9 Years, 5 Months, 21 Days After Eridani Landing
Bellona Colony
Slowly opening his eyes Tom shook his head and focused on the small status screen in front of him. Squashed into the coffin that was the engineering escape pod he had to manipulate the displays controls with his hands down by his waist and try to figure out what was going on.
The escape pod had launched with enough force to cause him to black out, and the subsequent nuclear explosion several minutes later had been violent enough to knock him out.
The pod’s systems were mostly dead. Communications, the beacon, and even the external lights were dead if the computer was to be believed.
“Jean, Halin, Ben?” asked Tom as he keyed at his mike.
Static buzzed in his ears.
Glancing up at the suit HUD and confirming that it was sealed Tom pulled the release on the escape pod’s forward hatch. The seal broke and air rushed out in a quick explosion but the hatch remained in place for the most part.
Frowning Tom put his hands up against it and bracing pushed. The hatch remained shut for another moment before something gave and it opened.
Slowly sitting up, Tom looked around. Another alarm went off and Tom winced as an automatic injection of nano-machines was dispensed into his neck, the radiation warnings growing more incessant Tom switched them off, if he was dead he was dead no point looking at the exact dosage now.
Not seeing anything at first Tom glanced down at the escape pod and for a half second wondered what had happened, it looked as it had performed a re-entry maneuver the entire bottom of the pod ablated and burned. He had been close enough to the nuclear blast for heating, and more than likely for some amount of kinetic energy transfer to have occurred.
Tom recalled the old proposal for reaching near light speed travel, when Humanity had first discovered nuclear weapons some insane and rather brilliant scientists had proposed using nuclear weapons as rocket fuel.
“Jean, Halin, Ben?” repeated Tom into his mike trying to reach them.
Once again nothing but static.
Shaking his head Tom leaned over and looked down below his pod, the escape pods of the ship were designed to try and latch onto one another in the event several launched at once. He and Jean had launched at the same time along nearly the same trajectories, their pods had been closing on one another as far as he could last remember.
Leaning over the lip of the pod and looking down Tom froze, Jean’s pod was latched onto his, each pod back to back.
“Jean!”
Reaching down Tom undid the straps holding his legs and swinging out in the zero-g flipped over to her pod and froze.
Where only the bottom portion of his own pod looked like it had ablated Jean’s looked as if it had been through a few dozen re-entry maneuvers. Tom could hardly make out where the hatch of the pod was supposed to be, the metal was so badly scorched and ablated.
Holding onto the outside of his own pod Tom noticed the heat bleeding through his gloves where he was touching the outside of it.
“Jean!” repeated Tom.
Pulling a wire from his belt and threading it through one of the internal clips of the escape pod Tom quickly moved to the hatch door of Jean’s pod and paused.
The electronics on the outside of the pod which should have indicated the internal state of the pod were burned away, and Tom had no idea if the inside of the thing was still pressurized. Hesitating for a moment Tom shook his head, if the outside was this damaged then the internals of the pod had most likely suffered some amount of damage.
If her suit was breached, opening the pod would kill her.
Tom put his hand on the outside of her pod and watched as the burned material gave way underneath the small amount of pressure.
Tom winced, that did not bode well.
Glancing down to ensure his patch kit was ready Tom put his hand on the latch on the outside of the pod and pulled.
No hiss of air escaped from the pod, and the metal and polymers almost seemed to crumble away. The door falling off of its hinges and floating away into space Tom stared at the inside of the pod.
Turning away from it Tom wretched, and lost the contents of his stomach.
The Helmet automatically injected a congealing agent into the air and blew pressurized air around his mouth and nose clearing the passage as the sick hardened on either side of his head in the cramped space.
Taking several heavy breaths and willing himself to not vomit again Tom closed his eyes and turned back to the inside of the pod. After a moment he forced himself to open his eyes and look.
What remained of her was only human in shape. The helmet had been unable to handle the heat of the weapon, and after the outside of her pod had failed so had the helmet. The red and grey mess inside the was burned and barely recognizable.
Her pod and helmet had only just failed and cooked her alive in what had to have been at the most only a second. Nuclear weapon explosions in space were quick events, no pressure wave from a surrounding atmosphere to contain them.
Where nuclear explosions viewed inside an atmosphere had mushroom clouds and fallout to deal with nuclear weapons in space gave off one huge blast of force and heat, that was absorbed by anything nearby in one quick second. It was like a microscopic supernova, and took place in nearly the same amount of time.
Looking at Jean again Tom wretched but managed to keep his stomach in check.
Slowly tugging on his line and pulling the two pods around as well as himself Tom moved back up to his escape craft and settled into it, skin prickling at the thought that he was now only half a meter away from Jean.
“Halin, Ben?” asked Tom, his voice shaky.
The static one again pressed in on him and Tom closed his eyes, crying in space was almost more annoying than the vomit.
Ben looked at that number on his HUD trying to see something else.
The radiation dose had been brief but destructive, peaking near 14,000 milisievert in less than a second from gamma rays, with only the incomplete hull of the ship to protect him it was more than a lethal dose.
If he had been even slightly further away, another kilometer or two he would have been fine with only an increase in nano-machine injections. Even if he flooded his system with them now, and avoided nano sickness it wouldn’t be enough.
The radiation had shredded him at a genetic level, and he was dead. He was dead within the day.
Turning his wrist over Ben prioritized the mitigation of symptoms to the few nano-machines he had left and injected them.
Feeling the sting at his neck as they entered his bloodstream Ben glanced down at his gun and considered it for a moment, carefully he took it out and looked at the muzzle of the weapon. It would be a kinder way out than the effects of radiation.
A breakaway faction of the Martian forces had during the war detonated a dirty Bomb on Earth, thankfully due to the warning from the Martian government and one of the few instances of military cooperation between both sides during the war the detonation had taken place over the ocean and away from population centers.
Two shuttles of personnel had been hit at point blank range though, the first had died from the initial explosion but the second, colliding with the debris of the first shuttle had plummeted into the ocean and received the full concentrated dose of lethal materials.
The images of what happened to the men had been leaked, and Ben used to the fast paced combat of space based kinetic weapons, where you either survived and lived to fight another day or where you were dead before you knew what happened had watched along with the rest of the world’s as both men died.
Many had credited the men’s suffering and the fresh reminder of what dangers nuclear materials posed to Humanity that had prevented nuclear weapons use during the war.
Still Humanity had used them in space to deflect asteroids, and ships had been armed with them if only to continue the tradition of MAD.
“-ussia, come in. Russia! Ben! Respond!”
Ben keyed his mike, “This is Ben, that you Red?”
“Aye, I followed you at a distance after you got into the Russia. We just picked up those kids you took with you.”
“They made it?”
“Two of them did, the one who was in only his suit got a good dose of radiation but the nano-machines are going to work that out. He got flash blinded so we’ll have to see if that passes. Another, Tom we picked up from an escape pod, he’s not even got that much of a radiation dose.”
“Did you not find the second pod yet?” asked Ben.
“We found it. Wasn’t pretty.”
Ben winced and slowly nodded, “Most of the electrical systems on the Russia are out, I’ve got emergency sensors and that’s about it. Unless the nuke affected her trajectory she’s in a stable orbit of Big Blue for at least the next few months. The EMP and radiation damage are extensive. I have no idea how much the hull got slagged but I’m betting it’s significant.”
“How much radiation? You were pretty close to that; I have no idea how the hell that ship’s still there to be honest.”
“I’m dead.”
Red was silent for a moment, “How much time?”
“A day maybe.”
“Damn.”
“What happened with the Fort?”
“The gun just fired, they managed to modify the targeting, it landed the shot 50 kilometers north of the colony at half power. Only a small shift in the ice and nothing much else. Engineers and other personnel that were evacuated are swarming back and from the chatter I’ve picked up they’re simply going to dampen the reactors so it can’t fire again rather than try and solve the computer glitches.”
“Smart. You on your way to me?”
“I’m about there. 120 seconds.”
“I’ll meet you on the hull, no point docking the systems are dead.”
“Roger.”
Turning around to look at the ship for what would be the last time Ben leaned down and finished with the command chair pushed himself up from the floor and down the central corridor of the ship drifting to the hole in the hull where the compartment had been detached. Pushing himself off of the wall and into space Ben didn’t bother with his tether instead simply snapping the lights on his suit up to full intensity.
Drifting away from the ship Ben looked at the damage.
The outer hull was cooked, looking as if it had already been through a dozen battles. The impact points where small pieces of what had been the compartment and the nuclear weapons casing were clearly visible, the tiny derbies accelerated so quickly they were little more than plasma.
Still the ship was in one piece, and despite showing no signs of internal power she was alive.
The Yamato had been like that, a ship that even when she was battered and broken, beaten and scored from battle, punched full of holes and weapon damage, she had never looked dead. The Russia was like that too, already she been through more than enough strife to have a soul.
Turning away from the ship Ben looked down at Bellona and Big Blue, superimposed on the gas giant was the small shuttle that Red and Jord were piloting.
The small craft quickly moved up beside him, ben waved at where the forward cameras were before the vessel twisted around the rear ramp opening. James leaned out and tossed a weighted line out into the void.
Ben grabbed at it and the solider quickly reeled him back inside.
The hatch closed and the two were momentarily pressed back against it as the shuttle accelerated towards Bellona.
Ben heard the hiss of air being pumped back into the rear compartment and reaching up undid his helmet. An array of familiar and depressing smells hit him, gun oil, burned flesh, electrical fire, sick, and sweat.
“How much radiation?” asked James.
Ben looked at the man, “14 Gray of gamma.”
James winced and nodded, patting Ben’s shoulder he pulled out a nano-machine injector.
“I’m already at the max dose, and I’d prefer to remain conscious. Nano sickness is not something I want on top of this.”
“How about something old fashioned then?”
Drifting over to the first aid kit the man pulled out a small syringe and tossed it to Ben.
Catching it Ben looked at the label, “morphine? It’s not enough and I would like to live a few hours more.”
James rolled his eyes, “So you can keep standing for another hour when the nano-machines are overwhelmed. You’re going to want to keep your gun on you though.”
Ben glanced down at his sidearm and nodded, “I’m not there yet.”
“Wouldn’t expect you to be.”
“I know more than most about what’s going to happen James.”
“Doesn’t make it easier.”
Ben put the morphine in a pocket and looked around the shuttle.
Halin was strapped into one of the seats and bandages were already over his eyes. His white skin was an angry red, looking as if he had a severe old fashioned sun burn. A burned helmet was next to him strapped to the seat, and a plainly new and mismatched one was on his head.
Strapped down across Halin were the two escape pods from the Russia, they had apparently managed to lock themselves together and the one on top was most definitely the source of the smell.
Kicking up and drifting over to it Ben looked inside.
“You’re alive?” asked Tom his voice low, “We could have made it on the ship.”
Ben looked at the young man. He was hunched over the pod, his eyes locked on the remains of his friend. He was staring at her, but his eyes weren’t seeing it. His expression was one that ben had seen far too often during the war, on nearly every face on the Yamato at some point, and one that on some nights to this very day looked back at him in the mirror.
“You would have made it another day. In some ways this was nicer.”
Tom’s head snapped up and his eyes widened locking on Ben.
Lunging forwards, he grabbed at him throwing them both into the seats on the opposite side of the shuttle from Halin.
“Nicer!?”
Tom swung a fist at Ben landing his hit on the side of the older engineer’s head sending him spinning away.
Drifting forwards James casually grabbed Tom and put him in a lock, holding him in place.
Ben recovered and reaching up to his face felt at the small bruise. The sting was quickly fading thanks to the machines in his blood at the moment.
“Unless you’d prefer she die vomiting up her organs, internal hemorrhaging, fever, and seizures all over the course of a few days?”
Tom glared at Ben for another moment before slowly blinking, “Radiation?”
His eyes widened and James carefully let go of him, “oh, god. How much?”
“More than enough to kill me.”
Tom opened his mouth to say something and then closed it looking back down at the pod that was the casket.
“Oh.”
“Oh,” repeated Ben.
“Sorry.”
Ben snorted and waved his hand, “The ship survived, the Fort survived, the colony wasn’t hit with an EMP.”
Ben frowned and leaned forwards towards the pilots, “the colony didn’t get hit by an EMP right?”
“With the amount of shielding we have? No I doubt the lights even flickered. I’m still getting regular chatter from everything. All of the channels are freaking out about the nuke at the moment though, defense teams are scrambling and all aircraft are being launched, orbital assets at the Fort are still getting off the ground. Most are still carrying evacs,” said Red glancing back from the cockpit.
“Heard anything from Megan?”
“No, last I heard she was getting arrested right? Something about you rigging the nuke to go off?” asked Red.
“Something like that.”
“You are going to die Ben?” asked a squeaky voice.
Ben looked up and saw Night’s multiple bodies crawling along the wall of the cockpit to look at him. It had been sealed when the back section of the shuttle had been opened to space several minutes ago.
“Radiation.”
“A bad way to die,” said Night.
“So the Tanuin aren’t immune?”
“No, like any complex form of life we cannot survive intense radiation. Why would we fare any better?”
Ben shrugged, “Cockroaches, I don’t know.”
“Cockroaches?” asked Night.
“Never mind.”
Night was silent for a moment.
“One of your species offspring died.”
“She did.”
“You are not mourning her loss?”
Ben frowned, “I don’t have time right now. Once this situation is resolved we’ll be able to properly mourn. Others will at least.”
“Oh. May I mourn her?”
“Why do you need to ask?”
“I do not know how you would react to a Tanuin mourning a Human, if you would find it insulting. I did not know her, yet she helped save your entire colony, and my own people.”
“Our colony at this point.”
Night was silent again.
“I am beginning to understand why Alpha liked humans I think.”
“You don’t?”
“I have been expecting you to betray us as the other aliens did, perhaps not directly but with inaction. Instead your young now die for us, and you are to suffer for us. It is odd to feel this kinship with aliens.”
“Humans have been hoping for, dreaming for the day when it’s not odd to feel kinship with any kind of alien. Some of us more than others.”
Pushing off from the deck Night glided through the air, landing with a small impact on top of the pod.
For a moment the Tanuin was still, every single of the bodies like a small statue.
At first Ben thought it was a bad electrical component, his ears always listening for them. Slowly though the lilting song drifted down from notes higher than anything a human could produce or hear to a more comfortable frequency.
Everyone in the shuttle was silent listening to it, the beat was irregular, but not disharmonious.
As the shuttle moved back towards the surface of Bellona the Humans listed to the alien lament for one of their own.
“Yern so help me, I can walk!”
The Tanuin cocked its small head to the side, “I understand but this would allow us to better protect you.”
Megan shook her head and pointed at the Tanuin holding her legs, which they had retrieved from the apartment.
“Humans are odd; we don’t like to be carried. Now my legs,” demanded Megan gesturing at the aliens holding them.
Hesitantly they offered her the appendages.
Megan grabbed at them and violently slotted them on wincing at the artificial sensation came flooding back more violently than normal at the rough treatment. Ignoring it and getting to her feet Megan rolled on the balls of her feet and started forwards down the corridor.
“Where are you going?” asked Yern.
“We’re going to the Council.”
“Is that safe?”
“I have no idea, but we need to sort this out now. Someone in our government caused all of this, that someone hurt your leader, and has almost set us back ten years with the destruction of the Fort, the Russia, and the China. If we wait here all we’re going to be doing is playing games to try and find them.”
“Games?” asked Yern as his multiple bodies fell into step behind her, along with the hundreds of other Tanuin as they continued to stream out of the air vents and other access. Megan glanced back at them for only a moment, it was a sea of movement all of them together like that.
“I mean that now is the time to confront them, Night is making sure that they don’t fire the Fort’s weapon and Ben is making sure they can’t destroy the ship and the Fort. We’ve stopped them now, and for a Human’s plan’s to be thrown out of balance like this will cause stress and anger. This might be the only time to figure out who it is.”
“I believe I understand. Deceit like this is not known to my race. We have never had such disagreements.”
Megan glanced down at him, “What happens when you do disagree?”
“We compromise. Hierarchy is only maintained when expedient action is favored over the time it takes to compromise.”
“So Alpha was simply the one like that? The one temporarily at the top?”
Yern let out a disgruntled squeak, “He is one of the oldest of our species, and his voice carries more weight than others for the number of correct decisions he has made over the millennia.”
Megan’s eyes widened, “How old can you get?”
“We die more from injury than disease and old age. I am not sure what our limit would be in your years. Alpha is expected to survive many more though, it also depends on how much we hibernate.”
“You won’t leave him in his coma forever will you? Separated from the one body like he is?”
“He’ll live until he choices to stop living, until the parts of his mind either fracture completely between all of his bodies and he is feral or he makes the choice to stop living.”
Megan nodded her head and opening the door to the main corridors of Bellona paused for only a moment before striding forwards.
The ground shook and the lights flickered, Megan glanced up at the lights in the rocky ceiling and waited for a moment.
“That felt distant,” she muttered.
Pulling up her Link Megan looked at the data, and impact north of the Colony from some sort of weapon. Undoubtedly the Fort, unless they were having the worst luck in history and aliens were attacking as well.
“Night and Ben were successful then it would seem.”
“Seems like it.”
Continuing down the corridor Megan watched as other people, who had at first been responding to the Fort emergency, and now to the impact of the main weapon at some distance began to poke their heads into the main corridors, only to see her and her vanguard.
Glancing back Megan could still see throngs of the aliens streaming in behind her, more adventurous Tanuin were on the wall’s jumping over doors and people who were staring at her.
People in the corridor froze as she approached, and waving to them Megan watched as the Tanuin keeping a respectful distance from those frozen in shock at the sight of the alien hoard parted around them to continue following Megan.
They traveled mostly unhindered through the majority of the Colony, only when they neared the main Council complex did they encounter resistance.
A full Company was squeezed into the Hall, weapons at the ready but not raised.
“Captain!” shouted the man at the front.
Megan paused and staring down the unit put a hand on her hip.
“I would like to talk with the Council.”
“You are under arrest, put your hands behind your head and surrender!” shouted the man ignoring her.
Megan kept her hands where they were.
The man slowly raised his gun, immediately a low hiss came from the Tanuin, a sound that was with only a few of them a small innocent sound magnified into a sinister threat given the number of them.
“Stand down and back away from her she is under arrest!” shouted the man looking down at the Tanuin.
“She knows of the truth, one leader is the traitor! Megan does not betray!” shouted Yern.
Megan glanced down at him and then back at the man.
“I have proof, which I will present to all of the Council. One or more of them are traitors, and the ones responsible for crashing my shuttle and giving me these legs,” Megan kicked at the ground digging the foot into the smooth rock, “Responsible for the incident that caused the decompress in the docks of the Fort, and is responsible for the nuclear weapon on the Fort as well as the firing of the main gun. For all I know they are responsible for much more.”
The man hesitated his gun still raised.
Megan glanced down at Yern, “Don’t move.”
The Tanuin’s eyes looking very human didn’t betray anything and he slowly settled onto the ground.
Megan took a step forwards.
“This is an entire race in front of you, they don’t look human sure, but they’re intelligent. You shoot at me, and you shoot at them. You kill the Tanuin here and now, you’ll commit a genocide worse than what happened to Earth and Mars, you’ll permanently erase an entire sentient species from the universe.”
The man’s eyes widened slightly but he remained poised to shoot.
Megan took another step forwards.
“I’ll walk into the Council, with my evidence and one alien, the rest of you will remain here. They are at your mercy; I have no doubt they will defend themselves if you choose to shoot first.”
Megan took another step forwards, she was now in no man’s land between both groups.
“But then you’ll commit genocide.”
“Or I can talk the Council and at the very worst insult them.” Slowly spinning Megan showed she was unarmed.
“So are you going to let me say my peace?” asked Megan now directly in front of him.
The man stared at her for another moment and slowly lowered his weapon.
“No prosthetics.”
He waved at someone off to the side of another corridor, a nervous looking solider quickly stepped forwards an old fashioned wheelchair in front of him.
“Then we have a deal?” asked Megan.
The man glanced back at the Tanuin, “Only because this has turned into a diplomatic incident above my paygrade.”
Megan smiled, “That’s the way to handle it. Yern!”
She turned back to see the Tanuin scuttle across the ground toward her.
“Let’s go.”
Sitting down Megan defiantly pulled off the prosthetics one more and throwing them on the floor looked up at the young solider pushing the wheelchair, “I don’t have all day.”
The corridor was dead silent except for the squeaky wheels on the stone, and the sound of one Tanuin and one Human walking.