Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1) (27 page)

“Well, before it was a need to know basis, now it is common knowledge, before the Hakorians showed up these complexes existed, in case we ever went to war with the other nations we would have an escape route.”

“I see, a fallout bunker, which would survive nuclear war. No one ever thought that I would need to know that?”

“They knew that you didn’t need to know, with all due respect Sir, you are just a Lieutenant Colonel. Your rank didn’t have clearance to that particular level of classified information.”

“Well, in all hindsight even if I did know about it, it wouldn’t have made a difference.”

Major Foxx interrupts our conversation, “LZ is in sight, prepare for landing procedure.”

I look out the window again, this time however the scenery is quite different, I wasn’t paying attention before because of my conversation with the Sargent. What surrounds the ship is a factory yard, at least from what I can tell.

I peer out the window.

One of the buildings that’s crammed in between two other buildings begins to split open, revealing a very large tube like tunnel that leads straight down.

“How far underground are we going?” I look up through the top viewport as we begin our decent into the abyss. All outside light quickly vanishes, as if swallowed up by some black monster.

“A kilometer, roughly. At that depth we’re capable of withstanding almost any assault. Plus, those blast doors that just opened up for us, they’re a dozen meters thick.”

“Wow, you guys really don’t mess around.”

“When survival is at stake we take all the necessary precautions.”

The ride down feels like an elevator, a very long and dark elevator which lasts several minutes.

“Are we there yet?”

“Almost Sir, closing in on nine hundred meters.”

“I thought you said it was a kilometer?”

“I said it was roughly a kilometer.”

I look down through the viewport; ground approaches quickly, “uh, you might want to slow this tub down.”

“It’s on auto pilot Sir, nothing to worry about.”

Light ahead makes me look up, a bright tunnel leads straight ahead. Very small figures stand in the path of the ship. I look at them; they’re either very brave or very stupid for being in the way of a large ship such as this.

The landing gear emerges from the bottom of the ship, there’s a grating sound as metal rubs against metal.

“Is it supposed to make that sound?”

“We must have taken a hit to our underbelly as we were making our escape.”

The landing gear however seems to work fine still, there’s a small bump as the ship gently kisses the bottom of the tunnel.

“Alright gentlemen, let’s move out,” Major Foxx says, undoing her safety straps.

I unclip the restraints that are holding me to the chair; they pop open with a click. I stand up and head towards the cockpit hatch. I’m right behind Major Foxx; it’s the easiest way out of the ship, following someone who knows the layout better than you. I walked past the boarding ramp a few times in the time I’d spent wandering around the ship. However it hadn’t quite been burned into my memory.

I reach the boarding ramp, lights illuminate the exit; the ramp hisses open. White light from outside the ship blinds me as the ramp lowers. I hold my hand up in front of my face to stop most of the light; three people wait at the end of the ramp.

“Colonel, it’s good to see you. We were beginning to wonder if they would have just killed you,” the man in the middle says.

I look closer at him; it looks like it’s General Weber.

“Is that you General?” I ask him.

“Indeed it is son, we thought we lost you. If it weren’t for my team you would probably be a prisoner still, or dead,” he replies.

“Yeah, probably. I have no way of expressing how appreciative I am for you sending a team to pull me out.”

“Well, you know our policy don’t you? Never leave a man behind. I just regret that it took us as long as it did,” he bows his head.

“You got me out, that’s all that matters.”

I look at the other two that stand on either side of him; one of them looks like a medical officer, that’s the assumption I make by the look of his clothing. The other’s a security guard with a giant assault rifle.

“Do you think you would be able to debrief us immediately?”

“I’m sorry Sir, but I need to see my wife before I do anything else,” there’s no look of shock on the Generals face; he probably expected that I wanted to go to the hospital as soon as I touched the ground.

“Doctor Zanning can lead you,” he gestures to the man in the white suit to his right.

“Thank you Sir, I will notify you when I can debrief.”

“Make it soon though Colonel; we don’t have a lot of time.”

I give the General a quick salute and then turn to the medical officer, “lead the way.”

I feel a hand on my shoulder, I turn towards the person; It’s Major Foxx,“I hope she gets better; tell her to get well from me ok?” Her voice isn’t in ‘military mode’, it’s the voice of a kind and gentle woman.

“Thank you Foxx, I hope she gets better too,” she tries to give me a salute; I however reach out and take her hand; she shakes my hand in return.

 “Sorry about that, lead on,” I say, turning back towards Doctor Zanning.

Zanning nods, “don’t worry about it.”

A door opens up on the side of the tunnel, it’s an elevator door. We step inside, the door dings behind us as it closes.

“Where would you like to go?” A voice says.

“Medical level six,” Zanning says.

“How many levels are in the place?” I ask him.

“There are forty two in this complex. This is our home now, seeing as we can't go above the surface we needed to make this a city, it has everything we need.”

“I see, and how long has this complex been around for?”

“Well, I’m not exactly sure, I think it was built shortly after we landed here.”

That piece of information shocks me, had we really thought that we would go to war as soon as we landed? Would we be fighting over land and destroying each other for pointless purposes? You’d think we would have learned from our mistakes that we made on Earth. Our race is so young, compared to what the Hakorians told me of the other races that inhabited the many stars; humans are like infants in comparison.

“That’s disappointing.”

“Sir?”

“Just to the fact that we are predicting that we need bunkers for war, wars that haven’t even been started yet.”

“Well Sir, if our government didn’t build these bunkers we would all be dead and buried under a kilometer of rubble.”

“Good point.”

The door dings open, revealing white hallways. Medical staff scurry about, along with injured soldiers that are roaming the hallways; the medical staff trying their best to usher them back to their crammed rooms. They’re obviously trying to play the hard soldier; never scared of anything, including loss of blood and blacking out.

Zanning leads me through the hallways; it’s hard to navigate through them, they’re so full with the sick and injured. Zanning had said this was level six, if there’re six levels this full then we’d be hard pressed to survive, especially if more and more people keep flooding in.

“We’ve kept her room private, here she is,” he gestures to a shut door.

“Thank you Doctor,” I pat him on the shoulder.

I swallow hard before I open the door. Part of me wants to race in there and grab hold of her and hug her to death. Another part wants me to never see her in her particular condition.

I slowly open the door; my heart racing as I do so.

Syreena lies there, in the middle of the room is her bed, flowers sit in a vase on the corner of a table, they’re beginning to wilt.

I rush to her side.

The only thing that looks like it’s helping her recovery is a breathing apparatus around her mouth. There’s also a round object connected to her chest, it’s blinking a steady green. I’m assuming that it’s a heart monitor.

My eyes brake out into tears, never before have I felt so helpless, incapable of saving the one person in my life that I love the most. I lower my head over hers and kiss her gently on the forehead.

How could such a thing happen to her? I was supposed to be there for her whenever she needed me. I had spent years searching for ‘the one’ that would make my life complete, eventually I gave up after having no luck. As soon as I stopped looking, she appeared into my life, just like that. Everything from that point on fell into place.

A knock on the door makes me swing my head towards the door. It’s Doctor Zanning.

“Can I help you Doc?”

“I’m just here to inform you of the details, if you want them,” he steps into the room.

“Lay ‘em on me,” I usher him over to take a seat.

“Thanks, but I prefer to stand.”

I nod at him to continue, “what kind of details are we talking about exactly?”

He sighs, “the condition that she is in and how long she has left. She is a strong one, no doubt about that, otherwise she would have died long ago, but the human body can only take so much.”

My heart lights up, “so are you saying that she’ll survive this?”

His head goes down a little and his eyes shut slightly. “No, I’m saying the opposite, as strong as she is she won’t be able to beat it. When we found her in your home, she had three broken ribs, another two were cracked, and luckily, none punctured her lungs. A broken collar bone, an inflamed larynx, an-” he sees the look on my face, “shall I go on?”

“No, just stop, I don’t need to hear anymore. Just tell me she’s gonna make it.”

“I can't do that Sir. We’ve kept her in a medically induced coma so that she would last until you returned. Other than that if we revive her then she would only have a day or so, maybe even hours.”

“What? You are asking me if I should basically make the decision that could end my wife’s life, I can't do that.”

“Well, you are the closest family; you have full rights to decide what happens. Just let one of us know what you want to do,” he starts to walk towards the door.

“Wait,” I grab him by the arm, “it doesn’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Why is she even dying? You said that she just has a lot of broken bones, we’ve been able to mend bones quickly and efficiently.”

“We can't explain it Sir, for some reason we’re just losing her, none of us know why exactly, all that we do know is that we can't do anything about it.”

That doesn’t make any sense at all. How can someone just lose the will to live? If only she could realize that she has something to stay alive for, and fight for, she doesn’t even know that I’m here right now, standing over her.

 “How long can she stay in this state?”

“Well, in the state she is now for at least another half cycle. Now, there are more advanced methods of to prolong her life, but they wouldn’t do anything in this situation.”

“What kind of methods?”

“The only one that would work is cryogenics.”

“You want to put her on ice?”

“That’s not what I said, if however we did go in that direction she could stay like this indefinitely. Reviving her though in this state would result in the same conclusion.”

“What do you mean?”

“She would still be on the verge of dying. If we waited ten years we might have developed new medical technology that could save her, but that’s a large gamble.”

“So you are saying that I could be an old man by the time we could save her?”

“Yes, to develop technology that would help her in this near death situation seems almost impossible at this time. It would need to heal her almost instantly for her to survive.”

I scratch my chin, it’s a lot of new information that would be able save her life one day, but will it be worth it? If I were an old cripple with only a handful of years left it wouldn’t save her, it would be torture to see the one person she loved die just when she got her life back. Unless…unless I go out exploring the galaxy, in search for this City that the Hakorians talked nonstop about. The citizens there might be willing to help save her life, I’m sure that they’ll have some form of technology that can save her from the brink of death.

“If you take her out of the coma and then put her in the cryo thingy what would that do to her?”

“Why would we take her out of the coma? It would be a lot safer for her if she went immediately into cryostatis.”

“Because I want to say goodbye, would you be able to arrange that?”

“I’m sure we could do that for you. So then, do I have your permission to use that technology on her?”

“You have my permission, but let me talk to her first.”

“It will take almost a day to prep the tank. If you wish us to revive her from her coma so you can say your farewell it must be done only minutes before going into the tank.”

“You’re saying that I only have a few minutes to say goodbye?”