Home Planet: Apocalypse (Part 2) Read online

  “You know me—I like to be busy, even on my days off.”

  He returned her kiss, stroking her blonde hair and soft face. The kiss started heading toward something more passionate and he could foresee an alternative scenario forming in his mind.

  Juliet giggled and broke their embrace, pushing him playfully away.

  “Okay, before we go too far, I’m pretty darn hungry,” she said looking over at the table.

  They sat down and started with the bruschetta. He poured the two glasses of wine and took a sip. Juliet drank water.

  She said, “So how was your day off?”

  He told her about his day and she said, “Yeah, I saw the spare room—nice job.”

  “Hey thanks, took me long enough, but quite ... therapeutic. How’d the review board go?”

  “We approved the next stage ... Mmm, this really is very good,” she said, after taking her first mouthful of chili shrimp and spaghetti. She’d already consumed three bruschetta pieces to his one, reminding him of the soccer match score he’d watched earlier.

  “So what was the last stage then?”

  “Okay, it’s confidential, but you look like a trustworthy kinda guy, being a police officer and all...”

  “Your trust in me is well placed, ma’am.”

  “So the project’s codenamed Arcadia—it means paradise—”

  He said, teasingly, “Codenames? You sure it’s Silicon Life Works you run, not the CIA or something?”

  She said, “Well you asked—”

  “Okay, sorry, go on. What’s it about?”

  “Arcadia is a virtual world project—you know a bit like these massively multi-player online games half the world are addicted to. But a lot more complex than that, though. We’ve passed the prototype stage and have just approved funding for the next phase.”

  “So why does the world need another online role-playing world? Aren’t there enough already out there?”

  “Yes well, Arcadia’s different. The next stage includes expansion of the world and the population in the world. But it also includes human trials of... Let’s just say it’s very different from anything else that’s been achieved so far.”

  He decided to change the subject. Juliet was getting cagey again and he knew if he pressed her, she’d say the same thing as last time. It seemed that every other day a news story about corporate espionage hit the headlines —many of which extended to executive homes. The one she’d cited last time involved a fly-like drone that had spied on the chief engineer of United Lunar Resources in his home office. He accepted this was Juliet’s life’s work, her passion and that there was a need for discretion. But it still felt strange having secrets between them, even if they were just corporate secrets.

  That’s what trust is—knowing someone can get away with lies, but believing they won’t take advantage of it, he decided.

  He finished the wine in his glass and picked up the bottle for a refill. The crisp citrusy white was easy on the palate and complemented the food perfectly. He eyed Juliet’s glass and found it still full as she continued devouring her meal like she’d not eaten for days.

  He said, “Thought you liked the Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc?”

  She swallowed her mouthful and wiped her lips with the napkin, then took a sip of ice water.

  “Oh, I do. It’s great ... just ...”

  She put down her fork and spoon and guided the bottle he was holding back into the ice bucket. Holding both his hands, she looked him in the eyes, a tentative smile on her face.

  “Dan, I have some news.”

  His eyes grew wide, a broad smile growing on his face.

  “I’m pregnant!”

  “My God ... that’s ... that’s fantastic ...”

  They kissed and hugged and kissed some more like they couldn’t stop.

  He said, “I knew it! We did it, baby. We did it!”

  She laughed and said, “Of course we did it—that’s how babies are made!”

  “Oh ha-di-ha ... Wait, are you sure?”

  “Well, the tests are pretty good, the rate of failures only about—”

  “Can we try now? You have a spare tester?”

  “Sure—got one in my bag.”

  She got up and kissed him once more, before racing over to her handbag near the front door. Moments later, she returned to the table with a white device the size and shape of a popsicle stick.

  She said, “Here goes,” and placed half the device in her mouth, closing her lips around it.

  Five seconds later, came a shrill beep accompanied by a green flashing bar which rose up to the number four on a scale of forty weeks.

  “There’s your confirmation Mr. Luker ... You’re gonna be a daddy in thirty-six weeks’ time!”

  They got up and held one another and kissed some more, then started dancing a slow dance to the soft piano music.

  “And you’re gonna be a mom—the best mom in the world.”

  3

  Present Day, The Juno Ark

  The observatory had unveiled the true nature—a pessimist might say, horror—of my predicament. But even with everything I’d discovered, it’d take more than this to kill my hope, a lot more. Whining about a situation never changed anything, just as debating the long road ahead didn’t get you to where you needed to be. Only putting one foot in front of the other would do that and no one was going to do it for me.

  Saying a silent thank you to the spacesuit designer, I sped away from the airlock hatch near the bottom of Module 3. I’d grown in confidence and moved many times faster than I had done when first using the thruster pack. Moderation kept me away from top speed, though. If I lost control and hit the ship, I’d rather hit it at a survivable speed. My gently curving trajectory took me a little way up the hull before flattening out as I travelled sternwards over Module 4, habitation. Stasis flew past fifteen feet below, with the giant solar panels still keeping their centuries’ long vigil over the ship they sustained, their centuries’ long vigil over yours truly while in stasis. As the battle must’ve raged in the other modules, I had been one of the lucky ones. I’d avoided being caught up in the fighting and hadn’t been executed in my stasis pod, as many others had. Then I’d dodged another bullet and awoken from stasis intact. Unlike poor Kate Alves.

  I slowed myself when I saw the yellow outline of the port launch tube grow near. The painted line traced the retractable portion of the conduit through which shuttles could fly. There was another one on the starboard side, also around a quarter the way up Module 6 like this one. About halfway up, just above the midline, were the landing tubes, again, one on each side of the ship. Four elevator-linked decks made up the inside of the five hundred foot long module. The lower one saw launches, the one above landings and the two top decks were for parked shuttles, colonization materiel and maintenance. Before stasis, I found the shuttle launches fascinating. Shuttle operations could only happen if the mothership was traveling at low speed—around five miles a second if I remembered correctly from training. Once the ship exceeded the threshold velocity, the shuttle tubes would retract into the hull if the crew hadn’t done it first.

  The massive gray bulk of Module 6 loomed before me as I slowed to a halt beside the airlock. I wasn’t sure exactly where it’d take me, but somewhere near the launch deck was my guess. Once through the double hatchways, I de-suited and entered a corridor with a line of offices and what looked like meeting rooms either side. In the dimness, I read labels like Flight Ops Chief, Launch Tube Maintenance Lead and Military Liaison. I turned left out of the spacesuit room and passed along the silent, musty walkway until I reached a set of double doors at the end. Wishing I still had the ax, I placed my RFID against what I thought was a dead security panel. Astonishingly, the sliding doors slipped into the wall with a sound still familiar to my ears.

  “Good sign,” I said to myself as I climbed the stairs two at a time to the lower flight deck.

  I stopped on the landing halfway up. It was time to give the walkie-
talkie and the two hidden intercom badges another try. If Reichs had moved the juice carton or the two-way radio then I should be able to locate him. I checked the time and retried the walkie-talkie first. I’d written for the first five minutes of every hour and it was now 3:47a.m., based on whatever time zone Prof. Heinz had set his watch to. Not that it mattered—the intercom badges would lead me straight to him provided he’d not discovered them and they were within range. I switched on the walkie-talkie and listened to it crack and hiss in the same way as it had done all the other times.

  I said, “This is Dan Luker, survivor on board the Juno Ark. Does anyone read me?”

  Nothing.

  “Reichs, I know you’re alive and reset Tiro two days ago. I just want to talk. I won’t harm you. I just need some answers.”

  I waited, but still nothing, so I tried the badge, replacing the two-way radio in my pocket.

  On activating the tiny round badge on my chest I said, “Intercom, please-o-please tell me the communications network is active in this module.”

  She—worryingly, I was beginning to think of it as a she—said, “The network is unreachable. The communications network is inactive.”

  “No surprise there, my dear. Alright then, initiate direct badge-to-badge comms with any node.”

  “Two active intercom nodes within range. Please select intercom badge JA-90021 or JA-90035.”

  Whoa, did I just hear that right? I thought, excitedly, before checking my enthusiasm in the knowledge that they could just be sitting where I’d left them.

  “Err, don’t open a comms channel, just locate the both badges, please.”

  “The location of JA-90021 is the top deck, sector A3.”

  “And JA-90035? Where’s it at?”

  “The location of JA-90021 is the top deck, sector A3.”

  “Same location?”

  “Yes, they are located around six feet apart.”

  “Bingo! Top deck—definitely not where I left them!”

  “I do not understand the word Bingo. Please re—”

  I tapped the badge to put it into standby—no point tipping off Reichs to my presence. The surge of anticipation drove me up the gloomy stairwell faster than before. Finally, I was getting somewhere. And as I dashed up the metal stairs, I knew part of it was the prospect of human company. However immune to the effects of solitary someone thought they were, no one could indefinitely suppress the evolution that shaped us. Humans were social creatures with only air, food, water and warmth surpassing the need for contact.

  Passing the exit to the upper flight deck—the place shuttles went to land—I continued up the stairs. The lower and upper flight decks were at least four regular levels high and I felt winded as I reached the apron level. This level was a similar height to the last two and held inactive shuttles as well as some of the larger colonization equipment, things like ground and air vehicles, heavy machinery like excavators and temporary habitations modules for the early weeks on the surface. These sat alongside personnel shuttles and the larger cargo shuttles. I carried on upwards, past the apron level toward the top deck where the badges had been located. Slowing down—partly from fatigue and partly for stealth—I neared the double sliders to the top deck level. Up here was more colonization materiel as well as the shuttle maintenance bays. Crouching down by the side of the door, I felt for my handgun, more for psychological reassurance. The safety was on and there was no reason to believe I’d need it. There’d been enough death and destruction on the Juno Ark.

  After activating the intercom badge, I established that the JA-90021 or JA-90035 badges hadn’t moved and were three hundred and fifty feet aft of my position. I’d only been here once before—not so long ago according to my memory—and tried to visualize where the badges were. My mind’s eye told me in the shuttle maintenance area next to the giant elevators that connected the three decks below. On shutting down the intercom badge, I rose to my feet and swiped my embedded RFID tag, feeling confident the door would work like the last one did. My optimism was warranted and it swished open. I knew that Reichs would have gotten up here somehow—either via this stairwell, the one next to the elevator shaft or using the elevators themselves. It was unlikely the high-powered elevators were working under emergency power though, so it had to be via the stairwells.

  The top deck looked as lifeless and dingy as most other places on the ship, but I knew different. Reichs was not far away and I was going to find him. I scanned around the looming shapes of boxed-up tools and inflatable habitation modules and a myriad other things sitting either side of the main aisle. The high ceiling curved with the shape of the module, and reached down into the shadows behind the high-stacked material. Tempting as it was to creep up on him, I changed track and decided not to. I didn’t want to startle Reichs—for all I knew he may have been armed and an accidental shooting was something no one needed. As I walked calmly forward, a precautionary hand on the gun in my pocket, it seemed the boxes and small excavators and quad bikes were untouched. In fact, everything I saw stood in neat lines within floor zones labeled with some numbers and a description of what was there. A sign hung down from the ceiling on long chains. One of the entries on it told me maintenance and the shuttle bays were straight ahead, so I kept on walking. My footsteps echoed in the cool air until I stopped dead and listened. All the usual sounds—just ambient noise—but there had been something else, too. I heard nothing so resumed my path. Moments later, I heard it again, a shifting then what sounded like footsteps.

  This is getting ridiculous. One of us has to introduce ourselves, I thought.

  I shouted, “Hello? You there Reichs? This is Luker, Dan Luker. I’d like to talk if that’s okay with you.”

  I waited but heard nothing—no noises, no reply.

  “Look, we need to talk. We’re the only two left alive on the ship as far as I can tell and I, for one, don’t want to spend my time here alone.”

  Still nothing.

  I blew out a deep sigh and said, “I know you’re here man, why don’t you just save me the effort of finding you. Like I said, I mean you no harm. I’m just a colonist ... a survivor like you.”

  Not wanting to give away my advantage, I didn’t consult my intercom friend, much as I wanted to. Instead, I continued my calm walk toward the badges’ last known location, continuing to scan a sweeping arc as I went.

  After the small army of fifteen feet tall industrial exoskeletons, the zones of colonization gear ended abruptly thirty feet ahead. In their place were the four maintenance bays in the center, the double story maintenance building to the left of them and what looked like several aisles of shelved spares to the right. A yellow gantry crane hung over the right-middle bay and below it stood a personnel shuttle. The white fuselage was the size of a short haul jetliner, but the wings were small, stubby deltas and its tail fin was similarly stunted. It had no cockpit windshield—mostly because there was no cockpit as such in an unpiloted shuttle—and no side windows for passengers, either. I could see one of the forward access hatches open beneath the nose. A whole lot of parts and equipment lay on the floor below it. Then, I noticed something else nestling between the maintenance building and the elevator marked with a huge number four. It was a habitation module—a temporary inflatable shelter that’d been destined for the surface of Aura-c before whatever happened had happened. The yellow-skinned shelter looked like a large family dome tent except with high-pressure inflatable arches holding up the multi-celled walls. The top of the shelter was dirtier but still showed the once-shiny photovoltaic material underneath. Attached to the side of the structure were the water tank, purification unit and aircon. Nearby, a pile of garbage climbed six or seven feet up the vast elevator door sized for a shuttle. Most of it looked like packaging. I hoped it didn’t double as Reichs’s toilet. Whatever it was, the hab module had to be where he called home.

  As I walked slowly closer, I called out, “Anyone home? Are you there Reichs, Arnold Reichs? I’m not a here to sell you anythi
ng... Look no Bibles, no vacuum cleaners. Just want to talk to you, Arnold.”

  On nearing the shelter, the smell of garbage began growing in pungency. I reached the unzipped entrance flap and listened for a full minute. Anyone inside would be audible through the thin material walls of the shelter, but I heard no sound. No light leaked out from the unsecured entrance and on peering inside, I saw only darkness. My sense of smell was not so lucky, the unpleasant odors—chiefly someone in desperate need of a bath—permeating my nostrils. I took out the flashlight and switched it on, ready to search the place, when a voice filled my head.

  “Don’t move cowboy!” came the gruff, mid-Atlantic voice.

  Cowboy seemed incongruous in his rich-boy accent.

  “Arnold Reichs?” I said, turning around to see an old man pointing a gun at me.

  I placed my hands up, flashlight still in my right hand. He stood fifteen feet away—too far to disarm, even with his shaky aim.

  “I told you don’t move!”

  He looked about sixty with an unkempt gray beard and wild, scraggily hair. He wore metal framed specs, taped across the bridge and dirty, tattered coveralls that were once blue. There was something not right about this guy—his trembling hand, his eye twitch and his stooped posture. Whoever he was, he looked nothing like Reichs.

  So who the hell are you? I thought.

  “Look, why don’t you just put down the gun? I’m not gonna hurt you—”

  “This is my home ... why don’t you just get out of here ... leave me alone?”

  “Okay, okay, I’m leaving,” I said, keeping my hands raised but ensuring my path closed some of the gap without spooking him.

  He tracked me erratically with the subcompact handgun, occasionally under-tracking and sometimes over-tracking.

  “Keep going on your merry way cowboy!”

  “Don’t worry, I’m going ...”

  As I drew within ten feet, my eyes confirmed what I’d hoped I’d seen—the safety on his gun was still on. In that moment, I did two things. First, I sidestepped, while pointing the flashlight at his eyes. He instinctively shielded them, losing sight of his target. Second: I charged him, covering the distance with two thrusting strides and driving my shoulder into his chest. He cried out as momentum took me down on top of him, winding and dazing him as he hit the deck. I snatched away his gun and pocketed it. He lay there breathing hard, expelling his foul breath too close for comfort. He was of medium height, but scrawny and had gone down more easily than expected. I was glad I’d gone easy on him and not charged him too hard. Despite his less-than-friendly welcome, I didn’t want to break the old guy. Even with his disheveled, bum-like appearance, I guessed I still had an innate respect for elders. Still, mister 9mm draws no so distinctions and the way his juddering hand pointed that gun at me had me worried.