BLUE GENDER
"Children of the Blue"
14. Second Earth
The shuttle moved across the horizon of a beautiful blue Earth.
Captain Junker was at the controls. He guided the vessel on an intercept course for their destination: the Education, Training and Drill Facility.
Second Earth had once consisted of three massive space stations around Earth and a large mining and industrial production ship orbiting the moon.
Two of the ships that circled Earth had been destroyed. The medical station had been blown to pieces by explosive-laden shuttles when Tony Frost—a deranged Sleeper—had sent it on a collision course for the Military Station.
Later that Military Ship had been destroyed as the result of rioting among the Second Earther's. At least that's what Amick Hendar had heard.
The debris from the destroyed stations circled the Earth like a jagged ring. It created a deadly barrier of ripped metal, blasted air locks, explosive fuel pods, shredded electronics and even human remains preserved in the vacuum.
Marlene took the navigation seat and kept an eye glued on the proximity sensors. One good hit from a big piece of space junk and the shuttle's hull could be ruptured or critical systems damaged.
The cockpit was tense as they passed through the field of debris. Tiny bits hit the outside causing several subtle thuds to reverberate through the interior.
The Education station was somewhat mushroom shaped with a spiraling stem.
"Okay, let's hope the automatic docking protocols are still on line," Marlene expressed as she operated the shuttle's onboard computer. That computer sent a message to the nearest docking bay to request access.
It refused.
She cycled through the other entrances until she received an electronic "handshake" from one bay. This brought a sigh of relief from the pilots.
The shuttle closed in…closer…closer.
BEEP…BEEP.
WHAM!
The vehicle shuddered and fishtailed to port.
"Christ," Marlene cursed.
The proximity sensor had not warned them fast enough.
"Starboard impact."
Junker wrestled with the controls as the shuttle began to spin.
"Need…help!"
"I'm on the thrusters," Marlene told the pilot.
She used manual override to apply the steering thrusters to attempt to stop the slow turn of the rear quarters of the ship, all while the docking bay loomed closer and closer. They were in danger of missing the dock and crashing into the side of the station.
Junker struggled with the stick while Marlene worked the buttons.
"What was that?" Yuji floated to the cockpit in the zero g environment.
"Space junk…something," Marlene cringed as she applied a series of thruster burns.
"That's it…it's working," Junker noted but it wasn't working fast enough. Their momentum was taking them into the bay nearly sideways.
"Crash positions!" the Captain shouted.
The passengers donned their space helmets and prepared for the worst.
Junker tried to steer the craft in while Marlene hammered the port thrusters in an attempt and right the ship.
Marlene's skillful use of the thrusters slowly corrected the ship's trajectory as it entered into the cover of the massive docking bay.
The magnetic coupling systems grabbed at the shuttle's under carriage and lowered it toward the floor of the bay for parking. One last burst of thrusters did the trick but the landing was hard.
Marlene and Junker looked at each other then collectively smiled in relief.
"Thanks," the old war dog said. "You've done this before, haven't you?"
Her reply came in the form of a smirk.
---
"Well, there you have it," Denise Karr was inspecting the shuttle.
More specifically, she was examining the gash in the starboard side of the craft in front of the wing. The group floated together in the weightlessness of the docking area. That area was well lit in comparison to the dark corridors that led away from the section.
"How bad?" Marlene asked as she peered over Denise's shoulder.
The technician told her: "We lost some hydraulic fluid but that's not the real problem. The problem is that the piece of junk that hit us ripped out the electronic router that controls all the hydraulics for this side of the craft. Without it we can't re-enter orbit and land safely."
"Can you fix it?" was Yuji's blunt question.
"Yes, but it's going to take some time," she answered. "We need to weld the hole shut otherwise the aerodynamics will be shot to hell and we'll lose the heat shielding on re-entry. Then we need to replace the router."
"I hate to break it to you, boss, but this place has been picked clean," Moss surmised form the lack of anything else in the docking area.
"Spare parts could be a problem," Marlene agreed.
"Wait a second," Denise thought of something. "The shrike simulators have the same type of router. If you can pull one from there it should do the job."
"Okay then," Marlene was in command. "Me and Yuji will head for Amick's old office. I've got the access code to her computer. Cap…"
"Yo."
"Take Moss and head to the simulator area—that should be somewhere above us—red block, if I remember. Gunther, get the repair kit from the shuttle—there should be welding tools in there. You and Pistol stay here with Denise and patch this thing."
A sheepish voice came from the back of the group.
"What about me?" Dr. Gamble asked.
Marlene looked at him and said: "What do you want to do?"
Gamble offered: "Why don't I head up to the station command center. It's not far from here. The reactor is obviously still on-line so maybe I can get internal sensors up, something, to help."
"Fine," she told him.
"That reminds me," Gamble said. "Has everyone taken their rad-pills?"
The shuttle's medical kit had contained a supply of specialized anti-radiation pills that were actually much better than basic potassium iodide.
Gamble concluded: "Radiation is bad throughout the station but those pills should keep you safe for a couple of hours. But stay out of the lower sections around the reactor core—according to the shuttle's sensors radiation there is too much to take for more than a few minutes."
Yuji said. "The place is empty. We should be able to get in and out quick."
The group paused for a moment as they prepared to split up.
Denise gave Darren Moss a kiss and told him: "I love you."
It was the last time they ever spoke to one another.
---
Power was still on, that was true, but most of the lighting levels were dim either due to burned out filaments or smashed fixtures.
None of them trusted the elevators and there were no ground vehicles in site (no doubt taken as the station had been abandoned). So they were forced to walk the distance. Marlene figured it would take about two hours each way for them and a little longer for the other two.
Junker and Moss headed in one direction, Marlene and Yuji in the other.
---
Dr. Gamble entered the command center. The lighting was somewhat better in there but all of the control consoles were dark.
He immediately went to work.
Some of the workstations were destroyed—their screens smashed. But most were operational.
He smiled.
---
Captain Junker and Darren Moss had made their way past the flight support center, the officer's conference rooms, and the decontamination chambers. They had climbed a 50-foot maintenance latter to go up several levels; found an alternate route around a jammed bulkhead; and cut through a physical rehabilitation area.
And that was all in the first hour.
They carried flashlights to augment the poor lighting as they traversed a long, tight corridor that--years ago--had been used for maintenance vehicles.
Junker joked, "The way you two are all over each other you'd think you were teenagers again."
Moss laughed as he adjusted the heavy assault rifle slung over his shoulder: "What's wrong there, old timer? Feel'in jealous?"
Junker answered, light-heartily, "No doubt. Let me tell ya' 'bout this drill sergeant when I was a third year cadet. She was so—"
They both stopped.
"Hey, um, Cap, could you shine that light on the wall again?"
Junker slowly turned his flashlight back to a wall the beam had glanced off of just a second before.
"Is that…what I think it is…?"
Junker moved the flashlight around. The wall of the corridor, the ceiling, the floor--all covered in the crimson stain of blood. It was splashed everywhere. It was old and it was dry but it was blood.
The two looked at the scene for a moment. All of a sudden the dark corridors didn't feel like a return to a familiar place. It felt like a dangerous place.
"Must've…must've had riot'in here, too, I 'spect," Junker tried to convince both Moss and himself.
"Yeah, a, sure."
---
"I think you're holding up just fine," Yuji told Marlene.
"That's the problem," she insisted. "That's the scary part. My son has been missing for over a week now. I should be a bowl of emotional jelly. But I'm not."
They were cutting through a large storage room with a high ceiling. It wasn't well lit and it was full of knocked over empty crates, spilled drums of chemicals, and other debris.
It was about the tenth such storage area they had cut through, in addition to a propulsion lab, a series of fuel depots (all probably dry), and a cafeteria.
"That's because you're a doer," Yuji told her. "You know that sitting around and crying won't bring him back. So you're focused. I'm the same way. But why are you beating yourself up over it?"
"Because I—"
They stopped.
Yuji threw the flashlight over what they saw but he didn't need to—the lighting in the storage area was bright enough that they could see what it was.
A pile of human bones.
Skulls, legs, arms, rib cages. All lumped together in a good size pile in the middle of the room. No clothes, no flesh, no muscle.
Just bones.
"Hey, um, Marlene," Yuji stammered. "The Blue—"
"The Blue don't leave bones. The Blue roll you into a dumpling then eat everything—bones, too."
Marlene was suddenly very conscious of the fact that neither of them had brought heavy weapons—just their pistols.
---
"Ya, that does dat real nice like," Gunther admired his work with the welding torch.
It had taken them a while to cut and position the metal patch and even longer to weld. Now they had to apply the special sealant that came with the shuttle's repair kit. If they didn't then the entire area would just rip apart during re-entry.
"Not bad, big fella," Pistol Jones cracked Gunther on the back. A little too hard. Gunther looked at him and Pistol held his hands up and smiled.
"We're not done yet," Denise told them. "And we ain't going anywhere until my man gets back with that router."
"Well let me tell you something," Pistol was serious. "I'll be as happy as you to see your man back here 'cause this place is starting to give me the creeps. Sitt'in out here in this big old bay and I gotta say, I feel like—"
Denise finished for him: "You feel like you're being watched. Yeah," she looked around at the cavernous ceiling. "I feel it, too."
---
Yuji and Marlene moved more cautiously.
Certainly, Yuji thought, the place is deserted. Those bones didn't have a scrap of tissue on them so they had to be long dead. Right?
Nonetheless, they didn't speak so loud anymore in case there was something lurking out there.
"Where are we?" Yuji asked her.
Marlene concentrated and told him: "I think we're in one of the dormitory areas. I think we're about two levels from Amick's office."
"Good," Yuji said. "I'm looking forward to getting out of here."
He glanced around to accentuate the point and he nearly missed the shadow moving behind them. Or had he seen anything?
"Mar—Marlene…"
"What?"
They stopped. She followed his gaze back down the corridor in the direction they had just come. It was a green, metal hall with bulky support beams, lots of air vents, and more broken lights than working ones.
"I saw something."
"Yuji," she explained. "This station is deserted."
A noise. A metal rattle as if an object had been kicked across the floor. It came from the darkness that lay ahead in their journey.
Another rattle. A crash—not too loud; something being knocked over.
But it was closer, this time.
"Um.." Yuji started.
Something was coming from the blackness ahead.
It was moving… surging.
A low rumble? A shuffle? A rolling noise?
It was difficult to tell. The acoustics were horrible and the dark allowed their imaginations to run wild. The only surety was that whatever was making the noise was coming along the corridor directly at them.
Yuji found himself being pushed, by Marlene, through an unlocked door and into one of the dormitory rooms. It was pitch black in there. The only light other than Yuji's flashlight came from the vents open at the bottom of the door they closed behind them--quietly.
Marlene and Yuji pulled their pistols. That rumbling, rolling, sound was very close now.
Yuji realized his flashlight was still on. He cast it around the room.
He gasped.
It was a dorm room. A desk, a compact dresser, a bathroom, and a bed.
In the bed was a bloody gore that might have once been human.
The walls nearly shook with the noise as it was now in the hallway just outside the door.
Yuji turned off his torch.
The rays of light coming in from the vents at the bottom of the door flickered as something—somethings—moved by.
Yuji and Marlene heard…what? Voices? Grumbles? Were they words or just moans or something else?
The noise became more of a shuffling. Loud and low at the same time. They could hear a cling and clang as if metal was bouncing off of other metal.
Then the mass—whatever it was—was past the door and the sound began to recede as it continued along.
Yuji looked at Marlene. She was shaking. He realized that he was, too.
---
Dr. Gamble stood in the command center and looked at his watch.
It had been nearly two hours.
He was concerned about timing. They might be ready to leave too soon.
He might have to take matters into his own hands. This, he knew, was his best chance. Perhaps his last chance.
---
Moss, holding a flashlight, leaned against one of the dusty shrike simulators while Junker, who was kneeled over, peeled away a metal cover at the base. Moss' torch was providing the light for Junker's work.
The simulator room was a big rectangle with several of the simulators on one side and a round command/supervisor post on the other.
On days when it had been in use it had been bright and clean. Now it was dark, dirty, and cluttered with vandalized equipment and other ruins.
"Spent a hell of a lot of time in here," Moss said. "What 'bout you?"
"Naww...ouch," Junker explained as he pinched his thumb. "I learned before the evacuation. Piloted a friggin' Mark III for two years."
Junker stood. He had retrieved the router.
"And you're still alive?" Moss joked.
The two men started to laugh.
They stopped laughing.
They were not alone in the simulator room.
On the far side of the room, stretching from wall to wall, was a line of silhouettes. They were featureless and black in the room. To Moss and Junker they looked like they could be human…or something else.
That line began to advance on the two men. Moss, his hands shaking, leveled his assault rifle at the approaching mass. Junker pulled his pistol from his holster.
The line came closer.
The two men saw what was approaching.
Moss screamed and fired full automatic with his weapon. Junker, his old hands shaking, began firing his pistol as well.
The rounds reverberated through the room and along the lonely deserted corridors of the remains of Second Earth.
---
Yuji and Marlene walked through the maintenance shaft. Yuji was certain that a shadow was still following them, peeking in and out as they moved. Marlene was not as sure of that but she didn't know what to think.
The only thing they knew for sure was that whatever was haunting this station it wasn't the Blue. And it was bad.
But they also knew they had to keep moving. They had to get to Amick's office to find those files. To turn around and run now would have meant that all of this had been for nothing.
They moved across a dark, wobbly catwalk. The area around them was quite dark. Marlene figured they were moving through one of the station's power sub-stations, a place where reactor energy was distributed to various blocks.
Yuji was in the lead carrying his light.
"Marlene…how much further?"
"I don't know, Yuji," she was exasperated. Yuji seemed to think that she knew ever nook and cranny of Second Earth. That was impossible. She knew the general layout the way people know the layout of the streets in their city. But to know every alley? Every room in every house?
The catwalk gave way with a metal snap.
Yuji slid down the walk as it fell. Marlene grabbed a side rail. He disappeared into the dark below. His dropped flashlight came to rest on the floor.
When the swaying of the broken walkway stopped, Marlene lowered herself then jumped to the floor using Yuji's dropped flashlight as a guide.
Her thump to the floor was controlled but the impact reminded her that she had had shrapnel taken out of her leg just a few days before.
"Yuji?"
Her answer came in the form of a noise—a dragging noise.
She swiveled the light around and saw what looked as if it were Yuji's unconscious body being dragged between two large pieces of equipment.
Marlene pulled her side arm and followed.
Another noise grabbed her attention before she could find Yuji. It was that same thunderous, rolling noise that told her that whatever nightmare patrolled those dark passages was coming toward her again.
She barely controlled her breath. She could feel her nerves stretch…the hair on the back of her neck stand straight.
She moved between some heavy equipment and followed after Yuji and whoever—whatever—had hold of him.
She entered a cramped area, sort of a tiny maintenance room, and her flashlight fell upon Yuji's prone form, knocked out and laying on his back in the center of that black area.
"Yuji?" She stepped forward.
A hand—or something like a hand—clamped over Marlene's mouth from behind.
NEXT FACTOR:
15. Fallout
Voice in the Dark: "I don't blame you for not remembering me; I've gone through some…some changes. But I remember you, 2-8-0-5. I remember what you did that day. I owe you."