False Invasion Page 5

  “My guess is that they used a tool to reach down into this gap and pull it upward,” Blake said. “Does anyone have anything that might serve as a hook or something along those lines?”

  The Vrasten looked at each other, but their clothing was relatively simple, and none of them carried any tools at all. The only other tool Blake had was a lockpick, but that would not serve as any kind of crowbar. It probably would not take much in the way of force to lift it either. He considered what he had on and came up with a longshot.

  “All right,” Blake said taking off his gray overcoat, “my coat has these buttons, so I’m going to slip the side of it down there and try to hook one of the buttons on the bottom of the wall. It’s about as long a shot as I’ve ever taken, but I can’t see that we have much else. Someone push the middle of the panel, so I have a gap.”

  Orest pushed on the middle of the panel which bent it outward slightly. It was just enough to slide the button side of his overcoat into the gap. He saw the endmost button pass the bottom of the wall.

  “Ok, let go,” Blake said, and Orest released the wall. Blake pulled up gently on his coat, and the button caught on the bottom of the wall panel. “So far, so good. I’m going to try and pull straight up on this. You all push up on the sides mostly to give it a little more push, but be ready for it to break loose. If we’re lucky, this will be quiet.”

  Blake pulled up on his coat that had hooked the panel while the Voraster pushed up on its sides. After a moment of this, the panel gave way in its grooves and slipped upwards with a loud ka-chunk that felt like it shook the entire building. It hit with such force that Blake lost his balance, and his coat flew out of the gap in the floor. He looked at the button side of his coat and sighed.

  “Ah, it sheared off my bottom button,” Blake said. “That’s disappointing.”

  The Voraster gently placed the wall back in its grooves and sat back down just as the door opened and two guards charged in with weapons trained on the group. Blake had sat back up with his coat on his lap, and all of them looked fairly relaxed as they looked on their watchers. Captain Keller walked in behind them and stared at the Voraster and Blake.

  “Someone is going to tell me what that was,” Keller said.

  “We heard it too,” Blake said. “It came from that way.” Blake thumbed in the direction of the corner where the panel barely hung on the wall. “I thought it was outside maybe.”

  “It came from in here,” Keller said. “What happened?”

  “What could we have possibly done in here?” Blake asked. “We heard the noise you’re talking about obviously. It was deafening, but we don’t know what caused it.”

  Keller walked across the room and grabbed Blake by the shirt, lifting him off the floor. The guards never dropped their weapons keeping them trained on the Voraster as Keller slammed Blake against the wall.

  “You think you’re clever, don’t you?” Keller asked. “I’m going to enjoy watching you die, you pathetic waste of space.”

  “I can see you’re a great motivator,” Blake said.

  Keller pushed him forcibly against the wall. He bounced off of it and fell to the floor. The Voraster looked at him as he fell, but did not move. He was grateful they remained still. He was afraid that if they had reacted in any way, they would be killed by trigger-happy guards. Blake moved very slowly to his elbows to look back up at them.

  “Give me a reason,” Keller said. No one moved. It was a moment that seemed to last forever before Keller finally left the room again followed by the guards who backed out never taking their eyes from their prisoners. The door swished closed behind them.

  Blake relaxed and groaned in pain. He had been hiding it from Keller since he did not want any action from him to be taken the wrong way, but that hit against the wall really knocked the air out of him more than he cared to admit. He was just grateful that Keller did not slam him against the wall they had loosened. That would have brought their stay to an end pretty quickly.

  “You do seem to take a lot of hits,” Drizdal said. “One might think you enjoy it.”

  “Yeah, I seem to have all the right words today,” Blake replied. “We’ll give them a couple of minutes to settle down before we very gently slip behind that panel. I say we all do it together and replace it, so they don’t have any way of immediately knowing how we got out. I’m sure they’ll figure it out since they built the place, but I’d hate to make it obvious.”

  They let ten minutes pass before Blake checked his scanner for activity. The guards had moved away from the door again, and activity outside had lessened even further. The time had come for them to move. Although the panel was lightweight, Faraliv took one side while Rallafin took the other to balance it, and Orest set himself on the bottom so the three of them could gently lift and control it without any question of it touching any part of the room.

  Blake, Tarlen, and Drizdal all passed into a narrow hall between the back of the room and the outside wall. Faraliv and Rallafin held the panel while Orest crossed into the corridor, and then they carried the panel back to its original location where Orest held the bottom while the other two readjusted themselves along its sides. Together, they placed the panel back into its original position with the teeth dropping soundlessly into the grooves.

  As soon as the panel was in place, the hall grew dark. The only light source bled between the cracks of the room where they had been. Blake reached into his pocket and drew out a small flashlight which illuminated the area well enough. The end of the hall had a ladder which only led to the top of the room. He hoped that since there was a ladder there, there might be something atop the room that would lead them to some kind of exit.

  As quietly as possible, they snuck along the hall to the ladder with Blake leading the way. He grasped the dusty rungs of the ladder, and endeavoring to make as little noise as possible, he climbed up. Halfway to the top, he paused. There was a soft noise coming from on top of the room as if someone were up there.

  Blake looked back to Tarlen who whispered, “I hear it too.” He looked back to the top, knowing it was too late to turn back now. Whatever was up there needed to be faced, since there was no way they would be willing to go back to the room. He reached the top of the ladder and looked to a metal walkway that spanned the top of the chamber leading to another ladder that went to the roof.

  However, when he looked across the walkway, someone was standing there, waiting for him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  While Michelle and Perry waited in the home of the Longs for night to fall, Horace gave them an overview of where their culture stood at the moment due to their unusual circumstances. Power was still a rare commodity for them since while they had people who knew how these things worked, and they had records on how to build power structures, they needed to create materials to do it. It was one thing to be able to create something, but when you possessed none of the raw materials to do it, it becomes more difficult. This was compounded by the fact that since they had no communication with Earth, they could not request materials or assistance in creating their new society.

  At present, power was coming from power generators salvaged from the original ship, and only the major buildings in town had power along with the Terraformer site. They were hesitant to use this energy source to power very many structures since they wanted to ensure it lasted until they could sort out how to get power on this new world. As a result, their world was a mix of ancient and modern customs in an effort to live off their natural resources while looking towards building the advancements that they just did not have the parts for.

  “Or at least, that was the goal of the original colonists,” Horace explained. “At this point, none of the original colonists are alive. There are some second generation ones left who remember the ship, like my mother, but they are aging out as well. I’m third generation and never knew the ship besides the wreck you see out there, and I wasn’t around for the Voraster attack either. By the time you hit Janecia, she has no idea
what these old technologies were. We have records of them, but none of us know anything about them. Some families, like the descendants of the Terraformer scientists, pass on their knowledge to their offspring and teach them everything about maintaining the Terraformer and what it does, but knowledge is lost with every passing generation. At some point, it will be gone entirely, and whatever things existed on Earth won’t be remembered or desired by anyone. We will still have the plans to build these wonders I’ve only heard about, but we won’t know why they were made or why we would need them. We’re heading towards becoming our own people, and probably having to re-solve all the problems Earth has already fixed over the last 5,000 years.

  “About all they care about is getting power, but most of the plans they have require elements that no one has been able to find on this world. Scientists work to analyze what is here to figure out what to do with it. Those buildings, of course, are the most advanced in the world as they salvaged large pieces of the ship to do that research.

  “As for us, we live during the day, and we sleep at night. We farm for most of our food using the stores that were on the ship to do so. The Terraformer seeded most of the plant life on this planet, so it is essentially imported from Earth. Many livestock animals survived the journey, and we let them reproduce for an entire generation before using them for their purpose. We are a very agrarian society. Far more than our ancestors ever were. We may come into our own technologically again at some point, but it will be awhile because we have to figure out what this planet has for us in that regard.”

  “So we can expect very few people at night,” Perry said.

  “Yes,” Horace said. “The festivities were planned to end before sundown so people can get home to do what they do before we lose the light of day.”

  “What about moonlight?” Michelle asked. “Do you have a moon?”

  “Sort of,” Horace said. “I’ve heard about how the moon on Earth illuminated the night like a mini-sun by reflecting the sun’s light at night. It sounds interesting. Our moon is dark. You can see that the sunlight is hitting it at night, but it doesn’t act as a reflector giving us a lot of light. It’s also hard to see at most any time because asteroids also orbit the planet. They reflect nothing, so our nights are very dark. I hope they come up with some kind of light soon. For your purposes, however, it will be an advantage. No one is out at night, and the stars do give us a little light.”

  “How hard is it going to be to get them out?” Perry asked.

  “Well, there are two answers to that,” Horace said. “We can be pretty assured that there will be an increased guard presence, but that is likely only inside the building. There might be some outside, but I can’t see them putting that much effort into it. Honestly, we don’t have much in the way of security issues. The guards around the Terraformer are mostly there to keep curious people out of it. This situation is creating fear more than anything.”

  “I’ll say,” Janecia said, “One of the guards shot one of the Voraster who was dying on the ground.

  “If they were using the weapons from the ship, then it would not have killed him,” Horace said. “One thing I do remember is that the arms we had can only stun. Right, mom?”

  “Right,” Layla said. “My father said that the predecessor to the Unified Planets had forbidden the sale and manufacture of lethal handheld weapons on associate planets eons ago. So unless that ship was run by outlaws (and my father told me differently about them), those are weapons of incapacitation only.”

  “Problem there is that those aging weapons will eventually give out,” Janecia noted. Unless they are remade into an equivalent that can be manufactured here, we may drift back into something more primitive.”

  “Projectile weapons,” Perry said. The Long family all looked amongst themselves and then back to Perry.

  “I don’t think we know what you mean,” Horace said. “All guns fire something.”

  “Yes, but projectile weaponry uses something physical instead of some kind of energy bolt,” Perry said. “You start by throwing rocks, you move on to firing arrows from a bow, and then you pack gunpowder into a cylinder and fire a tiny piece of metal with or without a point.”

  “That does sound familiar,” Layla said.

  “I should hope so unless you don’t know any history,” Perry said. “Humans did that for thousands of years before a single energy bolt was fired.”

  “So after the security concern,” Michelle said bringing them back to the topic of rescue, “What else is there?”

  “Well, the only room we have that is remotely secure is in the town hall,” Horace said. “We took an entire room off the ship and intended it to be a small museum of our voyage. I believe it lasted only a couple of years before we needed to lock someone up for a short time. The only room available that could hold anyone was that one. The museum was moved elsewhere, and the room is used as a jail. It’s been that way for decades.”

  “Is it impenetrable?” Michelle asked.

  “It’s actually remarkably insecure if you know how it works,” Horace said. “I was part of the team that moved the room and installed it during the construction of the town hall. It was an afterthought to the building design, so it didn’t fit very well. There is a gap between one of the walls of the room and the outside wall of the building. We said it was left open for maintenance, but it was really left there because it didn’t fit what they wanted. It was also taller than the first floor so just built a catwalk over top of it with some roof access. You know, for the maintenance.

  “Turns out that worked out in our favor since crawling around the outside of the structure actually did make maintenance on it easier, so good for us. The point is that you can get in from the roof and get them out via those panels. The room is completely enclosed from all sides, so if you’re quiet, no one will know what happened.”

  “What about the guards checking on them?” Perry asked.

  “No one will give them a second thought in there until the festival is over,” Horace said. “If they get fed and watered, they could count themselves lucky. The hate for the Voraster runs deep, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they just sealed up the door to let them rot. It would work in our favor to be sure.”

  “Guards on the roof?” Michelle asked.

  “Maybe,” Horace said. “They know there is an exit up there, so that could be a problem. You have to be vigilant when you’re there.”

  “You’re not coming?” Michelle asked

  “No,” Horace said. “Running through town and climbing on roofs is quite beyond me at this point. Janecia can get you there, and you all can figure out how to get in from there. It’s straightforward. Can’t miss it. But before you go, I suggest dinner.”

  Over dinner, Perry and Michelle told them about the world they had come from before space travel or energy weapons. Like they had been in awe over the future, their hosts were equally in awe over the past since it was 3,500 years before their time. Even though they were only separated by twenty years, Michelle’s tales of what was to come were as fascinating to Perry as his stories about things before her time were to her.

  The lighting of candles to provide some nighttime illumination told them that it was time to go, and upon walking out the front door, they saw first hand what the darkness of this world was. Only the stars overhead afforded any kind of illumination, while their moon rested as a small, deep red crescent reflecting very little of the sun’s light beyond indicating its presence in their sky. They could see in the distance the illumination of the city giving them a firm beacon to follow.

  “Stay out of sight,” Horace said. “Visit your mother when you get a chance. You can’t spend all your time out here.”

  “I will,” Janecia said. “Maybe when we’re done.”

  “Sounds good,” Horace said hugging her. “I believe in you. Make us proud.”

  “I will,” Janecia said. “I love you, grandpa.”

  “I love you too,” Horace replied. Janecia
released and hugged her grandmothers as well telling them the same before joining back up with Michelle and Perry.

  “Thank you for all your help,” Michelle said.

  “Yes, we can’t tell you how much we appreciate it,” Perry said.

  “You’re welcome,” Horace said. “Take care out there.”

  Janecia led them out of the neighborhood back toward the center of Domus and their target. She took a long way around the back of the buildings in an effort to approach the town hall from the least conspicuous route. Michelle decided she had another question as they walked.

  “Are you on good terms with your mother?” Michelle asked.

  “Why do you ask?” Janecia replied.

  “Because your grandfather told you to visit her,” Michelle said. “People don’t usually say that unless someone isn’t doing it.”

  “It’s not my mother that I won’t visit,” Janecia said. “We’re fine. It’s my father I can’t get past.”

  “Is she still married to him?” Michelle asked.

  “Of course,” Janecia said. “Neither one would have it any other way, but he has his opinions, and I have mine. My mother tries to ride the line between us, but for what it’s worth, she agrees with me.”

  “I see,” Michelle said. “So what does your father do here?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it for the moment,” Janecia said. “Let’s just focus on what we need to get done.”

  Michelle agreed, and they made their way down the streets toward the town hall area. The lights around the central part of the city were brilliant, and it was evident why they could be seen from so far away. The area was like an oasis of sunlight in the sea of darkness surrounded it, but there was no way they could reach the wall of the town hall without being seen if anyone happened to be looking.

  After a visual scan of the area, however, no one was watching. It was empty. Not only could they see no one in any window or walking the area, but there were also no lights visible other than those illuminating the square. Another thing that stood out was that there was no sound at all. It was dead silent.