Citadel: First Colony (29 page)

“Captain Alonzo,” he said into the communicator. “This is Engineer First Class Mitch Garrison. We’re approaching Dock 1. Do you copy?”

No response.

Mitch looked to Reilly once more. She seemed shaken. “What do we do?” she asked.

Mitch turned to the console before him and initiated the docking procedure. The shuttle’s computer began syncing with the orbital platform. They were getting the proper responses. The computers, at least, were talking to them.

“Well, the computer has cleared us for docking. I guess we board her.”

Reilly was biting her lower lip. “I think we should go in EVA suits,” she said.

Mitch blinked, “Seriously?”

“Don’t you?”

He hadn’t thought about it, but now it did seem like a sensible precaution. There was no evidence of an atmospheric break in the platform. No visible damage that he could see. But any number of things could have gone wrong up here. With Alonzo and the rest of the platform crew out of communication, there was no way to know what kind of danger they were facing.

“We go EVA,” Mitch agreed.

The computers handled all of the complex manipulations for the docking. Mitch and Reilly could walk away from the navigation and controls and suit up while the shuttle finished its complicated duet with the platform, linking by a few cables and ports, as well as the membrane of the docking bay. By the time they jolted to a stop, the two of them were protected inside a couple of EVA suits.

To Mitch’s relief, the pressure equalized between the two vessels. That meant the environmental systems on the platform were functioning. At least they wouldn’t have to contend with zero gravity. But the relief was only momentary as the doors of the shuttle’s docking bay opened and they made their way through the membrane to the platform’s main bay.

There was no one there to greet them.

Mitch hit the communicator button on his shoulder. “Orbital Platform this is Mitch Garrison. We have boarded and are in Docking Bay 1. Request a debriefing with someone in authority.”

“Should we wait here? Maybe they need medical attention?”

Mitch nodded. He stopped long enough to pull a med kit from one of the racks on the bay wall. Together he and Reilly had to force open the bay doors using the hand crank system.

“That’s odd,” Mitch said.

“What?”

“The platform is still in light speed mode. Everything’s manual. The computers should have kicked in for the automated systems, just like the docking bay.”

“Maybe there was some damage?” Reilly asked.

Mitch didn’t think so. Something about this whole situation made him edgy. The automated systems had numerous back-ups, and they would have kicked in as soon as the spacecraft left light speed and began separation. Of course, the Citadel and Colony modules had been sabotaged, so maybe the automated systems had, too.

The two of them walked through the main corridor. “No one’s around,” Reilly whispered.

“Where’s the platform crew?” Mitch asked. There would only be a skeleton crew, but surely by now they should have run into someone. The silence and stillness was eerie, and Mitch found himself gripping the med kit as if it were a weapon. He was wishing he had brought a disc gun, or maybe even a wrench. Anything, really. “We should check the crew bay,” he said.

“Why?” Reilly asked.

“Just ... just a hunch,” Mitch replied, hoping he was wrong.

The crew bay was along their path to the bridge. The doors were closed tight, and yet again he and Reilly had to work the hand cranks to get them open. This was routine, however, and they slid smoothly to either side. When they were fully wide, Mitch and Reilly stepped into the crew bay and looked around.

There were dozens of unopened pods standing on their platforms, all around the room.

“The crew is still under,” Reilly said in awe.

“Why weren’t they woken with the rest of us? They should have been on duty whenever we came out of the lightrail.”

“Mitch, what the hell is going on? What’s happened?”

“I don’t know,” Mitch said quietly, shaking his head.

He checked the display on the sleeve of the EVA suit. The oxygen and pressure read normal. He reached up and took off his helmet with a
woosh
. Reilly followed suit and soon the two of them were shucking the suits altogether.

Mitch made his way to one of the pods and entered the code to open it. Nothing. He tried the manual releases and still the lid wouldn’t budge. “They’re locked down,” he said. “Only Captain Alonzo or Commander Marcos has the authority to do that.”

“It couldn’t have been Marcos, he died outside. Why would the Captain lock down the pods?”

“I don’t know,” Mitch replied. He took off one of the panels and tried to override the controls. All he received for his efforts was a mild shock and a series of sparks. He replaced the panel, afraid that he might damage the life support systems if he pushed it too far. There would be time enough to override the locks on the pods later. “We need to get to the bridge. We have to find Captain Alonzo.”

“Ok,” Reilly said. She didn’t sound too enthusiastic about it.

They left the bay and made their way quickly toward the bridge. Mitch still carried the med kit, unsure of what they would find when they arrived. He found himself experiencing a bit of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, he wanted nothing more than to see his Captain alive and well. On the other, the strangeness of their situation and the number of shocks they’d experienced thus far had filled him with a sense of anxiety and even anger. Something was definitely happening here, but he had no idea what. The only thing he was certain of was that Captain Alonzo was somehow tied to it.

The doors to the bridge opened smoothly as they used the hand cranks. Upon entering, they found themselves in a darkened room, lit only by the numerous computer screens and terminals. The large view screen, which had lowered over the main observation window after leaving light speed, gave them a crisp view of the planet below, with readouts of data dancing at each corner. Among the data were notices of the communications from planet-side, as well as those from the shuttle’s approach. They had the earmarks of messages that had been received and heard but placed in the queue, ignored.

“Captain Alonzo?” Mitch asked loudly.

The room was too quiet. Then, “Engineer First Class Mitch Garrison.”

The voice came from Captain Alonzo, who seemed to be sitting with his back to them. He was in the command chair at the bottom of the gangway. He made no move to look at them.

“Captain!” Reilly said, her enthusiasm growing. “We’ve been trying to reach you!”

“Yes,” the captain said. He still had not turned around.

“Captain,” Mitch asked, “are you ok?”

Finally, slowly, the Captain rose from his seat and turned to look at them.

Reilly gasped. Mitch managed to keep himself in check. They both gazed into the face of the man they had known and trusted for years.

His face was horribly burned and scarred, and one eye looked as if it had been boiled out of its socket. Puss oozed from the gaping hole, and the rest of his skin was scarlet and purple from infection.

“Captain!” Reilly called.

Mitch started forward with the med kit.

“Stay where you are,” Captain Alonzo said.

“But Captain, you need medical attention,” Mitch said.

“Mr. Garrison, I’m well beyond the need for medical attention. I’m afraid I won’t last much longer.”

This stunned the two of them.

“Before I go, though, I think I’d better fill you in on what’s happened.”

Mitch nodded, “Yes, sir. I think there are some things we need to know. Starting with why is the platform crew still in stasis?”

Captain Alonzo laughed. “Believe me, Mr. Garrison, I’ve tried to wake them. But our saboteur was smarter than I thought. He’s hung us out to dry but good.”

“Who?” Mitch asked. “Who caused all of this?”

Captain Alonzo’s neck seemed to tighten and his jaw clenched. “A miserable bastard who, until only a few days ago, I would have trusted with my life.”

Mitch looked at Reilly, who was staring at the Captain with a mixture of awe and revulsion. He turned back to Alonzo. “Who? Who was it?” he asked.

The Captain fairly spat as he said, “It was Alan Angelou.”

Penny
tried not to think about the shuttle
. She hadn’t realized until the last possible instant that Mitch and Reilly weren’t going to land and help with recovering the pods. Without them, this was going to take much longer. Without them there was a chance that the people in those pods ... people like her parents ... might not make it.
So why the hell
...

No. She refused to think about it. Her mission was to find her parents and that was all she could afford to think about. If this pod wasn’t one of them, then she would hike to the next one. And she’d keep moving from pod to pod until she found them.

And God help Mitch Garrison if she couldn’t reach them in time.

This whole thing had been one big joke. The trouble was, Penny couldn’t figure out who the butt of it was supposed to be. Was it her? The sudden urgency of her father as he told her to pack made her wonder what the big emergency was. At the time, she was just happy to know that he and her mother were going too. Now, though, she wondered ... why the rush?

They had made no plans, as far as she could tell. This had been some last-minute decision to sail across the galaxy on the lightrail and set down on a new colony world. So why? What was it that her father had hoped to accomplish here?

It had to have something to do with Mr. Taggart. He was the only person she knew who could tell her father to do something, anything, and it was done immediately. And since Taggart was here, for whatever reason, she felt pretty sure that was the explanation. He wanted her father with him for something.

Now here they all were, trapped on this planet and struggling to survive. She was alone now, because of Taggart. Her parents might be dead now, because of Taggart. Everything here, it seemed, was Taggart’s fault.

She shivered, even though the sun was making the air almost uncomfortably warm. Looking around she saw the rest of the team that would be helping on the rescue. Among them was Alan, the man who had called her out as a climber and hiker. She had thought she’d had everyone fooled, sticking with the advantage of having more knowledge than she let on. But she was the one who had been taken in, and he had fooled her pretty good, just by saying nothing at all.

So what else was he keeping to himself?

Alan had given orders to the rest of the group, and they began to spread out, searching for the first pod in the brush and brambles of the area. He looked up and saw her standing with her pack, and made his way to her.

“You ready?” he asked.

She nodded. “Do you think ... ” she couldn’t finish.

Alan studied her for a moment. He was always so ...
stoic
. Couldn’t he be human just once? Couldn’t he show some emotion?

“We’ll find your parents,” he said.

The words had been spoken to her before, at least twice. The first time was by Thomas, who seemed to honestly mean them. The second time was by Taggart, who seemed to use them as tools, a means of controlling her somehow. This time, though, Penny found that she wasn’t sure what was meant by them. It was as if, somehow, Alan were using her parents as a metaphor for something else. They weren’t her parents to him, they were—
something
. Something important but undefined.

“We’d better get going,” Alan said, and Penny only nodded in agreement.

The two of them hiked together, searching through the brambles to find the pod that had landed locally. Suddenly the communicator on Alan’s shoulder came to life. “We have it,” one of the team reported. He announced their location and soon Alan and Penny were pushing back through the path they had made. It was much easier going back out than going in, and they soon found themselves at the spot where the pod had been uncovered.

It had been banged up but was still in decent enough shape. The windows—not glass, but some kind of transparent metal that Penny had never fully understood—were scarred and scratched so badly that she couldn’t make out who was inside.

The engineers were already at work on it, and in moments the lid
shooshed
open. Penny clambered forward, not realizing that she’d been leaning towards the pod all this time. She nearly fell as she pushed through the small group of engineers, breaking through any gap.

She let out a gasp, realizing suddenly that she’d been holding her breath. For a brief instant, she thought she saw her mother there, lying prone in the pod. But the woman inside was in her mid-thirties, and though she had a similar hairstyle and was dressed in a familiar-looking outfit, it wasn’t her mother. Penny turned and pushed back through the group as someone came forward with a med kit.

Alan was waiting just outside the ring of engineers.

“Not them,” Penny said. Strangely, she felt the urge to cry pass. The sob that had built in her chest faded, and now she felt a cool resolve. She would be able to push through to the next pod site—and the next and the next—until she found her parents.

Alan nodded, more of an acknowledgment than a sign of sympathy. He looked to the medical crew and technicians who were helping the woman out of stasis. “Get her to the camp. Leave the pod for now. Grab the rations and med kit from its storage.” Alan was directing everyone with proficiency. He seemed born to it. Penny wished she felt some kind of peace about that, but she just couldn’t. It was nice to have someone in charge, and it helped her overcome her feelings of being out-of-control. But her only goal, her only motive, was to find her parents.

What she’d do to them when she found them, she couldn’t guess.

It was the first time she realized that she was angry with them. Not just afraid that they might have been hurt. Not just afraid they might have abandoned her to this colony. She was truly, thoroughly,
angry
with them.

Maybe it was for bringing her here in the first place. Or maybe it was just that she had given her father more credit than to fall in with someone like Taggart—a man who clearly had his own agenda and saw others only as pawns for his purpose.