Chapter 1: Satellite

Nothing. There was nothing to see. No planets, no atmosphere, no sky, just a black hole in nothing speckled with tiny lights that were to far away to matter. He sighed and saw his breath gather on the thick double plated plastic window. Greg looked past his reflection in the window knowing that he was the only person on this block. This wasn't like the satellite station around earth. Not at all.

At least, he thought to himself, I could see the green forests and jungles and the deep blue oceans. Out here there's absolutely nothing. He sighed again and drew a smiley face in the condensation before turning away. He shouldered his weapon again and began to walk his rounds though the space station. As he turned the corner like he did so many times before he thought to himself, why do I even do this? Nothing is ever going to happen here. He passed the research labs and vanished from view around the corner. The corridor was now empty, dark, and cold. In the dark a small and unknown service panel hissed as it slowly opened. A man in a white coat slowly and clumsily stumbled out and cursed himself as well as the air locks. He peered into the darkness hoping he didn't arouse suspicion. He slid the service panel back into place and snuck down the hallway. He turned the corner and nearly fell trying to retreat as the security guard rounded the corner towards him. He pressed his body against the wall and hoped the guard wouldn't find him. He listened to the footsteps as they inched closer and closer. Then there was silence. The guard's shadow was dim but visible in the low light but the weapon's silhouette drove a cold chill down his spine. The weapon clicked loudly as the clip ejected and the click following the loading of a fresh magazine into the rifle almost made him sick to the point of nausea.

"Sector sixty seven patrol to Grid three dispatch. Come in dispatch." The guard said over his radio. The man in the lab coat cursed himself for being so stupid and getting caught so easily. He took a slow breath to calm himself down as he prepared to face the guard. He reached into his lab coat and slowly removed a small silenced pistol.

"Grid three dispatch to Sector sixty seven patrol," The radio crackled back, "Go ahead patrol." Greg slung his weapon over his shoulder muttering to himself. "Finally," he said. "Sector Sixty seven patrol reporting a weapon malfunction. I have a jammed cartridge in my weapon and need it cleared so I can get back to patrol."

"What's the matter, Greg? Forget how to load your weapon in you old age." The dispatcher said. The man in the lab coat sighed heavily and quickly stashed the pistol away in his coat.

"Bite me, Allen. Just open the server and let me fix this so I can get done with this patrol." Greg said. He smirked a little to himself a panel on the floor rose up like a podium. The octagonal tile before the podium glowed a soft green and awaited Greg. He stepped on the pressure sensor tile and the podium's tile top opened like a briefcase, exposing tools and a small platform for Greg's weapon to rest while he fixed it.

"Why in such a hurry, Greg?" Allen the dispatcher radioed back, "You got a date or something?"

"Yeah," he said taking his weapon apart and removing the jammed bullet. "My foot has a date with your ass!"

"Yeah right. I saw your training records. You even lifting your foot above your knee would be a miracle." Allen laughed. Greg shook his head and reassembled his rifle. He stepped off the glowing tile and the podium sank back down into the tiled corridor. He slid back the bolt and clicked on his microphone, "Sector sixty seven patrol to dispatch," Greg said.

"This is Grid three dispatch." Allen said resuming his professional attitude, "Go ahead sector sixty seven patrol."

"Weapon repaired," he said, "Resuming patrol" Greg said walking back down the lonely corridor. "Grid three dispatch copy, Patrol Resumed" Allen said.

Once again the guard slowly walked down the corridor and disappeared. The man in the lab coat slowly turned around the corner he was hiding behind and crept into the hallway. Finally, the last obstacle, he thought to himself as he eyed the solid steel sliding door. He pressed a tile on the wall and it glowed softly. The panel receded and revealed its hidden keypad and fingerprint access pad. The lab coat man slipped his hand into his coat pocket and took a thin rubber glove and gingerly slipped it over his hand. He entered a key code into the digital display and waited.

…Bypass Code Detected. Security cycling disabled…

He held his breath and watched the monitor relay more information.

…Security hazard detected. Alerting central control…

His stomach began to twist into sickening knots as panic slowly crept up into his throat.

…Central Control offline. Security protocol Compromised…

He could feel the bile building. Bubbling to his mouth and he began to dry heave when relief flashed across the screen.

…Begin Maintenance.

He stopped heaving and breathed a sigh of relief as the maintenance code was accepted. The security was down now, temporarily for repair, but they were off. Central command would have no idea that the security was down and this would just be another repair check in the daily logs. The steel door clicked, hissed and then slowly creaked open. His eyes darted around the room. From each corner and from every point he could think of that there might be a camera watching him, waiting to blare their sirens and signal the guard teams to arrest or even kill him. He saw a camera staring right at his face and froze.

Have I been caught already? He thought to himself. He almost grinned to himself when the tiny power light showed no signs of life at all. The camera, like the security and the guard, was already dealt with. He began his mission and rushed from lab table to lab table in the small octagonal room. The dim lights were a problem and he jumped as the door sealed itself and the desk lights flicked to life. Though bright they did little to illuminate the darkness he searched.

He began to curse under his breath as he frantically turned pile after pile of papers over until he found it. Hidden beneath a half eaten ham sandwich and a daily log clipboard was a small recess with a clear plastic cover.

"Just like they told me!" he said with a giddy but quiet excitement, "At the directors desk, recessed into the table top itself under a clear cover." He recited. He opened the plastic cover and pressed a small soft plastic button. It clicked quietly and behind him machinery began to hum and clack with the surge of high voltage power coursing through circuitry. The small glass domes lit up around the central pillar like ritual fires around a central obelisk of some long lost culture.

"Finally," he said, "I can complete my noble work." He slowly walked around the tower, looking intently at the contents of each lighted dome. Floating in seemingly empty space was a tiny pinky sized crystal. He marveled at the electronic artificial field generators he had helped to create and moved on, searching for his target. He chuckled to himself and his situation for a moment in the realization of all that was. On the space station that he and four thousand other people called home was an entire floor with at least two hundred guards at all times circling one section. One room really, and all their labor were to guard some simple, tiny crystals. But, he thought as he searched the obelisk, there was only one he was after.

He rounded the last of the eight sides and found the central dome. It looked like the others but with its subtle differences like its shatter proof glass, tamper proof control panel and independent control and security systems but he knew what to do. He reached into his coat pocket and removed a small silver case. He smiled as he opened it and removed a small silver ring and stretched it over the top of the dome and eyed it until it sat tightly just above the crystal inside the dome. He then took the other ring and closed the case, locking the ring into position on top and placed the ring on the desk of the department director.

The ring began to glow slightly as he activated the device. A bluish glow began to form it's into a ring of its own around the inside of the silver ring until the eye grew smaller and smaller until it vanished, leaving behind a smooth glassy plane of energy. The lab coat man looked to the silver ring around the dome and saw the other ring form the bluish mirror and took a breath before he pressed his fingers into the glassy surface of the energy plane.

The coat he wore was for good reason and not just to blend in. He had lived most of his life in deep space and spent most of his time on theories concerning space and time. His labors were more fruitful than he expected as he reached though and saw his own hand press though the surface of the other mirror. With his hand through the dome with no risk of security breaching he carefully wrapped his hands around the palm length shard of crystal and pulled his had back. He marveled at the crystal in his hands for a moment before closing his life's work.

A wonderful payoff, he thought to himself as he closed down the worm hole and retrieved the portal rings, carefully stowing them in their case and into his pocket. He shut down the obelisk and powered down the lights as he made his way out of the research room. He walked with a sense of accomplishment and invincibility now. After all he had just snuck thought the most highly guarded area of the ship and was on his way to complete his mission. As he headed down the hall, dodging cameras as he went, he hummed lightly to himself. There were no more security guards, no more panicking, just himself alone with a clear path though.

He walked to the elevator doors or freedom as he saw it, and pressed the up button. The doors remained quiet but he could hear the humming of the engines as the cables were reeled in.

One more task and I am finished with this joke of a research station. No more cramped offices, no more forced labor, and no more hatred of my own work. He smiled at his thoughts and regained his focus as the elevator bell rang and slowly opened.

"Hi Greg!" he said with undue enthusiasm as the security guard and himself traded places.

"Hey, Steve" Greg returned. The doors began to close as they both realized something was wrong. Greg spun around and aimed his weapon into the closing elevator and squeezed the trigger.

Allen leaned back in his cheap office chair and sipped his water. He watched the monitors in front of him and sighed. Nothing was going on anywhere in the space station. The technicians had long since retired, patrols were out and about, and they were about to end their shift. Why is time so goddamn slow when the clock is almost up? Allen wondered to himself. He raised his paper cup of water and watched the steam slowly rise up. He smiled at the steam and wondered if life would be easier if he had just stayed on earth as a cop, drinking cups of hot coffee instead of just hot water.

"Why the hell do you drink that?" Allen turned around and smiled at the disgusted face of his only co-worker on the so called 'night' watch. Marcos winced in disgust again as Allen sipped at his hot water again before answering, "They won't let us have caffeine and that means no coffee. This is as close to it as I can get."

"Yeah but you're just a packet away from hot chocolate or something, man." Marcos said, "Anything but hot fucking water, man."

"Does it bother you?" Allen said taking a brave but painful gulp. Marcos waved away the conversation and said, "Dude, just stop before I puke, man. That's just disgusting."

"Maybe but I like it.""Why?" Marcos asked, "What could have possibly lead you to drink hot fucking water instead of hot tea or chocolate like a fucking normal person?"

"Easy," he said, "I don't like tea and I'm a diabetic. So that means no sugar. And since black coffee is out of the question all I have left is…" He paused for a moment to take another drink, "…Hot water."

Marcos shook his head and gave up. "You're fucking weird, man." Allen smirked again and looked to his monitors. Same boring pictures of empty hallways and the gunfight at the elevator doors, Allen thought. He choked for a moment and sprayed water into the air.

"SON OF A BITCH! Call in a condition red! Alert all units on that floor!" Allen said. Marcos automatically began to alert the other patrols and sending notifications to the shift officers.

"Where and what?" Marcos asked.

"Elevator entrance in sector sixty seven. Shots fired!"

"Goddamn it!" Steve yelled clutching his shoulder. The doors finally closed but the metal dented heavily as the bullets collided with the thin steel. He wondered how he could be dumb enough to say hello to a guard trained to kill anyone on that floor without clearance. His arm hurt to much to hold his pistol any more and it clattered to the floor. Breathing deeply, trying to calm himself, he closed his eyes for a moment trying to work through the pain and trying to raise the courage to look at his shoulder. He threw up. The blood flowed freely from the hole the automatic rifle round left running though his arm. He bit down on his lab coat and tore it to shreds and patched up his wound as best he could.

"Goddamn it!" He shouted again. Cursing himself for his failure and stupidity he picked up his silenced pistol once more and tried to hold it in his hand. The wound was too severe for his hand to work and caused him almost too much pain to try and use his gun. He was certain to die if he couldn't use his hand to aim. He picked himself up and slid against the elevator walls until he faced the rear of the elevator with his back to the door. The smears of blood on the walls almost painted a picture of his failure. The splatter marks from the bullet that tore though his shoulder, the spot where he slammed into the wall following the shot and the trail he left sliding along to hide. He smirked a little at the pistol shells that lay in a puddle of blood that pooled on the metal floor. At least I got a few rounds off before he slugged me, he thought. The door dinged and he froze as the door slowly slid open. He checked his pistol and slipped out into the darkness of the hallway leaving a bloody trail. Red security lights emerged from hidden wall panels as he scraped his weakened body across the thick plastic windows to the escape pod chambers reminding him that the price of failure was death from the oncoming patrols.

"How far did that elevator go?" Allen barked. Marcos scrambled with the keys on his keyboard trying to locate the wounded scientist. "It went down three levels and its passenger disembarked. That puts him…Very close to the escape pods."

"Attention all security teams on sector Sixty Four! Unauthorized personnel in your area! Suspect may be heading for escape pods and is to be considered armed and dangerous. Apprehend suspect alive!"

"Cancel that order!" Allen spun his chair around only to be met with the dark green dress jacket of Science Director Nicoli Winston. His cold eyes pierced the darkness of their work stations. Nicoli Winston was a tall and imposing man of both Russian and English descent that seemed to fear nothing and was often pone to episodes of pure rage when his will was not carried though. His muscular physique and raw power often aided his tirades' around the ship and he was even reported to have thrown a trainee who showed too much attitude.

"I said, 'cancel that order' not, 'stare blankly at me,'"" Nicoli growled, "Now get to that damn radio." He said spinning Allen's chair around. "Tell them to terminate on sight."

"Yes, sir" Allen stammered, "All units, all units. Suspect is to be terminated on sight. I repeat, the suspect is to be terminated on sight."

"Sector Sixty Four patrol copy. Terminate on sight." The radio hissed back. Allen watched the monitors with the Director watching over his shoulder, "Allen, isn't it?"

"Yes sir," Allen said.

"I want you to bring up the controls for the emergency escape pods and lock them down. Not one is to leave without my authorization as long as passengers are on board." He said.

"Yes, sir." Allen punched away at his keyboard, opening servers and accessing the release parameters for the escape pods. He shifted the release command from all 'all access' so anyone can use the pods to 'command authorization' meaning that only those with proper clearance like the Science director or the Captain herself could release the pods.

"It's done, sir." Allen said. Nicoli watched as the runaway scientist jumped into the pod and after only a few moments emerged. He scrounged his pockets for what looked like a small hand held device and plugged it into the wall.

"What is he doing?" Nicoli asked. Allen squinted at the screen for a moment, "Marco," he said. "Yeah?"

"See if you can get a zoom on this guy here." Marcos typed away, finding the camera overlooking the pod bay area and took control of the camera and zoomed in closer to the scientist. "It looks like he's trying to trip the entire pod release system." Marcos said typing away, "He's trying to convince the computer that the ship is in immediate danger by lowering the readouts from the life support systems."

"He's trying to escape but why is he not in the pod?" Nicoli thought to himself for a moment and then turned away from the monitors and left the room.

"Where do you think he's going?" Marco asked.

"I don't know but wherever he's going," Allen said turning to his work station, "I wouldn't want to be there."

"You can't stop me!" Steve yelled. His shouts were followed by a hail of automatic fire into the pod bay. The tiny circular room normally served as a gathering place for people to escape the ship in emergency or for some a smoking lounge. But for Steve, the circular room served as a rounded fortress with only one way in and out. He glanced at the hand held computer and cursed at the security defenses as the download bar crept across slowly.

"You will never win!" He shouted again firing off a few more rounds. He ducked back into his hiding spot in the bay and ejected his clip. I couldn't have shot more than three rounds at that guard. And a few more right now at these patrolmen here. How many rounds do I have left? He wanted throw up again. His clip of at least twelve rounds was now as empty as the pods around him. The gunfire suddenly silenced and the hand held monitor finally sounded its alert. He smiled at the monitor as he read its message.

-Download complete-

Nicoli walked briskly down the hallway toward the gunfire that echoed through out the station floor. Patrolmen ran down the hallway past him, saluting as they raced passed. Nicoli returned the salutes he received though they would never see them. As an officer and commander he felt it necessary to provide and example to his men at all times. That meant returning unseen salutes and walking to a gunfight. An officer that ran, he thought, showed a lack of control and discipline. An officer should never run, he thought, makes his men think they can't be trusted to hold out until his arrival. He turned the rounded corner and found a squad of men pressed flat against the wall planning to enter the pod bay. Two other men on the opposite side fired into the room, keeping the assailant at bay.

"Who is the commanding officer here?" Nicoli asked. One man form the group nervously stepped forward. "Fulton," Nicoli said, "What's your first name, Fulton?"

"Greg, sir," He answered.

"What's the situation?" Nicoli asked surveying the scene.

"Well, sir," Greg began, "We've currently contained the suspect in the pod bay area. We also believe he may be trying to escape the station with stolen base property."

Nicoli eyed the patrol officer with an interest as he described the situation but also seemed to have a deeper understanding of it than even he did. "Why do you think he may have stolen property from the station?" "I found evidence of this in my own search, sir."

"Interesting," Nicoli smirked, "Tell me everything that has happened."

"Yes, sir," Greg said, "I was resuming my patrol circuit for the night and as directed I changed my patrol routine and apparently caught the suspect off guard. I fired at him in the elevator and wounded the suspect as he tried to return fire. He took the elevator down and the alert was sounded. I came back down my sector expecting the lower floor crews to capture him wherever the elevator stopped and examined the area to try and understand why he was here." "What if he was simply lost?" Nicoli said testing the officer's manner of thinking.

"I have known the suspect for a great deal of time and he knew this station better than I did, sir. I also know that he knew this area was strictly off limits to all except authorized personnel and there is only one research station on this floor sir. I thought he might be trying to get inside and I confirmed this when I found the door unlocked."

"Very good," Nicoli said. "Did you see what kind of weapon he had?"

"A small silenced pistol, sir." Greg said, "He's been using it against us for some time."

"He hasn't fired since I arrived." Nicoli said, "He must be out of ammunition. Take your men and take back the pod bay. He can't leave anyway."

Greg nodded and silently directed his men to move in. Nicoli followed closely behind the team as they rushed the entrance and immediately surrounded the suspect. Although he was between a wall and a firing squad, Steve still managed to smile.

"You think you've won?" Steve asked as he backed against the wall, hiding his hand held computer behind him. "The war has only begun." He pressed the confirm key on his computer and every pod launched off into space. He raised his weapon, aiming at Nicoli, and shouted, "You will never stop the holy mission of the Demon!"

"NO ONE FIRE!" Nicoli commanded. Steve pulled the trigger and as Nicoli expected nothing happened. The trigger was pulled, the hammer fell but nothing happened.

"Take him," Nicoli said. A patrol man walked up to the scientist and swiftly brought the end of his rifle to the side of Steve's head. As soon as he was on the floor he was handcuffed and dragged away.