Con-Red: Recourse

CON-RED:

Re
course

By Max Feinstein

Contents

Prologue

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

Epilogue

The gravity lift decelerated rapidly
, causing his already uneasy stomach to drop, as it reached the surface level. A lone figure wearing a steel gray tunic stood in the middle of the empty lift.  He nervously chewed his lip while his eyes never wavered from watching the level indicator slow to a crawl.  Each second of the ascent had been spent trying to avoid looking at the bronzed polished lift doors directly in front of him. The shame of what he was doing ate him up from within, causing him to shun his own reflection.  What he was now doing went against all the rules put in place, as well as his personal character, and there was no way out.

His heart pounded
inside his chest as the upward momentum ceased and the display reached “SL”.  Taking a deep breath to try and calm his nerves, the man tightened his fingers around the grips attached to the large floating crate in front of him.  Finally his eyes moved to the doors holding him within the lift. His tortured subconscious waited for them to open and Odyssia security to sweep in with his arrest warrant.  Quickly he gazed over the reflection of the logo embroidered on his chest, but what used to bring him pride only consumed him with anger and embarrassment now.  There used to be a time when the ‘RS’ within the upside down diamond stood for something. 
I guess that time has long passed
, thought the person in a moment of reflection.  After this job his contract with the company was considered over and he would be free to do as he wished.

After what seemed like a lifetime the doors parted open and the only thing to come after him was the relentless orange red sunlight.  Even the tinted habitation dome couldn’t keep the intense brightness from the planet’s twin suns completely
at bay.  As the light reached his eyes, two lenses automatically slid over them from both of his temples, stopping at the side of his nose, and dimmed just enough to take the discomfort away.  He stood there motionless for just a few more seconds before taking a step out of the lift and pushed the metallic crate ahead of him.

Nervously he looked to either side of the walkway on which he now stood, feeling the gravity lift close behind him and plummet back into the depth of the planet.  There were very few people on this level during this time of day and none of those even looked in his direction. 
Taking another deep breath he forced himself to move on in order to finish the job as quickly as possible.  He tried his best to keep looking up and his face as neutral as possible.  No one could know what he was doing.

His eyes scanned the horizon in front slowly taking in the reddish brown color of the ruins that stretched as far as the eye could see. 
These ruins had once made up the center of a great city.  A city constructed millennia ago, by a civilization that seemed to have died off around the same time the city was destroyed.  They knew it had been destroyed because aerial revealed in center of said city was a massive blast crater.  A type of crater that all humans had grown familiar with since similar ones had existed on tens of planets throughout the Federation many years ago, during a civil war that had slaughtered millions upon millions of people. 

It wasn’t just this single population center either.  Every large city found on the entire planet featured simila
r looking impact sites surrounded by destroyed buildings leaning away from the blast zones.  This discovery brought goose bumps to every person that witnessed it, reminding all of the nuclear doomsday scenarios they had all studied in Earth History class during school, none of which came true.  This dead planet, with its atmosphere almost completely depleted, reminded all of what could have happened to Earth had people not opted for world unity instead of perpetual conflict.

As hard as he tried, however,
the man could not help but look down at the transparent floor underneath his feet.  It appeared to simply float a story above the alien planet surface.  Several archeologists moved below him in bluish protective suits, carefully excavating deeper into the packed soil on what appeared to be a previous road.  Dozens of specially designed archeological robots were also down below, helping to clear away and test as much of the dirt as possible.  On either side of this work site were tops of building, which ground penetrating scans revealed to be equivalent of skyscrapers, with most having a height of around three hundred meters.  It appeared that over thousands of years, the superstorms that raged across the planet had entombed all the cities beneath mountains of earth.  This earth was now being carefully removed to expose the hidden archeological treasures of an alien civilization.

A soft humming sound broke the man’s thoughts and caused him to quickly look up as he continued to walk.  Following the sound, it led his eyes to a one of the two dozen platforms attached to the sides of the walkway.  These allowed for quick access to the surface below since the main gravity lift bypassed it.  A lone figure, clad in blue ascended slowly and reached up to touch the side of its neck just as the platform locked into the place.
  The helmet covering the figure’s head quickly parted to the sides at the front before retracted back towards the back of the person’s head, revealing a young man with long blond hair.

“Hey...Ash…that you man??”  The other man called ou
t with a wave and started to jog over happily.

Ashland Nikawara tried his best to not look in the direction of the voice and to simply keep moving towards his objection, but it was to no avail.  The other had already seen him and Ashland knew he would never let him just proceed without at least some small talk.

“Yeah, that is you!” The other exclaimed with a smile as he ground to a stop right beside Ashland.  “Where you been Ashy boy?  I haven’t seen you up here in forever.  You aren’t going subterranean on me, are you?”

Ash felt the man slap his back in a friendly manner and gripped the crate a little harder, while pretending to stay calm.  He let out a forced laugh and looked at the young happy man standing beside him.  Deep inside Ashland wished he could be as happy and carefree, but those days were long past for him.

Instead he simple mimicked a smile.  “They let me out for good behavior Graze.  Seems like you guys are making some progress on the surface here.”

“Oh man, you don’t even know.  Find of a lifetime, buddy, this whole planet is.  Can you believe it, an entire alien civilization similar to our own? 
Shame about what happened to them though.”  Graze or Grazier Tralwin shook his head slowly as he turned towards the ruins lying all around them.  “Anything new on your end?” he added while pointing his thumb down at the ground.

“Same as up here Graze, just excavating more buildings.  We might have found what could be called apartment blocks though.  Nothing de
finitive, though, but some rooms seem to have furniture or at least what some of us believe is their equivalent.”  Ashland confided in the man while trying to suppress as much nervousness as possible.

“That’s awesome! Makes sense too, I mean from our perspective.  This was a large city, it would only be logical that they would have living quart
ers inside it, right?” he paused and looked around somewhat cautiously before leaning in closer.  “Find any alien bodies in those apartments?”

Ash almost jumped at that question.  Every fiber of him wanted to just run away without answering the other, but he couldn’t.  Instead he swallowed hard, his fingers twitching a bit as he shook his head slowly.

“No bodies, sorry.  We, uhh, think they might have all gotten out before the city was destroyed.  I mean they must have had early warning systems, right?  They seem advanced enough.”

Grazer stood back straight and ran his hand over his stubble covered chin before nodding slowly, almost as if to himself.  “Yeah… yeah… I can buy that.  We still haven’t really gotten to street level, so there could be more evidence down there.”

“I bet you there is.  With all these cities, this planet must have housed a sizable population.  Given enough time we’ll find out what they looked like and who they were as a people.”  Ash looked back Grazer with a forced smile just as the man’s eyes gazed down at the hovering container.  “It was great catching up with you Graze, but I really must be going.”

“Of course, understood.”  Grazer
laughed and tapped the crate with his hand. “What’s in the box?  You got me all curious here.  Secret mission?”

“No…of course not.  They didn’t tell me what it was, just ordered me to take to the docks and load it.  Probably nothing though, you know how the military is.  They don’t want to
tell a civy anything,” Ash let out a fake laugh and start to walk again slowly, pushing the crate along.  “Why don’t we get some dinner later when I’m done with this?  We can catch up.”

“Sure thing Ash.  I’ll be in my quarters, just come get me.  Good luck with your mission
,” he laughed and mimed quotes around mission when he said it.  With a friendly shake of the head Grazer turned away from Ashland and continued down towards the gravity lift, letting Ash continue towards the ship dock.

The docks were located at the edge of the habitation complex and at the end of the suspended corridor.  So as not to contaminate the planet, the entire dock was built to float above the ruined city just like the transparent walkway.  It was also encased in its own protective dome for safety reasons, which opened to allow ships to land and depart without disrupting life within the nearby habitat.  The rate at which the archeological complex was expending, it wouldn’t be would be long before the docks would have to be moved
.

Ashland had bigger things to worry about, than the expansion of the dig site, at the moment.  With a deep breathe he closed his eyes only for a second and pushed his way through the security doors and onto the dock.  The dock platform was a large semicircle with eight docking berths of different sizes.  When Ash opened his eyes he saw that entire area was empty of any vessel except for a small transport sitting in the very center.  The silence and absence inside this place made him pause for a moment and thoughts about turning around cropped up inside his active mind.  It didn’t help that the ship sitting almost directly in front of him was a dark gray unmarked vessel with two large armed figures standing in front of it.  These figures, clad in mostly green body armor, stood
motionless on either side of a lowered forward ramp.

Pulling himself together, Ashland nodded at the two guards and started to make his way towards the front of the ship and the ramp.  His instructions didn’t say anything about whom to give the package to, but he didn’t have to worry about that long.  As he approached the vessel a lone figure appeared at the top of the ramp and descended gracefully with hands behind her back.  She reached the platform just as Ashland came to a stop and smiled softly at him as she reached out to run her hand over the top of the crate
that floated between them.  He wasn’t a military man, but even Ashland had a feeling that something was not completely right with this person.  Her hair seemed to be not of regulation length and her gray uniform was devoid of any identification markings.

“Mr
. Nikawara, so good to meet you,” she said as she looked directly at Ashland, her beautiful facial features not able to hide the coldness behind her hazel eyes.  “I see that you came through for us.  Everything is as it should be, correct?

The uniformed woman asked even as her hand moved to the side of the case and punched in a code.  At her command the top of the crate turned transparent allowing her to confirm that very fact for herself.

“Of course.  I did everything that was asked of me.  Not that I agree with it,” Ashland stated the last part in his last effect of defiance.

The woman simply laughed and triggered the container to turn back into its metallic sheen again at the top before looking towards Ashland.  She slowly moved towards him and ran her hand through his hair slowly, almost seductively while looking into his eyes.

“Oh I’m sure you don’t.  You may never fully understand or agree, but we do this for the safety of the Federation,” as she spoke the last part her lips turned into a grin and her hand ran down over his chest before flicking it casually and driving him back two steps.  “It’s something you civilians never seem to understand and take for granted.”

Ashland’s hand shot across his chest in self-defense, but it was already too late. “Now wait a minute!”

Before he could finish his thought the woman quickly spun around on her heel, long hair twirling around her, before she walked back up the ramp quickly.  Ashland stood amazed at what had transpired as the two large guards stepped forward and surrounded the crate.  They each took a side handle and pushed the container all the way up the ship’s ramp, disappearing into the darkness inside before the ramp slowly retracted.  He didn’t even react as the ship rose into the air and the large airlock above them all slide open.  Lucky for Ashland the atmospheric containment shield was on inside or the opening of the airlock would have killed him in a most unpleasant way. 

For the next week and half, while waiting for a transport to come pick him up, Ashland tried to not think about what he had done
.  He would have left earlier, but unfortunately it took almost two weeks for ships to get to the system even from the very edge of Federation Space.  During the day he acted perfectly fine, going about his work as usual, but at night he started to experience new dreams.  Dreams that felt more real than any others he had even seen before.  Each night the dreams would get more and more vivid.  They always started off the same way, with Ashland packing the metallic crate and ended in dark nightmare where the base experiences a complete power loss.  Inside this darkness he felt disoriented and started to hear voices all around him.  Scary guttural sounds that frightened him to his primitive core and ones that seemed to come in a pattern almost like sayings.  In the dreams he would wonder through the darkness, trying his best to escape the voices, but without luck.  Suddenly the sounds would ceases and there would be momentary silence before screams filled his ears.  These were screams of people he could recognize, screams of pain and agony that would cause him to wake up abruptly from his sleep state.