Cemetery Planet: The Complete Series (19 page)

9.

If ever in his life Harvey could have been described as laser focused, it would have been now, feeling his way along the little-used maintenance conduit beneath the visitor station. He became one of those robots, a cyborg. Single-minded. Programmed for one thing—to bring down the space elevator.

Winding and twisting through passages he barely knew, he formulated a plan of attack. He knew, from his previous experience with the space elevator, that the power generator had a fatal flaw in design that took a keen eye to identify. Harvey, when he’d made the repair run, had spotted the problem immediately—a misplaced relay. He could arc two couplings and create a critical overload, thereby causing a cataclysmic failure.

He didn’t have the specs in front of him—ironically one of his hated exposure suits could have told him with its onboard computer link—but, by his estimation, the numbers were staggering. If he was correct, he could create a detonation that would put an old-fashioned nuclear warhead to shame.

Then it truly hit him, the monumental nature of his task. An explosion that big would take out the entire visitor station, and, if all went well, much if not all of the underground body factory. In essence, it would put an end to the Unspeakable Ones and their terrible schemes forever.

Only one problem—it would end Harvey’s life too.

That slowed him down not one bit. The way he looked at it, his life was over anyway. He had no other choice than commit to this course of action, no matter how suicidal.

He owed it to the ghosts of Cemetery Planet. The millions of souls that called this world their final resting place. He couldn’t let them down. He owed it to Lea. He could never live one second with himself knowing her soul was damned to a fate far worse than Hell. Harvey was a determined man, more determined than he’d ever been in his life. That elevator would come down. The Unspeakable Ones would be stopped.

Far behind him, in the maze of maintenance tunnels, he heard clamoring, clacking, metal feet crashing, and churlish demands for Harvey to surrender. Nothing, no force of nature would make him give up. He followed the passageway until the voices faded to garbled, incoherent rustling, then to nothing altogether. He knew they’d get lost in the labyrinth. None of them understood this place like Harvey. Only he had the intimate knowledge that allowed him to slip, silently and stealthily, to the one place he wanted to go—the utility bay airlock, the only way outside.

When he found the conduit leading to the utility bay, he felt like jumping for joy. All he had to do, once in the bay, was put on a suit, hop in a rover, and, after a short trip to the space elevator’s outer bulwark, set the power router into fatal overload. Before dropping to the floor, he made a cursory survey of the large, open bay. He was glad he did.

A cyborg’s dark gray exoskin shined in the artificial light, sending shivers down his spine. It happened every time he laid eyes on one of those terrifying things. He hated them. Hated their spiny hides, their long, flexible limbs, their calculating stares. Most of all he hated how they filled him with unmitigated dread. A gut-wrenching, almost debilitating horror. And one was obstructing his only way to the outer environment.

His first instinct was to turn and get out. But with no safe retreat, he had to press forward, had to face his worst fear. He had to disable that cyborg.

He never dreamed he’d contemplate such a reckless act. Yet there he was, timid Harvey Crane, hiding in the maintenance shaft, searching the utility bay below for anything he could use to help him against his formidable robotic enemy.

Then a lucky strike. Along the bulkhead, in an emergency case, he spotted a signal flare. And not an ordinary, average signal flare, either, but one designed to be seen from space. Powerful didn’t even begin to describe those suckers. Harvey remembered being instructed on one and seeing it in action. They were as bright as Betelgeuse, and about as red. His mind raced immediately, formulating the ways he could utilize the flare’s devastating force.

It only took a moment’s observation of the cyborg design, and Harvey made a reasoned and educated guess. Given the cyborgs were manufactured by DeepSix, Harvey had a slight insight into these machines, their strengths and weaknesses. He knew from experience the power nexus on DeepSix robots were centrally located in the small of the back. This was the principal link for every one of its critical systems. Hit that spot with something as forceful as a space flare, it’s sayonara, cyborg.

Sounded good in theory. Now he had to put it into practice. Before he had the chance to back down, he inhaled deeply, opened the access panel and jumped. It was a good ten-foot fall, and his knees ached when he landed, but he took the cyborg by surprise. He rushed and snatched the signal flare out of its container. As the cyborg began to take notice of a change in its environment, Harvey already had the flare armed, aimed, and fired.

Ffffffft!
a sizzling fireball the size of a human head rocketed toward the cyborg, sailing just centimeters to the left. Missed! Harvey’s heart sank, knowing the flare gun was a one-shot wonder. That was it. No more flares. No more big plan. The cyborg’s lifelike eyes narrowed and it closed in, step by agonizing step, limbs extended wide and trapping Harvey beneath the service duct. He tried to jump for the duct. It was way out of reach.

Then another stroke of luck. Behind the cyborg, past its viselike metal talons, over the sinews of its shoulder, Harvey saw another emergency flare. It was on the adjacent wall, seemingly light years away with the robot assassin standing in-between. The monster android plodded toward him. Careful, deliberate steps meant to corner as well as terrify him.

Flailing its long, articulated arms, emitting a harsh, metallic shriek, stepping at Harvey with adept and agile motor skills, the metal monster reached high with its giant clawed foot, bearing down on him and ready to deliver a crushing blow, Harvey saw his opening.

Harvey had read accounts of extreme stress or cases of singular traumatic events when time stood still. People describe it like it really happens. Of course, whenever Harvey would come across such depictions and characterizations, he’d dismiss it immediately as whimsy or imaginations run amok. Now, though, he wasn’t so sure. Time did indeed stand still. It gave him the sensation of being in an invisible cloud, moving effortlessly and rapidly like a bee, or like the wind itself. And before he knew what he’d done, he dropped to the floor, rolled once, and popped back up to his feet. Then, in a series of rapid motions, he ran, took the flare, armed, and pointed it. Just like that, he fired the immense and devastating ball of flames.

Direct hit!

A tiny but significant weak spot in the cyborg had been punctured, and a small surface explosion led to a larger one, deep under the exoskin. The android turned to face Harvey and, for the first time, he saw something other than unrestrained malevolence. He saw fear. These machines were lifelike in almost every detail. Made to resemble some sort of alien reptile with superior cunning, speed and strength—and the unmitigated desire to survive.

Burning from the inside out, it ripped at its own scaly skin, tearing open and curling back a portion of its chest. The wild actions had no salutary effect. The damage had been done. A series of bursts sent more noxious blackness from its eyes, ears, and every joint in its body. Total and catastrophic breakdown.

With free reign in the utility bay, Harvey wasted not a single second in securing what he needed for his trip to the space elevator. He’d never been happier to put on an exposure suit. And he even enjoyed the rover’s bumpy suspension as it eased onto the ramp, the airlock hissing and then lifting slowly, letting in the dark stillness.

The rover plodded on its predetermined course, and once he cleared the walls of the utility bay, he looked up. He balked at what he saw. Earlier, in the food court maintenance core, he’d thought a few ships hovering in orbit were bad enough. Now there were dozens. At least ten gigantic freighters, a large number of combat cruisers, and many, many smaller craft.

Harvey’s heart pounded in his chest. This was an armada being formed right before his eyes. The horizon was infested with ships of all sizes, and he knew they all had one single purpose, one cruel goal. Harvey had to stop it.

He punched the thruster lever and the rover jerked hard, kicking up the gritty topsoil. In no time, he rounded the giant concourse and reached the space elevator, ramming the bulkhead as he skidded the rover to a dusty stop. At the power generator, he ripped open the access panel and spotted the fatal flaw immediately. The manufacturing defect he would exploit to blow this place sky-high.

Ironic. Only a few days earlier he was working on this very generator, repairing these very couplings. Now he was there to do the exact opposite. With the kinetic wrench from the suit’s toolkit, he created a simple arc, a synapse where there shouldn’t have been. This simple method, in theory, would set off a chain of events that would involve every power generator in the visitor station, in essence transforming the entire complex into a bomb. And it was working.

A rippling torrent of radiance burst through the translucent nano-tubes. Fluctuations. Small at first, then increasing in intensity. An alarm sounded, then another and another. Soon it was red across the control board, and the space elevator itself began shaking. High above, the great tether loosened and the cab, ascending quickly, tilted precipitously to one side, then the other. Then its ascent slowed dramatically, as if it automatically sensed danger below.

Harvey was transfixed on the meters running to their maximum levels. He knew he was watching his own life slipping away. But he wasn’t paying attention to anything else, and didn’t see when someone, or something came from behind. All he saw was a black glove, reaching quickly and yanking free the kinetic wrench, unjamming the feedback loop. Instantly the nano-tubes began flowing normally. The elevator’s outer structure stabilized. The tether tightened again, and the cab resumed its skyward voyage.

Stunned at the sudden and dramatic turn of events, Harvey spun on his heels to confront the perpetrator of this galling act, and it set his nerves on edge when he saw, through the rounded and warped glass of an exposure suit helmet visor, the miserable face of Kip Broders, host body for the leader of the Unspeakable Ones.

10.

Harvey retreated from his attacker, reaching for the tool belt, desperate for a weapon. The monster controlling Broders had learned to use its host body well. It seemed to possess superhuman speed, and was on top of Harvey before he could think.

Face up on the ground, Harvey saw ship after ship peppering the horizon, a dazzling fleet of transports and fighters assembled for destruction. Some darting about as if agitated. Others sitting still in stoic prewar repose. The megalithic transports were in line, waiting for their abominable payloads.

Seeing the alien craft in such numbers dragged Harvey into a bleak state of pure and unfettered melancholy.  All he wanted was to just give up, dig his own grave in the ground right there. But he had an even more immediate concern. The beast within Broders was on the attack. From its mouth issued an alien malediction so foul, so excruciating to Harvey’s ears it sent waves of agony through his system.

The parasitic monster circled Harvey like a predator. As it passed the space elevator, Harvey caught a glimpse of the cab on its lonely descent to the visitor center for another shipment of morbid abominations. Harvey’s detrimental ponderings rambled to the Earth invasion force amassing in front of his very eyes. He couldn’t allow it, and resolved to one more desperate yet tragically necessary suicide mission. Like a modern-day Battle of Bubat, with the odds so great against him, the thought of victory, of mere survival seemed but a fantastical dream.

Aware of his imminent demise, he shunned all fear and shot to his feet, shoving aside his suddenly startled attacker. He used the turn in momentum in his favor and sprang at the space elevator’s power panel. On the ground he found his kinetic wrench, and put it back into place, sending the generator into another terminal overload. Red lights flashing. Ear-rending alarms. A steady pulse of something menacingly inchoate just below the surface.

The larval infestation within Broders tackled Harvey to the quaking ground with the speed and accuracy of a prime athlete. These monsters were deadly and clever. It became obvious to Harvey when, after being physically thrown several meters, the Unspeakable Ones had enhanced the human bodies, made them stronger somehow. And faster. Much faster.

In a flash, the nonhuman thing rushed to the generator and removed the wrench for the second time. Then, with another terrifying display of prowess, the parasite slashed at Harvey’s helmet, yanked on the suit’s power couplings, and, most damaging of all, dislodged the oxygen hoses, ripping them from their housings. With a spark and a fizzle, the visor screen went out. All suit systems down. Backup disabled.

Instantly he found it hard to breathe. The air circulation ceased, and with it Harvey’s ability to draw oxygen into his lungs. Panting, wheezing, he collapsed, not willing or able to face his assailant. Didn’t want to see the foreboding future he’d been unable to prevent. But he had no choice.

His body was flipped over with the insensitivity someone would visit on an emaciated carcass. That’s what he felt like. Dead meat. Suddenly he saw swirling lights above, and his dying brain for one brief moment mistook them for stars. But stars didn’t circle like that. They were space ships, the evil armada preparing for an assault on Earth. Swarming like vultures. He was the carrion, and they the scavengers.

Then the sky darkened from the shadow of a bulky and familiar outline—Broders, standing over Harvey for the death blow. Harvey closed his eyes, unable to raise his arms in defense. Energy gone, lungs on fire, dark silhouettes swarming about the night sky, Harvey shut down and waited for the end.

The end didn’t come. Not yet.

“Look, human!” the parasite shouted. “Witness with your last moments the beginning of the end for your kind.”

By some cruel twist of fate, he persisted. Just enough air in his helmet for one last breath, and to watch the elevator cab touch down. Inside, through the view portholes, he saw dozens of moldering host bodies. It made his skin crawl at how many of them were lined in wait. And when the elevator cab’s airlocks opened, the lines began to move. Orderly and calm and slow. Like Earth people going to a show. Only this show was a deadly carnival of destruction. Harvey had no doubt about the murderous ambitions of these evil beasts. What the parasite inside Broders said next only put an exclamation point on the end of a very long, very lurid sentence.

“You see?” it laughed as the elevator cab, now filled to capacity, began its long and speedy ascent up the incredibly thin yet durable nanofilament tether. “You failed, human! You failed just like the rest of your insignificant race will fail. Weak. Stupid. A waste of resources and a polluted stain in the galactic gene pool. This proves it. Your utter failure proves to me your worthlessness. And proves to me you and every one of your kind need to DIE!”

In the thing’s hand, Harvey caught a brief glint of something metal. A kinetic wrench. It swung the tool behind its shoulder, winding up for a broad, swift stroke, straight down onto Harvey’s chest.

Then the parasitical monster paused. Harvey, with clenched eyes, opened them quickly while reacting with a terrified start to a tremendous rupture from up high. The source of the clamor was unmistakable. The tether, with a violent eruption, severed abruptly two thirds of the way up, recoiling like a rubber band. Suddenly, with no support, the cab stopped climbing and hung in space for a moment, weightless. Then the collapsing tether fell in silent slow-motion, bringing the cab and its passengers with it.

Almost simultaneously, the orbital station erupted in a fiery mass of orange and yellow and red. Harvey shielded his face from the blinding explosions, one after the other, until the orbital station was invisible behind a flaming sheet of violence.

The destruction spread to the superfreighter docked to the orbiter, manifesting firstly in flickering hull lights. Small explosions led to larger and larger ones. Soon the ship was engulfed as well, resulting in a brilliant display of omnipotence. Something had done this. A wayward comet? A malfunction in the space elevator? None of those explanations seemed feasible. Then, as he surveyed the night sky once again, he saw the reason.

Beyond the points of light, the shimmering shadows and dancing spacecraft, even larger than the superfreighters, looming like a giant azure planet in the horizon, was a ship unlike anything Harvey had ever dreamed of, let alone seen. No words could describe the size with any sufficiency or certainty. It eclipsed all of the other ships by such wide margin it was laughable to make any comparisons at all.

The change in scenery was unmistakable, and when the monster inside Broders saw the mammoth spacecraft, it lifted both fists to the sky and released a primal scream. Harvey couldn’t understand a word of it. He could guess, though.

The Guardians had heard the emergency beacon after all. True to their word, they had come to ensure those conniving, nasty beings known as the Unspeakable Ones didn’t spread their miserable hatred.

Suddenly another gigantic superfreighter went up in flames, from a power source that, though invisible, originated from the Guardians’ ineffably large vessel. It pulsed with a cerulean glow preceding the explosion, and did again before yet another transport ship ruptured into a roiling mass of flames.

The Broders host body spun quickly, destruction raging above it in a fiery halo. In its vacant and detestable stare, Harvey saw plainly a hatred so complete, so profound, it superseded even the furious and one-sided celestial war overhead. Explosion after explosion, the gigantic ship flashed a deep, rich blue, and, one after the next, the armada dwindled. Smaller ships swirled frantically, engaging in a dogfight with the much, much larger vessel. They parried and dodged, sending rapid and sustained gamma bursts. Heavy weaponry. Some of the most destructive known to mankind. One of those missiles could take out an entire megalopolis on Earth. Here, against the mighty Guardians, they were one hundred percent ineffectual.

And, as this terrible yet magnificent war raged, the monster inside Broders, in a last ditch effort, turned his wrath on Harvey.

“You did this!” it lurched at Harvey, and, in midstride, something caught his feet. Harvey heard a subtle, rippling whistle. It was the tether, recoiling violently. The long, silky band of nanothread was an innocuous and stunning landmark while attached to the orbiter. Now, released from its anchor, it had become a deadly serpent, razor sharp and lightning fast. The parasite controlling Broders dropped to its knees, fog shrouding its visor. Harvey couldn’t see the fear in its eyes, though he heard it scream when, like a whip, the tether snapped in a semicircle, releasing its fury on the host body’s neck.

It happened so fast, Harvey almost didn’t see it. He had to shake his thoughts straight and go over it in his mind in order to even begin processing it. His sight traveled to the ground, where a helmet rolled to a standstill. Such force in that thin ribbon. It had taken Broders’s head off cleanly.

Harvey found himself transfixed on the helmet. He couldn’t look away from the face inside. The menacing grimace, frozen in time, a contorted caricature of a human being. A sad and ugly deception. This wasn’t Broders. He was a good man. This was a monster wearing the costume of the dead, pretending to be something it never could. Harvey watched the last gasps for air, the desperate gesticulations of speech, the final throes of death.

In the night sky, he saw another kind of death throe. A war of gigantic proportions waged between a race of beings in conventional craft and another race, higher beings, with quite unconventional technology. In reality, what Harvey was witnessing couldn’t be classified as a war. He couldn’t classify it as a slaughter, either, since the ones being destroyed, systematically and succinctly, were the ones who deserved to die. It was a righteous culling. A necessary evil.

The indescribably large blue obelisk had full command of the heavens, and was exerting its will effortlessly. For the first time in what seemed an eternity, Harvey sensed something in his gut, a feeling as foreign to him as that hideous language of the Unspeakable Ones. He felt hope.

Then, just like that, his one shred of optimism devolved to desperation when an explosion rocked the ground. Only this detonation didn’t take place hundreds of kilometers in space. This one happened only a few meters away. The space elevator cab had crashed down, and the tether rounded back to its source, following the path of least resistance straight to its anchor. In doing so, its frayed, whipping end slammed into the power coupling, causing an instantaneous and catastrophic flare-up.

The explosion acted upon the thin atmosphere quickly, an abrupt and all-encompassing ball of bright yellowish orange. Gaseous fusion erupting in all directions. An omniscient omnivore, swallowing the very landscape to satisfy its ravenous carnal cravings. Harvey, standing now, was one of those unfortunate souls on the menu for this flaming, searing sphere of unconstrained energy. He had no time for humanly responses. Just a thought—Lea. He dreamed of her in a better place, and, with his last wish, the only wish he’d ever wished, he asked that her soul be released again.

He wished Lea was free.