The Pathfinder Project (53 page)

“Load this into the ship,”
Valiana 001 told the soldiers. “We’ll take it back with us to Drik Gyilto’s
palace.” Without saying a word, the soldiers immediately moved to obey and –
relying on thick gloves to protect them from hot metal – the four of them
easily lifted the hot, blackened wreckage of the probe out of the large crater
and began moving it back to their ship. Small fires still flickered in the
grass around the crater and Valiana tilted her head upward, watching the
gradually dispersing remnants of the probe’s descending smoke trail in the
cloudless sky overhead.

“What is it?” Hobak 322 asked
as she stepped back aboard the shuttle. He sat next to additional soldiers,
watching the other four loading the probe into the cargo area at the rear of
the ship. “Was it supposed to be some kind of weapon?” Normally such questions
would have continued to pour out of him one after another, but the presence of
an actual member of the Triumvirate unnerved him.

“Maybe,” Valiana shrugged,
taking a seat beside him. “Who knows what the survivors will try. They’ve got
something up their sleeve that we don’t know about. I’ve been sent out here
specifically to discover why so many of them are vanishing without a trace.”

Hobak smiled. “Mass suicide.
They know their situation is hopeless.”

She shot him a dirty,
intimidating look that silenced him instantly. “Over confidence will not help,”
she told him. “I have seen for myself evidence that something very odd is
taking place.” He waited patiently, but she chose not to share anything further
with him. The shuttle’s engines fired and it slowly took off and began moving
off on a course back toward Ghuitan, before altering that heading just slightly
enough to move north of the capitol city. Valiana and Hobak remained silent for
the rest of the journey back until the small cargo carrier finally arrived at its
destination. It landed next to a large building that was basically intact, but
whose entrance had been severely damaged during a prolonged gun battle.

Upon landing, the soldiers
immediately began unloading the probe’s wreckage. Like a ghost sliding out of
the shadows, the dark-haired woman appeared beside them. “Take it to Durgon
001,” she ordered before looking directly back to Hobak with some authority.
“Make sure that he knows I want a complete analysis ready by tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll certainly do that,” the
Hobak clone said, bowing deeply before moving off to follow the soldiers.

The next day Valiana 001
entered the main underground chamber, where months ago they had held their
brief meeting with Drik Gyilto. Surprisingly he was present, waiting for her a
bit impatiently with Durgon 001 and Hobak 001. “Why is
he
here?” she
asked acidly, gesturing casually in Gyilto’s direction. “If we add a new member
to the Triumvirate, we will have to rename it.”

“My people are disappearing
just as fast as those in other nations,” the Ghuitan King snapped back at her.
“You promised me a kingdom to rule over.” His anger had grown strong enough to
overcome his fear of her, an annoying trait that Valiana made a mental note to
put a stop to…
soon
.

“Why are so many survivors
disappearing?” Hobak asked her intently. “What did you discover?”

“Either the moon colony project
team completed its new type of PTP project, or some sort of alien influence is
involved,” she replied brusquely, studying the color on her fingernails. “Several
days ago, I was searching one of the mountainous areas where survivors were
rumored to meet. It was nighttime and we were hovering above a large group of
them in a shuttle. We spotted a small oval filled with bright white light that
appeared near ground level, it must have been some sort of energy portal. One
after another, the crowd down below lined up and walked toward it. All of them
disappeared inside of it.” She studied Hobak’s gaze with hate-filled glittering
eyes. “Somehow I doubt that they were killing themselves with some sort of
suicide weapon. It had to be a new form of Point-to-Point transport.”

“That is ridiculous. Where
would they go?”

“If I
knew
the answer to
that question, Hobak, then naturally so would
you
.”

He nodded, obviously not
pleased by what she had told him. Turning his attention to Durgon, he briefly
studied the remains of the small Canary probe sitting on the table in front of
them. “And you, what were you able to determine?” he asked. “Was this supposed
to be a weapon of some sort?”

“Unlikely,” the third member of
their Triumvirate replied. “The Americans have all kinds of differing versions
of these ‘Canary’ probes as they like to call them. Most are very sophisticated
pieces of electrical equipment designed to monitor stellar phenomenon, but
there are smaller versions of them also in use by the military as missile
decoys or simply as a means to disrupt enemy communications.”

“And this one?” asked Valiana
impatiently. “What was
it
supposed to do?” She had been desperately
waiting to hear something about the mysterious, crashed device ever since
receiving the order to retrieve it.

“This probe has markings on it
that indicates it is indeed from a vessel called
Pathfinder
.” He
shrugged. “That’s the new ship that the moon Colonists built with what they
call a CAS system. This
Pathfinder
would be the same vessel that escaped
from us about six months ago after nearly destroying one of our warships.”

Hobak reached forward and
picked up the papers that Durgon had set on the desk. He glanced over the
images of the distant, spiral-armed galaxy clusters printed on them and shook
his head with delight. “They’re letting us know that they got safely out of the
galaxy,” he concluded with an evil grin. “They’re convinced that they are
protected from us, even though they’re lost in the middle of nowhere and will
struggle mightily on a daily basis simply to survive.”

“They’re
more
than
convinced,” Durgon continued, turning over one of the pictures. On the back of
it was a text message that he slowly read out loud to the two people seated
across from him:

“
These pictures were taken
from a position that we call Bravo Point as proof that we have escaped from
your military threat. You cannot track us and you will never find us. But we
know where YOU are, and we are taking back the surviving members of our people.
Earth is your planet now, and you will have to rebuild it with your own hands.
Creating rather than simply destroying may teach you something about the value
of life. But bear in mind that we have plans to return to our home someday.

We hope you enjoy waking up
each new day to a bombed out horizon.

Also, by genetically
enhancing yourselves, you should know that your Brotherhood and its Triumvirate
have also accepted the consequences and the responsibilities that go with such
gifts. So treat our planet and the people who choose to remain behind better
than you have to date, or we promise that things will go badly for you in the
end
.”

“Do they
really
think
that we’re going to take a message such as this one, delivered using a long
distance probe seriously?” Hobak asked, laughing with enthusiasm. “They can’t
penetrate our defenses, so they hide somewhere distant in the universe and
expect us to respond to idle threats? I’ve seen the Americans make some poor
decisions in their day, but this one borders on ridiculous.” In truth the crude
text of the message unnerved him, but Hobak feigned a mocking laugh in order to
hide the sudden chill that permeated his entire body.

“You wouldn’t
laugh
so
easily if you had seen that energy portal,” snapped Valiana in response. Her
emotions were also on edge due to the unknowns they had been witness to. “It
isn’t
just a few groups of survivors that are missing. All of them… even the ones
we recruited in other nations to work in our labor camps… they’re
all
disappearing.
Millions
of people are vanishing without a trace. Where
have they gone?”

“If this
Pathfinder
did
indeed make it out of our galaxy, then that is no small feat. They might have
the ability to transport smaller objects, like people, too.” Durgon watched
Hobak’s reaction as the full meaning of his statement weighed heavily on his
colleague. “If they successfully locate a habitable planet to set down on, they
could cause us great difficulties.” He pointed at the cracked metal frame of
the Canary probe. “This could just as easily have contained an armed nuclear
device.”

Valiana pointed at the small
glass vial lying next to Durgon’s paperwork. “Have you been able to determine
whose blood that is?” she asked curiously, watching him nod affirmatively in
response.

“It’s mine,” he said. “The DNA
matches precisely. My guess is that they discovered my clone and his true
identity, and this is their way of proving it to us.”

“One of Durgon’s clones was on
board the
Pathfinder
,” Valiana continued. “He was using a false
identity, known to them as Patrick Warren. The fact that they have captured him
also means nothing, since he was sent there to
gather
information. He
doesn’t know anything that can possibly hurt us.”

“I sure hope he doesn’t,”
Durgon noted cautiously, pointing at the back of the photo containing the text
message. “Because there are fourteen signatures at the bottom of this note:
their Captain, each member of their newly elected governing Council, and a
Patrick Warren. So not only have they discovered him, but he is obviously
cooperating
with them as well.”

“Irrelevant,” Hobak decided
casually as he and Valiana stood up.

“Have all of the probe’s
remains, along with its contents, put in long-term storage,” instructed Hobak.
“Finish up with what you need to and then file everything away somewhere – I
really don’t care where.” Durgon nodded and watched them leave the room before
checking his schedule and returning to his daily routine. Inside he was fuming.

You wouldn’t be so eager to
consider all of this irrelevant if you knew how many
Brotherhood
members
had vanished along with the survivors
, he thought silently to himself. Then
he moved swiftly to follow the instructions assigned to him.

After completing another day’s
work with his usual precision, Durgon returned to the small room in the lowest
level of the underground complex that served as his quarters. He poured himself
a glass of water and took a drink while reviewing the events of the day in his
mind. He was very familiar with humans and had personally interacted with many
of the survivors each and every day – so the fact that the
Pathfinder
’s
crew had taken the time to program and send the probe left him extremely
curious. He was quite relaxed, and therefore nearly jumped out of his seat when
he saw the man standing in front of him.

“
You have done well
,”
the stranger told him. He was dressed in civilian clothes and had straight
black hair, high cheekbones and an evil smile that rivaled Hobak’s. “
Have
you committed any acts of brutality lately… ordered any deaths just because you
can, perhaps
?
”

“Who are you?” Durgon said,
studying the newcomer curiously as he set his glass of water down. “How did you
possibly get into this complex… especially its lowest level? You should be
dead
.”

“
Have you already forgotten
the message from the
Pathfinder’
s crew
?” the stranger asked,
grinning with delight in response as he casually leaned against a wall. “
Specifically,
do you remember the part about genetic enhancements and the responsibilities
that go with them
?
” He pointed at Durgon’s hands. Glancing down, the
Triumvirate leader was astonished to see a series of red and purplish blotches
covering the skin on the surface of both hands in at least a dozen areas. “
One
of the first things that you need to learn about people is that when you go
around making enemies, it’s quite possible that they may get really angry at
you and come up with ways to exploit your vulnerabilities. You know, perhaps an
attack using a biological agent of some sort
.” The mysterious stranger
smiled slyly. “
If I were you, I’d start reviewing quarantine procedures
because your cloned enhancements make you an extremely valuable test subject
…”

“Oh no…” Durgon groaned, taking
a closer look at the spots that had not been present only hours earlier.

“
Oh yes
!
” the
stranger countered confidently. “
You think humanity is going to just sit
back and
LET
you win? They’ve been fighting wars for thousands of years…
your petty cloning lines are virtual babies by comparison. Does your Triumvirate
think that they have the lock on playing dirty? They’d better watch out,
because probes like the one that landed yesterday could be dropping out of the
sky a lot more often. Who knows – maybe they’ll even contain more than just a
virus we found next time
!
”

Durgon moved quickly to call
for assistance, but he was blocked by the man as he spun toward the door. The
malevolent smile of the other pierced him to his very soul.

“Who are you?” Durgon demanded
to know, studying the hatred blazing from the man’s crimson-tinted eyes.

“
Don’t you recognize me
?
”
grinned the stranger wickedly. “
I am the person whom your people choose to serve
.
My name is Lucifer
.” He chuckled, deep and throaty, placing a hand on
Durgon’s head and forcing him to his knees. “
You may also know me as ‘the
Devil’ or as the one who was cast out. I prefer Mephistopheles, actually. It
has such a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
” Durgon resisted, trying to
rise but his strength temporarily failed him, and he felt his forehead growing
hot. “
I am extremely pleased with the murderous agenda your Triumvirate has
embraced. It has made you extremely strong and powerful
.”