Tag: Mystery

The Nexus Project: Part 11

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

20.

“Isoflurane and Nitrous Oxide,” Niala was saying.

They were parked in orbit above Ceres. Simon hadn’t inquired further, but instead stared as they approached orbit and settled into it amid dead silence.

Simon’s demeanor remained unchanged. Niala explained, “We pumped it into the atmosphere after the union murdered the politicians. We knew there wasn’t any saving the planet. We were getting ready to leave, after our team was killed, and were caught off-guard by a mob. They strung the delegates up and hanged them from structural supports. The people did that. Animal and Human alike. Corruption had run so deep, it engulfed them. We retaliated by putting the whole planet to sleep, letting them die painlessly.”

Simon was caught in his thoughts. He could no longer see where insanity began and sanity ended– not just in the PFL, but in their search as well. They’d gone from hunting a thief, to suspecting a conspiracy, to headlong being enveloped in it. A need to take stock was a given, but no-one seemed to recognize that. Then again, beyond the ship’s passengers, no one knew what was really happening. Simon wasn’t sure he knew himself.

He stared at Ceres as it rotated beneath the ship’s belly cameras. With a sustained fire, he spoke at length, “What. Do we do. If you’re right? If they’re here? What. Can we do?”

Snow replied, “We blow the place to hell, and don’t look back.”

Niala was at Simon’s side, “You know this threat’s bigger than us, bigger than the ISC. If the Anti-humanists control deep-space they’ll war with Sol. The Zelphods will aid them. Even if it takes a decade, it will happen.”

Simon was numb. He could feel nothing. His throat burned as he spoke but it was just a dull throb muffled by gross reality. One of his closest friends had committed mass-murder. A planetary war-crime. Now she was ready to do it again, with him as an accomplice. He’d never been violent, but also wasn’t a pacifist. Violence was a solution to certain, specific problems even if it wasn’t the preferable solution. It didn’t make it easier to stomach though.

The MeLon posing as Josie had tried to kill him. If given the chance, it would do worse to many more others. It was complicit with the idea of one day warring with Sol, apart of human-centered hate groups formed to overthrow Federation laws.

But did that give Simon the right to murder? Could it solve the issue? He couldn’t answer definitively, only time could.

He swallowed hard through the fire in his throat, “We’ll need a way. down to the planet. We should search. for a shuttle. to keep the ship. out of harm’s way.”

With that Simon began to key through a console. Niala and Snow watched. They hesitated a moment, Snow the more curious of the two, then aided him in the search. A shuttle on a lower deck was docked with two-dozen others in an aft bay. Membrane barriers shimmered at the bay’s edge between atmosphere and dark space that encroached upon by the very apex of Ceres’ spheroid.

Snow re-checked the MeLon’s binds while Niala dosed it and Josie with powerful sedatives. Simon spoke absently to Rearden, as though ready to say good-bye, despite the others insisting it wasn’t.

He patted the robot’s gourd-like shape, “If we’re not back in a day. Free Josie and tend to her. Then take the ship to Phobos. Contact Gnarl. Inform him what’s happened and that you have the MeLon aboard.” He gave a last glance at the MeLon, still in its Feline form, “And keep it sedated.”

Rearden gave a few beeps, roughly translatable to “good luck.” Simon followed Niala and Snow down to the shuttle, took a place in a rear seat. Niala took the pilot’s controls, remarked something about its design that was lost on Simon. Snow keyed in a destination on a nav-console.

Externally, the shuttle looked like a tin can cut at a forty-five degree angle in the front. Its back-half was similar, but the angle less extreme and whole rear able to fold down. It was roomy, with only a dash and overhead panel for control. The seats too, were large, seemingly enough to fit even the girth of Hogs, while the cargo area was wide and long, presumably to allow creatures like Serpents to relax hassle-free.

Niala gave a “ready” and powered the shuttle. It gave a small, quiet rumble. A vertical sensation forced Simon’s stomach down his torso, dissipated a second later. Another sensation; lateral movement displaced his bones, left just as quickly. The hangar-bay crawled past out the forward viewport– a true to life window– darkened despite their forward lights at medium setting.

The membrane barrier passed with blue light that decontaminated the shuttle. Snow gave a command, and Niala keyed up the juice. The shuttle rocketed away, threw the trio back in their seats. A moment later, a great bout of turbulence rattled Simon’s brain in his skull like a bottle cap stuffed inside a pop-can. Some manner of compensator kicked in, and the ride was still again.

The re-entry wasn’t the least bit concerning afterward. Even as they angled for land and the edges of the viewport glowed red hot with atmospheric friction. It cooled as they weaved near the ground. Niala banked, followed Snow’s indicators on the view-port’s HUD; a series of checkpoints formed along the glacial scenery. The shuttle tilted, pitched, and pivoted through valleys shimmering red, blue, and pale-yellow or milky-white from the carbonate-mineral rocks.

The horizon of jagged valleys finally broke past a nav-point. A massive crater dipped near a kilometer into Ceres’ surface, deeper still at some points. The ship took the distance with renewed vigor, angled down to pass the crater’s edge. A moment later, lights flared ultra-bright. Cavern walls appeared, near vertical for hundreds of meters. They galloped downward, then slowed.

The ship leveled out. Lights fell over distant amalgamations of structural supports, ramshackle shanties, and buildings constructed of scrap. Simon was more interested in their vacancy than anything. What seemed to have once been a lively, expansive village, was now a pitch-black ghost-town. Niala set down on a patch of smoothed mineral, checked the laser-pistol she’d brought.

She tossed Simon a heavy coat and made for the door. Snow stood beside Simon a moment, “Know that everything you do here is to protect not only yourself, but your species, as well as all others that live in peace with it. What you do beyond this shuttle, is not a decision you make, but an inevitability you accept because the alternative as irreconcilable. Do not freeze when the time comes. Perhaps, when this is over, I might hold you in higher regard.”

Snow stepped away. Simon rose from his seat, oddly comforted. He fixed himself into determination, absent of little else, and followed the others out.

21.

The ghost town was once Ceres’ main hub. That much was apparent by the sheer amount of frozen corpses preserved by the decade since the PFL attack. Simon couldn’t imagine the MeLon entering this atmosphere. Snow might be at home in it, and Niala seemed unfazed by it, but he was freezing even through the ultra-warm coat he’d been given. He shivered violently, followed the others through the abandoned shanty town.

They seemed to know where they were headed, but he found a need to keep his eyes forward. Corpses were everywhere, like a scene from the old Vesuvian victim of ancient Pompeii. They’d been overcome by the anesthetic released and froze over, just as Pompeii with toxic fumes and pumice. Evidently, the PFL agents had shut down whatever means of distribution they’d used afterward. Or at least, Simon suspected as much, given he could still breathe.

They progressed down a series of long, double-wide staircases. Bodies were slumped over railings, splayed across foyers. At each level, sheet-metal entries hid countless more dead. For near an hour the planetary graveyard carried them toward Ceres’ heart.

Their destination became apparent in the distance; a lone manufacturing facility lit within an industrial district that was otherwise long-dead. Reaching the ground and facility proved to be the easy part, getting in would be another matter altogether.

Niala led at a crouch, stealthed around a side of the enormous factory. She paused every few paces to listen beyond thrumming machinery, until, at the factory’s rear-corner she stopped, peered around with a paw up to stay the others. A nearby door was stationed beneath a lone light flickering with age. Niala focused past it, at the start of a series of structural beams that led upward the hundred or more meters to the factory’s roof.

She pulled back, “We climb from here.”

“You’re nuts,” Simon managed in a lone breath.

She and Snow dismissed him with a look. “It’s the only way. Entering through the factory floor may get us killed.”

Snow replied, “We’re behind you.”

She set off in her crouch for the first series of beams. Simon sighed frustration. Snow shoved him past the corner, followed after him. The trio reached the first steel beams, braced in an H a meter up. Niala leapt to it with Feline agility. Snow took a short, sprinting leap. He and Niala extended their paws for Simon, easily pulled him up.

They started along a cross-beam, climbed up on an over-hang. Simon followed, envying his ape-ancestors. He heaved himself up, around, leapt with the pair’s aid, all the while exhausted by his “evolved” form. When they finally reached a series of braces running even with the factory roof, he glanced down. His stomach dropped at the two hundred meters of steel and air below.

Niala drew him back with a pounce that spanned the six-foot gap between roof and beam with ease. Snow followed with a similar spring. He landed with a skid and turn, looked more like a playful puppy than a hardened warlord. Simon swallowed hard, breathed deep. He long-jumped, eyes closed, only to feel himself jostled on landing. He opened his eyes to find his feet over open air. Niala and Snow’s nails dug into his shoulder. With a singular, powerful heave, they drew him onto the roof.

The progress up had been quiet, as was Simon’s near-fall. But where that was a noisy, clambering affair, their advance was a flea’s breath beneath ruffled fur. They crouch-walked to sky-lights frosted over by inner-heat. Snow wiped off a pane of glass, revealed the factory’s two, spaciously placed floors. The ground-level was a factory floor filled with machinery of all types; a sort of assembly line that reminded Simon of ancient stock footage from war-time manufacturing.

The second floor was a grated catwalk. Offices and other rooms lined it where they wouldn’t interfere with any machinery below. The space between them said a fall over a cat-walk could kill any species not agile enough to land on its feet.

They needed a way in. A quiet one. The machinery seemed fully automated, but would be overseen by a skeleton crew. Wherever they might be, they weren’t visible. What was however, was the beginnings of a dozen, large hydraulic pads– the ground-work for another ship identical to theirs. Mechanical arms swarmed them, while conveyors shuffled parts over. The machinery worked in concert to actively build the ship, piece-by-piece.

Niala made for a roof-access door, but Snow called her back. He pointed downward, somewhere to the side of the partially-built ship. Simon squinted to see better. Three figures moved about; a Cobra, a Hog, and an unmistakable, pressure-suited Zelphod.

Niala recognized markings on its suit, “Same one from the security footage. You think it knows we stole the ship?”

One of Snow’s eyes narrowed, “Doesn’t matter. This factory will be destroyed.”

Simon found it easier to speak at length in the cold air, “What’s to stop them from reactivating another factory?”

Snow gave a slight shake of his head, “They’ve lost the element of surprise now. We’ll blow this place to hell, then inform the HAA and Federation. They’ll bombard the planet from space. There won’t be a single structure left standing, and they won’t have anywhere in Sol to start up again.”

Simon was on-board, but didn’t know where to begin. Niala headed for the stairwell in a hush, “I’ve got a plan.”

The Nexus Project: Part 9

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

16.

Before them lay a massive, open cavern, half a kilometer tall, and three-quarters in width. The splendor that captivated them stood on a dozen, hydraulic legs and filled most of the space. Three, squared sections ahead of a larger fourth connected to tubular engines Simon recognized from his lab. He’d designed them– both in theory, then in 3-D software. He’d even built a prototype, or what he thought was a prototype, anyway. It was currently sitting in his lab’s test-chamber.

They were PL-5 plasma-fusion drives, the “next-gen” of propulsion, and descendants of all engines currently used through-out Sol. Simon had calculated them capable of Earth to Ganymede travel in a little over an hour. They cut the current, eight-hour travel time to a fraction of itself via advanced-compression gasses that created tremendously greater thrust when turned to plasma. None of that seemed relevant now, but Simon was humbled at seeing his work incorporated into one, magnificent ship.

He and Niala pulled back as she whispered, “They weren’t stealing the information to use it. They were stealing it to keep us from using it. The anti-humanists have already developed D-S travel.”

Simon glanced between Niala and Rearden. It shuddered as it processed the thought. Snow suddenly whispered, “There it is.”

Simon and Niala leaned back out to see Josie’s doppelganger stroll along the ship’s belly. It dwarfed the faux-feline like a skyscraper turned on end. The MeLon headed for the tail-end, passed behind a large, ice-pillar that obstructed any further view. Snow moved forward on his paws as if stalking prey. Niala followed in a similar fashion. Simon followed, struck by how like a savanna or forest hunt it must be.

Rearden kept behind him, the bot’s thrusters in silent mode at minimal power. They followed to the obstructing pillar. Massive enough for the four to fit comfortably behind it. The far-end of the circular engines edged onto a long, empty expanse. The MeLon began to cross it for a transparent enclosure ahead that looked to be made of matte steel and other metals. Windows were fitted along its top in a dome, the MeLon already halfway there.

Snow readied to run, “We have to get to that door before it closes.”

Niala was ready. They timed their run. The MeLon was steps from the door. They dropped to all fours and galloped off. The MeLon keyed in a pass-code. The door slid open. Simon barely blinked before Snow landed atop the lizard.

They tumbled and rolled to the enclosure. Niala stopped in the doorway, waved Simon forward. He broke into a run, Rearden’s thrusters screamed past. He suddenly felt outpaced everywhere– maybe Snow was right about humans.

He couldn’t think of it now. Snow grabbed the faux-feline by her neck scruff, held her there. If she hadn’t been camouflaged, he’d never been able to hold her, but with the rearrangement of certain features, came the rearrangement of nervous systems to compensate. He snapped a metal clamp to the back of the feline’s neck and it stiffened like a board. He kicked it across the room as Niala and Simon appeared. Rearden was busy sealing the door, overwriting its lock codes.

Control panels on a raised platform bowed along the back wall with equally as many screens above them. Lights winked or glowed steadily, each one monitoring some component the place.

Snow headed for a door at the left in a carved, rock-wall that jutted out past the enclosure. Niala moved to the control panels, examined them. Simon merely stared at the MeLon. It was a cat to him, but something seemed off; a scent to the air like dried wood-chips beneath a heat-lamp. He remembered the smell from an Iguanidae researcher who’d been shedding. The smell was a type of oil especially pungent during molts. Here the scent was less intense, but unmistakable. Clearly the MeLon’s Pheromone treatment had worn off.

Snow reappeared, “She’s here. Go. I’ll guard the lizard.”

Simon and Niala hurried away. Snow took on a menacing hunch, stalked toward his prey. The pair entered a lavish room replete with red, hanging banners trimmed in gold. They gleamed with a strange, inhuman symbol along the walls and above a secondary control-panel. It was set in a small alcove before a chair, thirty or so screens with various feeds on them above it. At a glance, Simon made out various Ganymede districts and parts of the cavern.

Ahead, a large, satin-sheeted bed sat beside a lighted doorway jutting from an outcrop. Niala passed through first, Simon on her heels. A narrow hall cut left, opened on another room. Along its walls hung weapons and clothes of various sizes and shapes, likely where the MeLon stored its various species’ wardrobe.

Along the back wall, dangling from shackles at navel-height, was a crumpled feline.

Josie was almost unrecognizable. Her usually vibrant, striped fur was bald in places, mottled with blood in others. Her eyes had the crusted-goo effect domestic animals tended to get when they couldn’t clean themselves. Moreover, it appeared she’d cried so long and hard her eyes had turned a permanent shade of red, her fur stained at their corners.

“For the love of Bastet, what the hell has it done to her?” Niala asked, transfixed.

Simon pushed past, his throat ablaze. He didn’t care. He fought the rusted shackles and their pad-lock. They were crude, especially for this era. Then again, it didn’t take much to immobilize and contain such a helpless creature. Simon stepped back, pulled his pistol. He blasted the locks off to a red-hot glow of lasered steel. Josie’s arms fell free. She roused, already terrified and crying. Simon was beside her, his fiery throat less pained given her appearance.

“Shh, it’s okay.”

The closer he got, the more emaciated she looked. He tried to help her up. Her knees buckled. He lifted her gently, her weight a mere feather.

“She needs. A. Doctor,” Simon said.

Niala nodded, “I have something to keep her pain-free for the trip.”

“Help… me…” Josie purred in agony.

“Its. Okay. Josie,” Simon managed. “You’re safe.”

She sensed his sincerity, shuddered. She began to sob with light mews that stole what remained of his breath. He carried her back to the enclosure; Snow had the MeLon in a chair, menacing it with his teeth bared.

“We’re leaving,” Simon said, headed for the door.

Snow whipped toward him, “You’re out of your mind. We’ll never make it with her like that.”

“Do you. Have a better Idea?” He asked as caustic as his wound allowed.

He whirled back on the MeLon, “Tell me, assassin, does your ship have an infirmary?” The creature couldn’t reply with anymore than a pair of blinks. “Good.”

In one move, he knocked the lizard out.

17.

It hadn’t taken long to find the infirmary, but it was a wonder nonetheless. The ship defied logic, twice the size inside than it appeared outside. New, metal paneling formed its walls and floors, appeared as if anti-static film had only just been peeled away. All around, painted lines and signs directed them in a myriad of Earth-languages and a few others now native to Sol.

The ship was otherwise vacant, and according to what little they saw, yet to be flown. Simon carried Josie through the ship behind Niala, her sense of direction uncanny. Behind them, Snow maneuvered their prisoner through the ship over a shoulder. He cared little for the bumps and bruises its parts suffered along the way. He considered releasing it a moment, recalled a long-past fight with a MeLon and scars where his fur still grew wrong, and decided against it.

By the time they reached the infirmary, it had been nearly a half-hour since they’d found Josie. She no longer cried but seemed unable to do much more than purr. Given the feline propensity for purring in states of both pain and joy, Simon’s heart bled for her.

He laid her in a bed and stepped back while Niala rushed back and forth. Snow chained his prisoner to a bed on the infirmary’s opposite side, drew a curtain around it.

He stopped with it nearly closed, only part of his face showing, “You’re next.”

He threw the curtain closed and stepped to Simon’s side. Rearden lowered onto a bed, disengaged its thrusters to settle into place. Fifteen minutes of injections and bandaging later, Niala finished. Both Snow and Simon had settled into chairs, as much unsure of what to do as unwilling to get in the way.

Simon sensed a curious air about the Wolf. He occasionally sniffed with a subtle, upthrust muzzle. There was a deep contemplation in his features, as though mentally working something out. Wary of him, Simon ignored it until a rhythm became obvious, as though Snow wished to speak but knew not how to.

Simon sighed with a spark to his throat, “Something wrong?”

Snow’s mouth quivered with disgust, but for once he didn’t insult Simon, “Why here?”

“Huh?”

Snow expounded, “Why build the ship here? We are inside a mine. There is only one conclusion; they planned a way out.”

Simon thought on it, “What way?”

Snow eyed the human, “They planned to ignite the ship’s engines and incinerate the ice-mine. It would’ve pumped lethal amounts of ammonia into the atmosphere. The station would have been fine, and the planet would have been cleansed in time, but the lower station-levels would be toxic for days. Meanwhile, they’d bury all other evidence here.”

Simon was dumbstruck by his insight, began to see why he might be considered a leader. Despite his own distaste for the Wolf and its ways, a new image formed of him; he was far more intelligent than he let on. Given his association with Niala, he assumed they’d known one another in some capacity other than military– or at least one therein that showcased intelligence as an asset.

Simon’s voice was weaker, his speech as compact as possible, “Logical enough.”

Niala edged over, “We need to get Josie back to the ISC. I say we steal the ship and go now.”

Simon frowned, “Snow?”

The Wolf scoffed, “It would require vaporizing the mine and releasing the ammonia.”

“We’ll alert the station,” Niala countered. They watched her with dismal looks. “Josie needs medical attention and the sooner we get this ship out of MeLon hands, the better.”

Snow shook his head in defeat, knowing the Lion’s will was unshakable. He replied with a hint of enmity, “Do whatever you feel’s necessary, Matriarch.”

Niala squinted, then instructed the group, “Simon, with me. Snow, watch Josie and the prisoner. Rearden, see if you can hack the med-terminal and link with security. Search the data-stores for any traces of that’s been anyone aboard– or still is.”

Rearden’s thrusters engaged. It zoomed across the infirmary to a terminal. Simon rose as Snow chided him, “Be a good boy for mother-domess, pet.”

Simon flipped the Wolf a bird before he left with Niala. They explored the ship, mostly blind but occasionally guided by hopeful signs touting “Bridge” in a handful of languages. They kept their pistols out, Simon’s more for show than anything. Despite the obvious scrapes with death, he still wasn’t sure he was ready to kill someone. It all depended on the moment, he guessed.

“Snow’s concerned,” he said finally.

Niala pointed them around a corner, pistol aimed outward, “About?”

Simon shrugged in reply; it was easier. He managed a few words, “Ceres. What happened?”

“I told you–”

Simon grabbed her arm, grit his teeth against talons goring his throat, “I’ve been framed. Threatened. Cut. I deserve answers.”

She moved to speak but saw he would take no protest. He altogether refused to move until the truth came out– Josie and Sol be damned, he’d earned an explanation.

She heaved a sigh, “Walk and talk.” Simon eyed her skeptically. “We may not have much time. We can do both.”

Simon started forward apprehensively. They took corners slowly, traversed long wide corridors that felt more like a power-plant than a deep-space vessel.

“Shortly after I had my third litter, I left Earth with the Federation. The HAA had recently negotiated the Federation into excellent benefits, and given I now had a Pride’s worth of family to provide for, I needed all I could get.” She rounded a corner, pistol up, then lowered it, “Because of my intelligence and civil-station as Matriarch, I was recruited into the Federation’s Special-Forces unit codenamed “Padfoot Lightning.” The PFL is how I met Snow.”

Simon listened intently as they started down a long corridor toward an elevator. “Bridge-4” was painted beside it beneath a list of other levels. The pair relaxed in the absence of threats.

Niala continued, “The P-F-L was the military’s answer to old-world units like SEALs and Rangers, but with an emphasis on using evolved animals’ heightened instincts for covert missions. Snow was a tracker. I was communications and tech. There were a few others with us– a Tigress, a Hog, and a Rat– each of us had unique skills because of our species’ evolution. We were all physically robust, and trained in unarmed and weapons combat. We were the Federation’s elite.”

Simon had difficulty seeing how this formed such a heavy grudge in Snow. Military units were usually like a brotherhood or family, and given the Wolf’s regard of honor, the two seemed irreconcilable.

Niala intoned over his thoughts while they entered the elevator and began to rise. “We ran counter-terror ops, tracked drug and weapons dealers, smugglers. You name a black-trade, and we worked it, either to shut it down, expand it, or manipulate events through it to our advantage.”

The elevator doors opened on a massive, wide room filled with computers and console-like workstations both eerily foreign and extremely familiar. Niala swept the area with her pistol, then relaxed.

“Needless to say, during one mission, our team was captured. We’d been sent in to extract a hostage from a gang on Ceres. If you’re not familiar, Ceres is essentially one big mine. An entire city was built beneath the surface where the crust was mined out.” She started across the bridge, focused more on her own thoughts than the room’s features, “That city was also a haven for smugglers and gangs. Mafioso types that, like Snow now, controlled everything on the planet. They’d organized a union strike, and in the process, had captured several foreign dignitaries escorted to the planet to ensure there were no Human Rights violations.”

Simon began to see where Niala was headed. He managed to forward her nearer the point with a few, painfully choice words, “Emphasis on Humans. The animals weren’t. Happy?”

Niala affirmed with a shake of her head. “We were lined up to be executed. It was then that we met the master-mind… one of my sons.”

Simon’s brain decoupled from his body for a moment. He stood in utter shock.

Niala’s voice became distant, “When my son saw me, he released me under guard.” Her eyes welled up, her breaths weak, “We argued until… he forced me to execute my team.” Traumatic memories played over her face, visible in her eyes and weak muscles, “I killed the Hog first; Our explosives expert and connection to the black-market. He had a way of making you hate him. It almost wasn’t difficult.”

She swallowed the admission hard. Simon watched internal conflict play visible stills over her.

“I killed the rat next– our infiltration expert and recon-man. He always shriveled like a fool at danger. Why he was chosen for the P-F-L, I’ll never know. It was a mercy, to say the least.”

Her voice was quiet now, her breath stuttered. Simon sensed she no longer inhabited the room, but instead a dimension of agony where nightmares were reality.

“I killed the tigress last,” she admitted. “We were friends. But she was straight as razor. If she lived, and we escaped, I knew I’d be court martialed and jailed for life. I couldn’t allow that.”

Her chest no longer moved. She existed in a vacuum. Simon stared dully.

“I turned the gun on Snow next,” she breathed finally. “And… I couldn’t do it.” She broke from her trance to meet Simon’s eye. “Snow was my best friend. My partner in crime. We were inseparable, and worked well together. Killing him meant killing a piece of me– maybe all of me, given how many times he’d saved my life.”

She almost choked on her tears. Simon’s heart felt a knife penetrate it.

“My son was agitated by my hesitation. I was wasting time, but I couldn’t move. I knew what I’d done was irredeemable, but I’d have rather died than hurt Snow.” Her face went blank. “So I murdered my son to save Snow.”

There was a silence impregnated by a tension whose source eluded him.

Niala finished with an ashamed glance away. “Snow blames me for the loss of our team and the black marks on his military record, but owes me his life, and so knows he cannot hurt me. What’s more, his beliefs in loyalty and honor makes him see the murders as a betrayal of both trusted friends and family.” Her tone shifted formally, “For a Wolf, the commitment to honor is instinct. Were Snow in such a position, he’d have inevitably chosen to kill us all, or immediately murder his child. My choice was motivated differently, by different instincts, but the same devotion. He refuses to admit that…. but I don’t blame him.”

She stepped to a console, examined it pointedly.

“Snow hates me because he believes I have loyalty only to myself. No matter how I’ve attempted to convince him my loyalty was ultimately to him, the murder of our team supersedes it. For me to have murdered my son as well only solidifies his belief that I know no true honor or devotion. He is mistaken.”

The foreign nature of the console began to dawn on Niala, but her mind was too transfixed on her memories. It took a moment for her to comprehend the design of what she was looking at. In the meantime, she breathed, “Now you know what happened on Ceres.”

The Nexus Project: Part 8

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

14.

The shuttle rode solar turbulence right into the Ganymede spaceport. The combination moon-space station was once more smeared with light. Dots flickered in the distance below along a world of countless mines and industrial factories. Only the slightest hint of something cut through the atmosphere. The sun at its distant angle, with Jupiter’s enormous shadow encompassing it, shimmered from the climate barrier only just visible over the moon.

The shuttle came to a rest and the trio pushed down the boarding hallway. Crowds surged and rolled around them in the terminal, but Simon kept pace this time. His mind was caught in the whirlwind of questions spurred by their earlier revelations. He’d tried to sleep for the sake of healing, but couldn’t slough off the questions lining his thoughts. Every breath was another layer, another branching tree of inquiry that unnerved any hope for calm.

Even as they ducked, weaved, and pushed for a far-off elevator, he found logic in complete disagreement with the plot enacted. It seemed so far-fetched to go to such trouble to steal data that had barely manifested. If it was stolen by a planted agent, why so blatantly and boldly? Why expose your agent? Moreover, why impersonate a secretary? Josie hardly had confidential-level access. What was the purpose? Frost? Why not a more senior agent provocateur, someone with access and confidence, and just as easily replicated?

The more Simon considered it, the less sense it made. He found himself whizzing through the spaceport in an elevator car before his autopilot disengaged. A thought suddenly occurred; what if they couldn’t infiltrate the upper-echelons? What if, for some reason, the theft’s blatancy was to cover up for something else– to keep the ISC working doubly hard while something bigger happened elsewhere? What could it be? Who was involved? What if everything else was a smokescreen to plant someone else in their midst, or enact a different kind of sabotage?

Simon hit the emergency stop on the elevator.“What’re you doing?”

He found his words with difficulty, his throat aflame from the thought of speaking, “Someone else. Is. Involved.”

She eyed him curiously, “What? How can–”

“I. Know.” Over the course of a long, painful minute, he explained his previous thoughts, “Who. Could. It be?”

She shook her head, “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. It may not make sense until we find the Josie impersonator.” He stared at the floor. “We must ensure Josie survives. If she’s truly being held captive, she may have important information. Possibly her captor’s identity, or even their plans.” She shoved the emergency stop button in, “But we can’t know until we confirm Snow.”

He accepted the Matriarch’s wisdom, if only for the sake of stoking his own thoughts further. It was a quarter of an hour before they found themselves was once more in Snow’s den, his soldiers gone at his behest. Niala reached into her gown, tossed Snow a small holo-disk that lit up with a 3D projection. An image of Josie’s face spun slowly from Snow’s upturned paw.

“She’s a MeLon. We’re looking for the original as well. We believe she’s being held nearby, possibly on Ganymede itself.”

Snow stared at the image. A corner of his muzzle lifted to bare his teeth. He closed his paw over the image, then lowered it, “This lizard will pay for its crimes.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

Snow eyed her as she carefully considered something. He spoke of it with an almost sarcastic pleasure, “Troubled, domess?”

She grit her teeth, “We need you with us.”

He grunted a smile, “Incapable of facing the threat alone? Matriarch, you’re slipping.”

She snorted frustration, “This isn’t a joke, Snow. You know how dangerous a MeLon can be, especially when holding someone hostage.”

His animosity fell away to curiosity, “Hostage? A MeLon? Wishful thinking. MeLon’s don’t take prisoners, Matriarch.”

For the first time, Simon spoke, “Why?”

Snow smiled, more from having something the human wanted than seeing its difficult speech. “So it is not entirely autonomous. It speaks like a man.” Snow leaned with a predatory sniff of the air, “It smells like a man.” He straightened with a forward step, eye-to-eye with Simon, “But does it have the value of a man, I wonder.”

Simon snarled; an effect of the Wolf’s ability to manipulate all creatures’ utter loathing, “I do.”

For a moment no-one was certain what would happen. Snow seemed to be deciding whether to drop his enmity, or make Simon an early lunch. When the cunning smile flashed again he turned for his throne, sat upon it. A small beam cut through the near-darkness from the throne’s apex, aimed downward to a place before it’s King. A series of projected displays appeared. Snow fed the disk into a slot beneath an armrest. The screens flashed, jumped. Feeds from all over Ganymede flickered and flitted past. Facial recognition software splayed dots over Josie’s image, searched the feeds for it.

“If your MeLon has been on Ganymede, my program will find it.” Niala breathed small relief. He snarled again, but it relaxed as he focused on the feeds, “She never told you about Ceres, Human.”

Niala was about to speak when Simon re-affirmed Snow’s statement, “No.”

He spoke as though she weren’t present, “The Matriarch has a way of feigning loyalty until she sees gain not to.” Snow glanced at her from the corner of an eye, expected Simon to do the same. His eyes darted to the human only to find them staring at his own, “You surprise me, Human.”

Simon rasped a full sentence without a stop, “I aim to please.”

If it was possible, Snow seemed to regard him with even more disdain than before, “Your species has a colossal pair.” His eyes refocused on the search. “For eons, your people enslaved the Canines, dangled food and security before their noses until they heeded your commands. Then, if they stepped out of line, you killed them or left them to die. Your people so diluted our bloodlines some of our descendants are unrecognizable.”

Simon rasped magma, “Your point?”

He ignored him to wax philosophical, “Your kind believed themselves the ultimate hunters. Bent nature to your whim. Placed yourselves above it. Then, the Zelphods appeared. You were still on top, you thought, because they were generations removed from the creatures that had begun the millennia-long exodus.” Snow finally met Simon’s eyes again, “But when those creatures you’d thought so flexible once more became a threat, you did the only thing you could; made peace for fear of destruction.”

Simon watched the Wolf’s glare. The Magma in his throat burst, made his voice crack, fade, “Coexistence is the only logical solution.”

“So it would seem,” Snow replied with a half-squint. “To one who’s only other option is annihilation.”

Niala interjected, “Can we focus on the issue at-hand?”

Snow replied with malice, “Oh domess, but it is the issue at-hand, don’t you see? His people run the Federation, the economies, the colonies, the construction companies, and everything else in between and around. What they don’t directly control, they do so vicariously through money or sympathizers.”

Niala fumed, “This isn’t productive. You’re just baiting us. There’s no reason to–”

“Shut up, traitor!” Snow barked. “You only refuse to see the truth. You’re a sympathizer, like the rest. Right now, it’s keeping you from understanding all the seemingly illogical moves made.” Simon and Niala exchanged a confused look. Snow took pleasure in enlightening them, “The ISC theft is only the first step in removing the Human issue. Research will continue. One day, it will be business as usual. Increased security, new locks on the doors, but the memory will fade. As it does, more facets will be infiltrated– facets of the HAA, the Federation, the ISC and elsewhere. Just as there, everything will be subject to intrusion and manipulation, by those few, well-placed agents.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Niala spat.

“Is it? Or is it so clever you fear its truth? So obvious it is hidden in plain sight?” He let the thought sink in a moment. “You see, Niala, Humans make the policies. They recruit the employees. Pay them. They have the say-so. All of it is done under the guise of a pre-existing infrastructure built before our kind’s rise. But it is a system without room for us. Not really. It has begrudgingly given us a choice to fit in or wither and die without it.” The holo-screen’s flickering came to a stop. “And that is why they’re doing this. Nothing has changed. Soon, it will.”

He pulled the disk from his chair, then rose. The beam of light disappeared and he stepped off the throne’s raised platform. He straightened with a backward flex, “I will help you, but only because there is gain in it for me. It is here, as much a threat to my domain as yours. But do not mistake my aid for anything more than repayment of a debt.”

Niala gave a small nod. Snow pushed between the pair, stalked past Rearden behind them, and out the door. They exchanged a curious look, both of their thoughts locked on his lecture. Regardless of his point, the theft’s goal was obvious now. Somehow, in someway, it would be used to displace the current powers, put the Humans lower. The why was simple enough. To have any hope of discovering the how, they’d have to follow Snow.

Simon started forward.

15.

The lower levels of Ganymede’s space-port were more like ground-levels. Here were actual planetary features that rose and fell around the station’s lowest reaches. Simon could even see where the atmosphere radiated from; huge turbines and vats the size of skyscrapers loomed in the distance. At their peaks and mid-sections, bright lights pulsed every few seconds to alert passing craft.

Much to Simon’s dismay Snow was on-point. The trio was now accompanied by a Wolf with a blood-thirsty vengeance. It rolled off him like steam, stained the air hatred and determination. Niala followed him single-file, her gown’s hood displaced by artificial winds from chemical vats that mixed perchlorates in a exothermic reaction, created oxygen.

The massive vats and turbines were only one part of the process, but their proximity made for gale-force winds that even Rearden struggled against. They seemed to gust harder every few seconds, then sink back to an idle torrent before starting again.

Simon shouted, an act he was certain he could only do once, “Where are we going?”

“Save your voice, Human,” the Wolf howled back. “You’ll need it to scream when the MeLon gets you.”

Niala glared at the back of Snow’s head, “It’s a valid question.”

Snow swiveled on the pads of his massive hind-paws, pulled Niala closer. She readied to fight, but he pointed off in the distance; “Beyond that ridge are the ice-mines. If the surveillance feeds are correct, your doppelganger is there.”

“Why would they hide in an ice-mine?” She asked over an especially loud gust.

“They’re completely autonomous. No surveillance. All equipment is connected via Ganymede’s control center above. If a MeLon is anywhere on this planet, it is there.” Niala gave a small nod. She stared at the distant ridge in thought. “Now, move. We’re wasting time.”

Niala stormed past with a quiet growl. She took point, Snow now enough paces behind to be out of ear-shot. He stepped beside Simon, “Human, you show compassion and determination. Most would see that as weakness.”

Simon grated angrily against a burning throat, “Your point?”

“Your loyalty to the Lion may be absolute, but trust that hers is not.”

“I don’t. Believe you,” he managed with visible difficulty.

“I don’t care. Know only not to trust in those who would sacrifice others for themselves.”

Snow quickened his pace, bridged the gap between them and Niala. He left Simon fighting the winds as he attempted to decode the cryptic warning. Ceres. But what about? Evidently she’d sacrificed someone for herself. How was that relevant?

It wasn’t, he decided. Merely just another attempt by the Wolf to manipulate those around him. For whatever reason, he didn’t want Niala to be seen as honorable, trustworthy. It made him all the less trustworthy instead.

Niala led the pack through the largely desolate landscape for nearly an hour. All that time, the ridge inched nearer until it loomed over-head like the station, only more jagged, organic. Snow informed them an entrance to the caverns would be hidden in the rock-face, difficult to pin-point until they stumbled into it.

If Niala knew anything about Snow, it was his resourceful relentlessness. No doubt he’d long ago sent teams to map the entirety of Ganymede’s surface in greater detail than even the planetary scanners. Those things tended to use echolocation software that often left geographical features as massive, solid blocks. Snow knew better than most though that this wasn’t the way geography worked. His people had come from caves, dens, lairs of naturally-carved stone otherwise invisible to software. His mapping was likely as much for credits as for the establishment of a refuge. If that was true, he knew exactly where they were headed. The Ice mines would’ve had a definitive entrance, sure, but no-one would use it if they were trying to hide. They’d go in the back-door, so to speak.

When the pack finally reached the ridge-line, Snow was quick to pinpoint the cavern’s entrance. An outcrop of thick ice emanated steam in the unnatural atmosphere. Snow slipped left of the outcrop, then edged right and disappeared in a curious optical illusion. Niala glanced back at Simon who’d watched with curious brows.

She reassured him with a look, disappeared as Snow had. Rearden and Simon followed, the little bot seemingly the more nervous of the two. For his primitive, optical sensors it was likely a leap of faith; to it there was nothing there. Without the brain to decode the opening’s presence, it was left only to trust in its companions. They entered a darkened tunnel that reverberated their footsteps, the sounds muffled by the fish-bowl effect the winds had caused.

Snow engaged a series of LEDs built into his armor, “Don’t touch the walls.”

Rearden added to the lights’ intensity with its optical sensor. The beam splayed over the narrow ice-walls, scanned forward through rolling ice-smoke.

“Ammonia,” Niala said.

Simon spoke with half-pauses, “Are. You sure. This is safe?”

“If you don’t touch the ice,” Snow grumbled.

“I mean. Breathing it,” Simon reiterated.

“You know a better way to the mines undetected?” There was silence. “Then shut up. The more you speak the more you inhale.”

Simon covered his mouth, breathed through a jacket sleeve. They followed the tunnel down a long, shallow decline. Snow and Rearden’s lights cut ahead near a hundred meters, endlessly illuminating the tunnel ahead. When it finally stopped, opened up, the group halted, killed their lights.

The Wolf inched in a crouch toward the opening, gestured the others up with a wave. Niala and Simon lined up beside Snow, careful of the walls. Beyond them shapes took focus, and the two scientists stared, eyes wide and mouths open.

The Nexus Project: Part 7

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

12.

Simon was barely able to stand. Both Niala and Rearden watched him fiercely, but somehow he managed to keep his feet under him. After countless doses of morphine and blood, he was more substance than man, and with the Lion-like will, he was all the more a beast. There was a determination in his eyes that said he would go through unimaginable hells to find the truth now, especially given the one he’d already been through.

When the doors opened on the top level of the admin building, it was to the scene so common to the non-lab locations of the facility; cubicles, creatures, and halls full of named doors. It seemed nothing had changed since the attack and betrayal by one of their inner-most. Even when they passed the spot where Josie nearly decapitated Simon, there was little more than a lingered glance to set it apart.

The maintenance bots had done an A-rate job cleaning up the blood spatters and pool from the walls and floor. As programmed, they’d eradicated all traces of the attack. Joise’s empty desk before Frost’s door was the only left out of place. Visibly, she might’ve merely been out to lunch, or perhaps on an errand for her scatter brained, Corvian boss.

Frost’s office-door flew open, nearly fell of its hinges. The Crow turned with a start. His wings flapped wildly and his chest heaved in a squawk.

Simon stormed toward him. He trembled reply, “Great skies, you gave me a fright!”

Simon planted both arms on the desk, leaned over it so that his bandaged stitches occupied one side of the bird’s view and his head the other. He grated sand-paper words against his wounded throat, “You. Will. Tell us. Everything.” The bird’s head tilted slightly to better view him, an obvious confusion in the movement. Simon alleviated it with a throaty fire, “Nexus Project. Deep Space. Colonization.”

Frost’s eyes enlarged to black holes, “Wh-what’re you t-talking about?”

Niala rounded behind Frost, spun him in his chair to meet her eyes. She held out a paw at him, pads up, and tensed her claws, “Start talking or I start playing bat the twine with your organs.”

He gave a squawk, “How dare you! You think you can come in here and threaten me!? I’ll have your job for this!”

“Go ahead,” Niala growled. “Try it. Then I can cut you in half for what you’ve done.”

“I’ve done nothing!”

“Liar,” she hissed. “You’ve already begun building a prototype. All of our work’s just a smokescreen, a cross-check of your math. You and the Federation want to keep Deep-Space a secret, colonize it before the general public catches on.”

He was irate, “Martin you’ve lost your mind, I would never–”

“You would. You have. Now sing or I start cutting.”

His eyes followed her razor-sharp claws toward his throat. His head involuntarily eased backward, neck stiffened. He swallowed something with difficulty, began to stammer, “I-I d-didn’t have a choice, Niala. I swear it. The Federation was going to p-pull our funding if we didn’t cooperate. The HAA was going to allow it. S-so I divided the labor to keep everyone off the scent.”

“What. Scent?” Simon demanded with a scratch.

Frost’s beady eyes look lowered than a rat’s caught in a trash can. They darted between the Human and Lioness, “O-our research fund is d-double what it should be. I needed to hide the cause.”

“So you consigned us to a fool’s errand,” Niala snarled.

“N-no,” He insisted. “No. I swear. The research is genuine. The Federation wanted me to finalize the technology to work on mass-production once they’d established their outposts.”

Niala eased back, more confused than she let on. Her claws retracted, “Why the farce? Why hide it all if the Human Federation didn’t plan on keeping the colonies for themselves?”

He swallowed something less rough this time. “The political situation outside Sol is delicate at best. At worst, it is almost total anarchy. That kind of anarchy is exactly what the Zelphods want.”

Niala’s eyes narrowed; Zelphods. There was a word she hadn’t heard in nearly a decade. The Zelphods were the alien creatures that had caused the First Contact War. It was they, vicariously, that had allowed the Federation to remain in power. Directly, they’d been the hand to force the latent humanoid evolution on the animals. The Contact War had nearly eliminated their race. So far as anyone knew, they’d fled to the fringes of space to wither and die as a species.

Contrary to many popular theories, First Contact had not come from a radically advanced species intent on harvesting Earth. Instead, it came from a slightly advanced species. The Zelphods were barely capable of interstellar flight, had only just begun to venture between the voids of systems. They’d done so by way of generational colony ships, launched when their sun had begun to go nova. No one was sure where their home-world was anymore, but after generations, they’d found their way to Sol.

Despite their extreme, alien features (evolved from a largely silicone-based existence,) Zelphods had sought Earth due to its high Volcanic activity and liquid oceans. Requiring sulfuric acid to breathe, they were never seen outside their suits, which inflected a curious, wingless praying mantis quality about them. They were undoubtedly insect-like, but only a few knew of their actual appearance.

Niala, however, knew the Zelphods had been pushed back after the Human “Federation” organized the HAA, or Human-Animal Alliance, an organization devoted to interspecies cooperation and governance. Both man and animal fought and died side-by-side to ensure the sovereignty of their system. Meanwhile, what was captured or reverse-engineered from the Zelphod tech had raised both Human and Animal to their current status in under three decades.

Unfortunately, First Contact had also allowed for the Federation to gain massive power as the only, official protective outfit Sol had. Though Humans and Animals served together, the Federation gave the latter little power to affect change. What was more, the few that gained such prestige generally sided with their Human colleagues. Where people like Niala and Simon saw compromise for the better of all, those like Josie saw sworn fealty.

Such was the nature of Sol’s politics.

Niala mused aloud for the others’ sake, “So the anti-humanists steal the data, ensure light is shed on the project, and that the Federation comes under political pressure once the information leaks. But why risk all of Sol? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Because,” Simon said carefully. “If you. Control Deep-Space. You control. Who lives there.”

Niala shook her head, “Keep humans out? That’s impossible. They have to know that.”

Frost suddenly spoke up, “Not if they already have the prototype’s plans. If so, they may intend to use them, get there first. If so, they’ll like destroy the prototype as well.”

Niala looked back to Frost, “We need to know where it’s being built. Getting there before Josie may be the only way to stop them.”

The vid-phone on Frost’s desk rang, answered with a habitual sqwuak. Gnarl appeared, “Sir, we’ve found Josie. She’s boarding a transport for Ganymede.”

“Ganymede?” Simon said.

“We’ll go,” Niala insisted. “I have contacts there.” She turned away. Simon followed. They stepped out and she spoke sideways at Simon, “Snow wants his pound of flesh. He’ll get her to talk.”

13.

The shuttle rides to the hub and Ganymede beyond were desolate. It seemed as if all of Sol had left the two pursuers to their prey, wishing to remain as far from the action as possible. Simon was partially thankful for that. At least there were no beings attempting to kill him. While he’d been adamant about tagging along, he was hardly recovered. Not being able to speak without knee-buckling agony didn’t help. He felt all the more out of place, mute.

He’d barely had time to adjust to the idea that someone had stolen his work before learning he’d been framed. Then, when Niala released him, he’d been told to accept the sordid state of affairs and her contacts before being face-to-face with their terrifying reality. The first attack saw him freeze up, fumble. He’d have been dead were it not for his bot and Lioness companions. All this to say nothing of learning a friend had perpetrated the attack, then cut his throat once confronted about it.

He knew Josie, well enough to call her friend, at least. She was more than a face in a hall at any rate. He was head researcher of the Plasma Propulsion Lab, the only people above him Niala and Frost. Such a position meant semi-regular meetings and interactions with the Feline. To say they were pleasant would miss the obvious, retrospective taint. Now he saw her stoned facade had hidden everything.

Josie was the last being in Sol Simon would’ve expected to betray the ISC, let alone harbor such grudges. Perhaps that was what made her so excellent at the job; she blended perfectly, invisible to– a thought suddenly occurred to him.

He produced his data-pad, scribbled to Niala across the table: When would they have planted Josie? Why force her to move now? What else could have been sabotaged but wasn’t?

Niala read the pad with a glance, “I don’t understand.”

He elaborated: If Josie’s been an anti-humanist mole all this time, they know playing things slow and subtle was best. But they hit hard, drew attention to themselves. Even if I hadn’t found the log, they were very obviously tapping our network. Why be so blunt?

Niala caught on, “If Josie was really in on it from the start we’d have seen more damage.”

He nodded along; That just begs the question–

“Of it’s really Josie.”

Rearden watched. A series of binary words beeped out. Simon eyed the bot skeptically, head cocked sideways in confusion. Evidently its insight was perplexing to its creator.

“What’s he saying?” Niala asked curiously.

Simon wrote a single word on the tablet; MeLons.

Niala squinted with a visual turning of gears. It made sense. How the faux-Josie might’ve fooled Security raised more, important questions. However, for a MeLon to duplicate and remove her, two important things had to happen. One, was the obvious removal of the original Josie, likely accomplished overnight. Then also, a period where the MeLon studied her mannerisms, work schedule, social responses. It would’ve needed to become Josie to play her so well. However tantalizing an explanation, the ISCs extensive security wasn’t easy to fool.

Niala admitted reservations, “I don’t know, Simon. It’s a stretch. Forgetting everything else, how would they have made it past the Hounds alone?”

Rearden gave a few beeps that seemed to smack reality across Simon’s face. He scribbled mindlessly as he stared in thought; Pheromone Milking and IR-tech.

Niala gave the pad a critical look that flitted between Simon and Rearden, then back again, “Then Josie may be alive somewhere.”

Simon’s stomach rose at the thought. Josie wasn’t a murderer. She wasn’t even a spy or a thief. She was just another victim of the ridiculous scheme that seemed more illogical the more they learned of it. How long had she been held captive? What state was she in? More importantly, where was she being held? Ganymede? Somewhere else? Were they chasing a phantom, hoping to outsmart a prey that’d already eluded them?

The more questions Simon thought to ask, the less he wanted to ask them. A morbid illness spread across his face, worsened at the look Niala imparted between them.

“There’s something else we need to consider.” He gave a nod to usher her onward. “If there a MeLon is involved, we can’t take chances. They could be anyone when we reach Ganymede.”

He nodded in agreement, scrawled; Snow needs to be confirmed, then we keep him close.

She affirmed with a look that said more than her words could. Ganymede entailed its own risks, but MeLons were an utterly different story. They were the apex predator in a system that no longer had a place for the predator-prey relationship. Evolved creatures such as Niala, were the new nature of things. Wild animals still existed, but were hardly comparable. MeLons were a potent mixture of both worlds, able to affect change on planetary and system-wide scales with little more effort than an ant following a scent trail. What was more, they tended to do so solely out of spite, their kind too dangerous for society at large. It was an unfortunate reality of their new nature. Those that understood usually used their camouflage to blend, or else lived as exiles outside major colonies.

Something more concerned Niala now though. She ensured it showed before she spoke to Simon’s full attention. She hesitated to speak it; so much had already happened, she wished not to think of it getting worse. “If the MeLon’s cover is now blown, Josie’s a loose end. It won’t need her anymore. It’s only a matter of time before it kills her.”