Alutia Rising, Anniversary Edition (Alutia Rising Series, Book 1) (37 page)

As she weaved her way down the stone path,
she couldn't help but glance over her shoulder. High above, a
single blond haired woman stared over the railing. Her heart cried
for her to stop, to turn around, but she ignored it, already having
made a decision.

She entered the first transport tube she came
upon, which shot off before she had a chance to state her
destination. A few minutes later it opened to a dark corridor.
Strip lighting embedded in the wall lit as she exited, illuminating
a rounded hallway that vanished into the distance.

“Vin?” she asked.

“Please enter the first doorway to the
right,” Vin stated.

She rushed down the hallway, and found the
first door, which spun open as she approached. Within, appeared a
cylindrical personal shuttle, lying horizontally in a track that
vanished into a tunnel cut into the side wall.

“Please lay yourself in the personal
transport shuttle and place the life support apparatus over your
head. There should be sufficient space for Terra to fit within,”
instructed Vin.

She looked to Vin’s sphere, then the shuttle,
convincing herself once again that she was doing the right thing,
before climbing the steps. She grabbed the helmet, allowing Terra
to climb in first before placing it snuggly over her head. Terra
scurried around until he found a comfortable spot below her chin to
curl up, purring contently. Once she climbed inside, laying her
body flat, the door slid shut as the interior of the shuttle turned
to jelly, completely enveloping her. A sudden pressure told her she
must have launched and a metallic voice entered her mind through
her BC node.

“Two hours till arrival on Earth,” the voice
faded as her own turbulent thoughts took its place.

What would she do when she arrived on
Earth?
The question suddenly frightened her.

Trent shuffled slowly though the narrow
maintenance tunnels, trying his best not to disturb the dense
layering of dust that encircled him. Though he found it useless,
the tiny particles would react to any movement, and creep
relentlessly through the gaps in his jumpsuit to attack his skin.
He tried to ignore it, but found the itching unbearable, forcing
him to stop every few meters and try to dislodge the irritating
invaders.

The maintenance tunnels did exist, as he'd
expected, but they were very narrow, and very dirty. From what Taku
had explained, there were special vehicles that allowed maintenance
personnel to easily traverse the tunnels without having to contend
with the dust piles created by them doubling as an outflow for the
base’s environmental system. Unfortunately, the medical bay wasn't
where they were stored, and it was just too risky for anyone to try
and pilfer one from the storage areas controlled by Sir Simwa's
followers. Trent sighed, stopping once again to try to adjust his
jumpsuit.

A shadow shifted out of the corner of his
eye. He spun, finding only a large pile of dimly lit dust that lay
undisturbed.

“Can’t be that lucky three times,” he
muttered as he thought back to the black haired beauty from his
dreams that had begun appearing in the waking world.

The first time he had seen her outside his
dreams was when he was about to shoot Jan'Lus. She appeared within
his mind, begging for him to stop, to let her live. Then, when he
was moving through a particularly nasty stretch of tunnel between
the medical and hanger bays, after having no luck locating Sir
Simwa in the base command and control center, she coalesced before
him. He watched, mesmerized, as her trembling fingers slowly
reached forward to caress his cheek. Her touch was warm, gentle,
and his heart responded, beating uncontrollably and calling forth
forbidden emotions from their ancient prison. When he reached out
to return her touch, his mind screaming that she actually stood
before him, she vanished in a wispy cloud.

I’m not going crazy
, he repeated the
thought from that time, knowing her touch real and not a figment of
his imagination. Though he’d begun to doubt himself, since twenty
minutes later she appeared again. But this time as a full bodied
apparition that was completely unclothed. She vanished after only a
second, but the beautiful sight was burned into his heart and
mind.

He returned his thoughts to the present,
shaking his head in an attempt to dislodge the feeling's that had
snuck into his heart, before pushing on.

The maintenance tunnel he now traversed ran
parallel to TSB Earth Base’s enormous hanger bay and seemed to go
on forever. Every 20 meters or so he would come across an access
port, with an adjacent PDU that allowed maintenance personnel to
view what was beyond, along with access the maintenance systems for
the adjacent BAP.

He flicked the activate icon on the next PDU
he reached, coughing as a plume of dust was expelled alongside the
irradiated particles used to form the projection.
About halfway
there
, he noted, his location seeming equidistant from the
hanger bay entrance, and his destination of docking control.

He started forward again, finding another
section of tunnel that was uneven, forcing him to climb over, then
under irregular protrusions that jutted from the floor and ceiling.
While he maneuvered slowly through the obstacles, he started to
mull over the events since he’d been “abducted” by the TSB, finding
himself stuck on one particular question;
how could so many
people be so fully immersed in such a grand deception?
The only
logical response he could think of was that the corporate sponsored
illegal human experimentation that he was now a part was to test
brainwashing on a mass scale. But even if this was the case, he
knew it unlikely something or someone would have not been out of
place or character, a researcher or test subject who wasn’t totally
inoculated...like him. This wasn’t the case, however, and all
evidence, no matter how ridiculous his mind screamed it was,
pointed to the truth being that he had stumbled upon a grand human
space empire beyond all comprehension.

“Come on, Trent,” he grunted as he slid off a
particularly high obstacle into a large pile of dust, “There’s just
no way that could be true,” he continued as he pushed forward,
hoping that during this “recon” mission in which he’d volunteered,
he would finally be able to locate a shred of evidence that this
was actually a corporate experiment.

He paused when the tunnel split. The right
path curved sharply away from the hanger bay and narrowed into
complete darkness, while the other descended sharply to the left,
in the direction Taku had explained he would find docking control,
general staff offices, and Sir Simwa’s headquarters, or so they
hoped.

Trent started down the slope, but lost his
footing. He braced himself as he slid, and as expected, crashed
into a massive pile of dust where the slope leveled.

“I’m too old for this,” he muttered when the
dust settled and his coughing ceased.

Just beyond the bottom of the slope, access
ports began appearing every few meters, lining both sides of the
tunnel. The first few PDUs he activated revealed rooms of identical
design. Against the far wall of each, a black, human sized
ellipsoid capsule, open in the front, sat in a cylindrical recess
with a single rail vanishing into metal portals set in the floor
and ceiling.

Why’s everything have to look like a
coffin,
Trent shivered, finding this ellipsoid “coffin” much
more menacing, being black and waiting for a body to be inserted
and launched skyward in some unholy ritual. Adjacent to the first
crevice sat another, but without a black “coffin” and with the
portals open, revealing a narrow tunnel beyond, like an inverted
subway stop. In the center of the room sat a single PDU atop a thin
post, awaiting activation. Finding nothing of interest, he moved
on. Over the next 30 minutes, he passed well over a hundred of
these identical rooms, the majority containing the black “coffin”
he'd seen in the first, but some with both recesses empty or
full.

Finally, after a 20 meter gap in the access
ports, the “coffin” rooms ended and were replaced by what appeared
to be offices. The first few were converted for storage, silver
crates stacked around and atop desks with PDU’s built into their
surfaces. While those that followed had makeshift bunks and basic
living supplies hastily scattered throughout, showing obvious signs
of habitation. The majority of, what he gathered to be the
temporary living quarters of the traitors, were empty, though he
came upon one with a group of green uniformed officers talking over
a projection. The projection showed a three-dimensional map, with
about 40 varying sized sections, or wings, spiraling around a
cylindrical core, with a barely discernible label hovering above:
TSB Earth Base. He activated an audio feed for the room through the
adjacent maintenance PDU, but they were talking in whispers, too
low for him to hear.

The offices ended much sooner than the
“coffin” rooms, and after 10 meters or so of no access ports, he
came upon one slightly larger than all the rest. He activated the
adjacent PDU, which displayed a large globular room. On one end sat
a massive PDU, set as a viewscreen that wrapped around the curving
walls, displaying data Trent couldn't even begin to decipher.
Ascending rows of workstations curled out from its base, climbing
like stairs. At the far end, above the last row of ascending
workstations, sat a single occupied seat...his blood began to
boil.

Trent would never forget the man, appearing
as bored as the first time he'd met him, sitting casually in the
seat overseeing the rest; Sir Simwa. He was dressed in a dark green
suit that was even gaudier then the one he'd worn during Trent's
trial. Another man, dressed in an ostentatious, bright green
uniform covered with gilded gold and platinum markings, talked
rapidly, but with obvious reverence. He rubbed his hands together
nervously as he glanced repeatedly towards the viewscreen. Sir
Simwa, apparently becoming bored with whatever explanation the man
was providing, waved him away dismissively. The man bow deeply,
before rushing down the rows of workstations, shouting at the
furiously working personnel behind each. Sir Simwa rose, a smirk on
his distant lips, before slowly sauntering out the doorway behind
him.

Trent moved to the next two offices, thinking
that may be where the man was heading, but found them empty, along
with the next two, but sighed with relief when he viewed the next,
which were like none of the others.

The room contained an elaborately decorated
desk, on top of which sat a statue of a man staring down upon an
alien planet in which he held in the palm of his hand. Behind the
desk, sitting larger than life, was an enormous, cushioned chair,
that looked completely out of place, being something he'd expect to
see as a throne in a majestic palace. In the center of the room,
just behind the desk, hung a banner displaying two coiled serpents,
one bright green and the other dark, wrapped around a strikingly
blue world with a forest green background.
Somebody thinks
highly of themselves,
Trent mused. Behind the banner Trent
could discern a bed, much more luxurious than the bunks he'd seen
in the previous rooms, adjacent a long, elegant dining table made
of carved wood.

Sir Simwa strode into the room, hands on his
hips, followed closely by another man, dressed in the blue and
white uniform of the TSB. Sir Simwa took a seat behind the desk,
rubbing his chin while crossing his leg. The other man scurried to
grab a tiny chair from the far wall, placing it carefully before
the desk. Trent toggled the maintenance PDU settings, selecting the
audio option. He turned up the volume and began listening
carefully.

“...do you have any idea who it might be?” he
caught the end of Sir Simwa’s question, voice of nothing but
arrogance. His blood continued to simmer, but he held himself back,
knowing now was not the time...he needed information.

“No, My Lord,” the man dressed in the TSB
started, his voice scratchy like a broken record, “the only people
left on the TSB Fleet Base should be the faculty at the general,
command, and officer training schools. Commander Talan has informed
us that they have no interest in what is currently occurring on
Earth base, so it would be highly unlikely any of Quinn's men would
have noticed that we cut communications,” he leaned close as he
finished, his mannerisms and look reminding Trent of a rat.

“Well then,” Sir Simwa sighed, “I guess it
will be a surprise, won’t it? I want whoever it is captured alive.
Do you understand, Commander Guo?” Sir Simwa smoothed the front of
his green suit, appearing to not like the fit, or care about this
Commander Guo’s response.

“Yes, My Lord. I will personally see to it
once the Program registers which dock it will land,” Commander Guo
responded, fidgeting as he spoke, “But, My Lord,” he started to
continue, inching ever closer, “I am beginning to have concerns.
Intercepted communications have stated that Princess Sasha survived
the destruction of the ABF Princess One. If that is indeed the
case, how will Duke Zehman seize control of the Alutia Duchy?” This
sounded like the information Taku had been looking for. He quickly
accessed his BC node and used the trick he'd been taught about how
to automatically transcribe messages as he listened.

“Commander Guo, I am not paying you to think.
As was agreed, your cooperation will be rewarded with a noble title
once the duke regains control of this sector and forces the king to
provide me the title of duke to rule over the Alutia Duchy,” Trent
listened intently to Sir Simwa's words, trying to fit what was
being said into his theory that this was all some grand corporate
experiment. He wasn't having much luck. “The eventuality that the
assassination would fail was well within our calculations,” he
continued, leaning away from Guo. “All we really needed was to
force Princess Sasha to try to intervene directly and come to the
Earth star system. So you see, Commander Gou,” he leaned forward
quickly and Guo almost jumped out of his seat, “once the TSB fleet
is annihilated and Earth placed under our control, we can easily
capture her,” he grinned, leaning back while taking a swig of a
beverage in the goblet at his side, Guo seeming reluctant to lean
close again. “This is actually the simpler route, you see, since it
will allow me to marry the princess in an elevation ceremony and
then quickly dispose of her in a......accident,” Sir Simwa’s lips
curled into a malicious smile, a smile Trent would never forget,
since it matched the one he wore when he pronounced Trent’s fate
and attempted to carry it out. His anger started to boil forth as
he slowly moved one hand towards his laser arc and the other
towards the access port release icon.