Thirty-four - Judas Hole 1 - Hallowed Earth

Justinian awoke with a start, but he did not open his eyes. His mind was trying to capture the last moments of a dream, a familiar dream, one he had experienced before, but one he could not remember. Thoughts lingered in his mind, glimpses of something beautiful, something beyond his imaginings.

Perspiration masked Justinian’s face as he concentrated sharply on holding on to that dream, but already it was slipping away. He could feel the sweat on him; he could smell it. It disgusted him. Years upon years he had faced any number of moments, dangerous and deadly, but never had he sweated like this before. Never had he been so affected by something – and it was something he could not even name. Disgustedly wiping the sweat from his face with his sleeves, Justinian opened his eyes.

Reaching into his top pocket, Justinian pulled out a mirror. It was his little ritual. Holding it up he examined his face. Youthful in appearance, even if the shallow growth of facial hair hid it a little. Nodding slightly, he admitted to himself that he looked fine… with one exception, the eyes.

No bags were evident, but the eyes told of the true years that he had borne out during his life, all the untold years that he had been away. Every time Justinian had awoken from the long sleep he had examined his face. Years of suspended animation had kept him young, his body as fit as ever, but his mind had become wearied. Around twenty years was the total waking time he had enjoyed, spread liberally across the last two thousand years.

Abruptly Justinian put the mirror back into his pocket, suddenly aware that he was not alone in this moment of self-reflection. Fear gripped him momentarily. Had she noticed, he wondered, had Vicars noticed? Justinian drew a breath and looked across to her, relief filling him as he realised that she was still submerged deep in the long sleep.

Scanning the Prowler, Justinian could see that the autopilot had kept them on track during their journey; they were now only one hour away from the Foxes Lair. Their journey began some sixteen hours ago when they had come planet side, here on the planet Erebus.

Erebus was an interesting place for a forward base for the Earthinian Empire. Much of its surface was regularly afflicted by raging storms that no craft could penetrate. A few foolhardy spacers had attempted it in the past, but no one had ever found anything left of those who had made such attempts. Several pockets of calm existed where one could safely land. The Earthinian Defence Force had long ago decided to build a base here, below the storms, hidden in the ground. It was the perfect place to hide and monitor the comings and goings of the larger galaxy. An empty galaxy, they thought, but one could never be too sure.

Great tunnels had been excavated back then, leading from the few safe landing places upon the planet’s surface, down into the subterranean base known as the Foxes Lair. It had been just under two thousand years since Justinian had last traveled this way. Ahead of them there were another hundred years remaining to reach Earth, but that didn’t seem to matter anymore. They had made it back to civilization! People would be here, different people, people who could tell him what had happened to his home during the vast time that he had been gone. At the time of departure, back when the mission had started, he had not cared about leaving. Everything that meant anything had already been taken away from him and he had craved a new start. He had left on an adventure that had filled several lifetimes. Yet, here he was again now, at the end of it all, a smile upon his face with home nearing. All they had learned in the far reaches of the universe was ready to be presented to the humankind they had left behind all those years ago.

Vicars stirred from her sleep and Justinian automatically looked her over, as he was prone to do. Her sensuously curved body lay nestled in the spacious padding of the Prowler’s sleeper unit, her breasts lifting gently as she took in a deep breath. Justinian looked away, forward, down the tunnel, guilty of his thoughts, angry that he had allowed himself to lapse, again. Weakness could not be an option, not even so close to home. They had been warned, for all they knew the dangers could be greater here than what they had faced in space. They had been gone for two thousand years - who could honestly tell how they might be received.

“Hello,” Vicars spoke jokingly, “been up all night again?”

“No, I ah… drifted off as well. Very boring trip.”

“How long before we get there, sir?” spoke Vicars as she stretched out. Justinian caught himself before his glimpse became a stare.

“Just an hour now,” responded Justinian, fiddling with buttons and knobs on the Prowler’s control bank in an attempt to look busy, even though they both knew that everything was automated. “You’d better do a radio check and wake everyone else in the convoy up. We need to make sure the whole team is ready for anything when we get to the Lair.”

“Yes, sir.”

Justinian thought that Vicars had always been way too cheery, but supposed that it couldn’t be helped. She had been born on the Diomedes and like so many others that had been born during the mission, she did not have a full grasp of any kind of reality beyond the Diomedes itself. She had been infused with the true joy of an adventurer’s heart, seeking out the secrets of the universe. Justinian didn’t hate the ship born, the truth was that he envied them. He wished he could be as enthused as they were, but his heart, as he saw it, carried far too many sins. This journey was less about discovery and more about repentance for him.

***

The convoy of Prowlers made the journey in half the time that Justinian had estimated upon awakening. Once Vicars had confirmed that all convoy crew were awake and combat ready he had engaged the turbo chargers to cover the final distance more quickly. The men and women in his command had followed his actions and altogether fifty-eight of the sixty Prowlers had arrived together, two having had to stop on the way to facilitate repairs. Stopping just before the great entry doors, Justinian attempted to hail the base across all frequencies. The truth was that this was the hundredth time, or so it seemed, he had attempted to do so in the last half hour. The tunnel itself was laced with antennas; hundreds of thousands of kilometers of cable connected these with the base. Justinian had said nothing to the people under his command about the radio silence, as he did not wish to burden them with the same thoughts he had been having. Perhaps they were no longer welcome.

Vicars looked toward Justinian with a ‘what now’ expression questioning his silence. Justinian turned away and flicked on his intercom to broadcast to the rest of the convoy.

“Prepare to disembark with full kit. Second platoon is to stay on guard with the Prowlers, all other convoy members prepare to move out.”

“Colonel Green, are you sure about second platoon needing to stay?” came a voice over a private channel direct to Justinian. “I don’t see any danger with us leaving the vehicles behind.”

Justinian was not annoyed; the voice belonged to Lieutenant Egan, one of his best officers. Switching a key, Justinian responded to Egan’s request over his own private frequency.

“Lieutenant Egan, I understand that you and your men want to enter the Lair, but our first priority has to be to safeguard our return to the Pegasus, without which we would not be able to return to the Diomedes. Lieutenant Spiars is guarding the Pegasus – your platoon will be guarding the Prowlers. We leave nothing to chance.”

“I understand, sir,” came the short reply.

Egan and Spiars, along with Vicars, were his most trusted subordinates. Unfortunately, as much as he would have preferred the help of both Egan and Spiars in entering the Lair, the convoy’s return to the Diomedes was paramount, regardless of whatever welcome they received here.

“Airs good sir, we won’t need our respirators,” Vicars announced while checking readings.

So young, thought Justinian. Yes, of course it would be better to not have to carry around their respirators, but who knew what could happen. “We leave nothing to chance,” he thought to himself, “especially not with the end in sight.”

“Full kit Lieutenant,” he responded.

“Yes sir,” came the immediate reply.

Justinian understood how Vicars felt. She was young, she wanted to experience whatever was going to happen with her hair loose and the wind brushing her face. If war had taught Justinian anything though, it was that a dying man was desperate, but a dying man with salvation in arm’s reach was deadliest of all.

Justinian pulled the hood of his body suit over his head, so only his face could be seen. The respirator was a light device, with built in reserves of compressed air for several hours and the ability to recycle air after that if required. The respirator attached to a compartment within his body armour, which sat on top of the body suit. Attached to it was a mask, which connected to the lower part of his face, covering the nose and mouth. Justinian breathed in the air and gagged. It had been a while since he had used the breathing apparatus and it would take some time for the bad taste to be cycled out. Justinian then reached for his helmet. It was a simple looking device, designed to sit on a head and cover everything that the respirator did not. Two simple eye slits enabled a wearer to see. Inside the helmet was another matter though, with cameras and a mini central processing unit registering threats and targets quicker than any human eye could see, dispensing information about anything and everything onto the liquid crystal display that was in the left eye slit. Information with every breath.

Justinian looked across at Vicars; she was ready to go as well now. Opening their respective doors they stepped out of the Prowler. Outside they could see its guns bristling like the tusks of an elephant, the only animal that could possibly be compared to the Prowler because of its sheer size. Reaching into a compartment, Justinian pulled out a bandolier, which went around his waist. As he did that his hand brushed across his holster and for a moment he fingered his sidearm. Reaching into the compartment again, Justinian extracted for his weapon pack, a simple enough item which attached to his back. It held his heavy assault weapon, but also housed a further protrusion – rocket jets that he could maneuver with his helmet via funnels at the base of the pack - it gave its wearer the ability to make short flights.

With all of his kit now on, Justinian checked that the rest of his arsenal was still functional. With a twist of his thumb, two blades protruded from his right gauntlet, and with a twist of the other he let off a charge, that fired a line from the other gauntlet. Retracting the line, Justinian checked that his blaster was still at his side. That blaster was the only thing he had which indicated he had even existed before his journey on the Diomedes. Why he should risk it he didn’t know, but there it was, clipped to his side as always. If only the thing could talk, it would be able to speak of all he had done.

Looking up at the Prowler, Justinian noticed, not for the first time, that its black finish reflected no light, just like his own uniform. The only colour on him was the silver chrome of his sidearm. All the troops about him were adorned in much the same gear, but small differences could be noted by the trained eye. Some carried heavier weapons, others lighter. Between them all, they could meet any challenge.

“Assuming we ever find a challenge we need to meet,” Justinian thought. He could not help but dwell on the fact that all the training they had undergone had thus far been for naught. The universe was, so far as their expedition had been able to ascertain, empty of all intelligent life apart from those of the Earthinian Empire. It was reassuring in some ways, chilling in others. They were alone, a team trained to meet any alien force that could be imagined, with nothing to do but jump at their own shadows.

Justinian pumped a sensor on his palm pad, relaying a digital command to each member of his troop, a message understood plainly by all as the signal to move out. In unison they marched forward silently, alert and attentive, keeping to a standard approach formation, an arrow head shape that pointed directly at the Foxes Lair. Justinian was at the head of the arrow march, the point that would pierce the doors of the silent base. The march took the troop three hours. They could have landed closer, but without a welcome signal it was standard procedure to leave the Prowlers a safe distance away, and Justinian was not going to let go of procedure. Not now, not when he was so close to home again. He could not afford to get sloppy. He was not willing to die a stupid death. Too many had been lost to something as simple as not checking a valve line to a recycle helmet. In the great unknown of space, procedure was all that allowed them to survive, a rigorous routine punctuated by periods of dream that lasted longer than humans were supposed to live. Justinian tried not to dwell upon it as they made their way across the plain toward the entry doors of the Foxes Lair.

There was more than one entrance to the base, but Justinian had chosen the service bay doors to the western part of the complex. It was the largest of the doorways, built to accommodate ships and vehicles. From within the bay itself, they would have a lot of room to maneuver, an important consideration should they come to be forced into a battle. Justinian was already planning strategies for such a contingency, having downloaded a map of that area of the base from online files back aboard the Prowler. He broadcast the layouts and strategic information to the rest of the troop with his own notations and proposed battle scenarios illustrated in brief diagrammatic form.

The doors towered above them as Justinian reached the entry coder that activated the opening mechanism. The coder was intact and functional, as he had expected. With the advent of sleeper technology the long-term time scale of human activity had been fully integrated into Earthinian invention. Everything was built to last, as long as forever, whenever that might be. Justinian entered the mathematical algorithms that detailed who they were, where they had come from, how long they had been away and where they were going to go next. A lot of information that could have been dangerous in enemy hands, but there was no other way to instigate peaceful communication with the base systems. In a fraction of a second the computer assimilated the data and opened the doors.

Due to their immense size, it took the doors twenty minutes to open fully, and then all they revealed was the first docking chamber, a vast cathedral like space, pure white and utterly empty. With a sense of foreboding Justinian motioned his troop inside, communicating their progress all the while through an open channel that fed back to the Prowler. He found himself wondering if this was procedure, or paranoia, then activated the entry doors to close behind them. The slow motion movement of the doors afforded them a long last glimpse of the Prowlers, sitting like dark sentinels. When they were finally cut off from view all was silent. All was still.

Slowly the chamber was depressurized. Justinian quelled the urge to remove his helmet. Full kit was procedure, until they knew what they were facing. The next set of doors slid open before them revealing nothing but darkness on the other side.

“I’m getting no life readings whatsoever sir,” Vicars murmured across the radio link. Of course he knew that already, her findings conveyed in a data read out even as she processed the information, but he recognized the need to communicate in words, if only to allay doubts and fears through reassuring communication. He often forgot that the ship born had never experienced actual combat, only the simulation dramas. Vicars was unlike him in that regard. He found himself touching his blaster involuntarily, wondering now if he pitied her or envied her.

“Readings can be blocked Vicars,” he replied. “We proceed with caution until we are certain nothing living remains here.”

“Sir,” Vicars replied. As one the troop switched on their infrared sensors and marched on through the inner bay doors.

The hangar they found themselves in was enormous, built to house ships, ground vehicles, building equipment and even some of the larger forms of weaponry that the base had stockpiled for its constant vigil upon the silent quarters of space. The last time they had passed this way it had been full to bursting and bustling with an endless array of personnel. Now it was empty. Utterly empty. Unsure what to think Justinian led the way forward across the hangar, every sense alert.

“Standard sweep,” he muttered through the intercom, “search pattern 79A. Cover as much ground as possible, keep com-links open at all times.”

Again, he didn’t need to state the orders in words. Everyone knew what he or she was doing and when to do it, but a tactile sense of connection was important in maintaining composure, moral and discipline. The troop split like a puddle with a rock dropped in it, droplets moving swiftly in opposite directions, swarming out into the base. Justinian led Vicars and Sergeant Conrad into the main hangar tunnel. While the rest of the base was systematically searched by the troops they would make their way straight to the center. Straight to Command.

There was an eerie sense of silence in the air, a timeless quality that seemed emphasized by the good order of the base. Everything there functioned perfectly, nothing looked worn or old. The atmosphere was such that dust did not form, thus no signs of time having passed were apparent at all. It might have been yesterday that they were last here, rather than two thousand years ago. The only difference was that the place was utterly empty now. Whatever had happened, it hadn’t happened suddenly. There was no sign of disaster or chaos. It was as though everything had been neatly tidied up, finished off and packed away. Justinian could not fathom why though. Surely the base had known when they were due to return. Surely some provision had been made for them.

As he made his way into the Command Center his hopes of finding out anything evaporated completely. The instrument banks were gone. The data storage systems were gone. All systems apart from those basic ones that maintained atmosphere, light and door functions had simply been removed. With a sigh Justinian informed his troops to switch off their infrared and activated the base lighting systems. That done, he simply stopped moving. There was nothing more to do. Nothing here to see.

“Sir, I think you’d better look at this.” It was Conrad’s voice. Slowly, Justinian turned in his direction. The object Conrad pointed at was pushed into the furthest corner of the room, missed by them in the darkness, only noticed now in the stark illumination of the lights. “What is it sir?” Conrad asked. Justinian chose not to reply immediately, leaning in for a closer look.

It was a slow-time capsule, like those that were employed to preserve the sleepers during the long jumps between the stars. But here it had been shaped like a cylinder and mounted on a display stand of chromium. Inside the cylinder two objects were suspended, like flies in amber, protected from the ravages of time. There was no way to tell how long they had been in there, perhaps as long as the troops had been away. Perhaps even longer. The objects floating on display were organic, a human hand and the paw of some beast. The two were grasped together in some parodic representation of a handshake. A symbol of interspecies brotherhood defying time in a forgotten corner of an empty base.

“Sir?” It was Vicars now, prompting him for an answer. “Sir, do you know what it is?”

“Of course, Vicars,” he replied. “Remember your first contact scenarios on universal languages. Mathematics. And art.”

“Art sir?” Conrad seemed confused.

“A method of communication that crosses language barriers,” Justinian replied. “At least in theory. It still assumes that aesthetics between alien species will carry enough similarity to make communication possible.”

“I know the theory sir,” Vicars responded, “but why would this… artwork be the only thing left on base. And more to the point, if there is a symbolic message being conveyed within the subtext of the structure, what does it mean?”

Justinian stood up and moved away from the piece. He had done his job, followed procedure. There was nothing left now to do or say.

“Not my department,” came his reply. “We’re going to have to wake the Captain.”

***

Justinian stood nervously as he waited for the Captain to arrive at the landing platform attached to the command center of the Foxes Lair. In the seventeen hours that he and his men had occupied the Lair they had found no sign of life. With the ample time provided to them in the wait for the Captain to arrive, he had ordered a search so thorough that no doubts would remain.

The wind howled on the platform, as air was pushed past him with the arrival of the Captain in his personal craft, a heavily modified Prowler. Justinian had never felt quite comfortable with the Captain. Captain Thaddeus Sherman had begun his professional life as one of the most prolific and gifted men of science the world had ever seen. In the Unification Wars he had also proven to be a brilliant military leader. Justinian could never reconcile the two facets of the Captain, brilliant scientist, savage warrior.

The Diomedes had been his brainchild, his reward for service beyond the call of duty. Upon the Diomedes, his sharp and calculating mind could see through any problem, a quick command from him enough to dispel any thought that your opinion mattered. Justinian now thought about how little contact he had actually had with the Captain. Across the years that he had never seen him, his presence had still been felt, his authority ever unquestioned.

Justinian stood proud and alert as the doors of the Prowler opened; men dressed in similar equipment to his own swept out from the Prowler, twelve in total. The difference with them and his own convoy was that they were clad in crimson and a plume decorated their helmets, along with a flowing cloak across their weapon packs.

The Captain leapt onto the platform, clasping Justinian’s shoulder.

“Jus, don’t be perturbed by the situation here,” said the Captain with immediate firm authority, before making his way forward into the Command Centre. Justinian followed and stood to the side of the Captain, watching as he sat at the Commander’s console for the Centre. Within moments he had gained access to the network core of the base, systems that had lain dormant for who knew how long.

“We attempted to get everything up before you arrived sir, but with no success,” Justinian explained.

“Yes, only I have the command codes for this base, but now with the systems up we can find out what happened here,” responded the Captain, swinging his chair about to face Justinian as he spoke. “I designed this base - no man alive would have been able to access its core apart from me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did your people find anything?

“Apart from the artwork we reported? No sir, not a thing, the base seems to be just as it would have been on the day it was first completed,” answered Justinian.

The Captain turned to the console before him and punched in some more codes before again turning to Justinian.

“This base has a secret device, a recorder. No one knew about it. With all the technology that it took to build this place, it was easy to hide it amongst the rest of the functioning apparatus.”

“Very good sir.”

“I’ve opened the passage to get to it, but unfortunately that has activated the traps that I also designed to keep it safe. Take yourself and two of your best officers and get me the Liquid Storage Vial.”

“Certainly sir.”

“I’ll download all the information you need as you move down there.”

“Yes sir.” Justinian hesitated a moment before continuing. “Sir, about those traps, will I be getting the details on them ahead of us moving in?”

“Impossible to do, they are random and ever evolving, you will have to play it by ear.”

“Very good sir,” Justinian saluted, waiting for the Captain’s own salute before moving off. All he wanted now was to return to Earth, to see his home. The very thought of risking his life for some information that he assumed they could get on Earth with a lot less struggle, seemed like an unnecessary gamble. In the back of his mind though, Justinian knew why the Captain wanted the base recording, and that knowledge steadied his resolve. The Earth may not be anything like what he remembered. Retrieving the base recording was the first and only link available to them here that might explain what they could be facing on their homeward journey. He only wondered what that might be…