CHAPTER 14
2210
Rogue Planet Exoginos
The Vindex armor emerged from a bright explosion of energy, staggering. Riley Karlsson had traversed the time stream more times than he could count. He couldn’t recall it ever feeling like this. Nothing felt as it should. His limbs seemed as though they belonged to someone else. He groaned as he felt his head being crushed. It felt like his head was in a hydraulic press, and his skull was beginning to crack. He fiddled with the side of his helmet until he found the off button and pressed it several times. The helmet clicked, then loosened itself as it disconnected from the control module attached to the back of Riley’s head. As soon as it was loose, he pulled it off and threw it away. He was gasping for air, hitting his chest, and struggling to get off the chair. Riley wished his heart would stop beating so he could be free from the agony. He closed his eyes and everything became black.
Riley opened his eyes. The pain, the ringing, the pressure on his skull, it was all gone. Now there was only silence. He sat back in his seat. He looked beyond the HUD and froze when he noticed the sky. He couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. There were two suns, one half the size of the other. Below the suns, there was a ringed planet the size of Earth’s moon. Riley opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. He gripped the support handles on both sides of the dashboard.
“Sky, what am I looking at?” he finally asked the Vindex’s AI support system.
“Just a moment, Riley. I am gathering data,” Sky responded. “It appears we are no longer on Earth.”
“Yeah, thanks. I've figured as much. What else?”
“The atmospheric data of this area differs greatly from that of Earth. In fact, we are no longer in Earth’s solar system.”
“Come again?”
Sky had no answer.
Riley disconnected himself from the control module and climbed out of the mech to its shotgun deck. He closed his eyes, looked up, and inhaled deeply. The air smelled like sweet ash, with a trace of mint. Riley felt particles bouncing off of his skin as the wind hit his face. He took a long look around at his surroundings. There were strange rock formations along the skyline. They had pointed bases and broad peaks, and they were piled up in large numbers. Riley felt movement beneath his feet.
He looked down and saw pebbles everywhere, flowing like a liquid in whichever direction the wind blew.
“How are we here?” asked Riley.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Sky replied.
Riley returned to the cockpit and closed the hatch. “Your job isn’t to guess. I’ll ask again: how the hell did we get here, and where are we?”
“I don’t have the answers to either of those questions. Data analysis is incomplete. I will let you know as soon as I have the relevant information.”
Riley grunted and pulled up the data on his previous jump. He checked the ‘T-Gauge: 3%.’ It surprised him. The T-Gauge was one of the few aspects of the Vindex armor that Riley knew very little about. Even so, the gauge had never dipped below eighty percent after a jump. He swiped the screen and another set of data appeared. His eyes immediately went to the ‘Chance of Success: 0%.’ Most of the numbers on the page read zero percent. Riley slammed his fist on the armrest, breathing loudly. A map appeared on the screen.
Riley squinted. “What am I looking at?”
“I didn’t adjust the display,” answered Sky.
The map showed two triangles. One pointed downward, blinking, while the other pointed left of the display. Riley swiped at the display, trying to close the notification, but it remained on the display. He tapped it several times, but the map was unresponsive. Riley stared at the map for a moment, then put his helmet back on, and connected it to the control module. The helmet’s display began superimposing over the map. When it was completed, Riley set the mech into motion, focusing on both triangles. When the Vindex moved, the triangle pointing left of the screen also moved. Riley clenched his teeth and turned until the lower triangle was facing the upper triangle. The path ahead would take him up a mountain. Riley adjusted the controls and began the climb.
“I’m detecting a sub-system within the suit,” said Sky, “but I’m unable to access its data. Why was I unaware of this sub-system and when did you install it?”
“I didn’t,” answered Riley.
“That’s strange. This unit has full access to my systems, yet I do not know what it is. It opened the map, and it’s… How is this possible?”
Riley shook his head slightly. “It doesn’t matter. Our only option is to follow the map and find out what’s waiting for us.”
Riley increased his pace. He started with a jog, then accelerated to a sprint. Before long, he arrived at a field of yellow grass. Riley didn’t notice the grass; his eyes were fixed on the massive floating pyramid in front of him. It was spinning on a vertical axis as it hovered several feet above the ground. Riley slowed the Vindex to a walk, then moved closer to the pyramid. When he was about twenty feet from it, he heard movement behind him. He turned quickly but there was nothing there. Riley turned back to the floating pyramid and found a scruffy, brown dog sitting at Vindex’s foot. Riley froze, immediately overcome with emotion.
“Skylar?”
“Are you adjusting my name?” the AI responded after a momentary pause.
Riley disconnected from the mobility module and removed his helmet. He stared at the dog with astonishment. The dog stood and looked up at Riley as though it could see him through the visor. It barked, wagged its tail playfully, then barked again. Riley lowered Vindex to its knees and bent down to touch the dog with a finger.
“Skylar.” Riley muttered.
The dog turned and ran through the space between Vindex’s legs. Riley turned to follow him. He saw Skylar running toward a boy sitting beside a sandcastle on a beach. The boy held a small book and pen in his hands. The boy gazed up at the white birds flying over the surface of the sea, then looked down and scribbled into his diary. When Skylar reached the boy, the boy looked at Skylar, laughed, and rubbed his head.
“No one’s going to read your writing if you get your diary wet, Riley,” a woman said as she walked toward him. She wore a flowing white dress and a beaming smile.
Riley looked up at the woman. “It won’t get wet, Mom.” he said as he cuddled Skylar.
“Riley, who are these people?” asked Sky. “They seem to have appeared from nowhere.”
Riley was hyperventilating in the armor. An explosion sounded behind Riley. He jumped to his feet and raised his fists in front of his face, ready to fight. When he turned, he saw a woman, lying beside a shattered combat mech, bleeding to death. On her chest was a nametag: ‘Patricia Evans’. A young man was kneeling beside her, holding her hand, and sobbing.
“It’s okay, Riley,” said Patricia, struggling to speak. “You can stop all of this.”
“I can’t do this without you, Patricia,” the young Riley replied.
“Riley.”
Riley turned and saw his mother standing in front of Vindex, looking up at him.
“You’re in the Field of Memories,” she said. “You can choose whichever memory makes you happy and live it forever. All you need to do is make contact.” She pointed at the pyramid.
Riley walked toward the pyramid and held out his hand. He stopped and looked back at his mother. His eyes drifted over to himself as a child, watching the birds and writing poetry. Riley looked at the manifestations of several other memories around him, then at the pyramid again. He pulled his hand away, then lowered his head. He stood there for a while, staring at the ground. Eventually, he raised his head and continued walking. He moved past the pyramid and continued up the mountain without looking back.
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“That was you.” said Sky.
Riley didn’t respond. As he marched up the mountain, he remembered his mother. For a moment, he almost smiled.
About two miles from the Field of Memories, Riley reached a place he could only describe as the Forest of Mirrors. He stopped at the edge and looked as far as his eyes could see. It was as vast as a cornfield, except it was full of glasslike objects with reflective surfaces. Everything, including the ground, had the same reflective composition. Riley cautiously lowered his right foot onto the mirror floor. It didn’t move, so he stepped onto the surface and continued on his journey, walking between the rows. Riley found a rectangular mirror that started beneath the surface and extended so high into the sky that he couldn’t see the top. He stopped, stared at the mirror, then continued on up the mountain.
Eventually, the edge of the mirror floor was visible ahead of him. Riley was mere feet from the edge when the mirrored floor extended into the distance. He froze and looked back, only to realize that he was standing at the beginning of the forest again.
Riley gritted his teeth and looked up. The sky mirror he passed was now ahead of him again. He clenched his fists and sprinted forward. He ran past the sky mirror and saw the end of the forest. When he reached the end and tried to step off it, he again found himself back at the beginning.
“I don’t think we can escape this, Riley,” said Sky.
Riley grunted. He ran until he approached the mirror, then slowed down and walked to it. As soon as he came close enough to see his reflection, he froze. His eyes rolled back in his head until they were completely white. Riley jerked back in his chair and his body spasmed violently. Images flashed in his mind. He saw himself standing before a glowing ball of energy. He was falling between flying photons in the void of space and reached out for something to hold on to.
Riley was standing in a field of orange hay, looking at a suit of mechanized armor lying in the grass. There was a bright flash of light, then he was on his knees, holding Bethany’s body. He fell into a rippling black void and landed on a desolate planet with pale clouds and dunes. The images continued to shift from one scenario to another, so quickly that Riley’s brain could no longer process the flashes. Blood trickled from his nose and ears.
“Riley,” Sky called. “What’s happening?”
Riley couldn’t respond. He could only groan, jerking about in his seat and kept from falling by only his safety belt.
“Riley!”
His vital signs appeared on the screen. They were unstable, rapidly spiking and plummeting. Riley could hear Sky’s voice but he couldn’t speak. He gritted his teeth and focused on regaining control of his right hand. He struggled to raise the hand until it was pointing at the mirror, then clenched his fist. Sky saw what Riley was trying to do and activated the weapon system in the arm. A rectangular hatch slid open just below the Vindex’s wrist, revealing twenty-four tiny missiles. Sky fired four missiles, spiraling in different directions before returning to hit a mutual target: the mirror. The missiles exploded, shattering the mirror into a million pieces. The mirror immediately lost its control of Riley and he stopped convulsing. Riley pressed the release of his belt and fell out of the seat. He landed on his hands and knees, panting for breath.
When he finally regained the strength to look up, the mirror had shattered, but each piece floated in the air, forming an enormous mosaic.
Riley turned away from the mirror and ran. He reached the edge of the mirrored floor and stopped. He prayed that he wouldn’t have to face the mirror again. He stepped off the mirrored floor and his foot landed on the sand. Riley didn’t look back. He dashed forward and didn’t stop until he reached a field of orange hay. He stopped, his heart pounding.
“Sky, make sure all weapons systems are ready.” Riley growled.
“Done!” replied Sky.
Riley reached Vindex’s hand to its back and drew a shotgun. He racked the slide with two heavy clangs, then walked into the field one step at a time. He held the shotgun up with one hand, while the other glowed with a charge of burning energy. Sky constantly scanned their surroundings in every direction.
“Sky.”
“Yes, Riley?”
“I know you’re invested in my survival about as much as I am. For what it’s worth, I need you to survive as well. From now on, I’ll tell you everything, starting with the fact that I’ve seen this before.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“No. The mirror showed me things. I think it showed me things that haven’t happened yet, but they will.”
“What did you see here?”
“Someone else is here with us, someone dangerous. I might die here.”
“Don’t say that,” said Sky. “If you’re right, if the mirror showed you things that haven’t happened yet, then we have no way of knowing if it is an accurate projection of the future.”
Riley grunted, looked up the mountain, then continued walking. Suddenly, Sky halted all motor functions of the mech.
“Sky, what gives?” Riley asked.
“There’s something in the grass ahead of us.”
Riley sighed. “It’s a mech, isn't it?”
“I do not yet have visual confirmation, but the signal suggests a mech.”
Riley disconnected from the control module. He removed his helmet and popped the hatch open.
“What are you doing?!”
Riley stopped and glanced back at the cockpit before he jumped down from the shotgun deck. He landed in the tall orange grass. The air smelled different, like mushrooms, and it was warm against his skin. Riley couldn’t see over the grass. He took a step forward and the grass parted, creating a long, straight path ahead of him. Riley followed the path until he saw something huge. Its body almost blended with the orange of the grass. Riley stopped and looked back toward Vindex. He tapped twice on his watch and the hatch closed. Riley continued walking toward the massive object and the Vindex armor followed closely behind him.
They soon reached the mech. Riley walked around it. It was lying on its back, its hull covered by orange climbing plants and gray moss. Riley stopped to observe the mech’s design. It was old and outdated. He knocked on the hull and there was a muffled clang. He held his watch near his mouth and tapped it.
“Data inflow in five seconds,” Riley said.
“Affirmative,” Sky responded.
Riley climbed to the mech’s chest, which was covered by grass. He tore away the grass covering the entrance hatch. Below the chest, he saw the word ‘Endurance.’ Riley ran his fingers along the edge of the hatch but it was sealed shut. He grunted and tapped his watch again.
“I need access to the cockpit.”
Sky deactivated all of Vindex’s weapon systems. Vindex leaned over Riley and pointed its index finger at the hatch. A small red laser shot from the finger and quickly cut a hole large enough for Riley to enter through. Vindex removed the cut glass, then returned to a defensive stance with all of its weapon systems active. Riley dropped into the cockpit and was pleased to find it intact. There was barely even dust on the surfaces. Riley was surprised by how similar the mech’s internal design was to Vindex’s. He had made many modifications over the years, but the base designs were almost identical.
Riley took a tablet out of his suit. He connected it to a port on the control panel below the screen, then used it to copy data from Endurance’s memory drives into Vindex’s. The transfer progressed from zero to a hundred percent in less than a minute. Riley disconnected the tablet and placed it back in his suit. There was a lever low on the wall behind the pilot’s chair. He used the lever to open a hatch, then climbed down the ladder through the hole. He continued through a few more hatches before reaching the engine room. There were two windows. Riley looked through the first and saw a deactivated quantum drive inside the chamber. Riley reached down to grab his journal but it wasn’t there. He winced, then moved on to the next window. Inside the second compartment, he saw a time drive, the same design as the one on Vindex. He stared at the drive for a moment, then climbed back to the cockpit, and then out of the armor.
Riley pulled himself up with a grunt. He lifted his feet out, then rolled around until he was standing on Endurance’s chest. Riley prepared to climb down when he saw a humanoid figure hovering in front of Vindex. All of Vindex’s weapons were aimed at the figure. Riley drew his sidearm and aimed at the figure, but it didn’t flinch. It remained stationary in the air, looking down at Riley. Riley jumped down and landed on the ground, his gun still trained on the figure.
Riley was unsure what he was looking at, but it looked like a man in slim golden body armor with black linings on its edges. He had never seen a mech like it before. It just hovered there like a picture, as still as the dead. There was no noise; no thrusters, no engine sound, not even a hum. How was it possible? Riley reasoned that he was standing on an alien planet, so it could have been alien technology. Perhaps it wasn’t armor at all but a living, metallic being. It slowly descended toward Riley.
“Stop!” Riley barked, holding his finger near the trigger. “Stop!” he yelled again.
The being didn’t react.
Riley tapped his watch. “Take it down!” he ordered and shot at the being.
Vindex aimed all of its weaponry, including the cannon on its back, and opened fire on the being. Somehow, none of the shots affected it. The being continued its descent until it landed softly about ten feet away. Riley stopped shooting, and Vindex did the same. The head of the golden armor scattered and the pieces withdrew into the neck to reveal a bearded man with streaks of grey hair
Riley’s eyes widened. “What kind of armor is that?” he asked, still aiming his gun at the stranger.
The man smirked. “Riley Karlsson, I presume?” he said in a gentle voice, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Who are you?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” said the man. “But not today.”
He charged at Riley. Riley opened fire but only got two shots away before the man reached him and knocked him out with one effortless punch. Vindex opened fire. The man flew up to Vindex and raised his hand. Vindex froze as Sky lost control of all systems. The man moved his other hand and a thin layer of energy surrounded Riley and Vindex. The man lifted them off the ground and carried them away from the field.
They flew to the top of the mountain, where the grass was blue and scarce. He placed Vindex down, then brought his palms together. Black particles flowed from his body and rearranged until they formed a black pod. He set the pod down behind Vindex, opened it, and levitated Riley’s body into it. He closed the pod, then turned to Vindex. The man floated up until he was hovering in front of Vindex’s visor. Black particles again flew out of him, forming two tentacles. The tentacles extended toward Vindex and clipped onto the hatch. A hologram display appeared in front of the man. On the top-left corner of the display was the name ‘Captain Garth Andrews’.
Using the holo-pad, Garth activated the Vindex’s homing beacon. On activation, the beacon opened a spatial breach in the air over Vindex. Garth disconnected his tentacles and turned to face the breach. Through the breach, he saw a woman holding onto a metal shelf to keep herself from being pulled in. He smirked. His helmet grew out of his armor and covered his face.
Garth looked down at the stasis pod containing Riley. He sighed in relief, then flew away.