Tech Planet (Project NightStorm Book 2) Page 10

  The stretcher glided into the command area. Galdan dragged Jenkins body on to it, across the waist and chest two beams of curved light appeared both a subtle shade of pale white.

  "Doc Jenkins collapsed," Galdan said.

  "I re-watched the feed from the bridge," Doc said, "Sorry I couldn't come up myself but Tidal is still in a critical condition." The stretcher elevated hovering about two feet above the floor of the Outrider. The auto return feature kicked in, speeding past Galdan on its way back to medical.

  Galdan looked up scratching at the top of his head, the lights of the Outrider finally went dark forcing the emergency ones to kick in.

  Arri leaned next to the airlock door, the whole of Cross station had been plunged into darkness several minutes before. He counted himself lucky that they were only a short distance away from the Outrider.

  March had broken another glow stick and was inspecting the airlock, neither of them had, had to use the manual operations on a lock this old before.

  "Do they have a night cycle?" March asked.

  "Don't know its not something I thought to ask about. Normally stations are lit full time, you just set the lights in your house to a day and night cycle. Any luck with the airlock?"

  "Looks like I need to pull this red lever here," there was a loud sound. "Turn it clockwise until the door opens. As this is an emergency all locks are turned off."

  "So if we wanted to break into another ship this would be a good time?" Arri asked.

  "Well, the airlock at least," March said, she started to turn the handle. One full rotation moved the lock a few centimeters.

  "Want me to do that?" Arri asked.

  "No its fine, just going to take a little time. Did the workers say what they were going to do with the guards?"

  "They are going to hold them till the cargo is moved then let them go," Arri said.

  "That's all?"

  "They seemed to be a good bunch of guys, although there was talk of itching powder."

  A very short hooded man scuttled from the shadows, his cloak dragging along the floor behind him.

  "Mr. Arri?" he asked.

  "Can I help you?"

  "A mutual friend asked me to give you this, for ummm clearing up the little problem on the docs." From under the folds of his robe, he produced a small paper-wrapped package which was unusually tied off with white string.

  "Thank you," Arri said taking the package. He hadn't anticipated the weight and for a moment had to force his grip and tense all his muscles to hold on to it.

  "You are most welcome, now if that concludes matters I bid you a ummm" he looked up at the darkness above, "good night." he placed his fingers near his head mimicking a tipping of a hat.

  "Nearly there," March said, the entrance way to the ship had opened far enough to be almost passable.

  Ray looked at his knuckles and watched as the dark liquid flowed freely. The red of the Outriders emergency lights made the blood look dark. He didn't remember punching anything, the smudge on the wall told a different story.

  "Replay of damage to knuckles," Ray whispered to himself, calling up the memory using his overlay. His eyes were all over the place, jumping wildly from surface to surface. He noticed his fist flying out from his body, sometimes striking the walls of his cabin. The rage burst lasted just under a minute.

  "What happened to me?" Ray asked the room, he lowered his head once again looking at his hand. He licked at the blood, cleaning the fingers below.

  A new message flashed brightly on his overlay, high priority.

  "What is happening to you is by design, if you want to know more, meet me at the following location on the planet's surface."

  "That voice," Ray said, "That voice, I have heard it before but ware. Let me see if I do a search here. What does it Match too." Images flashed through his mind spinning like a slot machine, finally settling on one female form.

  "That voice it belongs to Aster. You know you can't go to that location, it can only be a trap of some sort. But what if she knows something. Isn't the important question how did she get here. Why would she send you a message and why is punching a wall by design. Seems a little bit crazy to me," Ray stopped for a deep breath. He rubbed at his leg, the damage he had taken wasn't even visible anymore but it still twinged from time to time.

  "Talking to yourself is a sure sign of madness, though why is that? Ah depends on the context. I need to get down to the surface and see Aster."

  The Outrider still had power at least sum power Arri corrected as the inner airlock door opened automatically once the first had been sealed shut again. The interior had taken on a slightly demonic tone, like some of the games he used to play. A darkish red filtered over everything.

  "Jenkins whats the status of the ship?" Arri asked he waited for the reply but it never arrived. Skimming through his apps he tried to open a remote call to Jenkins. The process failed.

  Arri made a sign to March three fingers held over his heart area, which translated to act normally we might be being watched and proceed with caution.

  "I am going to head to the breakout area grab some wonderful food, maybe even play some games," March said.

  "Now might be a good time for me to take a well-deserved shower, have a great evening," his hand signaled to March to be ready for trouble.

  A feeling of disquiet was building within Arri as he walked his ships corridor illuminated in blood red. With every step his mind plucked at different possibilities, going automatically to almost the worst case scenarios.

  He opened the door to his cabin, ducking into the bathroom area to check no one was lurking there, before opening the ICNH-43 bay to repeat the process. He let out the breath he had been holding in.

  His helmet and gloves rested where he had left them at the centre of his bed, he slipped each glove on then clicked the helmet into place completing his suit. App, military, suit, the heads up display exploded to life, a little more disjointed than normal as it was projected on to his contact lens and back into his brain via his eyes, rather than just a direct connection to his brain.

  He tapped the side of his storage area causing the door to spring open, from there he pulled his sleek black rifle. He turned it over in his hand, ejected the magazine and checked there was ammo, there was, so he pushed it back in and felt the satisfying click.

  He moved through the ship quickly and efficiently light beam gleaming from the barrel of his gun. He had spent maybe thirty seconds in his room gearing up.

  "Captain?" Galdan had frozen mid hand gesture nervously glancing at Arri's gun which was pointed directly at him. Arri lowered the weapon.

  "Sorry, I couldn't get hold of Jenkins and then the power failure outside and the emergency lighting, my mind went to the worst place."

  "Ah, not a problem, Jenkins has been taken ill, happened just before the emergency lights kicked in, he's down in sickbay with the Doc and Tidal," Galdan said.

  Arri lent his gun against the back of his chair, "Any idea what's wrong with him?"

  "It only just happened."

  The Outriders lighting spluttered back into life, the systems that had shut down due to lack of power entered a reboot cycle as the blood red light faded to memory.

  "When we get back home remind me to change the emergency lights to a less blood shade, maybe even a completely different colour like blue or green," Arri said.

  Galdan chuckled.

  "The lights remind me of the glitches Titan A25 had right before the asteroid struck."

  Apps, contacts, Johns, send message, "Run a complete scan of the systems look for anything out of the ordinary," send. Arri picked up his rifle and with one motion clipped it to its hold position across his back.

  Apps, contacts, March, call, "Hey, Jenkins has been taken unwell going to check on him now, but until that is resolved you have the ship."

  "Understood captain, making my way to command now," March replied.

  "Hi, Doc, hows the new patient?" Arri asked.

  "P
hysically ok but somethings going on inside his head," the doctor said, he cast his hand towards Arri sending file after file of information that popped up on his eyes. "As you can see vitals are normal but brain activity is off the charts."

  "Any idea what's causing it?" Arri said.

  "It started the same time as we had electrical problems on the Outrider, its possible it's some kind of digital virus infection in his overlay. I am going to isolate him from our networks, just need to put this damping box around his head." The doctor pulled a virtual box out of the air, Arri was only able to see it due to his contact lenses acting for the malfunctioning overlay. As soon as the box was in place the activity in Jenkins registered dropped.

  "Tidal is looking better," Arri said hovering over his engineer.

  "He will need a few more days before we can bring him around, touch and go there for a while. Also, he has the problem he didn't react well to the healing gel. Its rare but it does happen."

  "OK, did that box thing work?" Arri asked.

  "Well it's looking better than it was, leave this to me."

  "Have you got any more of those painkillers?"

  "Sure second container up high, that's it," the doctor said.

  Arri took a small bottle out of the cabinet his large armoured glove gently gripping its sides. The new message symbol blinked quickly at the bottom of his vision for a second pulling his attention away from the pills.

  He returned to his cabin walking down the quiet corridors, the Outrider seemed empty without the full complement of crew. From by his desk, he turned the back of his chair around and sat gently down on the comfortable cushion. Bottle of pills in one hand mysterious package in the other.

  First, he popped open the pills lid, with a push down to release the lock, he shook out two on to his glove, which he promptly took. He turned his attention to the package, it was wrapped in brown paper held in place by a tied up string. Inside the paper was a solid metal box, inside the box a tiny sliver of gold metal bounded by a plastic coating. He pulled off his large armour glove and putting it to once side proceeded to touch the contents with the tip of his finger.

  An image of Craig appeared on his contacts, "Captain please accept these apps as a gesture of my appreciation of you." Followed by "download apps". Arri pulled his finger away and the message disappeared. He touched the gold metal again.

  The image of Craig reappeared, "Now I know what your thinking, your thinking these are dodgy a virus. But let me assure you they are not if you check there handshake codes before installing you will see they are the latest prototypes from the militaries all over the galaxy." The image of Craig disappeared once more and was replaced by "Download apps..."

  14

  Underwater

  Arri stood at the entrance to the new dungeon, the large circular seal very similar in design to Law One, only this one hadn't been cracked open. Echo stood to his left, slouched down trying to make herself as small as possible. To his right Galdan his armour blazing golden, at some point he had found the time to polish it to a bright shine.

  The events of the last twenty-four hours weighed on Arri's mind, the collapse of Jenkins the injury to Tidal and the ongoing electrical power problems with the Outrider. Leaving March on the ship was a difficult decision, she was the one person of his team he relied on the most. Ray maybe could full fill that role but he was experiencing difficulties since the death of Niko and the subsequence encounter with Aster and Lucian.

  At the very wall of the seal stood Books, she was manoeuvring a large drilling device into position, with the help of crewman Grayson a solidly built six foot tall individual who had almost as many cyber implants and upgrades as Marcus did, he wore a comfortable looking short jacket and trousers with many pockets each bulging with devices.

  Arri looked back at the transport it was covered in fine dust, they had passed through a raging storm around one hour ago, the sound it made was like nothing he had ever heard before.

  "You can always stay in the transport," Arri said turning to Echo.

  She smiled, straightened up her posture, "I've always wanted to see an unopened one, be part of the bust team."

  "Will it take them long to break in?" Galdan asked eyeing the drilling device.

  "I would imagine a couple of hours judging by the thickness of the last one," Arri said.

  "You'd be surprised, watch and see," Echo said.

  Books completed the delicate task of kicking the drill into position, she calmly signalled to Grayson to start the process. The tip of the drill blurred, slowly it inched forward until it touched the great door. Within seconds sparks and metal dust were ejected in every direction as almost a high pitched shrieking sound of tearing metal could be heard. From a small hose attached just above the tip of the drill vast quantities of water started to blast.

  Where the water touched the floor small green pulses of electricity crackled.

  "It's cutting much quicker than I anticipated," Arri said transfixed by the fire and light show.

  "Well its something to behold, best is yet to come," Books said.

  One foot into the metal the drill stopped, Grayson lept forward grabbed the back of the device and yanked it away.

  Arri watched as Books took out a small light source, which produced a lot of light for its size and started to inspect the hole.

  "Those of you who are faint of heart might want to look away at this point," Books said, "No one? Ok then," she plunged her hand and arm deep into the dark round hole. She staggered back her whole arm was missing.

  Arri took a step forward however it became clear this was part of the plan, Books had just applied a little bit too much force when detaching herself from her arm. The smile that lit up her face was one of pure mischief, as she beamed from ear to ear at Arri and Galdan's reaction.

  "Sorry couldn't resist, remote-controlled arm, allows me to get inside press a few buttons and hopefully pop this door wide open," Books said.

  "I thought you had lost your arm then, eaten by a devil," Galdan said pacing from side to side.

  "Something wrong?" Arri asked.

  "No, well I get an uneasy feeling from this world, there is just something about it."

  "So why is this classed as a level three?" Arri asked.

  "When we first discovered the dungeons, during the initial phase of mining this planet they were marked with strange symbols. We couldn't use AI to solve the problem as it doesn't work at all on the surface and at the station it's patchy. Every ship we sent out into space seemed to be met with accidents. Finally, we realised what this symbol is," Books pointed to a strange series of lines marked on the outside wall. "This one is a three and it relates to the protection systems in place and to a degree the items available inside."

  "How many three's have you busted open?" Arri asked.

  "This will be my second we only lost two people on the first."

  A deep rumbling sound accompanied by a tremor shifting along the ground brought the conversation to an abrupt halt. All eyes turned towards the dungeon's giant door. When the sound finally stopped the door was open, dark and inviting.

  "Well let's get started," Books said throwing a light source into the air and sending it forward.

  "Looks like a reflection," Arri said.

  "Earthers, its filled with water, well those suits of armour won't be much good, leave them in the transport," Books said, turning and heading back towards the dirt covered vehicles.

  Arri stripped down his armour, piece by piece, layer by layer until only his undergarments remain. He piled the armour up and neatly folded the connection layer, covering both with a blanket found at the back of the transport.

  Galdan remained outside, he had advanced to the entrance, his head was pointed down, his arms folded in front of his chest, his armour gleamed brightly in the planets dusty light.

  "This is for you," Books head popped through the doorway of the transport. In each of her hands was a silver case.

  "Thank you," Arri sai
d.

  "One for your friend too, just press both black buttons at the same time. We go in five," she placed it just beside the door.

  Arri pressed the two buttons, the case cracked open, inside was a thick one-piece bodysuit made from a material he didn't recognise. It took him a few attempts to squeeze himself into it, the suit automatically moulded around his body, highlighting every muscle. The suit was a dark grey bordering on black and was split into four parts. Two boots, one-piece body and a neckband that produced a small nano constructed transparent shield that covered his entire head.

  One bonus of the suit was it was thin enough for Arri to call the wrist device display.

  "These suits aren't controlled by apps," Books said, "there are four buttons on the side of the neck piece. The first controls a shield that will protect your head. The second creates a thrust helpful for quick movement. The third, a rapid full stop and finally mode change that switches the second and third buttons depending on the level of the mode selected."

  "Why can't we just use our armour," Arri asked.

  "This is a level three, whatever you are using to make the armour work up here might fail when we get down there, losing the ability to move or say breathe in air would not be good," Books said.

  "Makes sense. You just happened to have an underwater suit?" Arri said.

  "Got gear for almost every situation."

  The rumbling returned, Arri moved to the front of the transport looking out at the large dungeon door, it wasn't moving. It took him a moment to orientate to the direction of the sound. He stuck his head out of the transport door and watched as a wall of wind and dust hurtled towards him.

  "Everyone get inside," he said over the suits communication system. He sprinted from the transport ducking behind the large metal like door, his feet were immediately covered in water.