm reassuringly and kissed my cheek.
The Wilhelm landed, less than gentle, in front of the main entrance. I would have preferred the hangar but as far as we knew it wasn’t connected to the main mountain passages. The ramp lowered and we marched the six aides out onto the brown waste.
“The biodome is that way. If you hurry you will make it before your air runs out.”
Petrie began to protest but I held up my hand, “It’s more than we left those aboard The Onyx so go, now, before we change our minds.”
Hesitating they turned and headed downhill, climbing carefully over the rocks. Petrie stopped before the edge, saw Angela had yet to move. Their eyes locked for a moment before Petrie also disappeared over the ledge. And in that moment I knew he knew. A90 surfaced again but there was no time, there never was. We were all on the move. Strata and Meta watching the scanners and manning the guns while Astro stayed in the main chamber to begin searching for a place our people could call home.
The elevator rattled to a stop and we stood before the large metal door. Rusted shut I slowly cranked the door open manually. One by one the phospholuminescence came on, casting the room in a blue glow.
Pods, hundreds of them, row upon row disappeared into the massive chamber before us. We stood there, Angela at my side, her gloved hand in mine.
“Let’s go. Find out who’s still alive, bring them to the door.”
The more I searched the more I realized my hopes had been foolish. The pods, all buried in dust, held only death and disappointment for us. Men, women and children, the pods had never been meant to hold us for this long.
“I found one.”
I rushed to Angela’s side, brushing the dirt away, “Take him to the front.” Using the small touchscreen I activated the hover pads and with a shudder it lifted from the ground a few inches. Angela pushed it easily away and I rushed down the rows, discovering two more. We found eight in total. Five women and three men.
Waiting at the door we called to Cutter but only silence answered us. I found her near an open pod, cradling her brain dead son. Though still a child he was as tall as her human form with blue skin and needles of yellow teeth in his slack mouth. Unhooking the ventilator she held her son and watched the heart monitor flat line. I pried her away gently as her whole body shook with sobs.
“They were supposed to come back for us. Why didn’t they come back for us?!” She screamed so loud the voice filter on the mic cut her out and I heard the words muffled through her helm.
The group was silent and solemn as we rode the elevator upwards, a pod each.
“Welcome back. We got company.” Strata’s voice boomed in my ear and in the background I heard laser fire.”
“What’d we miss?”
“Apparently Nichols decided against sitting pretty in his dome.”
We were already jogging past Astro, the pods gliding before us, “Astro, please tell me you have good news?”
“Not yet. Cross referencing our maps with Earth’s.”
We sprinted from the chamber down the dark passageway of the mountain corridor and out into the gunfight. The ramp was still lowered but the lasers were out and firing downhill at the oncoming onslaught of ATVs and armed men. From the way some of the men were holding their pistols it was clear even the civilian scientists had been recruited. Bullets were flying, ricocheting off the shields of the ship and exploding against the rock.
“Quick. Get the pods on board,” We ran for the ramps, Angela right behind me, “Stay here Angela. Only three of us need to go back.” I was already racing back down as Cutter, Cal and Corvus reached the bottom.
Cal stumbled back suddenly, clutching his chest. The pod followed gravity downhill and knocked him back onto the ground. I grabbed the pod, stopping its descent and shut the hover pads off to send it crashing to the ground.
There was blood bubbling up from the small hole in his suit but even more deadly was the carbon dioxide filling his lungs with each gasp. He was dead before Cutter returned to help. There was no time for grief amongst the chaos as Cutter and Corvus made their way back into the mountain. The hover pods back on I pushed Cal’s pod up the ramp into Angela’s waiting hands.
The body of Cal lay spread before me as I made my way back down, the white suit soaked in blood. The men were advancing closer up the slope, The Wilhem’s lasers overheating as Strata attempted to spread its fire down the mountain.
Before I could turn to make for the tunnel Nichols crested the peak. His pale face showed nothing but determination. He had nothing to lose, while I had everything. He was near the front of the ship, taking cover by the landing legs and I had no choice but to sprint forward. The ground burst around me as bullets flew. My oxygen was running low, the alarm buzzing in my ear as I sprinted beneath the belly of the ship.
The two of us collided as he was reloading. Spinning and tumbling we came to a halt sprawled across the dirt. I was the first up, first to Nichols’ gun but I didn’t shoot him. The butt of the gun smashed his helmet, exposing his lungs to the poisonous atmosphere. The others were getting closer, the lasers firing slower and slower and I could almost see the metal beginning to glow red.
I worked quickly to remove Nichols’ oxygen tank and replace it with my own, firing occasionally to give myself cover fire.
“Professor? Professor we’ve got the last of them.”
I dumped the gun on Nichols’ body and hurried back to the ramp.
The pods were lined up in a storage bay and we were all safe aboard the bridge. The ship left Kepler behind and turned towards Astro’s co-ordinates, what we hoped was a safe haven, a planet capable of supporting our Originals.
Our suits off I took Angela’s hand and lead her back to the pods where Cutter was running tests, preparing to remove them from stasis. I took her to the last pod and carefully brushed the dust away.
The male alien beneath looked to be in peaceful sleep, the only signs of the sleeping sickness in his gaunt face and his pale blue skin. It was like looking into a mirror for me and for a moment I forgot I was human. Angela looked upon him with wonder.
“It’s me. My Original.” She released my hand and touched the glass. We stood like that for minutes. Finally I couldn’t take it any longer and I drew her away. We ran down the corridors, I had never felt so happy, so free. There were no more eyes watching, controlling. I was free to be with her and nothing was going to stop me now. The door to the room we would claim as our own swished open and I pulled her into the dark and kissed her. Our lips met, our hands explored and I found a passion inside me that had been hidden away beneath drugs and protocol since my awakening.
Chapter 9: A New Home
My biosuit was warm, I was sweating and my nerves were frayed. We had sealed off a section of the ship and made the atmosphere breathable for our Originals. The pods had been moved and we were only three days into our journey yet we had already lost one. I didn’t know whether to be thankful that it wasn’t my Original or not.
“We’re ready.” Cutter, Meta and Strata were with me. I nodded to Cutter and she began the process to bring the aliens out of stasis.
Liquids drained into the I.Vs, atmosphere rushed into the stasis pods as their lids opened. One by one they regained consciousness. Their long, limber limbs removed the needles from their arms and they lifted themselves from the pods. Their blue bodies towered several feet above us and I gazed in awe as their black eyes all turned in our direction. They wore suits of black and dull yellow.
Their voices consisted of several different frequencies at once, a low rumbling and high warbling as they spoke to us. It felt so long since hearing those familiar sounds though I knew I had never heard them before. I smiled at them and handed the closest a datapad. Her large hand swallowed it up. She gazed at it for a few minutes, reading the report we had written up and holding the small screen close to her eyes. She turned to face her fellows and spoke the words aloud. Whatever thoughts were crossing their minds were hidden behind their skeletal faces.
“Please, leave us.” She spoke in her language, our language, as she turned back to me. I nodded at the request and we left their part of the ship as they went through the datapad.
Angela ran her fingers through my hair as she lay beside me. The room was lit dully and her hair shone golden at the edges. A look of concern crossed her face.
"What is it?"
"Your hair is greying."
"Isn't that what happens when humans age?"
"Yes." But the look of concern did not leave her face so I kissed it away.
I thought I had rid Angela of her worry but first thing in the morning she ran some tests and blood work on all of us. I watched her work, going through the files, comparing, making notes. She buried herself in her work, ignoring my attempts at conversation. I left her alone and began my own work. There was everything on this ship required to start a colony, a permanent colony but it was old and hadn’t been turned on in decades. I started working my way through all the machinery, double checking that everything functioned. A few hours in Angela found me, her face ashen.
"What's wrong?" I came to her side, held her close but she pushed me away and took a breath.
"You're dying."
"What do you mean?"
“You were created to serve a purpose. I found a code in your DNA and it was activated shortly after we attacked The Onyx. It's a termination code. Your aging process has sped up and I can't find a way to deactivate it."
"How much time do we have?"
"It's impossible to know exactly. You'll all be slightly different. But no more than five months."
I nodded in response, too in shock to really process the information, "Do the others know?"
"Not yet. Should I tell them?"
"I don't know. For now, let's not."
"They'll be curious about why I ran tests on them."
"It was just a general health checkup. It's been a while since we had one."
“Ok." There were tears in her eyes. I couldn't bear the thought of her hurting and I pressed her against my chest and held her as she sobbed, "It's all going to be fine. We're fewer than five weeks from a suitable planet. Once the Originals are dropped off we can get you home, to earth. But I am going to teach you how to pilot the ship. We have to face reality that you will be on your own the entire journey home."
She sobbed harder and I held her painfully close. Her body went limp and I scooped her up into my arms and took her to our room.
Later that night, unable to sleep I watched her frail form breathing rhythmically in the dark. The thought of losing her, even though she was the one losing me, was painful to acknowledge. Dying didn't scare me, it was an inevitable fact of all life, it was the thought of never seeing Angela again that was causing my grief.
The following weeks felt cursed. I spent every waking moment preparing the ship, working with our Originals and teaching Angela everything about the ship she would need to know. We were forced to tell the others but they handled it better than I, after all, they weren't leaving anyone behind.
Our Originals, still weak from prolonged stasis were slowly regaining their health, day by day. Their skeletal forms filled out as they received proper nutrition, their pale skin darkened but I was concerned with their mental health more than anything. Cutter ran tests on them to figure out the exact side effects of the stasis. One of which was short-term memory loss. They seemed to have an easy time remembering things they had learned before they entered stasis, but to learn anything new was a challenge. They would often ask the same questions again and again so I had Corvus begin building a library of all the things they would need to know, of every question they asked and every answer we gave them so when we were gone they would have it easily accessible. With everything completed we entered orbit and prepared to eject the portion of the ship that would become their new home. It was the original destination of the ship before it had malfunctioned. There were no others of our kind on the planet, if any had survived they would be off elsewhere in the galaxy, but it was a hospitable planet for them and capable of sustainable resources.
I watched as most of the ship detached, metal squelching and shuddering as the ejection procedures engaged. I sat at the bridge with Angela and watched as this whole new ship descended to the planet’s surface. The atmosphere was suitable for them and we had already found the most abundant location in which to land. The others were aboard the descending ship, choosing to live out what time they had left helping to establish the colony. We all knew that their breathable air would run out long before their expiry dates were reached but they would have a week, maybe a day more before that happened.
Only Angela and I remained, watching silently, her small, soft hand held in mine, "Would you like to do the honors?" I asked her when the landing craft became no more than a speck against the blue haze of the planet. She slipped her hand from mine and sat down in the pilot's chair. Her hands slipping into the glowing controls, into the gel like material that picked up electrical impulses from her brain. Engaging the engines she turned the ship around and put in the co-ordinates for Kepler 84C, a pit stop on our way to earth.
Chapter 10: Protecting Secrets
The biodome sat peacefully against the barren landscape, all optional systems shut down to preserve power and air. The remaining soldiers and scientists were down there. No doubt they had already sent word of what happened to earth. Ships would have been launched, with full crews to bring us rebels back under power. Still, it would be four long years before a ship arrived. I was thankful that I had kept Angela's part in this hidden.
My hair was completely grey now, wrinkles covered my face and my muscles were breaking down, making walking and other tasks almost impossible. I had spent the last week in bed but Angela helped me to the bridge so that I might witness our final act of vengeance. She lowered me into the chair and kissed my forehead gently.
The weapons came online; Angela charged them to full power as the ship descended through the clouds. Breaking through she hovered a couple hundred miles above Kepler.
She targeted the mountain and released. Four balls of spinning red left our ship and shot towards Kepler. I watched the screens to see it smash into the side of the mountain and we watched as the honeycombed mountain slowly collapsed inwards on itself. Angela targeted the biodome. I could feel my breathing slowing, my heartbeat too. My eyelids were becoming heavy. Angela was too distracted by the explosion of oxygen that marked the destruction of the biodome to notice but it didn't matter. We knew this was coming, and she knew how I felt. I was only thankful that I saw the last of it through. I made it to the end and my people were safe.
Angela sat a moment, watching the flames die down, the column of black smoke billowing upwards. She knew that the Professor was gone but could not bring herself to look at him. It was done, everything. It was all over and things had been made right. The last ten years of her life had been dedicated to this moment. To finishing what her grandfather had started decades earlier. What she had never expected was to fall in love, and to lose him so quickly.
