CH21

“THAT’S INCREDIBLE! FUCKING INCREDIBLE!” Draco’s voice reverberated through my helmet.

“Stop shouting, you big idiot! I can hear you just fine.” For a moment I thought that my eardrums may have been damaged by that roaring dandy.

We were both sitting in the airlock, our bodies tightly locked in – I must admit – quite comfortable harnesses. If not for the airlock’s transparent shell, made out of some jelly like substance, through which we could clearly see the turbulent surface of the unknown planet I would have never guessed that we were about to assault an alien top-secret research base. To hell with it, even when sitting here I could not believe it. But it was real. Everything here was so damn real.

All I could see from my spot were unending masses of sand and dust; a surreal picture taken straight from an Egyptian interactive postcard if not for the lack of pyramids. Believe it or not, as a city boy I have never seen a place so empty and lifeless in my whole life

“Eclipse, do you hear me? How long ‘till we land?” I hoped the communicator in my helmet could withstand the environment down there. Murphy is a bitch and I never liked to rely too much on any high-tech toys. I certainly was not going to start now, with all that alien shit around, but there was no other way. We would not be able to survive a minute on the surface without our favourite butler’s help.

“The landing zone is opening, sir. You should be able to see it in a minute.” His always toned voice sounded right next to my ears.

“Good. Is Blaze still on the bridge?”

“Yes. Would you like to speak with her, captain?”

Would I? I looked at Draco’s face. It was hard to determine his features under the dark visor, but he did not seem interested in the conversation.

“Sure. Patch me through.” My sister’s voice answered me before I had finished the sentence.

“What do you need?”

A smile crept at my lips. The feeling of nostalgia woke up somewhere deep inside me.

“I need you to stay close to Ilmine. You both have to monitor our situation.” And Blaze had to monitor Miss Anthropologist. “She’s the most knowledgeable blue alien we have and we may need her brain cells in top condition. Don’t let her nerves get the better of her.”

“Will do. Anything else, captain?” Somehow, in her mouth, the title sounded like an insult.

“Yeah, if you could prepare a welcome-home party for us, that would be great. Buy some drinks, invite some hookers, maybe bake a cake… That should do the trick.”

I heard my sister sneer.

“Can’t promise anything. Even alien whores must have some dignity left. Asking them to sleep with you would be cruel even by our standards.”

Oh, you daughter of a…

“Hey, kids! Could you please shut the fuck up? Thank you. Now, you may want to take a look at this.” My brother’s fist hit my shoulder. Hard. “Looks like a devil’s ass crack. Bet it smells even worse.”

My attention turned to what was happening outside the airlock. And mommy sweet… Draco was right. There was a deep dark chasm right below us; our landing zone for all I could tell. From this height it resembled a hungry maws of a leviathan. Ever growing hungry maws. And we were stupid enough fish to jump straight into the monster’s belly.

“How long is it?” I asked no one in particular. “Girls, can you see it?”

“Almost two kilometres, sir. It will be a close one but my systems are in top condition, the ship should fit just right. There is no reason for you to worry about your safety.” Eclipse’s disembodied voice explained, the AI always ready to show off with his knowledge. “At least not yet.”

“What?! You can’t land there! That’s what they want!” This time it was Ilmine’s frantic voice resounding inside my helmet. “The second the ships lands the roof will close above our heads and the ship will be trapped there! Who knows whether we will be able to open it again before they kill us all! And there is no way we could smash through it, so don’t even think about it. If you want to risk your primitive heads than go ahead, but I have no intentions of dying in this hole! Not after all this!”

Well, that may be considered a problem.

“…Eclipse? Any ideas?” The dark opening was getting bigger and bigger with every second. We had to think fast.

“There may be another way for you to get in, captain. Or rather - fall in. The space-suits you are currently wearing are equipped with pneumatic boosters. As I understand, they were designed to help the user navigate through zero-gravity environment. In this case they should be enough to break your fall. With your permission I can access the suits’ interference and start the boosters when needed so you do not have to worry about the proper timing.”

I needed a second to comprehend what I just heard. Fall in? Seriously?

“Wait a minute…” Draco was the first one to recovered from shock. “You want us to JUMP down there?!”

“That is exactly what I meant. But you have to decide right now. If I do not break the manoeuvre in the next thirty seconds, I may not be able to pull the ship up and we risk damaging the drive turbines. If this happens the rector may overload.”

“Are you out of your fucking mechanical mind?! Please Ares, tell me you’re not considering this! It’s around a kilometre… Maybe more...”

I looked down again. Did we have a chance? Did we have a choice?

“You remember what the Teach said the first time we were training parachute jumping?” A small nostalgic smile touched my lips. “If something goes wrong after you make a jump…”

Draco sighed.

“…you have the rest of your life to fix it.”

“High Disciple, the ship..” A quivering voice of one of his lessers broke the silence in the control room. “The ship is withdrawing. And they ignored our attempts to establish a close-ranged communication channel. They… We don’t know what they’re doing…”

The Sa’der in question said nothing. He already knew all of this thanks to the AI, but it was always good to make sure that the he was not alone in this madness. That it was not just a hallucination of a tired mind. Keeping company was what lessers did best after all.

“Have you found any signs of another vessel in the system?”

“No, High Disciple. We’ve been scanning on all the possible frequencies with both passive and active sensors. There are no signs of any other ship, cloaked or not, following Master Teo. We.. we do not know what it means…”

The High Disciple stood in his place like a frozen statue. He knew. It meant that he had been wrong. Either regarding Teo or Imperials, maybe both. But what should he do now? He was a scientist, first and foremost, he liked when the world around him stayed logical. This? This was unacceptable.

“Prepare the communication channel, I need to send a message to the Council,” he finally spoke. “All members of my inner circle shall ready themselves for the evacuation procedure. We will start the moment I’m sure the message has been deliver-”

“Security breach.” AI’s flat genderless voice echoed through the room. “There are unauthorized organic life forms breaching the defences of this facility. Lockdown initiation recommended.”

The High Disciple closed his eyes.

Completely unacceptable.