Chapter 7 - Jupiter Games

Chapter 7- Three months into the trial runs of Earth’s First Barayon Destroyer – The Sentinel

Jupiter Station Sigma III

The air was stale and dead, like a hospital that had scrubbed all life away in the effort to prevent germs and infection. Using his hand communicator, Dread steadied himself against the hard, brown, walls of the shuttle and brought up the command room of the destroyer. They should have included windows He didn’t even know what the station they were approaching looked like.

“Are you sure about this?” Off to his left the silvery, whining, reactor grated on his nerves. Near the other end of the pecan-shaped ship was a single pilot’s seat where a junior shuttle pilot was piloting them in.

The Captain’s voice echoed back into the shuttle from the destroyer’s command room. “Are you afraid of getting in trouble?” For a moment, Dread thought the Captain was mocking him, but then his strong voice continued. “Officially, we’re here for a remote resupply via drone shuttles. My orders as part of the Galactic Guard include neither reason nor authorization to board the station. Fortunately, you’re part of the Immigration Office and at the moment your boss, Nina, appears to be ignoring you. I have no reason to prevent your boarding the station.”

On the other end, Dread could feel the Captain going for the cutoff button to end the transmission.

“Wait…” It was not that he had ever operated by feeling, but there was a feeling of wrongness about the whole thing. His being on the Destroyer. His boarding the station. It was all wrong. He did not belong here. “In a moment, I’ll board that station and commit us to a course of action with unknown ramifications. Surely, we can discuss it, one more time.”

“Thirty years ago a business conglomerate built this station for purposes lost in their bankruptcy. Did they build it for someone else and then just dissolve? It’s impossible to say. Link did extensive searches through Archives from the period of its construction, and found no information of any value other than lists of supplies and contracts for its construction. For most of its existence it was kept a well hidden secret, until finally no one cared. For the last twelve years, the Galactic Guard has assigned two security guards and a maintenance engineer to keep the station functional. Their reasons for doing that appear to be somewhat obscure at the moment. As you already know, Drake Noble’s travel records put him here before Charlie was born for several extended periods. References to it exist throughout the information recovered by Link and Charlie, but without a clear reference to the activities performed here. Listen to me Dread, you’re not supposed to be on my ship. It’s time to get you out of my crew’s way for awhile.” The Captain broke the connection.

Fighting a growing sense of frustration, Dread looked back at the pilot sitting in her seat at the front of the shuttle about twenty feet away. Wanting to break the silence and fill the time while they waited, he asked her, “So how long has this shuttle been in service?”

“It’s new and highly maneuverable, designed as a low maintenance ship to ship transport or delivery mechanism for small numbers of people or cargo. ”

Watching the serious lines on her slightly rounded face, and thin well formed chin, Dread was disappointed at the logical, factual answer. Rouge would have played with the answer, made it fun. Outloud he said, “What’s your name?”

“Samantha,” turning she flashed him a bemused smile. She thinks I’m hitting on her. “Samantha Guinevere”

The shuttle shuddered as magnetic clamps locked it in place up against one of the stations external air locks. A door split out of the side of the shuttle, and slid to one side. The pilot spun around in her seat, her long blonde hair twirling around with her like a miniature tornado. She smiled and gave Dread a thumbs up.

As he swung his attention back to the deck on the other side of the opening, a bright red streak slammed through the opening and ricocheted off the bulkhead behind him. Samantha’s left arm evaporated and with a scream of agony, she slumped back into her chair.

Moving at high speed, Dread dived through the door, traced the red streak back to its source, locked his gun on the position, and fired three soft-ballistic smart bullets before rolling to the left. Their attacker went down, dead before his body hit the deck.

A small silver object came tumbling through the air, thrown from behind a security wall of some sort off to his left at the back of the docking bay. Bringing up his internal sensors, they quickly identified it as a military grade concussion grenade. Turning his roll into a forward flip back up to his feet, Dread calculated the speed of the throw, reached up his hand matched the speed and gently redirected the grenade back around in a sweeping circle and set it free back the way it had come.

Once more hitting the floor, he closed down nonessential functions just as an explosive blast lifted him off the floor and hurled him back into the wall.

Standing, Dread fought an urge to begin searching the station. Bringing up the destroyer on his communicator, he carefully controlled his voice keeping the excitement of the moment out of his request. “Captain, the natives appear to be hostile. The pilot is injured. Please send an extraction shuttle with an emergency response team including a medic.”

******************** ****************************** *************

Galactic Guard Orbital Defense Platform – 2 hours later

Walking rapidly down the tubular white corridor, the emptiness made Rouge shiver. Alone. I’m alone

The corridor paralleled one of the star burst launchers and provided the perfect cover for what she needed to do. Designed like a giant snowflake, large branching launchers extruded from the rotating central hub of the platform. The launchers generated a huge amount of magnetic and electrical interference. Anyone attempting to monitor what she was doing would be blind out here.

By linking through local monitoring points across the station, she had created nearly a thousand encrypted digital tunnels connecting back down the several miles of corridor. The tunnels existed on a timer and were set to automatically collapse after they gathered new information from computers and machines across the entire Defense Platform, and transmitted it to other transient tunnels. It was a self-replicating database that Rouge was data mining. Before the additional load could grow large enough to warrant investigation as more than transient spikes attributable to the huge of amount interference in the surrounding area, Rouge downloaded the information and wiped the database clean.

She needed to know exactly who was working for whom across the entire station. The hard part was that this information was highly useful to everyone, her new friends as well as her recently made enemies. Nina Z would use her, if she could.

A dull thumping sound echoed back to her from somewhere up ahead. It was out of place. I’m getting paranoid. Relax.

Searching through the available platform diagnostic and monitoring computers, she quickly discovered there were no equipment problems. A search for the current location of all personnel across the platform also showed no one except her in the vicinity.

Taking a moment, Rouge calibrated her sensors with what the stations sensors were reporting, and immediately began to notice differences. Something was wrong. The station sensors were not reporting the same sounds that she was hearing.

“I wondered how long it would take you to come here.” The voice rang through her mind with a force that threatened to break her hold on reality.

Rouge spun around her heart thumping. Shock raced through her mind. Whatever her eyes were seeing and her ears hearing was not real. I’m going crazy. I’m hallucinating

Pulling up her memories of Zap’s death, she raced through them and for the first time began to notice odd discrepancies. Degradations in the quality of the memory that would not be there if the images were original and had never been altered.

“It’s good to see you again Rouge. How is my good friend Nina doing?” Zap Smith smiled at her, a mocking distant smile that drove all reason from her mind. “I know you think I’m dead. However, what happens when everyone is a cyborg? Cyborgs are created from non-cyborgs. Maybe some of those worlds that died, didn’t die because of the watchers at all, think about it. It’s the ultimate population control, even if unintentional in this case.”

*********** ******************** *********************

The Sentinel- near to Jupiter Station Sigma III- 24 hours after the boarding

Standing in the glass-enclosed walkway, Dread watched Samantha Guinevere as she lay in her hospital bed. No more than twenty feet away, he could watch her chest rise and fall as she slept under heavy sedation. The medical facilities of the Sentinel were impressive. The medical bay was a four-story cylindrical room set around a central monitoring platform and airshaft. Two ten-square foot lifts ran up between the floors on opposite ends of the cylinder. A glass enclosed observation walkway dropped down the center of the shaft, stopping just above the nurses monitoring platform at the lowest floor.

“This is the hardest part.” The voice interrupted his thoughts.

“She shouldn’t have been in the line of fire.”

A hand reached up and landed for a moment on his silvery armor. “There are no civilians. Even if she hadn’t signed up, would it have been any better if she’d been killed in the riots by the hospital back in New York or when the reactors went off at the towers?”

Without looking Dread knew who it was, “Silk.”

“This is just a holographic projection courtesy of other friends on board this ship. People who hate cyborgs think of us as being unfeeling, or somehow challenging their identity or superiority. Look at the evidence in front of you. What a person is made of or looks like, is not what determines who they are. It is the choices we make that define us.”

“I don’t need help with my identity!” The anger in his voice reached down to the floor below and several nurses looked up. The observation walkway was not sound proof.

Silk continued, “Cyborgs make choices just like non-cyborgs. The brotherhood is needed because somebody needs to speak up for us. Just like someone needs to speak up for her.” The holographic image waved in Samantha’s direction. “Somebody who isn’t trying to use us for their own purposes- like the Galactic Guard and the Arbitrators. You’ll find an encryption code in your quarters. Use it to unlock all transmissions you receive from now on. If the transmission is from us, the contents will change and you’ll see a different message. If not, nothing will change, and it wasn’t from us. From now on we want status updates. Just reply to the transmission we send. The encryption is automatic. Galactic war is coming. Whose side do you want to be on Dread?”

“I’m beginning to wonder if it’ll matter in the end. Each side seems to be killing a lot of people. Innocent people. How can any side be right when it boils down to this?” Suddenly Dread realized that he didn’t feel so superior to normal humans anymore. The difference felt smaller all of a sudden.

“That station and Charlie represent a shift in power that’s going to change everything. That’s our analysis so far. You go ahead and try to find a safe little hole to bottle yourself up in and see if that makes you feel any better. However, the brotherhood is betting that at the end of the day you’re a cyborg of conscience and action that won’t try to sit on the sidelines.” Silk’s presence faded away.

I know somebody saw that. How does he do that? Dread thought to himself.

His communicator went off. The Captain wanted to debrief him. The station was still out there. Decisions needed to be made. Guilt flooded his soul. Who did he really serve? His oaths were to the Immigration Office, but his heart was headed elsewhere.

******* *********** ********** ********** **************

Earth Office for Immigration- 36 hours after the boarding

Nina watched the monitors. For days upon dreary days, she had watched and waited. Rouge was her enemy, and that meant the resistance would befriend her. She was a thing, a gadget. Anyone that made friends with her, became Nina’s enemy.

Sighing, she watched the monitors. Rouge had stopped and was staring at something. Odd, what people would do, when they thought they were alone.

“Ma’am,” the voice from behind her interrupted her thoughts.

“How often have I told you NOT to interrupt me while I’m monitoring?” The idiot was not worthy of the uniform he wore.

“You asked to be informed the moment the Arbitrator arrived.”

“Yes. Is the cloaked Arbitrator ship in orbit?”

“According to our agreement with Synaptic Pathways they only have to tell us when it actually leaves, not that it’s still there.”

“Don’t you dare try to draw conclusions for me! Idiot! I don’t need your commentary.” Cursing to herself, Nina gave him the finger. Then turning her back to him she watched the monitors again. “Forget it. What does the Arbitrator want?”

“A moth balled research station out by Jupiter just went offline. The Arbitrators are curious as to why and what the research station’s purpose was. They want us to investigate. It appears that the new destroyer was in the vicinity at the time leading to speculation that the crew of the destroyer was involved. Officer Dread is of course, on board the ship.”

Nina looked back over at her aide. Barely out of diapers, he looked like a rat- a sweaty, dimpled rat, stinking of cheap aftershave. His black uniform was wrinkled and his eyes bloodshot. At least, he was not a threat. Maybe, an interesting toy… she drove the thought from her mind.

An Arbitrator slithered into the command room of the Immigration Office brushing her aide away with a tentacle. “Leave” it ordered the aide. Slouching nervously around the aliens tentacles, the aide left without a word. “Are you aware of how delicate Earth’s situation is?”

“Delicate?” Bile rose up her throat and for a moment Nina felt her hands going for the gun at her belt. .One day soon, she promised herself, I’ll kill you.

“There are many forces at work both in ways that benefit the Galactic Guard and in ways that do not. Our calculations are precise. Certain among us view your rise as a threat to the stability of our plans. Be careful. We know who you are, what you’ve done, and you will not be allowed to interfere with our plans.” The Arbitrator’s voice was logical like a slow machine gun without inflection or emotion.

Dismissing the alien’s threat with a wave of her hand, she point back towards the door. “If that was all you came to say, you might was well leave.”

“There is more. Order Officer Dread to investigate the station. We find it curious that so few official reports of its operation and purpose exist. Especially as Earth’s government kept it functioning all these years. It is beginning to appear to us, that somebody cannot be trusted.”

“Very well.” Nina kept her voice cold. “I can only assure you that it was not myself or those I work with. Other than that, I can only promise we will investigate and report what we find.”

“Do that.”

******************** ******************* ***************

Meeting room on board the Sentinel- 48 hours after the boarding

Commander Donavon paced back and forth in the private meeting room. Link stood by a view port watching the huge planet of Jupiter as its gases swirled and twirled far below them. The floor was stark white, while the walls shimmered with the odd luminescent paint used for lighting in some sections of the ship.

“Are you satisfied?” Dread stared at Link forcing a wave of shame and guilt away. “Do we really want to know what’s happening here?”

“Someone is hiding a secret,” Link replied cautiously, “secrets they’ll kill to protect.”

“It was useless!” He protested, “What were they thinking? That tiny moth balled research station with three men on board, didn’t have a chance against a ship like this. At best they could have killed me and the pilot.”

Commander Donovan interrupted Link before he had a chance to respond, “Perhaps they wanted attention.”

“We’ve had months now to research the information retrieved from the hospital. Drake Noble personally supervised the research here in the months prior to Charlie’s birth. Remember, those events and that research is now decades old. We get here, and they conveniently get themselves killed? Surely they had to have a good reason for throwing their lives away,” Dread responded.

“Or maybe we have it backwards. Maybe it wasn’t their purpose to hide, but to draw attention to themselves. By doing this, they have guaranteed that people back on Earth will notice, will investigate. ” Link added as an afterthought, “The only thing that bothers me though, is even then, why now? Why would our arrival mean that they had a need to draw attention to themselves?”

The Commander spoke forcibly and far too loudly for the size of the room. “My opinion is that a faction that predates the current government and agreements with the Galactic Guard set in motion a chain of events designed to lead to a genetically superior race that the Arbitrator’s could not control.”

Taking a deep breath, Dread suggested an alternative, “You assume that the Arbitrator’s were the enemy. What if the Metathalaons goal was deeper? What if they didn’t want to end the Galactic guard as much as change the way it functions.” Damn, I wish Rouge was here.

The door slid open, and Charlie walked through. Link walked over and hugged her briefly. Charlie silently hugged him back.

Captain Donavon stopped pacing. “We’ve studied the data.” Frowning he sat down at the head of marble meeting table and folded his hands in front of him. “Drake Noble and his group created Metathalaon-Human hybrids that contain every major variation of DNA known by either race and they did it in a stable way that created Charlie. Hybrids that have the innate ability to destroy cyborgs and manipulate machines using what appear to be organic nanobots. Up until this point Dread, cyborgs like you have been the back bone of the Galactic Guard and of the peace established by the Arbitrators. Think what it means if there is a force capable of supplanting the cyborgs.”

“This is a lot of supposition.” The doubt in Link’s voice hung over the room for a moment.

“You assume that I’m the only hybrid.” Charlie’s voice was hesitant, the first time she’d joined their arguments since the journey began.

“You think there are others?” The Commander asked her.

Thoughts moved on the inside of Charlie flowing into Dreads mind. “One hybrid, no matter how powerful, could not possibly bring down something as big as the Galactic Guard or alter the way it works.” Dread had the idea now.

“Does she have a counterpart?” Link added, “Are their more hospitals or research stations that were involved in this?”

No one responded for a moment.

“I think its time we searched the rest of the station. I won’t force you, Charlie, but.” The commander hesitated, “too much has happened to you. You need to be part of what’s happening and join the search. We’ll start tomorrow. I’ll report the incident back to Earth as a case of madness and paranoia brought on by their isolation.”

Leaving them to their discussions, Dread headed back to his assigned quarters and found a series of transmission. It took only a moment for him to find the ones from the brotherhood. The information coming back from them was chilling. Civil unrest was spreading through Arbitrator space. There were rumors of the Watchers having depopulated several worlds, albeit far away. The picture was getting clearer- and it sure looked like civil war.