Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1) (2 page)

Day 7: Cycle 1: Period 2: Year 2397

M
y eyes snap open. The inside of my nose is filling up with smoke.

 I lunge out of bed and rush through the house, hoping to find the origin of the smoke and put out a fire if necessary. I dash through the hallway and I rush towards the kitchen. It’s the only logical choice for where the fire is coming from.

I swing open the kitchen door.

My eyes water as smoke bombards my eyes. I grope through the smoke towards the emergency air filter; my hand fumbles for the button as I reach the wall. I sigh in relief as I pull it, I watch the smoke vent outside, leaving behind a very dirty Syreena in the middle of the kitchen. She’s batting away at the air with a pan, in an attempt to clear out the air faster.

Her long brown hair is all frizzy from the smoke and the early wake up.

I laugh as I walk up to her, “wow, you really don’t know how to cook do you?” I reach up to her small roundish face; I rub off some of the grime from her cheeks. Her dark green eyes are easier to recognize now that her face is a little bit cleaner.

“Of course I do, I just went into the bathroom, and then the whole electrical outlet spiked, burning everything in the pan. You’d think that this kind of technology wouldn’t do that,” her arms waving over her head angrily.

“Yeah, well, you said ‘technology’, ‘course it won’t work. Technology never works the way people want it to work. At least you’re ok; however you do smell like you’re the one that was in the pan.”

“Yeah, better hop in the shower, guess we never really got around to that last night,” she said, flashing me a grin, “sorry about your shirt, might want to wash it after.”

It was hard at first to notice that she was wearing my T.A.R. Army shirt, all blackened up, it now has a barbeque smell to it.

“Well at least the Phoenix on the front looks more realistic now, being in the ashes and all,” the shirt reads T.A.R. on the front with a Phoenix emerging from the ashes and “Tactical Advanced Recon” on the back, along with Lieutenant Colonel on the right shoulder.

“You know, it’s only our first day of being a married couple and we almost burn the house down. Your uncle would’ve been pissed.”

“Well, I’m not the one that started the grease fire, now am I? You know, it’s a shame that I’m so tall. Otherwise that shirt might actually fit you…” I say, watching her walk away, the shirt just long enough to flow down her curved body to her exposed thighs. I sigh to myself, dragging my eyes away with great difficulty.

I head back towards the kitchen, getting the proper ingredients for a fresh and un-burned meal.

I’m on my way to the cupboard when my earpiece on the kitchen table goes off and starts buzzing away. I walk to the table, inserting the ear bud into my ear.

 “Hello, Woods speaking,” I say.

“Colonel, this is General Anders. You might want to turn on your Holo-Projector and set your frequency to forty nine point three. After you’ve done that you and the entire T.A.R. squad must come down to briefing room six as soon as possible, understood?” The General says curtly through the receiver.

“Understood Sir, Woods out.”

I go to the living room and stand in front of the wall where the Holo-Projector is. “Run frequency forty nine point three,” I say, the lights on the wall signalling the device is coming online. Static noises emanated from the device as the wireless interlink tries to connect to the requested frequency.

An image of a newswoman pops up.

“Hundreds of reports are pouring in from all over Terra of strange objects seen hovering over cities. The military thinks that these are scout ships, seeing as they are the only ones that can be spotted by the naked eye so far. Other reports from deep space communication say that they have been able to track the energy signature of the ships to their origin. They appear to have come from the opposite side of the solar System from a planet that we learned several years ago was uninhabited, stand by while we get more information.”

“Honey, you might want to come and see this,” I yell down the hall.

“Aren’t you a little old for that game? I mean serious-” she stopped in mid-sentence as her eyes drift over to the projector.

“You were saying?”

“The military has just released more information about this unknown world. Roughly twenty years ago the military was sending out manned ships to explore and Document our neighbouring planets found in this solar System,” the News reporter continues.

“How is this possible? This solar system was supposed to be uninhabited,” Syreena says.

“That’s what they told us, not sure if the military was trying to cover anything up or if they are just as startled as we are,” I say.

“The man that was on the flight mission to this planet was Charles Woods. He was the one that took the first mission to the planet, and this is his official report that he filed almost twenty years ago.

‘Woods expedition One, I just touched down. We discovered this planet only a period previous. The colonization of Terra took more time and labor than we originally thought; I guess everyone wanted to relax after being cooped up on that ship for so long. The people decided to enjoy the planet while it is green and natural before we rip up forests and move mountains. Most people had never even seen trees, so the military had decided to give them some slack before we go tearing up the planet. We have to be careful what we do, we don’t need this being another Earth fiasco. Alright, I’m going into the airlock, I’m putting on a protective suit, just in case there’s no breathable atmosphere outside. The readings from orbit said there was though. Still, I’m taking no chances. There, I made touchdown, the gravity is similar to what Terra is, so that won’t be a problem, not much of anything out here. There are many tunnels though leading underground, they must be lava tubes or something. Heat scans show everything underground. Mostly just small pockets of heat, this planet is probably early in its phases. There is definite movement underground. This place is just a big volcano, just waiting to go off at a moment’s notice. Alright, nothing special to see here, better start to head home. Another few days and I’ll be hopefully sitting in a brand new house. I can’t wait to see my little boy. He’s growing up so fast, he’s probably playing outside in the streams, enjoying himself like a normal boy should, not locked up on a ship. Ok, the ship is in sight, just about to activate the airlock. Wait… the movement scanners are showing abnormal amounts of activity just below the surface, better get out of here quick before this whole planet eru-’
the transmission cut out.

“That is all that was recorded from
Woods Expedition One
, the military assumed from that point on the volcanic activity had gone critical, and Charles Woods was never seen or heard from after that last transmission.”

“I was only five years old when that happened, I remember military people coming to the house, I remember my mom crying, and that I’d never see my dad again,” I say, my eyes misting up as I remember the thought that my dad was gone forever.

Syreena says nothing; all she does is walk up to me, throwing her arms around my waist.

“We encourage people to stay indoors while we try to understand why this is happening. Please stay tuned for more updates on the matter, Merissa Wilden out,” the Holo-Projector winks out of existence as the transmission cuts out.

“I’m sorry honey. General Anders called me and my whole squad in for a briefing on this whole matter. I know we should be leaving for our honeymoon soon but maybe after we sort out this whole mess and once we figure out what these objects are we can still do that,” I say, not wanting to leave my wife. I’m a military man, unidentified objects scanning the planet and cities only mean one thing. We both know it. We just don’t want to make the moment harder than it should be.

“Go, I’ll be here when you get back,” she says as she stands up on her tiptoes to kiss me on the lips.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can, I promise,” I say, kissing her again before picking her up and twirling her around. I put as much meaning into that one hug as I ever could, reassuring her that I’m going to be back. Soon.

I walk into the bedroom to put on my clothes -good thing I have extra T.A.R. shirts- I glance into the mirror that’s above the dresser, my dirty blond hair is all messed up from sleeping. I quickly walk into the bathroom and wet my hand under the tap so I can fix my messy hair. Satisfied with the results I grab my gear bag and head down the hallway.

Syreena was waiting for me at the door that leads down to the speeder bay. I look into her face, completely forgetting that I’m in a rush.

Dark green eyes stare back at me sadly.

“I love you, I’ll be back. I promise.”

She says nothing as I give her another long hug. I brush away a single tear off her cheek as I stare back into her eyes and kiss her gently on the forehead before turning away and heading down through the passage to the bay.

I try my best not to look back as I pass through the lower level doors. My need to reassure her gets the best of me though as I look back and give her a warm smile.

I open the door to the Speeder bay, scouting through the speeders in the bay, my eyes find my prize. I walk towards the center of the room, ignoring the other speeders. I stop in front of my Hot Rod Red speeder, opening the side door to jump in the front seat. I scan my thumb print and retina to prove that it’s the right person trying to access the speeder.

“Welcome Mr. Woods. Where can I take you?” It chimes when it finishes scanning my thumb and eye.

“T.A.R. Headquarters please.”

“Accessing mainframe and calculating travel time… two minutes and thirty one seconds, depending on Air Traffic Conditions time may vary.”

“Yes, I understand just go,” I say curtly, that was the best part about this technology, you could be as rude or nice as you could and it wouldn’t care, as long as they didn’t understand your emotions you were fine. I could care less how smart they made technology, just as long as humans remained the dominant of the two. Droids would eventually want to be in control, artificial intelligence was a bad idea altogether. Voice commands on the other hand were completely different, it made life simpler, not necessarily better, just simpler.

My eyes drift to the window plating. I peer through the skylanes and skytowers. We have only been on the Terra for twenty years, and yet we already made it look identical to Earth. Although we did restrict some of the rain forests on this planet to preserve them, as a precaution.

Earths massive rain forests had been destroyed by global warming, places like the rain forests had dried up; other places like the great deserts had been completely blown over by snowstorms, making Earth a giant uninhabitable rock.

Too cold or too dry to even bother trying to live on. Although some people did try. The ride through the stars from planet to planet had taken almost fifty years. In that time we got transmissions from Earth, giving us updates on how well it was improving.

Some people even wanted a vote whether to turn around, but decided against it when the atmosphere gave way and all the air extinguished instantly, along with all the remaining inhabitants.

We will not make the same mistake again with Terra.

My thoughts suddenly shattered when an explosion rocked my speeder into an oncoming lane, reacting as quickly as I could I hit the manual override that would allow me to steer the speeder. I swerve to the right and back into my lane as an oncoming AirBus passes within only meters. I hit hover mode on the speeders interface. I look back out the side window, searching for the cause of the explosion.

My eyes open wide in horror as I watch one of the skytowers collapse under its own weight, the middle of the tower’s been completely blown away from some sort of energy cannon. At least now we know for sure that we’re under attack from those strange objects. If that was the kind of firepower the scout ships have then I didn’t even want to know what kind the larger ships would have.

Two towers had once stood side by side; the one still standing is the Power Skytower, the one that’s falling is a office building that holds several corporations. I peel my eyes off the falling tower, hitting the ‘resume flight’ button on the console interface.

“T.A.R. Headquarters is directly ahead. Have a nice day Mr. Woods,” the computer says as it pulls up to the T.A.R. HQ speeder pad.

I open the door to the speeder and step out into the fierce wind that this planet often has. The wind must be blowing in my direction. I can smell smoke from the tower from here, good thing the HQ and the office tower  are not too close together.

I rush up to the steps of the building, taking four at a time with my long legs.

Opening the doors to the main entrance, I pull out my dog tags from around my neck and show them to the security officer behind the desk. He nods at me, reaches his hand behind the desk, and unlocks the magnetically sealed door, allowing me to pass through.

I continue to hurry through the hallways looking for briefing room BR-6. I finally locate the door and I press my thumb up against the scanning pad.

“Lieutenant Colonel Woods reporting for briefing as ordered.” I say into the wall mic. I hear the door unseal with a hiss as the magnetic locks disengage.