Advent, Chapter 6-New Threat
Chapter 6: New Threat
8:09 AM, seven minutes after deployment of global extermination pathogen
Standing in the command center for the next twenty-four hours did not seem very pleasing to me, so at the request of Ecanius, I was granted a "tour" of sorts through the ship. Very happy and pleased at my curiosity, Ecanius obliged, claiming that he also felt it was boring, that somebody else could do his job, and that being around S'Thkra wasn't all that fun. I could have sworn those two commanders were brothers, constantly contradicting each other. This time, instead of going out a left tunnel, we ventured towards the most rightward one.
The first stop was the materials processing unit. Apparently, they created water by fusing hydrogen molecules and an oxygen molecule, which were obtained randomly by waste particles. All other forms of waste were dehydrated for the remaining water that was left, rearranging the atoms into the necessary forms, and using that in a fusion reactor onboard the ship, powering the ship with plenty of surplus available. Ecanius claimed that only one out of every thirty atomic particles was wasted in the entire process, making the need for refueling sparse. No conservation, no rationing, no restraint of any kind was needed to keep the ship in prime condition.
Food was another matter. While water was constantly needed for refueling the body's supply of fluids, food had a much lesser matter in the picture of Saurian survival in the space colonies. By taking high-density supplements of essential minerals and amino acid combinations once every week, the average saurian could go for two months without any food at all.
"We've spent our lives onboard this ship thinking that we have been helping the humans, the race we thought we were giving a chance that we never had. But nay, they abuse the most valuable thing in their possession, their own home, environment, community, their own damn planet! I have yearned for raw meat for one hundred million years, and for what? For humanity? Not anymore. We were so foolish, but now we will have our retribution for the untimely mistake we made in our past." Ecanius said.
"Do you plan on feasting on human flesh?" I inquired.
"If it does not offend you, I wish to speak freely on my own behalf, if it would not disturb you of course?"
"Go ahead, Commander," I replied.
"Yes, I would feast on human flesh for weeks on end. But so many viruses they have, pathogens of sorts like that, very nasty. Luckily, with the data you obtained, we have a cure for each and every one. No disease cannot be cured by Saurian technology, you know," Ecanius said, a glint of anger yet ironic happiness in his brutally reptilian eyes.
"Good. Man flesh deserves no burial, no coffin to separate it from what it came from. They shall become exactly what their civilization amounts to: excrement, decaying and sinking back into the soil where they came from," I said with the same amount of anger in my voice. Ecanius gave me a peculiar look. I realized I was practically offering myself as food in some sort of perverse offering, or leastwise, that's probably what Ecanius saw of it. Oh, he probably understood my meaning. I was only quarter human after all.
We passed the materials processing area, proceeding onto some sort of high-security area, quit dangerous because of the biohazard suit Ecanius had to don. I was fine with my built-in shield, as level seven or higher would block any particle bigger than three microns along with radiation shielding. Just to be safe, I turned it up to eight. Ahead, there was a hallway with a glass pane on either side, which looked through to some lab of sorts.
"This is the laboratory where the global exterminator virus we are employing was created," Ecanius explained. "And that's all well and good, but what's up ahead is much more interesting." He took his three-fingered hand, extended the fourth and fifth fingers of the side of his hand, and pressed them against a graphic interface on the wall. "But please, don't tell S'Thkra about this, or you'll really see his bad side."
"I hope we're not breaking any laws, commander?" I asked.
"Oh no, yet S'Thkra's need for a slow and steady education of the Saurian race for you more than exceeds his temper, if you know what I mean," Ecanius replied. "He'd have my hide."
"Mum's the word," I said.
"What?"
"Never mind. Please continue, Commander."
"As you wish," the door opened, Ecanius having that same look about him as when I brought up the issue of manflesh, "but be careful about what you speak of to the rest of the crew as well."
Inside, we were on a catwalk that went from one side of the football stadium-size room. Only ten feet off the ground of the room, I had a good vantage of what was going on in here. Some sort of experimentation with animals no doubt, probably genetic or nano-enhancement most likely. The size of the tanks on either side ranged from five to fifty feet in length, most of them containing some sort of specimen, and though I could not distinguish it with my own eyes, I hoped that they were all without motion.
"This is the research core of our ship. And while most of the experiments involve live specimens, it allows us to observe many other things than just animals," Ecanius said in a professional manner. He led me to a particular part on the catwalk, parallel to a gargantuan tank, occupied by the most enormous dinosaur I've ever seen in my life. By my own interpretation, it was an ancient dinosaur, raptor-like in appearance, but I was unsure of the name by which it was called in Saurian. "This specimen here is the result of years of recombinant genetic technology, and from what we have been able to trace from our own genes, it is what we looked like four-hundred million years ago. Of course, we put in a bigger brain, more efficient structure, and a better language system than the original. At first, we were planning on using it as an enforcer weapon against the humans, but opted to use the global exterminator pathogen instead, as it was discovered but a month later. Nonetheless, we continue our prowess in genetic enhancement by keeping our technology up to par. Perhaps it will come into useful employ later." He waved his claws at it, as if casually dismissing it as ridiculous in incredulous, and began walking again, while I continued to gawk at the monstrosity.
"Which one? The technology or the creature?" I queried as I caught up with him.
"Hmm...Maybe both?" Ecanius gave a dry, saurian laugh.
We continued our way through the research core observing numerous specimens, some of them fearfully viscous, and some that resembled terrestrial animals that I knew from textbooks. The prospect of having them being used against the humans was an interesting idea. Tearing apart flesh, ripping the guilty humans limb from limb, it would make quite a spectacle for my regard.
FWOOOOMMMMHAAAMMMM. An explosion ripped across the complex, taking out a quarter of the football field-size wall. The daylight was exposed among the smoldering remains that lay on the ground. An alarm began to sound, calling troops to fall in to the complex from everywhere. When I got to my feet and collected myself, I saw the hundred soldiers firing their rifles at something lingering outside the gaping hole in the wall. Apparently, it had gone away, as now the soldiers were strapping the rifles onto their backs again. Yet apparently the fight was not yet over, as each and every one of them shot out into the sky like a bullet, probably using the same technology I possess to fly.
"After him! Now! Kill him! Don't bring him back here unless he's dead!" Ecanius screamed at the top of his lungs. Then to me, "Get to the bridge, now!" Get out of here!"
Though dazed and confused, I wanted to see what all the commotion was. Getting to my feet, I spread the force wave over my body, and my body shot off like a rocket, right out of the hull. I had seen the forces go right, so I redirected my course in that direction. They were about a mile ahead of me, as my ultra-powerful vision told me, and were traveling at a much slower velocity than what I was capable of flying at. ThuhFOOOOM, the air parted all around me as I broke the sound barrier. There was much less oxygen in these reaches in the atmosphere, and I strained to breathe, which brought the fear to me that I wouldn't be able to catch up with the skirmish.
After thirty seconds or so, I caught up with the others. "What's going on? Who was that?" I inquired.
"Bogey dead ahead, closing in on target." Didn't answer my question, but it was good enough for me. I bolted ahead, approaching Mach 8.
A distinct orange sphere of exhaust was ahead of me, bolting around like a spastic animal of sorts. In my sights, I filtered it out. It was....... S'Thkra! No, not only him, there was another, a human! What the hell was a human doing, flying in the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere? Wonders never ceased that day. The two were fighting in a brawl of epic proportions. The orange contrail suddenly flew down to the ground, while S'Thkra stayed where he was, suspended in midair.
I followed the contrail, but it was difficult to catch up with, going at least as fast as I was going at my maximum output. The wind peeled back my face even through my shield, permeating my nostrils with thin air that burned my sinuses and made my eardrums pop. Regardless, I continued to rocket towards the ground in pursuit of the renegade human. Eventually, though the thought escaped my mind, I would have to hit ground., and as soon as it came into view, I began to slow my pace. The orange contrail continued to plummet at the same rate as ever.
I had to stop, being only about a thousand feet above the ground. Hovering in midair, I watched the contrail disappear from sight into the crowded jungle terrain below. I knew not which continent I was above, but it was obviously an equatorial region, tropical by the temperature and jungle by its apparent biome. My ears were listening for some sort of loud crash when the human hit the ground, but ten seconds of waiting for it to no avail, I decided to investigate. With steadiness, I descended down to the rainforest.
Obviously the human had detected my presence while he was fighting with S'Thkra, and decided to bolt for it, probably too scared of the prospect of fighting two soldiers head-on. How a human managed to obtain this kind of technology, I did not know, but one thing was apparent: he had something against the saurians. What human wouldn't? Within a matter of twenty four hours from now, eighty percent of humanity would be eliminated.
My feet touched down in a clearing in the jungle. That alone was suspicious enough: a clearing, in a rainforest. One that was miles away from any civilization and perfect for taking off and landing at will and with ease. Footsteps were behind me. At the very moment I turned around, a sharp pain hit me in my thigh: a tranquilizer. It must have been enough to take down an elephant, for I was on the ground in a matter of seconds. The only glimpse of my attacker that I got was his boots coming up to my head right before I passed out.