Dekker's Dozen #005

The Verdant Seven stood stalwart under the gentle breeze of their foreign planet; six of the arbolean's leaves rustled gently and in unison. The holdout, quiet now for several millennia, had been stripped bare. The council's minions had ripped away both bark and leaf.

Gnarled branches reached toward the ruddy, glowing sky. Withered, skeletal fingers once proudly bore the bladed green fauna of the arbolean council. No more; it was the traitor—the dissident. Condemned. Silenced. Dead.

It is set in motion. Our will is set; the child awakens soon, and so our champion rises. The Left Hand seeks the apothecium; he will germinate an army while the Right Hand sets our stage. We've been patient, sisters. The Centauri system is fertile; it is time to spread our seed.

Under the rust-hued sky, leaves of the six trees rustled with excitement.

Unicorn Zombie Spores

He hung back in the shadows, watching flames lick the sky: tongues like thirsty dogs. Though he'd been garbed in a similar, yellow cloak, he was vastly different from the rest; every other member of the Dodona cult was female.

His eyes darted around the room which he exited to reach the yard. The room resembled an ancient crypt, or perhaps one the pharaoh's treasure rooms. The archaeologist's nature yearned to study everything within; each artifact looked entirely foreign to him—perhaps not even native to earth. That longing, however, had waned since his encounter with the ancient pithos he'd uncovered in his dig. He'd been warned of a curse—but the archaeologist did not believe in such things.

Still, ever since cracking the seal of that heavy, leaden container he'd felt another presence—another personality—wrestling control from him. He'd read the warning inscriptions written in six ancient languages, but his damnable curiosity demanded he open it. That was the Christmas Eve of 1902, nearly eighteen months ago. From that night on, he'd felt himself slowly disappear under this new personality.

Nearby, another elderly woman beckoned. The woman in the center of the cultic circle was long dead; her desiccated body had long ago petrified in a mummy-like state. Surrounding her, the frenzied women appeared quite alive by comparison, jumping and chanting. Suddenly, they stopped, fell quiet, and walked to the beech trees at the edge of the flame-light's reach.

Standing below the leafy fauna, the head priestess listened intently to the way the trees rustled in the still, windless night. "It is confirmed." Her tone carried authority. "The Verdant Seven will be whole again. The sister that we murdered will be allowed to reseed. May her trunk remain burnt and impotent; her embryo will implant within this... male... who stumbled into our world." She spat the word as if levying an insult.

Drawing a serrated knife, she ripped the cadaver's chest open and withdrew a gnarled, curved stake. "The seed is intact and ready for its new shell," the head priestess stated. Two acolytes pushed the cadaverous husk into the blaze. "Step forward, man. Become the Left Hand of the Verdant Seven."

No! This is so much more than I'd bargained for! Prognon Austicon stepped forward—no, not him—it was the demon within that controlled him—the archaeologist was powerless to stop it! That's not even my name, it's just an alias! Every shred of what he once was had begun to slip away—he'd known his face since the day he unsealed that otherworldly vessel.

Austicon ripped open his shirt and bared his chest. He watched as the priestess plunged the stake, an arbolean seed, below his sternum. Trapped inside his mind, the archeologist screamed; outwardly Austicon only grinned fiendishly. Centuries later, the trapped scientist would still scream, a constant background noise that ever brought a smile to the assassin's lips.

The memory was warm and sweet, like foreign blood on his tongue; it came pouring back to him as he entered the Dodonic Inner Sanctum. Austicon faintly remembered that old curiosity, his need to know what artifacts lay buried within each container. He retrieved the small, latched cask and peered inside to ensure the apothecium remained alive. A twisted smile spread across his face. The deadly arbolean fungus signaled the beginning of the end for humanity.

* * *

Andrews breathed into his air mask. He still called himself Andrews in his mind despite his best efforts to convince his psyche to accept a new name. Several days had passed since the theft and he could do nothing with that time but stew in his anger and impotence. The only other option was to watch the MEA's streaming broadcasts and cuss at the video feeds. He'd lived through revolutionary events, but the current state of things looked as bleak as ever.

A live video feed covered every detail of the political installation; the ceremony took place on Earth at the Mother Earth Aggregate headquarters in Neo Mesopotamia. The Grand Council of the MEA had chosen to fill the slot of Chief Magnate with the Krenzin leader: The Pheema. For the first time since its inception, a nonhuman controlled Earth politics.

"First they boot all religions from modern society, and then they want to convert us to an alien one! Absurd." He vented to no one in particular. Andrews assumed he was the only human still alive in the whole sector. That was a logical assumption based on recent events.

Andrews hated being helpless—he'd done his best to prepare for hostile situations ever since the first assassination attempt on his life, years ago. The Krenzin philosophy that mandated peaceful nonresistance didn't seem to eliminate those lethal threats he'd observed over the decades. Andrews was a Darwinian and passive submission made no sense to hard science. "Only the strong in mind or body survive!" He cussed out the entertainment console. Strength resisted rivals by its nature. "Now that bleeding-headed fool has control of Earth and can influence the planets allied with the MEA? Get your own stupid planet, you rotten felinoid!"

He held his breath and stuck a whiskey bottle under his breathing mask and took a pull. He'd meticulously sterilized it to avoid infections.

The feed crackled for a second from the interstellar interference. "I'm happy to accept this prestigious position, and I'm so excited that the vast majority of humanity endorses this move. It is a huge step forward. As a people, we are so grateful that you have welcomed us so whole-heartedly; since the loss of our kind's planet, Earth has become our new home. I want to ensure you all that we will continue with current measures. I'm pleased to report that our disarmament protocols have remained on schedule. The only remaining, operational weapons facility under MEA control and funding is Darkside Station, on Earth's moon and the capital we've saved by defunding the engines of war have been shifted over to benevolent missions of peace, such as new education and philosophic centers across the quadrant."

Andrews bristled at The Pheema's speech. He shook his head, thinking of a test subject he'd once seen that lost its immune system... defenseless.

"We need not fear the vile darkness of war. Through peace and love we are strong! The faithful know this as true enlightenment. The militant mind is an old way of thinking. There is no art of war; it possesses no aesthetics, only overwhelming ugliness. Military is moot when utter peace is achieved, and we are so close, my brothers and sisters.

"I know that there lingers pockets of resistance, but only because they do not understand. They would rather see an entire planet of soldiers than of lovers, and that is, in fact, exactly what I am offering! Each citizen will go through mandatory training classes. True citizenship means working for the corporate good of the planet and culture. The citizen's army will include each and every one of you!"

The video screen didn't respond to Andrew's string of expletives. "Classes don't make someone a soldier—what a joke." His speech had slightly slurred. "There is no army, just bleeding pacifists if you train them in Krenzin philosophy. You just wait, planet Earth... wait for the other shoe to drop. Your army class'll contain sensitivity training and cultural dynamics but no marksmanship courses."

True, Andrews had a reputation as paranoid, but he saw the logical connections. He just couldn't help feeling that this regime was somehow linked to the theft of his new tech: a potential doomsday super-weapon.

He looked around at the empty room he'd been stuck in for so many days now. His eyes scanned a stack of old books and then returned to The Pheema's broadcast. "'Something wicked this way comes,'" he quoted.

* * *

Dekker leaned into his ship's violent bucking and braced himself against the shuddering bulkhead. "Corgan!" he shouted over his shoulder at his pilot, "I said evasive maneuvers!"

They'd been dumped out of FTL almost directly on top of a Shivan interdictor, quite possibly the same one that had attacked them previously; without a transponder signal they could never tell for certain. The newly upgraded shields on the Rickshaw Crusader held defiantly as Dekker spat a curse on Prognon Austicon.

"Guy!" Dekker shouted for his explosives expert. "Get ready to kick Bertha at these murks!"

Dekker stepped into the munitions room and yelled over the laser-cannons; they blared angrily at the interceptors that swarmed around them. The larger interdictor could belch more units at them any minute. "I ain't fooling around with these guys, and I think we owe them one!" He pointed to Guy so his man could understand him over the loud guns, then he pointed to Bertha: the large cylindrical device strapped onto a rack near a loading hatch.

Guy's eyes lit up. He dropped his sandwich and scrambled to meet Dekker at the massive bomb. They'd gotten it, unofficially, from a MEA munitions disposal facility. The current mission was funded very secretly and with a huge budget which allowed them certain privileges, like Big Bertha's presence. She was a very-illegal prototype triple-stage nuclear fusion weapon acquired by their friends at Darkside Station.

The two investigators released the ratchets; within seconds they stumbled as the ship shook—the interceptors landed a few lucky blows. The lights flickered briefly as shields compensated and the Crusader's cannons rained hellfire on two interceptors, ripping them apart.

Guy kissed the hand scrawled lettering that read my nasty ex-girlfriend, and joined Dekker on the far wall. They strapped themselves into the safety harnesses and sealed the exits.

"Nasty ex-girlfriend?"

"Oh yeah. She's mean, expensive, and makes a mess of things. She's about to be someone else's problem now," Guy winked at Dekker who just shook his head. "I'm just saying... never date a girl named Bertha."

The Crusader dove and twisted as it angled away from the interdictor. Taking a deep breath, Dekker slammed the release hatch and overrode the systems. The vacuum of space violently sucked out the hold's contents; the void consumed Bertha, Guy's sandwich, and a handful of miscellaneous items. Dekker and Guy shook and jerked to the furthest reaches of their harness and rattled about for two seconds until the hatch resealed and restored pressure.

Guy worked his jaw until his eardrums popped and adjusted to the recompression. He and Dekker darted to cockpit, swaying with the lurches as the Crusader rolled through loops not possible were they in an atmospheric environment.

Bertha floated like an inert piece of galactic detritus and went unnoticed by enemy scanners. The armament's tractor beam locked onto the Interdictor and began reeling itself toward the ship with surprising speed.

"We may want to be further away," Guy intoned as an afterthought, not taking his eyes off the cockpit's readings.

Corgan kicked the speed up another notch, trading speed for manueverability. Their pursuit held fast, but their purpose was distance; they'd never outrun interceptors without FTL.

A flash of blue with red lightning wrapped itself around the Shivan Interdictor as Bertha's second stage activated; a heavy EMP wave disabled its victim's shields. The interceptors peeled around to return home and help fight whatever unforeseen threat had attacked their carrier. Seconds later: stage three. The nuclear explosion erupted like a fiery ball mushroom; the eradicating energy wave washed over the interceptors and dismantled the Interdictor micron by micron.

Guy cheered like a child on an amusement park ride. Vestiges of fusion fire licked at their shields before fading out of existence as the cold vacuum consumed it entirely.

"Well," Dekker brushed himself off as if nothing serious had occurred, "Back to business. There's the space station." He pointed to their target on the long range scope. "I'm gonna have Vesuvius do a full sweep, so let's not come in too hot, Corgan. Throttle back a bit, now."

Dekker turned and exited the cockpit.

Guy turned to Corgan and motioned to where the Interdictor used to be. "You see that? How awesome was that?" He leaned back with a huge grin on his face.

* * *

Vesuvius said, "Scanners indicate no life signs in any of the other Shivan interceptors except that disabled one. Rock reeled it aboard and sealed it inside the cargo hold; it's only minimally damaged, a child with a monkey wrench could get it running again if he had access to the engine compartment. The bay is depressurized, though, so he's not going anywhere until we say so. We'll deal with the pilot later," Vesuvius delivered her report very matter-of-factly.

"There has been no communication from the science station as of yet." She continued, glancing at the view panel; the station filled the screen and they floated very near. "Instruments show a full complement of living, breathing beings." She phrased thusly not ruling out Mechnar body-hijackers like they'd discovered at Osix. They could still register as living on their instruments depending on how their condition, and the Dozen had recalibrated their sensor array after Osix so they could also detect them. "We weren't given the exact number of persons to expect by the MEA, just the vital personnel—especially the doctor."

She continued, "Also, a wide range scan found an anomaly. It's probably nothing," she shrugged, "But the scanners flagged it."

Dekker raised an eyebrow. Vesuvius noticed and explained.

"There's a small comet passing through the far reaches of the system. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it seemed to disappear for a moment, but only on the photon wave scanner... so, we know there's nothing significant about it except that it went completely invisible for few seconds."

Rubbing his chin for several prolonged moments Dekker growled, "I want to check it out."

"We're almost to the station already," Guy interjected.

"And that's where we're going," Dekker replied. "I don't want any surprises. I want you, Matty, Corgan, and Britton to go."

"But I want to blow stuff up," Guy whined. "Can we blow up the comet?"

"Wasn't the interdictor enough for you?" Matty teased. "Don't worry, we'll find something to break."

"Just make sure it isn't my ship!" Dekker warned.

The station loomed even closer as they approached. The main ring rotated around the center nodule where vital mechanical devices and engines were stored; the ring's movement assisted the gravity metrics—it's where any survivors would be. Despite the life-signs, the com channels remained silent.

"There is one other thing to bear in mind," Dekker addressed them all. "The primary reason we've got all these fancy new toys, a fistful of cash, and even an MEA fuel card is because of the Halabella incident. With Osix looking too much like the original Mechnar Contra, someone in MEA control has much decided we're the experts on this kind of thing, now. Be prepared to face the same sort of thing again.

"You each have your assignments," Dekker pointed to the photo of Dr. Abe MacAllistair that each Investigator wore on a wristband. Dekker didn't need one; despite the passage of years, at least for MacAllistair, there was no way Dekker would forget him—were it not for "MacAllistair", Dekker might have been able to save the lives of his wife and unborn child. Despite the anger in his gut, he barked the order, "Protect and retrieve this man at all cost. Let's lock and load."

* * *

Eight members of the Dozen stood at the pressure lock with weapons drawn and ready. Guy ran down the checklist on the airlock data display. "Pressure's good, seal confirmed... wait a minute."

Dekker's face seemed to get more intense, if that were possible pre-mission. "What is it?"

"The pressure in the station is fine, but there's no oxygen."

"The life signs were strong," Vesuvius reassured.

"So it can't be Mechnars," Dekker wondered aloud. "Original models had no life signs, the second gen we found at Osix require oxygen."

"Should we reassess the situation?" Vesuvius asked.

"We're not going to get any more information without going in," Dekker spat, reaching for an air supply mask. He clipped the compressed air cylinder to his belt and clicked the air flow toggle.

Guy asked, "You want us all along, now? We don't really have to go explore that comet—it's probably nothing."

"That's the best case scenario," Dekker remarked. "Just check it out and get back here as soon as feasible."

* * *

Rock, stepped through the hold first. His air mask fit tightly over his nose and mouth and fogged as his breathing quickened slightly. He swung his massive gun upwards on its side-mount harness pivot. The heavy gunner spoke into his com, "All clear."

The rest of the Investigators stepped inside the sterile hallway and took their positions. Everything looked normal, aside from the lack of oxygen; lights had been dimmed to twenty percent through the hall, but reacted to movement and lit to full as they detected the investigators.

Dekker walked like a cat, stealthily creeping down the hall. He signaled for Vesuvius, Shaw and Nibbs to join him. Nathan led Rock, Ahmed, and Jamba down the opposite corridor.

Peering around the first corner, Dekker noticed that the lights were already at full. He tightened the grip on his pistol and slid around the corner like a wraith. Shaw and Nibbs followed suit.

Vesuvius exhaled a grunt of frustration. She rolled her eyes and turned the corner, making no effort to soften the clacking of her heeled boots against the metallic floor.

Dekker shot her a sharp look. She returned a cutesy shrug as if she didn't recognize the problem. Vesuvius simply walked beyond their position and incited a gurgling, mindless shriek.

An ill-kept humanoid in a tattered lab coat rushed towards Vesuvius. Except for the jerky, spastic movements and the elongated spike protruding from his forehead, he looked like a lab worker.

She swiftly drew her blades and severed every hand and foot in one fluid motion. The creature slipped off balance on his sick, slick stumps even as Vesuvius whirled around to heel-kick her opponent to the ground. Still spinning, she plunged her blades into the downed creature, severing spine and piercing heart.

"Still quieter than guns," Vesuvius stated quietly and matter-of-factly to her comrades.

Shaw pursed his lips as if to silently whistle.