Year 9027: Planet Castai
The sky burned red like fire and so did his emotions. A lone figure watched from his perch as people scurried to their homes on the streets below-curfew was approaching. Military personnel were stationed in threes on every major path to ensure obedience.
He watched them below, hating them. A security camera’s gears whined as it swiveled on its mount next to him, looking for miscreants. He was almost in view, but not quite.
They weren’t going to see him tonight. He would be a shadow, a nightmare that strikes and is gone before the senses can capture it. Orin would be angry, of course. He had been before, but now Tiet was older, now he was ready.
The Vorn cloning facility stood in view above the far rooftop-that place where monsters are bred. That’s what they used to kill my people.
The next rooftop stood all the way across the wide path below. When no one appeared to be looking, he leaped away from the ledge, somersaulted and landed on the rooftop ledge on the other side of the path. Utilizing the Way had its benefits. He could move objects with his mind or enhance his own movements. He could fight like a whirlwind, or creep upon his enemies like a shadow. He wanted to finally put his training to use. Years ago, his people had been protectors on Castai. If only they hadn’t been massacred. The Vorn would not be their taskmasters now.
Tiet sensed the motion of the cameras and spotted them easily. He waited for them to leave a dead space in their visual field for him then he ran through to the other side of the rooftop. The cloning facility towered above him-the jump to reach it would be too much, even using the Way. The paths had cleared with the onset of curfew. He could run across now. Tiet dropped off of the building, a full two hundred feet to the ground.
While in the air, Tiet noticed a Vorn soldier emerging from a door below. He adjusted his fall slightly and came down right behind the man using his mind to soften his landing. His hand cupped the soldier’s mouth. With a quick jerk of his arm, the man’s neck snapped. He dropped the enemy to the ground as the body went limp. Tiet left him, hoping he would be long gone before anyone discovered the body.
He ran across the empty walkways to the fence on the other side. He jumped over its top with little effort, but another layer of fencing stood on the other side. The sign warned intruders of electrocution. No bother-Using his mind, Tiet helped his muscles propel him over. This is almost too easy, he thought.
On a security panel inside the cloning complex, a warning flashed. Data began to pour onto the screen. The security officer examined the information. Sometimes, small animals triggered the pressure relays located all over the grounds of the complex, but not this time. The weight given at the trigger point registered one hundred and fifty five pounds.
He punched in his security code to activate the silent alarm and brought up scanning and video devices on his display. It took a moment, but then he saw him. A man was entering the building through one of the air vents. The security officer brought up a schematic for the complex and zoomed in on that particular air duct. It traveled through an area of the detention center and then came out near the main laboratory area. “Gotcha!” he crowed.
“Identify.”
“Dr. Ranul K’ore, Chief Science Engineer, Sector Seven.”
“Visual and voice recognition confirmed,” said the robot.
The Sentinel robots were standard fare around the labs with this special project in the works. Metal bodies mingled with composite plastics-they were tough enough to get the job done, just not nearly as sophisticated as what he was working on now. The metal door slid open and Ranul walked past the automaton into the main lab.
Ranul’s nineteen-year-old daughter had been imprisoned along with his wife, Ellai, to pressure him into building war machines for the Vorn. If he refused, he might never see his family again. He tried to push away the pain, turning to continue his work.
He typed the final program sequences on a keypad, arming the weapons systems of his latest Sentinel prototype. As Vorn scientists watched his every move, Ranul finished complex algorithms for the Sentinel’s combat systems then transmitted the files into the cyborg’s expansive memory. A few of Ranul’s engineering specialists mingled among the Vorn scientists running diagnostic checks on the prototype systems.
Ranul had modeled the exterior appearance, from skeletal structure all the way to muscle positions and skin features, after a young Barudii he had known long ago. Looking at the new Sentinel, he realized just how much it did look like his old friend, Orin Vale. Despite the prototype being a weapon under the control of his enemies, Ranul couldn’t help but take pride in his work. He had done what many thought would never work. He had built a robotic warrior nearly as unstoppable as the old Barudii warriors themselves. Still, it would be used for Lucin’s purposes.
As the robot’s CPU began to run through its programming and perform systems diagnostic checks, Ranul watched the Vorn in the room. The enemy scientists all looked very pleased with their new soldier. He wondered for a moment what the consequences of all this would be for his people and his family. He whispered his wife’s name with regret. Ellai, what have I done?
The air duct wasn’t as roomy as Tiet would have liked, but he could still get through. A constant stream of wind passed over him, making it hard to hear what any voices said from the adjoining rooms along the way. He scooted along, hoping he might find something that he could sabotage in order to thwart Vorn control over the city. Rebellion against Lucin and the Vorn would take many people willing to fight, but it had to start somewhere.
Tiet came to a vent screen made of a particularly heavy meshwork. When he looked inside, he saw what appeared to be a holding cell. A small group of adolescents sat on the concrete floor inside. A few younger boys and girls and one older girl about his age made up the group. The only facilities in the room were a small dirty sink basin and a toilet with a blanket hanging across as some semblance of privacy.
The front of the cell was barred with heavier meshwork and a half sized door-which meant they had to get down on their knees to get out-if they were ever allowed to.
Tiet’s scabbard scraped the roof of the duct. It was too difficult to maneuver in the tunnel and get to his blade. Instead, he removed a kemstick from his vest. The hilt was about twelve inches long-three feet long fully extended. The adomen rod hummed gently.
Such were the properties of adomen, an alloy mixing silver with adon and carbite. Its densely packed molecules lived in such an excited state that the metal atomized anything it came into contact with. Only the presence of electromagnetic fields could keep it stable. Honis Kem, a Barudii living over one hundred years ago had developed the kemstick from adomen after working for years to produce the Barudii blades used by warriors of his clan.
Tiet pressed his face against the vent, looking down on the children in the cell. He tapped lightly with the hilt of his weapon on the floor of the air vent. The older girl looked around then up at him. She started when she saw a person behind the vent screen.
“I’m going to get you out,” he whispered. “Is it all clear?”
The girl stared at him, not giving anything away by gesture. The other children in the cell were now looking up to see where the voice was coming from. One young boy started to cry out, but the older girl cupped his mouth quickly to prevent him from alerting the guards.
She gestured only, putting her finger to her mouth to shush the children. Then she quietly walked near the front of the cell and looked down the hall beyond-no one was coming. When she walked back to the other children and gestured to calm them again, she looked up and nodded to him.
Tiet brought the kemstick hilt up in a stabbing fashion and then extended the adomen rod. The shaft punched through the metal around the vent like a hot knife through butter.
He grabbed the mesh plate with his fingers and proceeded to cut around it in a circle large enough to get the older girl through. The metal popped and sizzled as the field destroyed molecular bonds, carving through the wall of the vent pipe until he was done.
Tiet laid the cut piece up ahead of the hole and reached his arms down in order to help the children up.
“We can’t reach,” whispered the older girl.
“Don’t worry.”
Without warning, one of the children began to levitate off the floor. She thought they might scream and gestured for them all to remain quiet-assuring them it was all right.
The child rose up quietly into the hole. Tiet caught hold of each, pulling them inside. He pressed against the side wall just enough to allow them to pass and get behind him.
The girl walked to the front of the cell wanting to be sure no guards were coming-no one yet. Behind her, the children each took their turn, seven in all, and rose up through the charred hole with the help of their mysterious rescuer.
“Come on,” he whispered.
The older girl walked underneath the hole. Invisible hands seized the girl and lifted her up to Tiet waiting to receive her inside the tunnel. He had short dark hair like midnight and dark piercing eyes. When Tiet grabbed her hands, she gauged his strength.
Tiet pulled her inside the air duct and pressed his body back to allow her to pass-she was larger than the young children, making for a tight squeeze.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“Tiet Soone. And you?”
“Mirah K’ore. Are you insane? How did you get in here?”
“Don’t worry, I’m a Barudii warrior,” he said confidently.
She didn’t seem impressed by it. “I didn’t think there were any Barudii left.” She didn’t wait for the reply, scooting her body past him.
She’s sort of feisty, he thought. He also noticed she was pretty beneath the grime of her incarceration.
“What now?” she asked.
“Go back down this shaft and it will lead you to the outside. Take this kemstick,” he said, handing Mirah the retracted weapon. “Run for the fence. This will allow you to cut through and get off the grounds. Just be quiet and stick to the unlit areas. You should be all right. I didn’t see any guards on the way in.”
“Then what?”
“If you can get to a home, maybe they’ll hide you until you can get back to your families.”
“Where are you going?”
“I still have some business to attend to. Now get going.”
The children began their slithering back along the air duct with Mirah behind them. Tiet crawled on over the hole he had made and continued through the duct ahead.
In a moment, a guard appeared in front of the cell. He couldn’t believe what he saw. Where are the prisoners? He grabbed his throat-something unseen choked him. His eyes bugged as he tried to breathe. Orin’s fist tightened in the shadows, watching while the guard struggled and then collapsed-his trachea crushed by an invisible grip.
Orin looked up at the charred hole in the ceiling of the detention cell. Careless, just plain careless and inexperienced, he thought. He sighed and moved on, using the shadows to his advantage. Those children are going to need help to get out of here safely. He would have to deal with his protege soon enough.
Tiet passed more cells as he continued his crawl through the ventilation system of the cloning facility. Every other room appeared to be empty. When he finally reached the end of the shaft, Tiet found it capped by a wire grill.
Beyond the vent screen, he saw a massive room full of all manner of technologies. Clusters of cloning pods hung from great robotic arms mounted to the ceiling. This must be where they grow the Horva.
Only one detail was missing from the chamber. There were no clones, none at all. In fact the entire chamber was completely devoid of activity. A series of large tanks with various chemical names printed on their sides stood in the distant portion of the great room. The fluid tanks were transparent and empty.
A control chamber sat near the tanks. Maybe I can get some useful information from their computers. Tiet pressed his body against the screen and then gave it a good solid push. It gave way and almost fell onto the floor before he could grab it.
Nothing moved in the room. Tiet climbed out of the ventilation tube and replaced the screen in case someone happened by. He crossed the floor of the huge chamber cautiously, looking for camera mounts. There were a few, but he waited and used the large equipment to stay hidden from their field of view.
Tiet made it about halfway to the control chamber when doors at the four corners of the room opened up. Vorn soldiers rushed in with clones. The fiendish, crazed looking men were purposely mutated in size and strength during the cloning process. Their fingers had sharp claws and their teeth were predatory. There was no fear in their eyes. They charged at Tiet, howling savagely.
The lights in the chamber flickered and went out. Emergency lighting immediately kicked in. The soldiers looked around wondering what had happened, but the Horva had no such concerns. They continued to charge.
Tiet pulled his Barudii blade from the electromagnetically shielded scabbard strapped to his back. The adomen blade hummed like a whisper, desiring to shatter the molecular bonds of anything the metal touched. Shots rang out from the soldiers further away, but they weren’t firing at Tiet. He saw another blade catch the light, becoming a blur as the dark figure wielding it swooped in from the ceiling and began taking down the guards. Tiet recognized his mentor immediately.
As the Horva lunged for him, Tiet struck the first in front of him then somersaulted over another attacking from the rear. Two strikes cut the clone down.
The other soldiers, not engaged with Orin, began to fire at everyone: the two Barudii, the Horva and even each other from across the room. It was hard to tell who was fighting who in the half light. More clones rushed Tiet and were cut down by their own panicked handlers-shooting anything that moved. Tiet threw three spicor discs each killing another clone. The discs exploded into three-foot-diameter blue spheres, vaporizing anything caught in the fields. Orin eliminated the soldiers on the other side of the chamber then came to Tiet’s aid.
One of the brutes lost an arm to Tiet’s sword, but continued his attack with the other arm. The bloodthirsty clone landed a fist to his head knocking him to the ground. Orin appeared behind the brute, striking him down immediately.
Orin helped the boy to his feet. Tiet knew by Orin’s expression that he was in big trouble with his mentor. Bodies lay strewn on the floor all around them in the chamber. An alarm began to wail throughout the building.
“You see? This is why I told you never to come here!” Orin shouted.
The middle-aged Barudii warrior stood a head taller than Tiet with a muscular build. His hair held the gray of experience and his face the scars of war.
“I know, but I couldn’t just stand around doing nothing. Our people are dying!” Tiet pleaded.
“Yes, you can. What do you think you’ve accomplished here? You’ve set off alarms. You’re probably being monitored right now. And you might have gotten those children killed, if I hadn’t intercepted them and helped them get off of the premises safely. You’re reckless Tiet. Just plain reckless!”
“It’s still better than doing nothing! Father wouldn’t want me to do nothing!”
“Your father would want you to stay alive…now get out of here, while I buy you some time.”
“Wait, Orin-haven’t you noticed there aren’t any Horva in production here? This chamber didn’t have anything happening.”
“So?”
“So, those tanks over there-they shouldn’t be bone dry, not if they’re still in use.”
Orin looked around to see what he was referring to.
“Maybe they can’t make them right now,” Tiet reasoned. “This might be our chance to rally the people and drive the Vorn out while they’re weak.”
Tiet was right about the clones at least. It appeared as though there had not been any clone production for some time. Orin considered the boy as the alarm continued to blare overhead.
“Please, Orin. We have to at least try.”
“Come on,” Orin grumbled. “I know someone who might be able to help us.”