The Agathon: Reign of Arturo (22 page)

Barrington looked at her puzzled.

“How can a comm system be hooked into my eye?” he asked.

“There’s a circuit linked in directly to your auditory canal, so no need for any more handheld communications devices for you, sir. Just say ‘Open Comms’, then say the name of the crew member or part of the ship you want to contact and that’s it,” she said slapping her hands together proudly.

Barrington suddenly felt a wave of nausea and dizziness. It was overwhelming. He felt the room spin out of control and fell straight
forward off the bed and onto the floor. He felt Brubaker’s arm link under his armpit, as he fell, preventing him from hitting his head. His belly lurched as he hurled a spray of vomit all over the medical bay floor. Brubaker’s arm tensed under his. He managed to flick his watery eyes left, deactivating the implant, as the nausea subsided.

“Easy there, John, give it a minute. Nurse!” Brubaker shouted at one of the other members of her medical team.

A young woman came to her aid with a towel. Barrington took it and wiped his face. The two women lifted him off the floor and back onto the bio bed.

“Jesus, how long do I have to put up with that?” he said, catching his breath.

“Here, take small sips,” Brubaker said handing him the water again. “Might be a few days. Sorry, it is one of the side effects of the neural connections. You will adapt, just take it easy. Your brain has never processed information like this before, so you will need to switch on the implant and leave it on for at least a few hours every day, until it gets used to it. I suggest having a bowl beside you during it,” she said smiling.

“Great,” he said steadying himself.

“Captain!” said Kevin Ferrate’s voice from behind him.

Barrington turned and looked at the young comms officer. He was out of breath and spluttering his words.

“Sir, we’ve made contact, you have to come to the bridge,” Ferrate said.

“Easy, made contact with who?” Barrington said.

Ferrate looked at Brubaker who was looking annoyed at having been rudely interrupted.

“Aron Elstone,” Ferrate said “the others, the Jycorp Orbital survivors.”

“What?” Brubaker said.

Barrington stood from the bio bed and ignored the sudden wave of nausea that hit the pit of his stomach as he did so. He rounded
the bio bed and made for the door. He turned at the entrance and looked back at Brubaker who looked stunned.

“Thank you, Doctor,” he said nodding to her.

She gave him a light wave.

The Unity

“She has her guns locked onto us, Aron,” said India looking out of the window at the ominous sight of The Kandinsky.

Aron watched as the ship slowly crept towards The Unity, like a slow moving predator.

“Easy, big guy,” he said looking at the ship.

“What?” India said.

“Oliver, get down to the engine room and start priming up the sub light engines, I want to be able to get out of here quickly,” said Aron. Oliver was now standing behind him looking at The Kandinsky.

“I told you we needed weapons on this ship,” he said, grumbling as he left the cockpit.

Aron ignored him and waited. The cockpit was silent.

“What do we tell him?” India asked.

“I’ll deal with it, India, just get me a readout of the nearest star system and lock down the emergency bulk heads,” he turned to her, “and whatever you do, don’t open your mouth.”

She nodded. Aron thought he saw genuine fear in the tough woman’s eyes for the first time ever. Arturo Verge was known to be unforgiving of traitors. If you were lucky, you got airlocked. There were other far more inventive ways of execution that he would probably bestow on India Walder. Not to mention himself.

“Incoming transmission,” said India pointing to the flickering comms light that had just been activated.

Aron felt his heart rate jump and took a deep breath. He waited for a moment to compose himself and then flicked the switch. Arturo Verge’s image filled the screen. He was taken aback for a moment. His senses heightened and his muscles tensed.

“Chancellor Verge, what a pleasant surprise,” he said smiling as naturally as he could.

Arturo looked at him with a blank emotionless stare. The two looked at each other for several tense seconds as Aron tried to figure out the relative distance between the two ships and the rotational vectors of The Kandinsky’s cannons.

“Where is Hector Stanley?” Arturo said.

The bluntness of the question took Aron a little by surprise.

“Chancellor, I have some unfortunate news,” Aron said “During the last deployment of the final communications relay there was an accident in the cargo bay. The relay came loose from its holding struts and collapsed. Mr Stanley was personally overseeing the deployment and directly underneath the satellite when it fell. I am afraid that it crushed him, sir. He is dead,” said Aron looking straight into Arturo’s eyes and trying not to move a muscle. Arturo frowned and sat back in the chair he was sitting in. He seemed unmoved by the fabricated incident. Aron felt India shift in her seat. Arturo glanced over at her and watched her.

“Is this the case, Ms Walder?” Arturo asked.

“It is, sir,” India said.

Aron thought he saw her hand beginning to shake. Arturo looked back at Aron and raised his fingers to his lips interlocking them. He gazed coldly at the pair.

“How unfortunate. I presume you have his body in storage?” Arturo asked.

“No, sir, it was in pretty bad shape so we airlocked the remains. There wasn’t much left, Chancellor, if you get my meaning?” Aron said.

“You have made contact with The Agathon?” Arturo asked coldly.

“No, sir, not as yet. Mr Stanley locked out our communications system, so we have not had access to the signal. Our mission here has been a success, sir. With your permission, I would like to take The Unity back to Earth One,” Aron said knowing that was not going to happen.

A readout on his computer suddenly flickered on. It was a message from the engine room. The engines were primed and ready to activate. The engine relay was above his head and any sudden movement by Aron would indicate exactly what he was about to do. He knew Escat was there. Watching his every move. Waiting for a chance to blow them out of the stars. He looked briefly up to orientate himself. It would only take him several seconds to activate it, but several seconds was an eternity when face to face with several pulse cannons. He waited.

“I would like you to transfer to The Kandinsky, so we may debrief you on what has happened here, Mr Elstone. The Unity will stay where it is for the moment, I am sure your crew could use some down time,” said Arturo.

“Chancellor?” Aron asked genuinely confused.

“I am sending a shuttle over to pick you up. Please bring with you all data collected,” Arturo said.

He knows
Aron thought to himself.

This caught Aron off guard. If he left The Unity, he would not be coming back. A thousand scenarios played out in his mind. If Escat saw him activate his engines he would certainly destroy the ship instantly. So he was dead, but maybe the transfer would give India that few seconds needed to activate the engines and save the ship. Now he had to save his crew.

“Of course, Chancellor, I will await the shuttle with pleasure,” Aron said.

Arturo smiled.

“I will see you shortly,” Arturo said.

The screen suddenly went blank.

“You are not going over there!” India said frowning.

“What do you suggest, India, we punch it into sub light? It takes forty-three seconds for our engines to wind up, and the second Escat sees that, he’ll pull the trigger. Only way out of this now is for me to create a diversion on The Kandinsky so that you can get the hell out of here,” said Aron.

“Bullshit, he knows you’ve made contact and the second he finds out about Stanley, he’ll kill you,” India said raising her voice.

Aron saw worry in her face, and something else. An affection in her eyes that communicated more to him than she would have liked. He turned away from her and looked out the window. A small craft emerged from the port side of the large vessel and began making its way over to The Unity.

“We don’t have time for this, India, get your shit together. We have work to do,” he said.

15

The Shuttle

P
assing through the ice crystals of the outer planetary rings was actually quite beautiful. Carrie could feel a presence coming from the surface of the planet unlike anything she had felt before.

“Cut thrusters,” Tyrell said.

The shuttle craft came to a stop outside what looked like a glass covering that encircled the whole planet. Carrie watched its perfectly smooth edge glisten. She could have easily flown straight into it. It was incredible.

“Amazing,” she whispered to Tyrell.

Tyrell did not answer. He was looking straight out of the window down at the surface. She was not sensing any telepathic communication from him. He was just sitting there watching. She felt like something was watching back.

“Now what?” she asked.

Tyrell remained silent. Carrie suddenly felt a wave of power coming from the surface, like the collective will of millions of minds, all at once. The solid glass shield suddenly looked like rippling water.

“Take us through,” Tyrell said suddenly.

“Take us through what? It’s solid, Tyrell?” she said.

Tyrell looked at her and gave her a light grin.

“Take us through, Carrie,” he said.

She hesitated. The glass surface was now rippling like the surface of an ocean. She looked at Tyrell and taking a breath, engaged the thrusters of the shuttle craft. The ship slipped through the barrier with ease, as if it were a floating liquid. It then solidified behind them.

No way out.

“Okay, now what?” Carrie asked.

Tyrell punched some coordinates into the computer.

“There,” he said pointing to a landmass below them.

It was a cloudless atmosphere. Below, Carrie could see an array of islands and continents. They were too far up to see any detail on the surface, but it looked lush and green. She followed Tyrell’s lead and began the descent. The shuttle began to glow a bright orange as it came into contact with an atmosphere. The inertial dampers made the journey a relatively smooth one. They emerged from the glow and began to descend towards the surface.

A few minutes later and they were hovering over the city. When it had first started to take its form, Carrie was stunned. The sweeping towers were over a mile high and there must have been hundreds of them, all connected, with curving atriums. What stunned her was not the presence of an alien species on this world. She had been anticipating that. It had been the city. She had seen it before in visions and dreams back on Mars, long before contact with Tyrell, or rather The Black. While not identical, the buildings were of the same design. She was sure of it.

There was motion all around them. The shuttle craft hovered next to one of the sky scrapers with its completely reflective surface. Carrie looked at the reflection of the shuttle in the mirrored walls and wondered who was looking back at her through the glass. Brightly lit flying aircraft buzzed all around them. They were small in size and looked like fireflies, but Carrie thought they were definitely mechanical. There were hundreds of them buzzing the shuttle. Like an angry swarm trying to attack. There was movement below. A mecca of what
looked like small transport vehicles and various flying objects made their way around the city.

“Okay, we can land now,” Tyrell suddenly said.

Carrie was still not sensing any telepathic activity from Tyrell and wondered how he was communicating.

“Okay,” Carrie said with a tinge of hesitation.

The shuttle craft descended further. A minute later they were on the ground. Carrie took some sensor readings and found that there was a breathable oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere, so no breathers would be needed.

“Okay, let’s go,” Tyrell said getting out of the flight chair.

Carrie grabbed his arm.

“Hang on a second, we need to arm ourselves,” Carrie said, suddenly realising how stupid that sounded. Judging by the level of technology, they would not last long in any sort of fire fight.

Tyrell smiled at her and raised his eyebrows indicating how silly an idea it was. Carrie took the hint and shrugged.

“Okay, have it your way,” Carrie said.

They moved to the back of the shuttle and activated the door mechanism. It hissed as it released its hinges and slid slowly open. Carrie took a cautious step out onto the solid ground and looked around. They had landed in a small paved clearing in front of one of the tallest of the surrounding towers. The ground looked like polished marble and overhead the fireflies continued to buzz around them. She heard the shuttle as its power systems wound down, leaving just the sound of the cool breeze. Tyrell took a step forward and joined her. The pale glow of a setting sun was beginning to cast strange shadows on the walls, some of which Carrie thought were moving independently. It was an eerie still and one that made Carrie nervous after the last planet they had been on. She suddenly thought she heard the faint sound of whispering. It could have been the breeze, as there was no movement anywhere around them. There was a distinctive sweet odour in the air, like the memory of a fragrance Carrie had once known. She decided to open her mind fully to the surrounding
area and see what she could take in. There was somebody or something watching them. Of that she was sure. She looked at Tyrell and was about to ask him what the hell they were supposed to do next, when she suddenly felt a sensation of being lifted clean off her feet. The world disappeared into a quick flash of blinding light.

Less than a second later, she felt herself being dropped onto another hard surface. The light faded and she found herself standing next to Tyrell in a completely different location. Her heart jumped at the shock of it and she stumbled slightly trying to find her feet again.

“What the hell!” she said looking at Tyrell.

He merely looked at her and raised one of his eyebrows.

“They’ll be along shortly,” he said.