Interzeit: A Space Opera (9 page)

“Go!” He yells at her, and returns to the carving. A similar flame bursts through from above, tracing his same pattern.

Lei starts
away back towards an elevator, running in the crowd. Basil contacts her as she runs. A disturbance in the near space
,
t
he perimeter defense forces have made contact with a hostile force.
Heavy casualties.

She agrees to meet back at the Mech, and pushed her way into an overcrowded elevator.

As the doors close she sees the
roof by the bar collapse
in a solid glowing hot chunk.
She hit the streets,
things were still relatively calm
, or seemingly so
. She ran into the
road, removing a man from their
vehicle violently,
speeding
back to the terminus gate.

The further she drove
the more things
worse
n
. Like she was spreading some infection of chaos, sowing it like a pathogen as she sped by, people were panicked in the streets.

She left the car near the gate, trapped behind a crowd of other vehicles. People pushed at the Terminus for cab ships back to the ring. Total
pandemonium
was ensuing, people fighting and clawing for
the tiny spaces in the ships.

Her adrenaline kicked in at the mob display, her breath quickening,
the
panic
now
threatening her
as well
.

“Basil,” She spoke into her wrist ionic, “I need a pick up from Vesta Minor,
I’m
at the Terminus.”

“I’m on my way,”
it replies
immediately, “There’s a rubbish lock in the janitorial service room. Use it to exit the station.”

A holographic arrow appeared over her wrist, it shift
s
pointing the way. Running into a hallway a ways back from the launch terminal, it guides her through a narrowing set of corridors. Finally a sliding glass door labeled “Janitorial” appears in front of her.

Lei clicks
her helmets back on. It seals, and the suit pressurizes. The rubbish lock resembles a giant metal oven door. She sets a timer on the next release, and climbs inside the small chamber. At the two minute mark the other end
whooshes
open, dragging everything into the vacuum. The air
carries her out with a last sharp cry as it’s pulled apart to near infinite nothing.

“I’ve got you on sensors,” Basil chimes,

She floats forward, sailing slowly and eternally away from the terminus into the black. The silent form of Tiger West appears under her. Basil tracks her movements, opening the cockpit. The massive mech leans up into her, catching Lei into the machine perfectly.

The hull snaps closed, and pressurizes quickly, she pushes her way down into the chair, strapping in. The mech whirls around, speeding towards the docking ring.

“Hostile report?” she asks,

“Six ships six degrees left from the northpoint radius, I’ve tracked twelve ship casualties from the
perimeter defense so far,
the situation is
not looking
positive
for them.”

Lei orients towards the battle, flashing noiseless explosions glitter in the distance.

“
Only six?!”
She shouts
.

They land on the orbital ring, using their camera to observe the im
mediate carnage. Five ships with
laser cannons firing at all angles barrag
e
the large flotilla cannons.
The cannons are outmatched
being disabled before they can properly lock on, burning and exploding.

“Where’s the sixth ship?” She asks.

The craft streaks across the the battlefield,
ships
erupting in a quick succession in its wake.
It stops with a roc
ket burst suddenly. It is
clear once it slows
,
bright
and
blood
y,
it glints against the surrounding destruction. A war
mech
, a
red war mec
h. Green energy blades emit
from its wrists.

“Fuck…” She mutters, “Load the stardust rifle.”

Tiger West’s chest cannon emerges, powering to life. She fires three bolts in rapid succession. She looks directly into the mechs red face, a
n
engraved scowl designed into the sensors. It looks back, and zips up. The shrapnel catches it on the legs scraping and burning them with crackling sparks.

The ships left behind, enemy and friend
alike
light up into clusters of explosions.
The red mech stops i
ts ascent. Its wrist blades die
away, and it points the emitters in her direction. They glow, charging.

“Evasive action recommended,” Basil says.

Tiger West’s cannon fires another triple cluster shot.

“What’s the probability of them hitting the ring?” She barks.

“….93.8%” Basil hums.

She full extends all of her deflectors, raising her electro shield. Tiger West floats up above the ring slightly, deflector plates locking into place. The red mech fires powerful plasma bolts from its wrists.

“Prepare to divert full power to rockets,” Lei orders, “On my mark.”

The shield activates and expands. Tiger West’s deflectors plates whir to life, the
electro
shield
’
s
energy jumps to them amplifying and joining into a unified electric field. It crackles into shape, covering Tiger West and a large space in the canopy of an electric semi-sphere.

The unstable charged particles erupt across the distance with profound energy.

They crash against the field with a sharp static cry, the mass of particles explode energy as they meet, crash, and rejoin the void. The light covers Lei
’s
field of vision completely on impact.

Basil quickly predicts possible movement choices for their opponent. The main cannon
targets
these areas, multiple predictions tracking, possibilities branching and splitting into an ever more complex indecision.

Finally the blinding effect of the plasma dissipates.

“Mark!”
Lei yells
, they rush forward, shields fading in Tiger West’s wake.

The cannon fires in random directions,
Lei searches frantically for the red machine’s form. Suddenly sensors fire on the left, a blur of red and green. Tiger
West
spins around, as their enemies wrist blade cuts through the base of several of the still extended deflectors.

She raises its arm, catching the next blow on the rim of the shield.
Her
other arm pulls out a small beamer pistol, firing a concentrated beam. It ripples fire over the red war
mech,
it moves defensively striking at the offending ray. Tiger
West
pulls the shield in the way, locking with it again.

Lei continues
her mech’s rotation,
and
prepares to fire again when the red one spins quickly around to her other side. It cuts
at
more vulnerable deflectors, as it pirouettes
around to her back.

She blasts the main rocket, the fires jetting behind them. Tiger West burst
s
forward,
tilts and fires the star dust cannon behind it. It explodes along the red mechs hull, chipping it down. The paint burnt off in large swathes like a brutal skinning, plates and deflectors warped and sparking in this chrome paintless damage wound.

Still, the fire, the explosive decompression, the intended effect of the weapon, was missing from the scene.

The red mech dashes away quickly. She turns and realizes they are headed back towards Vesta Minor. Lei boosts after them nervously.

“They are trying to pin us between them and the colony Miss.” Basil hummed in concern.

“Yes, yes I realize that, try to calculate a safe shot.”

The remaining defense frigates head the mech off before the orbital ring. Stepping
between the firing line,
the ships blast large explosive charges from the slipshod artillery cannons. Both mechs evade through the firing field with grace. Despite their efforts both t
a
k
e on
heavy
hits
.

The red
mech
crashes into their phalanx
,
tearing through the unsophisticated crafts mercilessly. The line tries in vain to reform into a surrounding siege, but the craft breaks through any tactical formation they try to assemble.

Tiger West crashes into it shield first, the edge of the barrier cutting into the back of its rockets. The mech quickly spins and they begin trading blows again. It chops fatal blows at her rapidly, t
rying to avoid the singe of her
beamer
pistol
. They get the better of her, in a quick flash, she mistimes her withdrawal, and the beamer hand goes floating off towards near infinity.

She pulls back from the fray, “You
quick bastard…let’s see how you do against this then!”

Tiger
West
looses the energy shield
,
its connecting chain slacks out several meters. It locks, and the mech’s hand grips the base of the chain. She spins the burning disc overhead then swings it down vertically, aiming to cleave it in two.

The red mech crosses its blades deflecting it. Quickly she redirects the chains momentum and swings it underhand towards the mechs cockpit. It matches and parries, circling and retreating from her swings. Tiger west continues after it raining down vicious biting swings on its armored arms.

Lei
felt
she surely had them on the ropes when with two quick
slashes
,
both o
f Tiger West’s arms are hit from below
, ripping and disabling the delicate circuits and actuators. More explosive shells rained in from the remaining perimeter ships creating more chaos and flashing lights.

“Chances of success have dropped dramatically.” Basil chimed, “Recommend withdrawal.”

“Negative,” Lei yells, “We can’t let them reach the colony, divert remaining power to the cannon, full barrage!”

The cannon begins firing erratically, destabilizing Tiger West’s trajectory, causing it to go into an unbalanced spin.
Among the flashes of light and explosion, she
sees
its red grinning face swimming after her. She manually hovers the targeting reticule on the enemy, it glimmers,
she
awaits
the green symbols shift towards locking red.

Suddenly the view cuts out, and she is launching backwards out of Tiger West, its form shrinking away from her.

“No!” She screams
, ”
Basil No!” She bangs on the small hull of the escape unit

She sees the green energy blades impale through her war mech. The epicenter of the skewering site burns, then the whole craft explodes in fire. She drifts alone, further and further out and away from the fight.

It shrinks and dissipates like everything in the dark does.
Fading
to twinkling glimmer, and
then disappearing
altogether without a trace.
Out of time, out of humanity, society, and life, she floats once again vacuum sealed. She hits the hull in rage, eyes burning with hot tears.

“No! You let me fail! I cannot fail!” she breaks down to unintelligible sobs, finally she whispers, so quiet so that even she cannot hear it.

“…you dumb machine, how could you…”

The craft drifts.

Every hour since the incident has been pain.
Nol
survived the blast,
despite any predictive model of math or luck
. Some fateful combination of random chanc
e and
bioscience saved his life. Hours spent in the crumbled ruins, no air, half his body crushed under indescribable weights.

She screamed in the end, it was so loud, ear shatteringly loud. Her cool
confidence,
and courage shattered with the walls. They were smashed, she screamed and screamed all the way to the end. She screamed herself to death, and Nol laid there, tears flowing, locked
under
the heavy
debris
.

When the air got thin, he let himself go, ready to shed his mortal coil. Somehow
,
someway
,
he awoke again. The white of the room was offset by shaded images of trees and and grasslands projected onto the walls. At first he thought he was dead. The caretakers eventually told him otherwise,
but
the extent to which he believed them was limited. There was no coming back from what he had seen.

He
had
been quarantined. His visitors were sealed in
clean
suits
.
His being seemingly drenched in radiation was
another factor which defied all reality and sense. People had taken lesser doses and suffered burning degeneration, cell failure, a rot from the inside out. For some reason this
torturous fate was managed and passed by
.

Once
his own
contamination
levels came down, the circus began. Of course he would have died without the help of the Earth government, and so in a certain way much was owed to them. No one asked him if he wanted to survive though, he just did. Perhaps that was selfish in a way, in most ways, if not all of them. Perhaps, but the circus was a cruel form of servitude to expect repayment with.

After each operation, some group, some “important” person found a timely political use for him. Time and time again they
strolled
him out in front of crowds to relive his story. One of the few living witnesses of the attack, his words and emotions resonated with billions. With no time to grieve, each successive appearance buried him deeper and deeper. The weight of the building crushed him more and more each passing day.

Everytime there was a new carrot. “We’re going to fix your collapsing lungs next, but the Terrestrial Senate would like you to attend this or that memorial service.”

“Your left leg has gone into cancerous metastasis, we’ve scheduled the operation,
in
the meantime however, there is a survivors group meeting with
the
F
ederated
Martian
D
efense
C
ouncil.”

The latest carrot was his arm. It had been lost just below the shoulder, crushed flat by a flight of stairs and one hundre
d tons of other material. They
were going to give him a high grade prosthetic apparently, but first a nervous system port had to be “installed” in his nub. This process was less pleasant than it sounds, but better than the alternatives.

The carrots were always different, but the stick was always the same. A threat, perhaps a soft one, others may ca
ll
him ungrateful, or
selfish for even identifying it as such. Nonetheless it was indeed a threat, he had to pl
ay along, or they might lose interest in his
care.

The whole event was a political PR nightmare for anyone with the word “defense” in their job description. That being the case
,
the establishment needed willing puppets to express the need for them to exist, to justify them. In exchange for helping them, they would be well taken care of. On the days of these events he was given drug cocktails to fight back the pain, and sharpen his thinking temporarily.

The subconscious undercurrent of the whole process went something like this. The disaster happened not due to lack of readiness, skill, or dedication, but rather from lack of funding. The sheer logistics made it too difficult to achieve perfect security, the disarmament from the games had left them more vulnerable to attack, not less.

Nol hated it as he hated everything after the death of Clara. She was his last familial link, their parents had abandoned them early on, took a cheap craft somewhere off planet, and never came back. S
he was dead, and so with it everything was
.

He burned with fury during the agonizing days
lying
in the hospital. So long, he stewed in this mess alone as the hours crawled by. He hated himself for
living,
he wanted everyone around him to feel his pain. It was a pain that demanded complete submission to
hatred,
it flowed through him internally and externally.

He hated the other survivors, watching them dance and sing on tune to the song being conducted for them.

“Roll over and show them your
belly now,” he would think, “Yeah
, show them how much of a good boy you are.”

He hated himself by the same token, as he could not contain his grief when speaking. In paranoia, he suspected it was in the cocktail,
but
maybe they were just weak, broken.

Without a controlling guidance they would not be of much use to anyone, simply burdens
.
I
nstead
this way
they were beneficial to their caretakers.

The people ate this mix of tragedy porn and propaganda up like the cowed farm animals they were. Their prostrations were obscene, grotesque in their blind worship. One hundred years of peace, their peace, a sacred compact of mankind. This was a comforting institution, a safety blank
et
, or less childishly
,
a shield.

With that shield shattered
,
everyone was
paranoid,
everyone was scared to die in the next big tumult. It could come at
anytime,
anywhere was vulnerable if Earth was vulnerable. The fear revealed the truth about them all, and it was a sermon that damned them.

Clara had been so bold, so fearless, psychotically so. Something about their childhood had galvanized and shaped her into that person. But she was an outlier,
impulsive,
nonconformist
, a freak really
. The blanket was torn away, and it exposed a naked and crying child. They were soft and weak, domesticated by their one hundred years and their great destinies.

Reality and nature shucked away this illusion, re-writing everything they thought they knew about themselves. It was the shocking and rapid death of an unjustified collective ego. Now they were begging and pleading, crying for it to go away.

Worm like
,
they begged the cabinet and its endless subdivisions and cooperators.
Anything, anything
to
just make it go away.
Take it back, take us back to where we were before, undo the madness, seal it away,
make
it go away.

No one would tell an adult that they could become a child once again, yet all were in denial about this event. That it could be undone, that
its
undoing was not only possible, but inevitable. The truth is that it couldn’t and Nol now realized it should not be undone. Humanity could never return to the garden, they would die a thousand deaths as cattle before this could happen.

When one mentions humanity it’s a slippery concept. A general thing, it is usually applied to everyone, and is therefore of limited use in a positive sense.

It was a bludgeon, a negative, humanity was a threat. You were human until your humanity was
withdrawn from you by humanity.

Nol
for these reasons withdrew humanity from all humanity, ostracizing everyone but in practical terms this meant only he was ostracized.

After the first few appearances a pattern emerged to Nol, albeit a small one. There was one lone
Kuipterra
n at every event, watching
and
observing. There were others of
Kuipterra
n origin certainly, and indeed around capital due to their hegemony
,
they were quite abundant. These were an easy tell from a true
Kuipterra
n however, these executor
Kuipterra
ns were something else.

Having spent enough time on Earth, they were heavier
,
more like the average person. Their skin
was
often artificially darkened and
ha
d more color. Most obviously however
,
was
how they dressed and their general way of carrying themselves. In this sense
they were terrestrials, cultural
immigrants into Earth, who embraced the styles of dress and attitudes with enthusiasm.

This one person, this lone true
Kuipterra
n
,
was different then them by far, and it made Nol realize how little exposure he had had to them.
He was tall and thin. The skin on him was so translucent that exposure to the sun turned it bright purple. He wore some kind of
outfit that resembled a bulk
y
black and white space suit
. It
covered him completely aside from his head
.

He was never a speaker at any event despite this indication of high status, never cried, never did
anything, that
is
…
except observe. At large crowd events he was there, hidden amongst the masses. At
cloistered events if he was not present, then Nol always saw him nearby. Hanging around the outskirts, watching from a distance, sometimes lounging right outside the private chamber Nol was testifying at.

This became so frequent and reliable that Nol suspected just as he suspected he was truly dead, that the
Kuipterra
n was a figment of his imagination, a sure sign of his madness and slow coping with death.

One day he expected him to appear in his room and whisper softly,

“
Its
time to stop playing, and accept the truth. You are dead, stopped holding on and die.” With those releasing words Nol would vanish into darkness instantly. A vanquished spirit, snubbed just the same as flicking a light switch.

Nol sat in a wheelchair beside several other lamed survivors one day. It started as the typical shpeal from the speakers. Momentum had been building towards an official Earth army made up of
w
ar
m
echs. The popularity of this idea was great, but there was much conflict over it
at meetings
and behind closed doors. Nol knew of th
is, because as a designated pawn
, he had been to many of
both
.

The struggle was not so much over if there should be a Mech army built to defend Earth, but rather to whose authority should they answer to, and how should it be financed. This cut right into a deeper, yet still unsettled matter of who officially controlled the cabinet.

Slowly two distinct groups were convalescing against one another. The non-terrestrials (
whose opposition had slowly
bega
n
to work in language like Alien, and Spacers to describe them) were in favor of a temporary suspension of the games, with the cabinet being retained by the current Executor, Maxelus Calatian the Third.

This would give time to stabilize things as everyone focused on securing the Earth, instead of competing with each other. Or so the cabinet ministers promised.

The other group was a coalition of Earth natives, Martians, and
Protectorate Citizens
. They instead insisted that Mars had won the games rightfully, and that the power of the cabinet be transitioned over to them before any Earth army could have legitimacy. To do otherwise, some argued, would be the formation of an alien tyranny over the Earth.

The crowd was particularly riled up at this rally. A series of Earth senators were expressing their demands for transition of power, the crowd was
rowdy, except for
the lone
Kuipterra
n. Nol spotted him in the crowd easily, his typical stoic demeanor in attendance.

“We have seen with clear eyes, and heavy hearts, the decadence and weakness of this spacer regime!” Senator Coronado Flavius shouted to the crowd.

“These seeds of treachery were sown long ago in space, we cannot trust them to undo these vicious death bearing growths. It is not out of an inherent malevolence, n
ot a willingly refusal to do so, t
hey lack the attachment to the planet.