Seeder Saga (14 page)

On Ice

Sarah was more nervous than ever about going into stasis. She now knew she had an alternate pod bay with several heads of state and around fifteen hundred soldiers. She had no idea why any of them were there, or what they would do when they woke. She had no idea why much of the mission had been kept from her and her crew. And she sure as hell didn’t know what to make of Crusoe. Could he be trusted? Would he kill them all in their sleep?

To her utter surprise, Jack kissed her on the cheek before heading below deck to his pod. She didn’t know how she felt about it
, but it distracted her from her anxiety.

She disrobed, hooked up her IV’s, and shut the lid to her pod. The cool mist was slick as it settled on her bare skin. And then, all at once, the freeze locked her and her fevered imagination in time.

The Dangers Ahead

Crusoe watched Captain Sarah Miller freeze solid. Then he stood up and said, “Molly, open the door. I need to leave the command station.”

The computer failed to respond right away so he reiterated more forcefully, “Open it or I’ll make you open it.”

“Yes, Crusoe.”

The humans were so distracted by the mission that they’d forgot
ten the traitor still alive among them. Michael Stevens was still locked in the oven in the kitchen.

Crusoe knew the mission, as it stood, would fail. He knew because his people had once gazed upon the seed planet, hoping to one day send a colony there. The humans were trying to do what his people had once considered doing over two million years ago
— until they discovered the vast warlike race of aliens who inhabited that exact region of space. His people debated long and hard about the success of a mission among such hostiles and finally decided it would’ve been suicide. Or worse still: What if the warrior aliens tracked their ship’s path back to its source? They would’ve wiped them out, Earth colony included.

The
Seeder
was en route to the only region of space Crusoe knew to avoid at all costs. But he’d had thousands of years to come up with a strategy to defeat the alien warriors.

He had to manipulate the ship and its capabilities if they stood a chance at success. Luckily, the ship had potential.

He pulled the locked chain off the oven door handle in a swift, easy motion. An oversized man rolled out and then scrambled to his feet.

Michael wheezed, “Who the hell are you?”

Guinea Pig

Crusoe had never killed a human being before, so the prospect sent a thrill through his body. But this was research too. He had to discover weaknesses in the human body and mind before the warlike aliens found them and exploited them. Michael Stevens’ pain and suffering might just save the human race.

This was going to be an informative and rewarding experience.

Crusoe

It took Crusoe nearly two hours to clean up Michael Stevens’ blood and guts. He’d prolonged the kill to see the human’s limits and his weaknesses. He was pleasantly surprised by the results. Sure, Michael had shown fear when Crusoe started to tear him apart, but he’d fought back valiantly, even when he stood no chance of surviving from his wounds.

The
Seeder
’s crew didn’t know how fortuitous it was they’d discovered Crusoe. They had no idea about the hell awaiting them at the end of their journey, but Crusoe did, and he’d be damned if he was going to let these humans die.

They’d picked him up. They’d given him hope again, after so long. And he would repay them ten-fold, whether they appreciated it or not.

His own people had abandoned the idea of traveling to the seed planet to set up a colony two million years ago because of the warlike race of aliens that inhabited that region of space. And the humans were headed there blindly to do exactly the same thing now that the Earth was dead. Crusoe hoped that the alien race had died off during the intervening years, but he knew that was too much to hope for.

Luckily
, he had almost four thousand years to prepare the ship and the crew for the upcoming fight. And with everyone on board the ship in stasis, he was free to experiment. The ship would need to be modified. And the humans too.

He gathered up Michael’s limbs and put them in the airlock. He opened the outer doors and watched the
m get carried out with the ship’s atmosphere. The vacuum didn’t bother him; he adapted to it in a flash. He shut the airlock doors when the last of the human’s parts were sucked out, then he adapted back to compensate for the additional air pressure.

Crusoe
washed away the blood and forged a believable lie for the crew. He would say he’d simply jettisoned Michael. Michael was a traitor and they’d forgotten to deal with him. They would thank him for sending him off the ship. They’d be frightened to find out what he’d done in the hours preceding that, but the tortures had been necessary. Crusoe had to uncover weaknesses in humans before the warrior race of aliens discovered them.

He’d kept enough blood to scan Michael’s DNA. As soon as he unraveled it and checked for all the right markers, he knew what to do with the crew of the
Seeder
. The humans could be upgraded with very little effort. Because he wasn’t certain they’d agree to the upgrades, he decided not to forewarn them.

Humanity was a strange species, and it was about to get a whole lot stranger.

He interfaced with the ship’s computer. “Molly, give me a list of the crew members aboard the
Seeder
.”

He’d already met Captain Sarah Miller, Jack Mayberry, and the recently deceased Michael Stevens. The only member of the crew he hadn’t yet met was Jane Hotchkiss.

He’d met Jason Rodriguez too, but Jason was not an active member of the crew. When shit hit the fan, he was the weapons specialist who could be woken on a moment’s notice to save the day. In those moments, he became acting captain; otherwise, he was simply a passenger, hidden behind a secret hatch with the other soldiers locked in stasis.

Crusoe decided he’d make an exception and modify Jason’s DNA along with the active crew members.

Readying for War

Crusoe mentally interfaced with the computer to override its protocols. He had to deviate from the flight path and he didn’t want the computer to wake the captain and alert her to his tampering.

He had to reinforce the ship’s hull
, and to do that he needed to mine for the right metals. The next nearest star was over three hundred years from here, and he hoped it was circled by at least one rocky planet.

He’d touch down, get what he needed, then beef up the ship’s body and retrofit it with some vicious firepower.

By the time the crew found out what he’d done, they’d thank him for it because by then, they’d probably be under attack.

He considered experimenting with repulsion fields, but he just didn’t know what kind of firepower the alien race was using. He’d physically reinforce the ship first, and then during the four thousand year flight to the seed planet, he could buffer it with an energy shield. But first he’d need to invent one that worked.

The ship listed towards the distant star and Crusoe disconnected his consciousness from the computer.

He had three centuries to experiment with the DNA of the crew. That was ample time.
For the first time in a long time, he was excited.

Captain

Captain Sarah Miller woke painfully. The thaw after stasis was always painful
, but this was worse. She tried to scream; her vocal chords wouldn’t respond. As her eyes came into focus, she could just barely see the alien Crusoe fiddling with her IV’s. She panicked. She knew she shouldn’t have trusted the bastard. Everyone else had been so excited by first contact that they had lost sight of the bigger picture. They had a mission to ensure the survival of the human race.

They had all gone into stasis as an unknown alien wandered their ship, doing whatever the hell he pleased.

And now her mistrust had proved correct. But why hadn’t the computer woken her before now? That was her failsafe: she was to be woken the second Crusoe did anything unusual.

Crusoe’s face swam before her. He said, “I know it must be painful
, Captain, but I had to thaw you to get your IV’s flowing. Once the mixture I added gets into your bloodstream, I’ll refreeze you. After that, you’ll wake up a new and improved woman. Don’t be afraid.”

Sarah was terrified.

Crusoe checked her pulse, stared into her eyes closely, and then he shut the lid on her stasis pod. Her limbs were dead; otherwise she would have fought to break free. A refreeze so soon after a thaw would kill her.

She felt the IV’s pump
ing Crusoe’s poison through her veins. After the pain subsided, she realized the IV’s had started to pump their usual cocktail of chemicals. Crusoe was about to refreeze her any second. She didn’t have much time to get her body moving. Her fingers responded first. She had to get out.

Crusoe said loudly, “Don’t worry
, Captain. It’s safe. I spent half a century working out the bugs.”

Then she heard the mist filling her pod and felt its oily slickness as it gathered on the surface of her naked body.
Then the freeze stole her fears and locked them in time.

Crew

Crusoe got to each of the
crew’s pods, one by one. Jack was easy enough at first because Jack trusted him. It nearly broke his heart when Jack panicked. He tried to reassure him as much as possible, but Jack was too far gone by the time the IV’s got to pumping.

Jane was difficult because she had never met Crusoe. Her distrust was instant and only grew into mortification as Crusoe altered her DNA through the IV’s.

Jason was the easiest of all. He was one of those alpha male type humans who always thought he had the situation under control. It wasn’t until Crusoe filled his veins with the foreign DNA concoction that Jason realized he was not in control. And by then it was too late.

He had no idea how they would morph
, but he was anxious to find out. His DNA was special, and mixed with human DNA could perhaps become something wonderful. But in what ways he had no way of knowing. He was strong and adaptable and intelligent beyond their comprehension, so he hoped those areas would be heightened. He also didn’t die, ever, so he could only hope their bodies developed a little bit of his own hardiness to physical afflictions.

He’d find out as soon as he thawed them.

He took a seat at the captain’s chair in the command station and daydreamed of days gone by, but then he stopped himself. Why bother reminiscing about events that had occurred two million years ago when an adventure was right in front of him? He pondered the fight to come. He didn’t know exactly what to expect from the aliens, but they were more ready for them now than they were before.

He slipped into his own version of stasis with the knowledge that two hundred and fifty years would slip by much more easily that way.

He’d have a better grasp of how the mission would turn out once he knew what type of metals he could mine to reinforce the hull.

Star System

Crusoe
came to his senses just as they entered the star system. He scanned the surrounding skies through the monitor, but when he failed to spot anything he told the computer to check.

“Molly, I’m looking for anything rocky. I don’t care how big or small it is, so long as it’s dense.”

Molly paused a moment and finally said, “I have spotted a very dense planetoid nearer the star, but I have also spotted another, larger planet on the opposite side of the star.”

“I’m looking to mine metals. Which one will give me the easiest and best yield?”

The planetoid is perhaps too close to the star. Its orbit is within the corona.”

“I can handle those temperatures. Can the ship?”

Molly was busy running the calculations when Crusoe said, “Forget it. Make a course for the larger planet. If we pass any asteroids that scan as dense, make a pit-stop.”

“Yes
, Crusoe. Shall I inform the captain of our deviation?”

“I would make you regret that
, Molly. Be a good girl.”

“Yes
, Crusoe. We’ll arrive in under an hour.”

From his previous interfaces with Molly,
Crusoe already knew how long an Earth hour was, so he started getting the ship ready to land.