Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1) (28 page)

“Yes, to help prevent any further internal damage.”

It’s a big decision to make, it’ll be worth it though, if all goes well, someday I’ll return with the proper technology to save her. “Let me know when the tank is ready. I’ll say my goodbyes then ok?”

“Of course, we will notify you when the time is ready.”

“Thank you Doc, you can leave now.”

Zanning nods before leaving the room.

I turn back towards Syreena.

It’s the hardest decision that I’ll probably ever have to make. One shouldn’t have that much power over another’s life.

“Syreena, I’ve heard before about patients that are in a coma can still hear subconsciously to events that happen around them. If you can hear me now, know that I love you, and that I will be back soon,” I bend down and kiss her on the lips, more tears stream to life in my eyes as no response follows.

It’s rather disconcerting; even if the person was just in a regular sleep; their body recognizes the action and reacts on a subconscious level.

This however is completely different.

I squeeze her hand gently before getting up and leaving the room, if stay here longer I know that I’ll never leave her side.

****

Day 32: Cycle 3: Period 2: Year 2397

It takes me longer than I thought to find the war room. General Weber contacted me via intercom, ordering me to get up to the briefing room as soon as I could to debrief him on my time spent on the Hakorian ship.

It isn’t the first thing that I want to do after two cycles of being imprisoned, but orders are orders. He’d given me a loophole that I can exploit though, he’d said as soon as I could, so I take my time.

It’s nice being back on solid ground, just walking about and exploring the compound, coming across many things. One of the best locations that I come across is the commissary. I sit there for what feels like hours, gorging myself on fresh food.

After I finish my meal I begin to walk around and try to locate where exactly the briefing room was, somewhere on level 23. I find a lift that has access to the many levels. The lift doors hisses open, revealing the same white interior, the architecture around me makes it feel almost ghostly. I punch in the level that I want to travel to.

My stomach drops at the sudden increase of speed, it feels like I’m going up, it doesn’t seem right though. When I first arrived, we went to level medical level six, so technically I should have been heading down. Unless the levels are divided into specific sections, maybe six levels of each section.

It’s several seconds before the lift doors opens. The corridor is exactly same as the others; this one however is rather crowded as soldiers hurry about, most likely trying to get to a location that’s hard to find, similar to my predicament.

I walk out of the lift, immersing myself into the mob, it’s so packed in the hallway that it’s actually hard to maneuver, my shoulders are constantly rubbing up against someone else’s. A man with a cowboy-like hat is walking in front of me; I tap him on the shoulder. “Excuse me Sir? Is there any chance that you know which room General Weber is in?”

The man spins around; his face looks familiar, as if from a dream a long time ago.

“Jayon?” I say simply, it’s highly unlikely that it’s actually him; there’s a very small chance that the man survived this long.

“Kid? That you? I thought you were dead!” Jayon says, a startled look carved into his facial features.

“I thought so too for a while.”

Jayon rushes up to me and for some reason gives me a large hug, it feels like my internal organs are going pop.

“Take it easy eh? I’m still recovering.”

“Me and Krystil were saddened to hear that you were captured, and about your wife. We both thought you to be dead, what happened?”

“A squad of soldiers came and rescued me. It’s as simple as that, well, I’m sure it was a hard mission to pull off, I blacked out from my injuries shortly after being sprung from my cell,” it’s right then that I remember that I’d been shot; I didn’t even noticed the pain coming from my shoulder until I thought about it. Pain from hunger and pain for my wife completely overrode my thoughts on anything else. Plus being doped up on all the painkillers probably helped me forget about the pain. I know though that I won’t pass out again, I’d most likely just go straight to the infirmary after my debriefing.

“Sounds like an interesting rescue mission,” he scratches his chin as if he’s almost disappointed about not getting a piece of the action.

“Well, rescuing me was only half of the mission.”

Jayon doesn’t look surprised by this piece of information, “I’m assuming that there was a greater benefit to the mission than to save your life?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“Son, I’ve been in this game for a lot longer then you. I know all of the military’s dirty tactics and secrets. Is it classified information by chance?”

“No one has told me that it is classified, either way I’m not sure it would matter at all if it was. The main objective of the mission was to recover the Thopium tanks that were loaded up onto the transport ship that I was on, and if they couldn’t recover them, then they would destroy it.”

“Well, now ain’t that disappointing, I guess they value objects more than human life. That’s why I only trust myself and my co-pilot.”

“I take it Krystil is still doing runs with you?”

“Indeed she is, I guess she just can't stop coming back,” his eyes glance over to my shoulder, “are you injured?”

A sharp burst of pain arcs up my neck as I twist my arm to inspect my shoulder, “yeah, during my escape I was shot from behind, luckily it cauterized the wound when the bolt struck.”

“Well it’s a good thing that you at least wrapped it up, wouldn’t want a wound like that exposed for long without it having properly looked at. If I were you then I would recommend getting that looked at as soon as you could my friend; I’m surprised that you haven’t passed out again already.”

I let out a sharp laugh, “yeah, you’re right. I took several painkillers and dressed the wound several times on the long ride back. It’s nothing to really worry about.”

Jayon lets out a small ‘ahh’ sound.

“Anyways, I need to get back to the hanger floor; we need to make repairs on the
Comet
.”

“Why are you on this floor then? Isn’t the hanger floor basically at the top?” I point up towards the ceiling.

“It is, I just came down here to get my next mission, me and Krystil are flyin’ all over the place.”

“Did you by chance go to General Weber for the briefing?”

“Why yes I did, why? You lookin’ for him?”

“Yeah, that’s actually why I first started talking; I never actually got directions to where he wants me to meet him at.”

“Oh, well I can help you with that,” he gestures to a green stripe that illuminates the ceiling panels, “you see that?”

I nod at him.

“That leads all over this complex, it’s kinda like a map, only more basic. Each new corridor you turn onto will make a green stripe appear. Those lights will add or subtract depending on which corridor you are in. It just lets you know where you are then. All you need to do is follow that and made three lefts and one right, that should lead you directly to the briefing room.”

“Thank you Jayon, for all your help. Oh, and I’m glad to see you, it’s nice to see a familiar face around here. Say hi to Krystil for me.”

“Don’t worry son, I will. Good luck,” he clasps my arm and shakes it. After he turns away from me he easily disappears into the crowd.

I look for the green stripe on the ceiling. It’s an ingenious and simple piece of technology. Seeing as you can barely see the floor because of the crowd the strip on the ceiling seemed the perfect solution to that.

I follow the stripes of light in the pattern that Jayon suggested, it doesn’t take me long to reach my final destination. Unlike the T.A.R. base, the doors have very little security; the door to the briefing room only has a number pad to punch in your personal ID code. I hit the seven buttons in sequence; the pad beeps at me, yet the door remains closed. I try again, this time slower, just to make sure that I hit them all correctly. The outcome is the same.

I bang my fist three times on the metal door, “General? It's Woods; can you open the door?”

Several seconds pass by without a single sound coming from inside.

The door bursts open surprisingly fast, making me jump back with a startled look on my face, “thank you General.” I walk over to the General, he’s standing near the door controls on the other side. I give him a quick salute.

“At ease soldier,” he sits back down at the head of the table. “I guess we never authorized you with new codes, after we declared you MIA your codes were locked out for security purposes.”

“Understandable. I apologize for my tardiness; it was my first obligation to fill my stomach up.”

He chuckled, “that’s quite alright, and I would have done the same. Why don’t you sit down?” He gestures to the chair beside him.

I walk over and sit down in the chair, “I take it you wanted me to come here so that I could debrief you on everything that I learned while I was a prisoner?”

“Precisely, there might be something in your memory that we could use to defend against them. Did you happen to see anything or learn something that they didn’t want to you discover?”

I let out a huge sigh; it’s a rather hard task to ask; making me recall events that happened over the course of two cycles is difficult, “nothing that pops to mind Sir, I do remember them talking about my DNA though. I’m not quite sure why.”

“Do you think that would be of any importance?”

“Not at the moment, it’s not like I have super powers or something, ‘cause I would know about if I did.”

“Maybe it’s something on the molecular level.”

“Maybe, as far as I can tell though they never took blood. No needle marks or nothing.”

“I’ll take your word for it. I’m assuming that they questioned you about us?”

“That’s correct, they asked a lot of questions about the defenses and technology that we have. Of course I told them nothing important and nothing that could compromise the security of this planet.”

“Very good, I’m not sure if anyone else could hold up against torture for as long as you could.”

“Well, you see Sir, they didn’t
really
torture me.”

“What do you mean; they didn’t touch you at all? They just asked you questions?”

“No, they beat me alright, just not as much as someone would usually do. The most I got was a broken nose and some fingers.”

“That’s really odd, they wanted information but they wouldn’t go to the trouble to actually get it?”

“I’m sure they would have Sir, I think I was too valuable to permanently damage in any way.”

“Hmm, interesting; I’m curious, did they ask you anything about your father?”

It’s a very odd assumption to make, but the General made a guess and that guess proved to be right.

“Yes as a matter of fact, how did you know?”

“Well, after you said they were talking about your DNA I was thinking about the only other person to have most of your DNA structure, your father.”

“You’re saying that they were experimenting on him? And that they wanted to do the same to me?”

“I’m not saying anything, I am saying however that your DNA might actually have something in it that the Hakorians want or need. There is no way to tell for sure though.”

I sit back in my chair. It’s definitely a strange coincidence, maybe the General’s right though, and that my father had possessed something in his blood and that it was passed down to me. There’s no way to tell for sure, the best way would be to ask my father, if he were still around. A child’s dream, that’s all that is.

“That’s pretty much it for what they asked me. I did however take the liberty to ask them why they are doing this to Terra. They gave me the same old spiel; they were here to take our Thopium to complete their Stardrive cores.”

“What? We never received that particular piece of intelligence. What are Stardrive cores?”

“Oh, I thought that you had known why they were here.”

“All we knew until now was that they needed Thopium to
reintegrate
themselves into proper society, at least that’s what they said.”

“Yes, they were right; Thopium is still the way to do that. A Stardrive core is basically a power source so that they can operate their engines. Now, if you have multiple Stardrives hooked up to the engine power core then it provides the proper amount of power to open and sustain a Hyperspace window.”

“And they have these then already?”

“I’m not actually sure how many of these cores they have. We would know if they did though.”

“How do you mean?”

“Sir, if they had hyperspace capabilities then we would be dead in the water. It would only take a matter of hours for them to reach us, even from Hakor.”