Sirius Orphanage - Chapter Two (rough draft - test)

I'm thinking every other chapter could be a flashback or something, sort of end up with two related stories.

Chapter Two

An Earlier Time

Jenai loved to get up early and see the stars, for they shined only briefly between dark rise and light fall every morning. Sometimes the large orange circular behemoth would make an appearance and occasionally the spider galaxy could be seen fully with all of those spindly legs.

It was a strange morning that she found Assistant Caretaker Chub wandering the dark corridors while mumbling to himself. She could not make out what he was saying to himself but since he seemed to be on some mission she decided to follow him.

Jenai was careful not to make a sound. She knew that if he did not look directly at her and focus, Chub would not be able to see her. It was her special talent, to be able to go unnoticed. Most of the children in the facility had some sort of talent. It was suspected the others did too, they just hadn’t been figured out yet.

Children were not allowed down in these levels but Jenai liked to explore them. She had found an entire library of undecipherable books once, unfortunately she was never able to locate it again. Jenai was sure that Alabaster could have deciphered the language, it was his special talent. It was a mystery that may never be solved.

Jenai watched as part of a wall became a shiny metal door and Chub pulled out of chain of keys and carefully selected one of them. The doors swung open and he entered, Jenai moved closer as the doors shut. Fortunately one of them hadn’t closed all the way and she peered inside.

The room seemed mostly empty and dark. She could see the shadow of the Assistant Caretaker moving around inside but it was murky. Suddenly a large circular spot on the floor lit up a brilliant blue and the room could be seen. Whatever it was, it was the sole purpose of the room.

She saw Chub walk to the edge of the blue pool and drop something inside. Then the chubby young man with the dumb face seemed to wait. Then something emerged from the pool and into the air where it was snatched by his hands. As far as Jenai could determine this was some kind of message-sending device.

Why not just use the hyper like everyone else?

The blue light vanished and a solid floor reappeared as the room became dark once again. Jenai moved away to a corner in the corridor as the Assistant Caretaker locked the door and walked away, when he was gone she looked back and there was just wall there once again.

It was a mystery and Jenai liked mysteries. She made a note to tell her friend Craig all about this when they met at the water tanks later. In the meantime she was supposed to hurry or she’d be late to Secondary Mathtistics.

…

Craig listened to her story without interrupting. His face had broken out in a smile as the thought of solving a new mystery beckoned.

“Some kind of communications? It does sound that way, but what if it was something else? Maybe it was a trade?” Craig asked, “I wonder where the other side went? Can people cross over?”

Jenai hadn’t thought of that.

“That sounds extremely dangerous, sending people through some kind of portal,” she said, “When Chub arrived to help old man Martin, he came by ship. If people could cross through with the portal, wouldn’t it be faster and easier?”

Craig nodded, “You’re right about that. Traveling by ship would be a waste if the portal could be used to travel.”

“I guess that’s why it’s a mystery.”

He smiled, “Tell nobody else about this. Not until we’re finished finding out the secret.”

Jenai nodded, she was pleased. She liked solving mysteries, especially with Craig. She liked Craig.

…

That night, at a predetermined time, Jenai and Craig slipped out of their beds in their respective dorms and met near the main water tanks. The cool air was moving and it felt like standing in front of a cooling vent. There were no stars of course, no matter how one strained looking down off the platforms.

“How do you reckon we can get inside the room?” she asked.

He smiled, “I know a trick. I’ve seen one of those before. It’s sort of like your talent, if you look at it and focus you’ll see the lever that makes it visible,” Craig explained. Then he shrugged, “I have no idea how it does that, but they do exist.”

Jenai was surprised he had figured that out just from her description, “We’ll get this all done too quick at that rate, Craig, slow down.”

He laughed, then he told her “Let’s go have a look, it’s getting cold out here.”

Once inside they descended until coming to the darker sections of the orphanage. They nodded toward each other after looking around, not wanting to be caught. Jenai led him deeper into the level and paused to consider the path.

“Are you lost?” Craig asked.

She scoffed, “Of course not.”

He shrugged, “You never found that library a second time.”

Jenai rolled her eyes, would everyone always bring that up?

Then something looked familiar and she strode toward it, Craig followed. This was the right place but the door was already open and there were shadowy figures in the room again. Craig pulled her aside and into a recessed area of the corridor.

“We cannot get caught!” Craig whispered, she nodded only feeling thrilled that his mouth was right next to her ear as they huddled.

“I hear someone talking, quiet,” she said.

It was old man Martin, the Caretaker, he was talking to someone.

“I realize the severity of the situation. I only ask that you consider this facility neutral, we are not your enemy here,” the old man said. His shadow was next to a smaller one that flickered across the wall of the tiny portion of the room they could see.

They heard no response but soon the Caretaker spoke again, “I am sure adequate safeguards can be agreed upon, we can present all the proof you’d like. This is a fully civilian facility, after all, I can guarantee we are no threat to your society.”

The response they heard was a distinct growl. Craig and Jenai looked at each other, both wondering what kind of secret they had stumbled upon. Both wondering if they would get caught.

“The children, yes, they must stay in their beds, I understand,” the Caretaker answered, “I think it a bit extreme that you would punish them so harshly though.”

A whiny, even threatening growl.

“If the term is not negotiable, I will skip on to the next. I’m not sure what you mean about a portal incidence, I assure you we would never use them against your people. We are all civilians here...” then he shut up as the other voice growled a response, “Yes, yes. I don’t understand how such a modification would work, but if you say it is real… I am not arguing with you. I would never dream, after all we are guests on your planet.”

Craigs’ eyes were huge saucers, his breathing quickened. This made Jenai more frightened as well.

“If that is the term we must operate by, then we shall do so. Goodnight,” Martin said and they watched the smaller shadow move and grow bigger as it approached the glowing blue pool on the floor. For a brief moment they saw what had thrown the shadow. The four-legged alien was covered in an outer exoskelton, almost dog-like.

Martin locked the door and it became wall again and then the old man paused and looked around before walking away. Jenai and Craig breathed again, relieved to not have been spotted.

“What was that?” Jenai asked.

“Diplomacy,” Craig answered, “I don’t think it’s good news, but the Caretaker seems to think whatever the terms were are the best we can get.”

Sirius Orphanage - Chapter One - (test)

Sirius Orphanage

Chapter One – Dark Rise

The boy was outside of the window, looking down from the ledge. A rope was all that held him in place, but he could not see the bottom below. Darkness had already fallen down there.

“Ottie, see anything?” Another boy from inside the building asked.

“No. Too dark down there,” he responded and pulled himself back up to the ledge with a flick of the wrist and then he was standing on the ledge and he rope disappeared up a sleeve. Ottie was just a normal-looking boy in light blue pajamas again as he climbed through the window.

“Then we have less than a kilomin before it’s bedtime and lights out,” an older blonde-haired boy said who the others looked toward and nodded, “That means if anyone is on deck, or exploring below or out by the water tower meeting a girl, they need to start back before the stalkers appear.”

Another older boy with close-cropped dark hair looked around the common area and crossed his arms, “I don’t see Danny or Maxwell. These kids...”

“Danny was one deck below,” a younger boy with a smart-alec sneer, “I think he said he was playing with a stalker pup.”

The boys groaned and shook their heads. Imaginary pets were against their code because it might make one more sympathetic to the stalkers. The oldest boy looked around and chose one of the younger boys, “Sam, go and find Danny and drag him back before bedtime.”

The boy nodded and took off through the far exit of the room.

“Now, does anyone know where Maxwell is?”

…

The boy was sitting on the edge of the platform swinging his legs above the abyss far below as if he had no worries at all. Across a space too large to jump was a similar platform, both built around very large metal tanks. A girl, also in pajamas, was sitting on the edge of that one.

“How long do you think we’ll be here?” she asked.

“Forever probably,” the boy answered.

She scrunched up her face, “Maybe we’ll be adopted someday.”

The boy looked doubtful and frowned, “When’s the last time anyone was adopted from here? Do you remember the last time anyone even visited?”

She thought and shook her head, “I don’t remember very far back.”

The boy nodded, he had already figured out that nobody could remember farther back than a few solar cycles. It had been his private hobby to investigate this, it was a slow process and had become a secondary thing since he had met Loria.

“Do you want to come over here?” he asked her.

She smiled but shook her head, “It’s getting late, Max, and if I go over I might not be able to make myself come back to this side.”

Suddenly another boy was standing next to Maxwell. Max looked up to see Ottie there holding a rope that was dancing in the air such as should have been impossible.

“You should be heading back,” the boy said, “Hi, Loria.”

“Oh, hello Ottie,” the girl said starting to stand up, “I think it’s time to go. Good night Max, I’ll see next time!”

Maxwell was disappointed, “Ottie, I know what time it is.”

He got up and looked into the abyss below to see that the darkness had risen farther than he had realized. He nodded to Ottie, “Are you ever going to teach anyone else how to do rope magic?”

Ottie looked offended, “It’s my thing, find your own.”

Maxwell laughed as they started moving from one platform to another back toward the main boys building past the water tanks. Then they froze when they looked back and saw a grayish creature on the top of the one they had just passed.

“It’s too early for a stalker!” Maxwell said.

“It’s not messing with us, though. Not until darkness rises,” Ottie pointed out.

The wolf-like creature covered in a grayish exoskeleton paid little mind to them. It was as if it was enjoying the last bits of light the way someone might get up really early and look at stars.

“Let’s just hurry,” Maxwell said. The last part of their journey was a climb of a few stories back into the building. He looked over to see if Loria was okay and saw a figure already climbing through a window on that side.

“Let me do this, Max. It’s cool,” Ottie said, Max was going to ask what it was but a rope tightened around his chest and under his arms and both he and Ottie went airborne all the way to the outside ledge of the proper floor. Then the rope disappeared again.

“How do you do that?” Maxwell asked, Ottie just laughed and shrugged.

As they entered the large bedchamber the other boys were already in their beds and the light was dimming.

“Hurry! Get in your bed!” one of the older boys said.

Ottie and Maxwell had beds on the far end since they were younger, so they took off running. The room was getting darker and they could hear the other boys chatter. It was getting dark faster than normal and hey had almost been late.

Ottie whimpered and nearly stumbled. Maxwell looked back to see if he was okay and he could see a dark spot near the entrance. His stomach knotted.

“Stalker!” someone yelled and the animal looked in that direction, momentarily distracted.

Maxwell was near his own bed and was thinking of helping Ottie but then a rope appeared from the boys sleeve and he was flying through the air towards his own bed. Rope magic again. Maxwell hopped onto his own bed and pulled the covers over himself.

Ottie and everyone was safe. The stalker would pad around the whole chamber for hours but there was little for it and its pack to do but patrol. Nobody would dare get out of bed before the twilight.

The only human that was safe from the stalkers and other threats was the Caretaker. The Caretaker was a chubby younger man who walked slow and talked slow as if he were dim-witted. Max knew the guy was probably smart though, he just wondered if the man was motivated.

Chub had been the assistant once upon a time. There had been a much older man, Martin, with a gray beard who had been in charge for a long time. Something happened one night, though. As far as Max could gather, a boy and a girl had been caught out in the dark-rise and the old man Martin and Chub had tried to save them.

Apparently those two orphans had entered a mirror gate to escape and were never seen or heard from again. There were more than stalkers around in those days and Martin had tried to appease the angry creatures who had lost their prey. He had somehow slipped and fallen down into the abyss.

Maxwell had tried to formulate a time-line through all of the events. He could not make it work. As far as he could tell, the passage of time was not uniform at the orphanage. It seemed impossible but he once tried to calculate how long he had been there. It came out to sixteen solar cycles, which was impossible because he was twelve and he had been dropped off when he was seven.

If sixteen cycles had really passed Max figured he would be full-grown by now. He wasn’t and this was proof that his calculations were wrong. Even if someone were manipulate time and the clocks, they couldn’t mess with how fast someone grew, right?

Maxwell had always listened and made mental notes when the older boys spoke. Over time he had found that Wendell, the oldest, arrived at age nine. The second oldest kid, the blonde named Ranger said he had been about ten. But Ranger had arrived first somehow and nobody seemed to see or understand the discrepancy.

Nuggets of information collected over a long time was suggesting that time was not linear, and Maxwell could not wrap his mind around it. It was a puzzle he was unable to solve and he didn’t dare mention it to anyone else. It was his thing, like Otties’ rope magic.

…

Chub was on the deck, at the top of the orphanage. He was peering down into a circular pit that was like a miniature abyss. A black rope tied off nearby disappeared into its depths. The Caretaker was waiting for something to emerge. Finally something did.

A black-colored version of a stalker pulled itself out of the round abyss and stood there. The Caretaker nodded.

“Well, Barnabas, did you detect anything?” Chub asked. In response the creature whimpered.

The man nodded in a resigned way, and started pulling the rope back out of the abyss, “I guess tonight is not the night, then.”

Once the rope was completely out of the abyss, it disappeared and was once again solid metal, just another part of the deck. Chub yawned and stretched. The darkness should be on its way back down soon and the kids would be awake again. Twilight was always his favorite part of the day, you could briefly see all of the stars and sometimes the husk would pass overhead.

Thankfully none of the kids remembered ever seeing the husk. That would bring forth far too many questions. Even if they might occasionally steal away to see the stars, none had so far seen the burned out wreck of space station that still orbited the abandoned planet.

The only way off this planet now was through a portal and those were far too dangerous. Chub could get away with a little occasional exploration by sending Barnabas through but he shuddered to think about what would happen if the kids learned of it.

Chub had been worried when Ottie had found about his rope magic. He had awaited the rush of kids trying to figure out their own gifts, but none of them had. It was a relief that most of them was completely disinterested and continued their routines. The charm had worked to suppress that normal instinct in humans, that which made a person ask “Why?”

Wendell was nearly ready to be made Assistant Caretaker. Soon enough he would be taken off charm and Chub would start showing and telling him about the ways of this world. Without charm his curiosity would explode of course, but the answers would anchor him quickly.

Barnabas growled and looked up at Chub. Chub smiled, “Go home, boy!”

The creature ran off to join the stalkers and other creatures that fled as the day returned. Their realm was the darkness. As the creature leaped over the edge, Chub wondered briefly if it would be back. Except that it always came back.

The light soon obscured the stars, their presence between the dark and the light never lasted very long.

“It’s morning, time to make a head count and get them breakfast,” Chub said to himself.

Escape from Free Republic - Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

With his hands on his hands Felix grinned at the three Marines guarding node chamber as he approached. He had dropped his weapons in full view and now walked toward them as if to surrender himself.

The device that would cripple their armored suits was in plain view on his chest but these Marines didn’t know anything about it. They may have heard that there was such a device, since it had been used quite effectively in the battles down on Sync but they wouldn’t be expecting this.

In fact, Felix didn’t even know whether it would work on board the Umbrage, which had a powerful field to dampen that sort of thing. Fortunately that field was directed outward rather than inward.

“Name?” One of the Marines asked as he approached.

“Felix Santayana, I was born in Upper Range Province,” he told them, “Although I’m sure the records of my birth were destroyed in one of your bombings.”

Just another meter or two.

“Tell me, do your people still carry out show trials before the execution, or after?” Felix asked, still grinning with his face-plate open.

“Those who surrender do not get executed,” One of the marines said, “Stop there and turn around.”

Felix stopped, “I suppose it’s hard labor in some asteroid mine for someone like me.”

Now! Felix flexed his left wrist, this was to set off the device. Immediately his suits instrumentation went haywire, but he heard thumps as the three marines hit the floor. He turned to see them, the suits so heavy that they couldn’t really move from inside. The other rebels came to join him,

“Good job, Felix,” his commander, the new guy named Tom Grier said. They took the weapons from the Marines and moved them aside.

“Felix, check out the node chamber, see if there’s a trap or anything.” Tom Grier ordered, Felix saluted and exaggerated a march towards the open chamber. Inside the oval-shaped chamber he saw two large contraptions that filled the two ends, from ceiling to floor. Felix could see pipes and ducts along the walls, as more systems than just gravity and field generators were sent through.

Felix was about to send an all-clear message when someone stepped out from behind the large module at the far end of the chamber. The armored suit was unfamiliar, it was much too large, as if the torso allowed one to curl up for naps inside.

“Who…?” Felix managed to say before a large hole opened up in his chest, right through the rebel armor he wore. Everything went black rather quickly.

Blade could see the others start to enter the chamber but when they saw the body they moved to one side of the entrance or the other. One of them had been wearing the armor of a Marine; Tom Grier.

Tom Grier was the rebel scum that had destroyed his body. Falling from the tower had broken his spine, but Blade didn’t let that stop him. Blade had pulled and pushed with his arms, he had left a trail of blood and bits of flesh on the ground behind him. By the time he had been found by the agent named Bolton, he was nearly bled out.

Thankfully, Bolton had taken him into the shuttle. Bolton did not ask questions when Blade demanded to be taken to the Marine Tech ship Dispensation. The few people on that ship hadn’t wanted to let them open the hatch but a medical emergency required them to render aid.

Blade had known about the prototype suit for months, they had tested him for it. Using Blade they had made sure that a full-grown Marine would be comfortable inside it. He had followed orders not to tell anyone, not even Admiral Robinson about the prototype. It never left his mind though. His thoughts and dreams had revolved around that armored suit everyday since.

He lay there helpless on the cot for days in the Medical Ward of the Dispensation wondering how would he get to the suit? Except he had known, deep down, that he was already connected to the suit. His mind had been the one they used when programming it for the psych connection. It was to be much more advanced than the present physical relay. It was.

The suit had felt him there. It had called to him and asked for orders. Blade had even been a little surprised but pleasantly surprised. He told the suit to come to him and to kill anyone else that it saw along the way.

The screams in the corridor were like church bells, raising his flagging spirits. The suit appeared in the doorway and then opened itself, lifting Blade’s broken body and fitting him inside. Blade no longer needed his own legs, he had better ones. A suit that was more powerful than any Marine armor, one that was like its own spacecraft while waiting for the chance to get inside the Umbrage.

It could have even survived the fall and burn into the atmosphere of the planet, Sync, below. It was truly a remarkable machine. Possibly one that could be used to rule a world. For now he would be satisfied with revenge against the one who had crippled him. Then maybe, he would make the Umbrage his own ship.

Something approximating a smile crossed his lips.

He thought to the machine and it began walking toward the only exit in the node chamber, Blade was looking forward to tearing Tom Grier into pieces. After finishing off these rebels he would heard toward the bridge and introduce himself to Admiral Robinson properly. His plans were falling into place.

…

“What is that thing?” Someone asked.

“It’s massive.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Tom told them, “It doesn’t matter how big it is, we still have to take it out. Get those explosive charges ready.”

“What’s happening Tom?” Maggie’s voice asked, she sounded concerned.

“I don’t have time to talk, okay?” Tom replied, “You didn’t warn me about this thing, is it some kind of tank?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tom. I don’t see anything moving near you on the sensors.”

Tom knew Maggie well enough to know that statement did not sound like a lie. She didn’t know about that thing? It wasn’t showing up on the sensors? This was not good news.

“It’s a huge armored suit, probably from the Marines.”

“The General hasn’t said anything about such a suit Tom. Not around me.”

Time was up.

Tom took the QBR-44 from his back and turned the corner. The massive armor suit was only a few meters away. The arm of the suit didn’t move but part of the forearm moved aside and a weapon appeared which was already moving toward Tom.

Tom dodged sideways as the weapon fired, an energy beam punched a hole right through the wall of the chamber. Tom returned fire, an explosive round right at the chest of the massive suit. Some sort of force-field had stopped it from causing any damage.

This was not good at all.

The rebels were leaning over from the doorway firing rounds at the enemy armor, but it was paying no attention to them.

“Explosive charge, now!” Tom told them. He moved away from the hulking suit toward the back of the chamber as the first charge landed amidst its feet. The suit stopped and seemed to look down as the explosion rocked the whole chamber and floor.

The suit appeared undamaged, unlike the floor and part of the nearby walls.

“What is this thing?”

The suit now started moving toward Tom a lot faster than it had any right to be moving. Tom fired a burst of anti-armor rounds right at it, but they only seemed to scratch some paint of its chest. Then it stopped and the faceplate moved aside.

It was the sniper he had fought in Valla.

“How?”

The sneer on the mans face broke into an ugly smile, “I wondered that myself, Tom Grier, but I think the better question is ‘why?’. The answer to that question is simple, so that I can get my revenge on you and others who wronged me!”

…

Blade took aim at Tom Grier with his powerful V-Beam weapon just as the lights went out. Something thumped him on the back of the suit, probably those rebels with their puny weapons again. Now why was the night vision and sensors not working? Thankfully life support was working, the air circulation system was running in fits and starts.

The lights came back on and he wasn’t looking at Tom Grier anymore. He was looking at one of the gravitic nodes. The suit informed him that some of field generator had caused a computer error but that systems were self-repairing. He could move again.

Now where did Tom and his merry band of rebels run off to?

There, near the entrance to the chamber. Two of them were carrying the body of that rebel he had killed first. Tom Grier had holstered his big Marine rifle and was holding something else in his hands. With a thought a powerful projectile gun appeared in the hand of Blades suit, since the energy weapon was still malfunctioning.

“Your device to cripple the Marine suits don’t work on this one, Tom!” He said as he made the suit take the first steps toward the chamber exit. Then he extended his gun arm and thought the order to fire but nothing happened.

The rebels were moving fast away from him, down the corridor.

The computer said the rounds had indeed been fired but that the rounds had been suspended inside of the barrels. He saw a representation of this appear as if watching an x-ray machine, the rounds then moved quickly in reverse and exploded out the back of the suits armored elbow.

The suit was also being pulled and turned. The whole chamber was twisting, he could hear the metal moaning through the thick armor. The suit turned around and he could see the gravitic node had been destroyed by explosives, the explosion itself was struggling to expand against the force of artificial gravity out of control.

The chamber and everything else, including his armored suit, was twisting around the fiery node as if it were a small black hole. It seemed to be happening in slow motion to Blade, who had been mesmerized by the view for a moment. Now he was struggling to get free of the grip of the depolarized, unbalanced gravity node.

A vessel the size of the Umbrage required two nodes, at polar ends but near the middle decks to balance the artificial gravity. If one were to weaken, the other would weaken automatically in response, because the whole system depended on balance. The two nodes were in special chambers because they needed to be the most protected parts of the ship.

If one of the nodes were to be blown up and the other was prevented from shutting down in response, the out of control gravitic forces could twist and tear the ship apart.

This was Tom Griers whole goal, of course. The destruction of the Umbrage would be a severe blow to the Free Republic. They couldn’t build ships like it any longer, things had gone downhill far too much for that.

…

“We have to get off this ship, now!” Tom told the others as they ran. He had sent the same message to the other team.

“Signal the base to send a ship to get us!” He said, but it was too soon. There was probably no chance a message could reach the ground, there was too much jamming. In fact, the unleashed gravitic reaction was causing more than the fleet ever could.

“Tom, what’s happening?” Maggie’s voice sounded in his suit helmet again.

“The Umbrage is toast, Maggie. You need to get on an escape pod, now!” He answered.

…

Umbrage, Marine Deck

“Everybody to the escape pods! The Dispensation is moving into position to pick us up!” General Gallant ordered, it was a good thing most of the Marines were on Sync because the Tech ship wasn’t that big. The alarms were ringing all through the ship, it looked like the whole thing might tear itself apart.

Gallant checked the last of the officer quarters and assumed most had already gotten off. He moved to get aboard one of the few remaining pods when he heard the metal scream and the whole bulkhead started pulsating and then twisting as he watched. It made him feel sick to his stomach but it was all the impetus he needed to get out.

There was no saving the Umbrage from this. He strapped into the seat as the controller Maggie Anders climbed in.

“What are you still doing here?”

“Looking for you!”

“It’s not my ship, I’m not going to go down with it!” he told her as he slapped the release mechanism and the pod pushed away from the ship.

He breathed a sigh of relief but a whimper from Maggie Anders made him open his eyes and look out the porthole. Instead of a gentle move away from the twisting hulk of carrier Umbrage, the pods and a lot of wreckage broken from the large vessel were swaying and being pulled around with it. Like playthings floating in the tub of an unruly child.

General Gallant used the radio to contact the Dispensation, “Where are you?”

“I can’t get any closer! This ship would be caught in that mess too.” Lt General Edwards responded.

“Get as close as you dare! We’re going to need some help!”

…

Free Republic Fleet Carrier Umbrage, Bridge

“What is happening to my ship?” Admiral James “Jim” Robinson tried to make himself hear above the alarms and the sounds of twisting metal, “Commander Grabble!”

Grabble finally appeared, “Admiral, we need to get in an escape pod!”

“No! I’m not leaving my post!”

“Admiral, this ship is dying, it’s not going to survive this!”

“It must, the Umbrage is the most powerful ship in the Free Republic fleet, we must be victorious!”

The Admiral was in full denial about what was happening. The crew had abandoned their posts and were getting out in the escape pods.

“Admiral, we must leave at once!”

“The rebels did this! Order a bombardment of the surface, all cities! Turn them all to dust!”

The Commander shook his head, he couldn’t get through. The Admiral was truly out of his mind. The Commander left and ran towards one of the remaining escape pods. The Admiral was now bouncing around the bridge almost uncontrollably in his hover-chair.

“I’m not going to lose this one!” Admiral James Robinson vowed, “We aren’t going to lose, we’re going to be victorious and all those who don’t join us shall be vanquished!”

Somehow the Admiral made it to his office. He activated the holograph of his dearest Sarah, her visage shifted and waved along with the gravitational forces tearing the ship apart. She was one of his deepest and most profound regrets. How could she have left him? Even for the vaunted Emperor? Though he had accepted it, he was only now understanding that he did partially blame her.

“My Sarah,” he whispered with a raspy breath.

Then the power went out.

Escape From The Free Republic - Chapter Twelve

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Free Republic Carrier Umbrage

The main corridor through the center of the ship on the mid-deck was a bit wider than the ones below it, because this deck did not have crew quarters and associated things. This was all meant for work spaces and at each end of the vessel, on this deck, the main power distribution nodes and the protective field generators and the artificial gravity systems were located.

No enemy force had ever boarded a carrier in memory. There was no real good reason for these critical systems to be protected from the inside. They already had the whole ship wrapped around them, they were well-protected from exterior threats.

Tom Grier hefted the Quad-Barreled Battle Rifle, QBR-44, it was longer than he was tall, and weight too much to carry without the powered armor suit he wore. The armored suit of the Free Republic Marines, now worn by a rebel fighting for the independence of a world called Sync.

If Sync won its independence, other worlds would follow. The Free Republic was already weakened by its ruthless but not-quite competent government. As history showed, authoritarian governments and their repression regressed a society and crippled its ability to grow and innovate.

“Where are they?” Tom asked. The Marines on the carrier should be there to stop him and the other rebels. They had entered through a tear in a cargo hatch and had climbed the decks fighting unarmored ship security personnel and their lightly armed drones. It had all been a very uneven match. There were Marines on this ship who could give them a real match, but where were they?

“Do you think they are inside of the nodes?” Felix asked, “Would that even make sense?”

Tom frowned, “No way. That would be a terrible place to put up a defensive. They need to do that as far from the vital systems as possible.”

Tom clicked the secure communications on his suit, “Skyler, where are you?”

“We’re near the forward node. It just feels too quiet,” the other soldier responded.

“Same here.”

“I’ve got eyes on the entrance to the forward node, it appears unguarded. I don’t get this.”

“Skyler, search the area for any threat and then hold for my mark, we’ll blow these systems simultaneously if we can,” Tom told him.

“Roger tha…” the transmission garbled.

Tom sighed, well it had to happen sooner or later he told himself.

“Tom!” A familiar voice sounded in his ear. He looked around and saw that his men were in defensive positions, waiting to move.

“Tom, it’s me Maggie,” the voice said, “I was able to hack into your suit. Listen to me, Tom, you need to get off this ship as soon as possible!”

“Maggie, can you hear me?” Tom asked, “You should head for the nearest escape pod, I am taking down this ship.”

“Tom, you don’t need to do this.”

“The Free Republic has become despotic. It’s nothing like we were taught. Everything they told us about it in school ended years ago. Sync and the other worlds deserve their independence,” Tom told her, “If you want to live through this, Maggie, get in a pod.”

“Listen Tom. The Admiral put up barricades to keep the Marines isolated, but they have found a way in now. They’ll be there soon,” Maggie told him. He had no way to know if it was true. If it was true, then there were no Marines waiting for them inside the node chambers.

Tom weighed the odds. They were unknown, but he decided that she was just being the mouthpiece of the Marine General.

He muted his suit com, “I’ll lead the way, check your weapons.”

The QBR-44 he carried was loaded with different kinds of ammunition. He could fire the regular fifty caliber rounds, grenade rounds, armor-penetrating rounds and acid rounds. The barrels hummed and they spun up into ready mode.

“Tom. You should escape while you have time. You don’t need to do this,” Maggie’s voice penetrated through his skull, “The Marines are on the way.”

Tom began a fast walk toward the node chamber down the corridor, his men followed on high alert for any threat. No sign of any opposition, which was extremely unnerving. Felix checked the entrances to the left while another soldier looked into all of the doors to the right. The deck was completely abandoned of any personnel.

The look of concern on Felix was more and more pronounced as they proceeded. The entrance to the node chamber was near. Tom considered firing his grenades into the chamber from where he was, but he wanted to carry out the mission as it was planned.

Suddenly five armored Marine suits walked into the corridor between his team and the node chamber.

“Into the workshops!” Felix said as they all ducked to the two sides as the first rounds were fired by the Marines.

“We are too close to stop now,” Tom said, he clicked the QBR-44 over to grenade rounds and spun out into the corridor, he fired eight rounds in two seconds and ducked back into the side chamber while the Marines were reacting.

He heard the firing of the other QBR-44’s and peeked out. They had shot down the grenade rounds and none of them had flown past the sentries. It was likely that the Marines guarding the node chamber weren’t allowed to fire their own grenade rounds aboard the carrier.

“There is an escape pod in that chamber, Tom, use it to escape!” Maggie’s voice interrupted his thoughts. He tried to turn off the connection, he wanted to contact Skyler on the aft side of the ship but nothing was happening.

“The Marines aren’t coming after us, they’re just guarding the node chamber,” Felix said, he had stuck the end of his gun into the corridor. The end of the gun had a camera connected to his armored suit, which was not as powerful as a Marine suit.

“That makes me even more nervous,” Someone else said.

“Something is happening. What is that?” Felix asked, activating his holographic imager over his wrist for a better look.

“It’s a Vike! Oh damn it’s armed!”

The robotic “cat” padded its way down the corridor toward them. Normally used to carry supplies or to sneak looks at enemy locations, this one was carrying a big gun. Tom stepped into the corridor and fired a grenade round at the Vike and it sidestepped the round which bounced before exploding. The “Viking Kitty” was thrown but used its legs to “walk” and push off the opposite wall and back to the floor.

Then it began firing at Tom was surprised to see explosive rounds inbound. He threw himself across the corridor and through a closed hatch, busting it off the hinges as the blast missed him. Tom got back up the Vike stopped outside and then turned in his direction.

Tom clicked the gun over to acid rounds.

The Vike pounced at Tom, but he ducked under the robotic beast and moved to the other side of the chamber but the Vike was already pushing off the wall and flying right toward him again. Tom sidestepped and then batted at the Vike with the gun as it passed. This gave the robot pause, so Tom fired two acid rounds at it.

Tom was aiming for the gun it carried on its back. The first acid round hit the robots “head”, which Tom hoped would blind it. The second one hit the gun but it did not appear damaged on the outside.

The Vike stopped and slowly moved its head from side to side. Tom tried not to make a sound. He didn’t know if that made a difference, it was just built in caution. Then maybe its sensors kicked in because it started towards Tom again. He fired some normal rounds at it but it was able to dodge most of those.

It had its own micro-radar. It could detect incoming shells or any other moving target and know exactly where they had come from. The Vike aimed at Tom who tried to shift his direction and found the wall was keeping him from rolling away.

The Vike didn’t fire. It turned and ran into the corridor though where Felix was able to hit it a few times with his own weapon as it padded back to the Marines.

“They seem to be playing for time!” Felix said.

“The longer we are here, the better chance of moving in enough Marines to mount an offensive. I think we need to attack, as quickly as possible,” Tom told the others over his com.

“Tom, other Marines are on the way. I think Colonel Mortimer will be leading the charge.” Maggie told him. Believe her? He did, actually, this time. For some reason General Gallant was letting him know exactly was going on. Which meant something was being left out, no way they would tell Tom everything.

“This is Team Two, we are pinned down. Looks like three Marines defending the forward node.”

The rebel device to shut down the Marine implants would work if the ship didn’t have a much more powerful null field of its own. Inside of the Umbrage, with the field, the range on the rebel device must be extremely reduced.

Several of his men carried the device, just in case.

“Okay, we need to get close to the Marines. Maybe we can knock them out with the device if we are close,” Tom told them, the com to Team Two was open so maybe they could hear, but he wasn’t hearing anything from them.

“How would we get close enough without getting killed?” someone asked.

“Anyone want to surrender?” Tom asked.

Carrier Umbrage, Bridge

“Admiral, the rebel intruders are closing in on the forward and aft nodes!” Commander Grabble reported. The aging Admiral in his hover-chair looked more tired than ever, the skin on his face even seemed to sag. His whole body was slumped and his uniform was wrinkled as if he hadn’t even thought of cleaning up.

“We must defend the nodes. Do whatever needs to be done, Commander!” Admiral James “Jim” Robinson ordered.

“Good news, some Marines were able to reach the middle deck, sir!” one of the younger officers reported, “It seems they went outside the ship through the lander hangar and came in through an escape pod port.”

“They know we need them,” Grabble replied, “They’ll do their jobs.”

“I still don’t like Gallant having his men traipsing all over my ship. When this is over, I’m going to tell the… President that the Marines need their own deployment vessels,” Robinson said.

“Admiral, the Free Republic hasn’t built a capital ship in a long time,” Commander Grabble reminded him, “We just don’t have that capability right now. The Carriers were built to carry Marines.”

“We will redesign them. The Carrier should carry more fighters, why should Onyx flight be the only ones?” The Admiral asked, becoming agitated again.

Commander Grabble held his tongue. The Admiral was just upset. There was no doubt the Admiral knew perfectly well the limitations of space fighters. They were barely useful in the role of ship defense, giving the enemy more targets confuse them and to shoot at. They were mainly used to attack targets on the surface of planets for a very good reason.

“What is happening down there?” Robinson demanded.

“Looks like the Marines are guarding the nodes and the rebels are hold up nearby.”

“Why don’t those Marines just move in and take them out?” The Admiral asked.

“Defenders have an advantage over attackers. There are other Marines on the way that will give them the ability to attack without leaving the nodes undefended,” Grabble explained.

Carrier Umbrage, exterior

The Free Republic Marines made their way up the side of the massive vessel wearing their armored powered suits. The suits would keep them alive even in space itself, but they still had to be careful because it was never safe outside.

“Hampton, watch your footholds. You’ll slip away if you don’t secure it,” Colonel Mortimer chided one of the Marines for being a little careless.

“Aye, sir!”

They arrived at the lock that had been used for an escape pod. The empty pod was three hundred meters away and still silently drifting. The first to arrive was Sergeant Hollings, who still remembered his combat training. The others were older and mostly assigned to administrative duties. Most of the real Marines were down on Sync fighting a rebel uprising.

Suddenly Hollings helmet exploded and most of his head too. Hampton let go of his handholds and tried to pull the battle rifle off of his back but several holes appeared on the hull around him before his chest exploded and the young staff officer floated away, just barely above the surface of the Umbrage.

“Where is that coming from?” Mortimer demanded, looking everywhere he could. An explosion to his left had torn another of the Marines into pieces. Worse, it had dislodged Colonel Mortimer and he was flailing as he floated away.

Something crossed in front of him.

Finally Colonel Mortimer used the small rockets to get some control. Then he turned and used the suit booster to get him back to the carrier. That is when he noticed another armored suit that was much larger than his own.

The other soldier, in the strange suit, came close before reaching out and wrapping an armored hand around the neck of the Colonels’ suit. It pulled the colonel close to its own head as if to get a visual inspection. Then the faceplate moved aside and allowed Mortimer to see inside.

“Oh God! You’re supposed to be dead!” Colonel Mortimer said as the much larger and more powerful suit threw him against the hull of the carrier. Then he felt the suit he wore buffet and he slowly drifted away from the carrier. His booster malfunctioned and his attitude thrusters just plain did not work.

“This is Colonel Mortimer, I have a message for the General!” The Colonel tried to call out on his suit radio. He was drifting away from the carrier. Mortimer could see the large armored suit climb through the pod hatch. The person in that suit was insane, he had to be, he was killing anyone who was in thw way.

“Blade!” Mortimer yelled, heard by no-one but himself.

-----

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Salt: A Short Story

This story does not really make scientific sense, salt is likely extremely common in the galaxy.

Salt

by Floyd Looney

“Of all the worlds under the veil, why this one?” Irena grumbled.

“We just needed to get off that decrepit freighter, I don't think it's space worthy!” Brad answered as he piloted the two-seat shuttle-pod toward the only city on the world below. It was at the center of a greenbelt, which was surrounded by dense jungle and rivers, then not far beyond that was desert that covered most of the planet.

“This is not good! I heard that women are bought and sold down there, we should just go back to the freighter,” Irena said, pretending to panic.

Brad just laughed, “You are perfectly safe. I can guarantee that.”

“What else do you know about Dunga?” Irena asked. Brad frowned but tried to look distracted by the piloting of the ship. Irena knew it took very little effort to fly the thing, they'd flown together one hundred and seventy-two times. Thirty-seven of those times she was the one who piloted.

“I'll tell you,” She told him, “First noted in survey logs in 2234. First explorer on the ground was in 2244. First science outpost established in 2264. A Terran colony was planned to be put here in 2275 by the United Authority before the rebellions started across the veil. During the first phase of the Terran Collapse, someone named John Belfrey Roberts claimed the planet and settled it with a handful of families loyal to him. He made himself their king. Are you listening?”

He nodded, “It's just a history lesson, so far. Anything important I should know?”

She nodded, “They are not very technologically advanced, their economy can't support anything too complicated. Because of this, the people have become sort of technophobic. For one they have outlawed androids...”

Brad smiled and looked at her as their shuttle-pod flew low toward the space-port ahead, “Nobody is going to know that you are an android, believe me you look completely human.”

“Yet, I am safe from being captured and sold as a female because I'm an android?” Irena asked.

“No, I forged the documents that show I own you, of course,” He said as the shuttle-pod landed on the broken tarmac with a thud.

“You... you own me?”

The glasserine sides of the cockpit slid upward and the warm air from outside tossed her blond hair around for a few seconds, she was still staring at Brad.

“What do you mean that you own...” She started to say when the ground crew arrived.

“Welcome to Dunga!” a short, fat balding man said in greeting. He wore a white toga-like wrap as everyone seemed to wear on this world. Advanced clothing was hard to come by, and only the upper classes would be seen wearing dyed cloth.

“My name is Brad Alexander, and this is my female,” He told the man and handed over some paper documents that would prove this was true.

“Very good, sir, everything looks to be in order,” the man said giving the documents back with a bow, “Shall we take care of your pod, sir? Very small charge.”

“Just wash and park it,” Brad said and tossed a cylinder of salt to the man.

“Oh my,” The man exclaimed when he discovered what he had been given.

“I see that you have done your homework, but that was far too valuable locally to be handing out as a gratuity,” Irena said as she followed him toward the small terminal building. Salt was impossible to find on Dunga, it was not naturally found there. With the slow collapse of star travel, the people of Dunga were in a real bind, “Still this was a stupid place to choose, what if we are never able to leave again?”

Brad glanced back. It was a warning to stop talking and as she entered the building Irena noted that there were a lot more people there than one think for such an empty space port. There were dozens of men and some of them holding leashes of females sitting on the floor. It looked like they had been camped out there for some time, it was a mess and the people were disheveled.

“Please, sir, can you get us off this world?” one of them begged, which opened the floodgates and soon Brad was being jostled and surrounded by the beggars. Irena itched to throw those people to the side but she played the part of a woman owned and stood there meekly. Of course she watched Brads backpack closely.

“Stop it!” someone shouted and then there was a loud popping noise. The beggars froze and then began moving away, seemingly frightened. Two guards carrying some sort of beam weapons came up to Brad.

“Are you okay, sir?” One of them asked, “Sorry about them vagabonds. They all want to get off of Dunga something fierce.”

Brad nodded, “I understand. I've come on business, I want to help this world. Perhaps there is some local authority I can speak with about what I have brought?”

The guards looked at each other and back at Brad, “There is only one authority on Dunga. We're not a big colony, we don't need more than one.”

“Our leader is called the Primero Uno de Dunga, his name is Frederick Cavendish Roberts. The tall building at the center of town is his Palace,” the other guard said, “You'll want to find transport, I don't reckon you'd be safe seeing how you are obviously a stranger here.”

Brad made it through the main desk and then rented an ancient two-seat transport bubble. The agent admitted it had glitches but that since these things weren't manufactured on Dunga it was the best they were likely to find.

Once they were on the road, she saw that Brad had a little trouble with the bubble transport, it kept pulling hard to the left.

“What exactly is in the backpack?” Irena asked, “You stole it from the freighter, obviously.”

Brad laughed, “Of course. It's not like they'll turn around to come look for it.”

“Do you know what it is?” She asked.

He nodded, “I'm pretty sure I know what it is.”

Irena looked outside to her right, “You have no clue. Are you really going to bluff your way into a meeting with the colony's leader with a device you don't understand?”

He stopped the bubble vehicle and sighed, “Listen, Irena, the device I swiped from the freighter is a bio-matrix. It seems designed to do two things, immediately make it possible to locate whatever salt this world has. Two, over a long time it can change the ecology of this planet.”

She looked down at her lap, “Not exactly complimentary things.”

He started the vehicle moving again, although she had noted the complete lack of other traffic on the roads they passed and it was only early evening.

Brad spoke after a few moments, “Dunga is far from the only colony that imports, or should I say imported, all of its salt. The matrix was designed for another planet, but I am sure it will work well enough for this one.”

If the device could only locate salt then it was probably useless on a world without any known salt, even in trace quantities. If it could create salt by combining the constituent elements it was the most valuable thing on this world. Irena was sure Brad didn't know which it did.

“You don't know anything about those devices, they are very rare. It's not even something they included in my database,” Irena told him, “If you show that thing to the leader of this planet, he could take it and have you killed.”

They reached the capitol, the parking area was guarded by several armed soldiers, the whole compound was patrolled by heavily armed soldiers. Irena kept her mouth closed and simply looked straight ahead, playing her part again.

“What's your business here?” The soldier asked, looking into the bubble vehicle at both of them. Then with a glare he checked the proffered documents and called someone on his wrist radio, the reply sounded completely garbled but he seemed to understand it.

“I have come to this planet on salt business,” Brad told the soldier in charge who made another call on his wrist before waving them through the gates.

“This feels like a trap,” Irena said watching the heavy gate slam shut in the rear-view monitor.

Brad parked the vehicle and the sides slid open, “Just stand there and watch me do my magic. I will have the Primero Uno de Dunga eating out of my palms.'

There were more guards at the door, but there were soldiers just inside. He showed the documents again and then whipped out another vial of salt. Irena noted that he must have pocketed all of the salt vials and tablets that had been served since they had become a team. He had always ordered two meals, to make people think she was human.

The main soldier came out of the door and everyone else stood aside. His face was red and he eyed the vial of salt that Brad was holding.

“I am Marshall Hansen, It could be very dangerous to go around brandishing things like that on Dunga,” the officer said, “I assume you wish to meet Mr Roberts, but the man doesn't need to make deals to get hold of salt.”

Brad shook his head, “No, that's not why I am here. I have brought a device that could end the salt crisis on Dunga.”

The soldier nodded, “I have heard that before. Go in and to the right you'll find a sitting room, stay there until you hear something.”

Brad and Irena were soon sitting across from each other, with a glass table between them on which the backpack sat. After a few minutes a man servant stood in the doorway and said, “The Primero Uno de Dunga will see you now.”

They were led into a large ornate glass-topped room full of plants and trees surrounding a pool of deep blue water. A fat man was swimming in the pool, but two naked females sat at either end. When he reached one of the females he rolled over, facing up and was fed some kind of fruit. Then he rolled his fat naked body over and swam to the other end where this was repeated.

“Sir, this is the man who has come about salt,” the man servant said.

The Primero Uno de Dunga finally noticed them, he smiled and waved. Then he climbed out of the pool and his two females dried him off and then wrapped a cloth about his round body. Finally he approached them.

“Welcome, welcome to Dunga my friend!” The man said, taking Brads hand into his own in a very friendly greeting, “I understand this is business about salt?”

Brad nodded, “I have a device that might solve all of your salt problems.”

The Primero Uno led them to a round couch and took a seat behind a desk that faced it. The jolly man quickly took the facade of a serious leader. Then he nodded, “Before we begin, I would like to warn you that Dunga has become averse to false salt merchants, the last two were hanged. Salt deficiency on Dunga has a high mortality rate from hyponatremia. It's a nasty health issue, to say the least and the people here are desperately tired of it.”

Brad cleared his throat, “This device is the real deal.”

He pulled it out of the backpack and sat it on the table in front of the couch. They both watched the device for a long moment before the Primero Uno spoke up, “So, what does it do?”

“You have heard of a bio-matrix, right?” Brad asked, “They can be designed to do some amazing things but it's always very narrow. It might purify water, or make dead soil fertile again, but it never does more than one or two things.”

The fat man wave a hand in the air, “I know what a bio-matrix is.”

Brad nodded and indicated the device he had set down, “This is one. This is a bio-matrix. It can use the planets natural atmosphere and produce salt.”

The man nodded, “How much salt can it produce in an hour? A day? Under what conditions does it work?”

“That all depends on the planet, of course. We could test it and find out.”

The fat man leaned back in his seat, “I see. Let us assume that this device works as advertised, what are you asking for it?”

Brad thought about it, “Passage on the next ship out of here.”

The Primero Uno de Dunga laughed, “I suppose, but I rather doubt we see another trading vessel, or any vessel again in our lifetimes. So choose something else.”

“Do you have a ship?” Brad asked,

The man laughed, “If I had a ship, I would have left Dunga by now.”

Irena was about to make a suggestion when Brad spoke up again.

“Okay, just make me one of the richest people on Dunga, then,” Brad told the man, “Lots of house, a nice yard, women... the works!”

Frederick Cavendish Roberts laughed and stood up, “This has been entertaining. I think we need to see the device work before we waste any more time.”

Brad stood up and lifted the device.

“Nearly half the people on this world are suffering from low-salt levels, fifteen percent of the population are in hospitals. Hyponatremia is a scourge for the people of Dunga, and we take these things very seriously,” The fat man said as they followed him through a corridor and then outside. Soon enough they reached a pond, mostly surrounded by high weeds and trees.

“Here we are, the ideal location for a demonstration,” The leader of Dunga said, “So activate the device or this will be your execution.”

Brad set the device on the ground, a bald place amidst the grass. Then he tapped some of the flat screen icons and there was a high-pitched whine that sounded like it ascending higher and higher. Then it became a deep, low tone that sounded like it was descending until it stopped and there were some electronic beeps.

“It is activated,” Brad said, sounding a bit relieved.

The Primero Uno de Dunga watched the device for a moment, “So how long should we wait?”

Brad shrugged, “It wasn't designed for this planet, but it is similar enough that it should work. That freighter wasn't going to make it to the destination.”

“I suppose we shall make a picnic of it then,” The fat man said and called his man servant, “Fetch a nice picnic, the good wine and send my girls with blankets and pillows.”

Before long a spread of food was before them and Brad ate as he watched the device. Irena looked toward the pond to avoid watching the fat man cavorting with his two female slaves right out in the open. The giggles and his laughs disturbed her programming, which considered any kind of slavery to be an injustice.

The sun had gone down but the area was well-lighted.

“It's working!” Brad said, “It has finished calibrating to the atmospheric conditions. It says here that it needs to have one end of its hose, in the back compartment, in the water and someone needs to keep adding sand into the top compartment. It can produce more than ten vials of salt in an hour.”

The leader of Dunga was quiet, “That's not much. We'll try keeping it operating all day and night, I suppose and see. Still, I'd be surprised if it can produce as much as we can from urine or sweat. Every bit helps, though.”

The man stood up and wrapped the sheet around his body again, the girls wiping off the bits of grass for him.

“I don't suppose you'll be executed as a fraud, after all,” Primero Uno de Dunga said, “but your android might be a problem.”

Brad looked shocked.

“She didn't even look at the food, she hasn't had a bite since you arrived,” he told Brad, “If the device continues to work, I might look away for a while. If anyone else finds out she is artificial, then there will be some trouble.”

Soon he and Irena were sitting near the device as it continued to perform, a soldier came and stood nearby. Obviously he was there to guard the bio-matrix.

“We should not have come here,” Irena told him.

“We probably should not have left Rigelus VII,” Brad told her.

“Don't be foolish, we would be dead by now if we had stayed. That whole place is one big atrocity now.”

He smiled, “If we had stayed on the freighter, we'd probably be floating amidst space debris by now.”

Irena was quiet as Brad checked the machine again.

“The bio-matrix is interesting. It takes some elements from the soil and some from the water to make salt. If this device had reached Flaxus, the leftover would have been a silicate that could be used to make electronics,” Brad told her, she was studying the stars. He leaned closer and said in a lower voice, “Don't you want to know what's left over on Dunga?”

Irena shook her head, “If it isn't inter-spatial crystal, then what's the point?”

Brad laughed, “That's just wishful thinking, very human. No, the leftover of this process on Dunga, is an explosive-fuel sort of thing. I suppose it has its possible uses.”

“Such as?” Irena asked.

“Such as mining asteroids,” He told her, “Sure the life support system on the shuttle-pod is breaking down, but an android wouldn't mind. Right?”

She looked at him like he had lost his mind.

“We have to earn our keep here. There are things in those asteroids that can't be found on this dirt ball and would be valuable,” he told her, “Besides, I want to build things and explore this desert planet while we're here.”

Irena shook her head, “This world is dying. It seems pointless.”

Brad sighed, “I'm human. I want to survive, I want to scratch and claw for an extra day if I must, I guess giving up is an android thing. Humans on Dunga can survive, I don't know how many or in what kind of condition, but humanity needs to fight.”

Irena nodded, “Then do that. We both know that interstellar space travel for humans is a thing of the past, now. Very few worlds have the population, economics and technology to keep exploring their own solar system, small worlds like this one are completely isolated. When Earth and Terra Delta were lost, it was all over, it just took some time for it to be noticed.”

Brad said nothing.

“The human species is about to become very primitive. It could be centuries before the human race, if it survives, will travel the stars again. So, by all means, send your android to break rocks.”

Brad laid flat on his back, “We have salt. We can survive in some form. Surviving right now, is the most important thing. Humans will be back, eventually!”