Space Corps Retribution Read online

  A metallic click rang out. A pin fell to the floor as the guard closest to the door dropped a cylinder on the ground. A thick gas billowed out and spread through the room. The other guard held the prisoner’s shoulders despite the man’s violent thrashing. When the thrashing slowed, the guard eased him forward on the table.

  “What was that?” Gibbs asked while the men began clearing the room.

  A fan kicked on cycling air in the interrogation room. The first guard slowly removed his respirator and breathed deep, ensuring the safety of the air. Satisfied, he spoke into his radio. More guards entered with a stretcher, and they quickly prepared the man for transport.

  Asher watched in silence. When the room cleared, she looked at the file one last time.

  “He was a model engineer,” Asher said. “Just like that, reduced to this?”

  The sound of coffee pouring into a mug caught Asher’s attention, and she looked over at the commander. She cleared her throat, and he looked at her, noticing her disapproving glare.

  “What?” Gibbs asked. “We have to sit through this all day. It’s early and I haven’t had my coffee.”

  3

  Rain fell in large droplets on the windshield. They fell few and far between at first but grew into a downpour. Combining the moisture in the air with the heat outside the window left the admiral blotting her forehead every few minutes with a small cloth hidden on the inside of her jacket. After repeated use, she looked at the damp rag and decided to lay it across her lap instead of returning it to her pocket.

  The driver, noticing the action in the rearview mirror, called out with a friendly tone. “Not much farther now, sir. Can I turn the air up for you?”

  Declining with a smile and wave, Asher continued to look out the window as the car passed large fields. The wind and rain blew the crops down, but every break in the weather allowed them to snap right back up, facing the sky.

  “I don’t get it. Who would want to live out in the middle of nowhere? Nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to care about. No thanks.”

  As Gibbs spoke, his eyes focused on a particular patch of woods in the distance. He continued without a response from Asher. The admiral smiled to herself and blotted her forehead once again.

  “Anxious?” she asked.

  The commander turned and started to say something, but he stopped himself.

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “Wouldn’t you be? The last time I was here I almost died. I wouldn’t call that a selling point.”

  Up the road, a line of military vehicles blocked the path with barbed wire, a swinging metal gate, and several heavily armed men. The car pulled up, and they circled, checking for anything out of the ordinary. A guard looked in the passenger window. When his eyes met those of the admiral, he quickly diverted his gaze and continued his work with a bit more focus. When he finished, he looked back inside the car, as if waiting for some form of reprimand. It never came, and he waved the vehicle forward with a look of relief.

  The car pulled forward and rattled along the worn path that took them up to the old train station. The collapsed roof hinted at its age and seemed to point at the woods directly across from it.

  “That embankment saved my life,” Gibbs said. “I couldn’t even tell you how I knew something was coming, instinct I guess, but I felt it, looked up, and saw that missile coming down. I didn’t have time to think. I just grabbed Harris, and we dove behind the tracks.”

  “You did good,” Asher replied.

  The pair stepped out of the vehicle and looked at the path. The crater around them fell so perfectly that they wouldn’t have noticed it if they weren’t aware of it. Even the trees within the crater stood tall and proud, the only sign of a disturbance was the slight angle at which they turned toward the center of the blast.

  Past the trees, Asher and Gibbs continued on to a small village of white tents. The steady drone of generators and air conditioners blocked out any sounds of nature. Inside the first tent, the pair stood quietly, just staring at the team working within.

  “I wanted to bring you here much earlier, but I didn’t want to push you too hard,” Asher said.

  The commander nodded and took a few slow steps toward the tables before him. Asher couldn’t help but notice the slight limp and unease he showed as he walked, but she chose not to say anything. Gibbs picked up a plastic container with a white, numbered label on top and turned it over in his hands, inspecting it from all angles. As he did, the powder inside shifted.

  “These are the aliens, aren’t they?” Gibbs asked.

  Asher nodded and stepped forward to stand beside the commander. “We believe so. The technicians have additional samples back at the lab. They managed to pull DNA fragments. There’s nothing useful yet, but there is enough to tell us it didn’t come from this planet.” She picked up a box of her own and twisted it in her hands. “The scientists were excited. You’d have to ask them for a proper explanation of what they found. Suffice it to say that if you’re interested in xenobiology, now would be a great time to enter the field.”

  Gibbs forced a laugh. “I just don’t understand why they’d rather kill themselves than fight. I was one man. They could have easily overpowered me. Why didn’t they?”

  Together, they continued through the tent, pausing at regular intervals to inspect fragments of items catalogued and stored in the same clear containers. Everything was either in powdered form or so badly melted that the original purpose couldn’t be determined at a glance.

  “They did a good job of destroying the place,” Asher said. “Still, the teams have managed to pull a few useful bits of information. Enough to generate a few excited reports, at least.”

  “But nothing strategically significant?” Gibbs asked.

  “We were hoping you could change that. You were in the facility. It’s possible that your insight could prove invaluable.”

  “No, sir.” Gibbs sighed and put down a box. “Like you said, they did a good job destroying everything.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that,” Asher said. “There is one more thing I need to show you.”

  Asher walked at a brisk pace through the tent village until they came to the only trailer on the property. Gibbs took a moment to study the monitors on the walls, all of which showed a series of maps, drawings, schematics, and reports. His eyes darted from screen to screen trying to make sense of any of it. So much looked familiar. His eyes stopped on a particular drawing on the screen closest to the door.

  “This is a map of the facility.”

  “It is,” Asher nodded.

  “I don’t understand, sir.”

  The admiral nodded again and motioned to the back of the room where a man worked hunched over a desk. His keyboard clacked incessantly as he worked typing a series of notes. Gibbs watched him grab page after page of reports. He spent only a few seconds on each page before turning back to his keyboard and hamming out corrections.

  “Harris?” Gibbs said.

  The man didn’t look up or slow down in his work before saying, “Good morning, Commander.”

  Gibbs looked over to the admiral, who bore a devious smirk on her face.

  “I don’t understand,” Gibbs said.

  Asher stood beside Harris and leaned against the desk as he continued his work.

  “We’re at war, Commander. We don’t have many resources, we don’t have many answers, and we don’t have many people who we can trust. Robert here is probably not the ideal candidate to assist us, given his…affliction, but he’s proven himself capable in the field and has provided intel to us at every opportunity.

  “He’s passed all physicals and was even cleared by a review board. He still has his Symbiant, but it’s not a threat to anyone. As you can see, it seems to be helping him.”

  Pulling his hands back, Harris stopped typing and slowly turned around to the commander.

  “Gibbs, I—I have so much to thank you for. You saved my life, and I won’t forget that.”

  The commande
r continued to stare at Harris and walked over toward him, using his hand to brace himself against the wall.

  “The last time we were here, you couldn’t walk once you were in the facility. Is the signal really gone?”

  Harris nodded.

  “Your Symbiant. It’s still alive?”

  “Alive and well, Commander,” Asher said. “It’s made him stronger, healed his body, and helps him make sense of what we’re finding. That information doesn’t leave this room. He’s going to help us win this war.”

  Gibbs continued moving forward, fingertips still grazing the wall. He locked eyes with Harris and studied them, looking for anything out of place or unusual.

  “The other Symbiant I met. He seemed like he was trying to help me. Was he? I mean, really?”

  Harris nodded.

  “Why did he die?” Gibbs answered. “What did he do?”

  Harris turned his gaze to the ground and spoke in a low tone. “He told you our people had a choice, didn’t he? He made the wrong one, apparently, and it cost him his life. Admiral Asher has given me the opportunity to make things right.”

  4

  Another wave drove the front of the round vessel into the air. When the wave passed, the ship came back down with a large crash, splashing water over the windshield. Wipers did their best to clear the view, but as the rain continued, the effort seemed to be in vain.

  A corpsman pressed a button on his console and pressed a headset against his ears.

  “This is Atlas Four. We are on approach to gate two of Olympus. ETA ten minutes. Requesting permission to dock.”

  Through the static, the corpsman struggled to make out much of anything. When he received the answer, he turned to Captain Reynolds and stuck his thumb in the air.

  “We’re cleared for approach, sir.”

  “Good,” Reynolds said. He rocked his body with the rhythm of the waves crashing into the ship. Even when the ship dropped particularly hard, he remained steadfast in his position, only bracing himself with a light hand on the back of the helmsman’s chair.

  Four helicopters whipped the air around outside as they circled the ship. Even in the middle of the storm they maintained a perfect formation.

  “Sir,” the helmsman asked without looking up from his console, “are we going up in this weather or parking inside the base?”

  “Scared of a little rain, Roberts?” Reynolds asked.

  The helmsman shift in his seat and entered a few additional commands into his console. “No, sir. Just curious.”

  “The clouds will end at about fifteen kilometers. We’re going up to eight hundred kilometers today. We’ll have to boost the strength of the anchor again soon.”

  The small ship slowed its approach to the giant walls of the floating base Olympus. When it reached a couple hundred meters away from the gate, two large doors retracted along the wall. Near the top of the wall, a series of office windows lit up like small beacons through the storm.

  The walls of the floating base served to break up the waves and provide a bit of respite for the crew. Finally able to walk around comfortably, the crew made their way to stations throughout the ship.

  Reynolds exited the bridge and entered a small closet just outside. He opened a red locker and removed a jumpsuit. After undressing down to his base uniform, he climbed inside the suit and zipped up before grabbing his boots and gloves. With his gear on, he folded a piece of plastic material over all zippers. Finally, he removed his helmet and placed it over his head. Turning to the mirror, he lifted his chin and turned around, inspecting the fit from all angles. Satisfied, he pressed a button on the side of the helmet that instantly filled his ears with static and radio chatter running throughout the ship. Another press of the button moved him over to the bridge crew’s channel, which was considerably quieter. Pushing back into the wall, he grabbed two straps and pulled them over his shoulders before connecting a tube from the back of his helmet to the assembly. He took a deep breath of the filtered, canistered air and stepped out of the closet, moving back toward the bridge.

  Even with the strength of the waves limited by the bulk of the floating base, his balance wavered. The suit made him unstable and forced him to constantly shift his feet to remain standing. The ship approached the center of the base, and his excitement made things even more difficult as he strained to look up the central column leading straight into the sky.

  “Beginning docking procedures,” the helmsman said. Despite his smile, his monotone voice showed nothing but pure concentration.

  Even behind the walls of the base, swells moved the boat and shook it off course. The helmsman constantly corrected by anticipating the motion of the ship and firing off one of the motors just long enough to overcome the forces of the water.

  The ship split into two pieces, opening on a series of hinges. Once opened, it continued its path forward and wrapped its edges around the central column. Finally lined up, a void in the middle of the ship allowed just enough clearance for the central column. It took several minutes for the helmsman to line up the ship just right. When it was perfect, he flipped a series of switches at the top of his console, causing arms to reach out and grab hold of the column.

  “Sir, we’re locked on and ready to proceed.”

  Captain Reynolds turned and took his seat with a final glance at the overwhelming height of the column. He slowly and intentionally secured his harness, savoring every sharp click, and ordered the rest of the crew to do the same. The stations around the captain reported ready.

  “Begin ascent.”

  The ship shook. The violent tremors gave way to lighter tremors, which eventually gave way to a high frequency vibration throughout the vessel. It lifted out of the water, revealing eight evenly spaced thrusters.

  “Three, two, one, engage.”

  The helmsman pulled a lever that shot the craft into the air and pressed the entire crew tightly into their seats. Every seat rotated back to eliminate the strain on the occupant’s spinal columns. The transition happened so quickly and naturally that anyone who rode with their eyes closed barely noticed the change.

  For nearly two hours, the craft rose through the air along the guide of the column. The helmsman called out periodically to announce their arrival into a new level of the atmosphere, but the captain ignored every word. Just based on the craft’s vibration changes, he could guess their approximate height. Out the window, Reynolds watched the sky change from blue to black as they crossed over the boundary into the thermosphere.

  Tears swelled in the captain’s eyes as he focused on the stars that became crystal clear without the filter of so much air. His mask kept him from wiping the tears away, so he blinked hard and hoped no one noticed. The seats shifted back into the upright position. If anyone noticed his emotions, they didn’t say anything about it.

  “Captain, we’ve reached seven hundred fifty kilometers. Initiating transition procedures.”

  Thrusters fired at the top of the ship, rapidly changing the speed. It still climbed, much slower than before, until the craft nearly reached the end of the column. From the end of the column extended a thin support strand only a couple of meters across, extending out another eight hundred kilometers and ending in a large station.

  Reynolds unbuckled his harness and pushed himself out of his chair. He rose readily and steadied his feet on the floor of the ship. The gravity, though greatly diminished, still existed, and he fumbled about, carefully placing his feet in front of him until he stabilized and became used to his radically reduced weight.

  Grabbing a microphone, Reynolds said, “All crew, begin the build. We have material onboard for two kilometers of track. Let’s keep the machine fed and get back home.”

  Ports opened at the top of the ship. Four ports released a pair of mechanical arms with a central rig that protruded out and rotated to reveal the appropriate tool. Four other ports opened and shut as needed to provide additional pieces of track.

  As the track stuck out, one arm reached ov
er, grabbed it, and moved it into place. The other made adjustments to the track and held it in place while the central rig completed the assembly. When the four main posts were installed, the same process repeated for the cross posts. To finish the procedure, the ship bumped power to the thrusters and moved up just a bit higher until it reached the new end of the track. The process then repeated over again with the crew checking readouts, solving minor problems, and ensuring that the loaders worked properly and didn’t jam.

  When the ship stopped moving for a few minutes, a clean-shaven man bounded onto the bridge, stumbling into the doorway and doing his best to brace himself at the first bit of railing he could grab hold of.

  The seven chevrons on his sleeve told the captain that he was looking at the master sergeant, the man in charge of overseeing technical operations of the ship. After collecting himself, the man offered a salute.

  “Sir, we’ve completed the installation of all material onboard. Final count is two kilometers, as expected.”

  Still not re-accustomed to military formalities, Reynolds turned and couldn’t hide his smirk from the man. “Thank you, Sergeant. Any major problems?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Great.” Reynolds offered hasty salute and turned back to his chair. “Have your teams prepare for reentry. I want us loose in fifteen minutes.”

  The master sergeant turned, stumbled over his own feet, and hurried out of the room. The bridge crew heard him barking orders to everyone around him before the door had time to close behind him.

  “Helm,” Reynolds said, “ready for departure?”

  “Yes, sir. As soon as the teams are secure, we’re ready to go.”

  “Good. Radio down to Olympus and tell them to prep the next craft. Estimated Time of Arrival is 1600 hours.”