Road to the Carver Institute

Krandermore, Survivor’s Refuge

4453.3.3 Interstellar

It was the second day and the third leg of the trip from Proxima Elementals to the Carver Institute, and Janus’s apprehension had done nothing but increase during that time.

For one, they’d passed people on the way to the Carver Institute, but they hadn’t met anyone going in the other direction. Crawlers were much slower than their buggies, and with the Carver-Proxima route being an established trading loop, that meant that no crawlers had left the Carver Institute in the past two days.

For two, the Motragi’s ultra-low frequency network had gone silent.

“What happens if we bypass a pedestal?” Janus asked Ryler during their next stop.

The Cultist winced. “Our score would take a hit,” Ryler said. “Maybe enough to cost us first place. Worse, since it’s the last stop before Midnight Hollow, we wouldn’t know we’d lost until it was too late.”

“Better than dead?” Mick asked.

Janus shook his head. “Not with the lives of everyone in Irkalla hanging in the balance.”

“Remember the trip from Prometheus to Gemini?” Lira asked.

“Stars, no!” Mick said. “I was as high as a rocket. I think I slaved my buggy to yours.”

Lira blinked. “Why didn’t I do that?”

“This won’t be like that,” Janus said, shuddering at the memory of severe radiation poising, of every bone feeling out of joint, of throwing up in a suit and then having to make it into a day tent to clean up and pass out. “If the compartmentalists catch us again, it will be quick.”

“There is still the Eastern Labs,” Ryler said.

Janus had to stop himself from snapping at the Cultist. It seemed like he brought up the ancient site more often the closer they got, and every time he did, Janus wanted to go there less. “The Eastern Labs aren’t a solution. We can’t get to them if we can’t go through the Carver Institute.”

“Actually, we can,” Ryler said, and everyone looked at him. “That was why we had to go to the Western Research Hub first. Dr. Jahangir had a secret secondary entrance built for the Eastern Labs, and I needed to find out where it was.”

“You could save your families,” Koni said to Janus.

“More than that,” Lira said. “We could save artists, scientists, representatives of different cultures. It wouldn’t save Irkalla, but we could preserve her memory.”

Janus wasn’t ready to think of that, not after having been one of the few survivors of Prometheus and seeing how well that turned out. “Why did she have a secret entrance?” Janus asked Ryler.

“Because her relationship with the Consensus was strained at the time. Some people objected to her methods. Others wanted to write Krandermore off completely, to the point of eradicating the population as a measure of containment.”

“That sounds familiar,” Lira muttered.

“It obviously didn’t end up happening,” Ryler said. “But the entrance is still there. We could be in and out without ever entering the city above it.”

“The Western Hub had a security room,” Mick pointed out. “Cameras and sensors all around the entrances. We could find out what’s going on in the city that way.”

“Maybe,” Janus allowed. “As long as the compartmentalists don’t know about the secret entrance. Let’s take things step by step. Our priority is still to win the Trials. I don’t want to think of anything less until it’s clear it isn’t possible to succeed, even at great risk.”

“Agreed,” Lira said.

“Agreed,” Mick said.

“I’ll comply with your orders, of course,” Ryler said, and Janus was okay with that.

Koni shrugged. “This part of the Trials isn’t my fight. I owe you all a great debt for what I’ve learned and what it will mean for my people. I only ask that, if I don’t make it, you convey my remains and the data about our ancestors to my family.”

Janus was touched by the sacrifice Koni was willing to make, but he grinned and said, “Let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that. Mick, take us in.”

“You got it, boss. Let’s get off the road. Be a shame to get ambushed again so close to the end.”

***

Three hours later, Mick pulled to a stop near a cluster of boulders, just short of a small rise in the barren ground.

“Why are we stopping?” Janus asked, looking around. They were still in coldside, so the landscape was dark and lifeless.

“The last check-in point for the ULF network is ahead,” Mick said. “The comps might be watching it if the Motragi have been compromised.”

“We go in on foot?” Janus asked.

Before Mick could answer, a half-dozen soldiers in camouflaged suits and cloaks seemed to rise out of the darkness and aimed rifles at them.

Janus felt like his chest was caught in a vice. They were surrounded, nowhere to go, no chance of survival. One of the soldiers gestured with their rifle muzzle, and Janus reluctantly raised his hands.

“That won’t be necessary,” one of the soldiers said, pushing another soldier’s muzzle down, and Janus recognized the voice of the grizzled Motragi veteran he’d spoken to in Midnight Hollow. “Everyone stay calm. We’re all friends here, or at least, I hope we are.” The veteran soldier walked closer, not quite joining them but close enough that Janus could see his face. “Team Invarian?”

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

“That’s us,” Janus said, lowering his hands. “I’m going to pull my pistol out of its holster and leave it with my buggy. Is that okay?”

“It might be best,” the ranger said. “Are you aware of what’s happening in the Carver Institute?”

“We were about to contact you to find out,” Mick said.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” the veteran said. “I have a sealed tent nearby. If the four of you will follow me, I’ll brief you, and we can decide what to do.”

***

Janus, Lira, Mick, Ryler, and Koni stood around the briefing table while the veteran ranger and his people worked on getting the projection working. It was a much more basic setup than they’d had in Midnight Hollow—just a small holo-projector on a foldable metal stand—but Janus was still impressed by how far ahead of the other clans the Motragi were, especially since they were discreet about it.

“There we are,” the veteran said as a grainy green three-dimensional map of the city appeared in front of them.

Fury snorted from the corner she’d curled up in, her head on her paws.

“Two days ago,” the veteran said, “a shuttle burned in from orbit.”

“You were able to track it?” Ryler said, surprised.

“No,” the ranger said wryly. “As I’m sure you know, we don’t have the kind of networked phased-array radar systems that would be required to track orbital and sub-orbital objects. We’ve never seen the need for it, and the Cult is usually careful to break orbit over the dark side of the planet and fly in atmospherically—unless you really do have a base on the dark side of Krandermore.”

“We don’t,” Ryler said, amused.

The veteran grunted. “In any case, we didn’t have to. This shuttle came straight in, burning like a meteor. That’s how we knew things were about to get dicey.”

A bright landing zone appeared on the display ten kilometers outside of the Carver Institute, and four icons left the shuttle to enter the city through different airlocks.

“Shuttle was on the ground for less than a minute,” the veteran continued. “Seventeen pax disembarked and split into four teams. They moved fast—ten clicks in just over an hour on foot.”

Mick whistled.

“That’s not that fast,” Lira said.

“It is carrying gear,” Mick said.

The veteran ranger nodded. “They took down and locked down the four main airlocks when they arrived. Definitely carried full equipment, and they had help from cultists and faithful within the city. I’d already told my people to go to ground, but I also got word through our emergency channels that some of our outlying stations were compromised. That’s why we can’t use the network.”

“Because you don’t know who’s on the Cult’s side and who isn’t?”

“We have a fairly good idea, and we kept the obvious ones away from the network in the first place,” the veteran said, glancing at Ryler, “but we didn’t really expect to get into a fight with the Cult, and what happened next tells me even the staunchest anti-cultists might be at risk.”

“What did they do?” Janus asked.

“They took the city hostage,” the veteran said. “Corporate headquarters, noble families, city officials… Suddenly, they all had guns pointed at their heads. It was a well-run op, close to what we would have done if we needed to take Carver down.”

“I didn’t get the impression that the Motragi were that warlike,” Koni said in surprise.

“We try to keep it that way, Honored Verazlan,” the veteran said with a wink. “They broadcast a warning to the population to stay out of the streets, and then they took the noosphere down. It’s chaos in there.”

“Think Brago called in reinforcements?” Janus asked Ryler.

“That would be a gross violation of the arbitration rules,” Ryler said.

“It’s not Brago,” the veteran said. “From what I heard before the net went down, the new players are hunting him and his team, as well as waiting for Team Invarian. They’re being led by Architect Rachel Donnika.”

“What?” Ryler said in surprise.

“Are we supposed to know who that is?” Janus asked.

“She’s the leader of the compartmentalist faction,” Ryler said. “I need to get in touch with Nikandros.”

“No,” Janus said.

“I’m not asking!” Ryler snapped. “That’s Red Donnika! The only reason she’s down here is to kill us all! Either the arbitration committee decided in her favor, or she’s broken with the Consensus. In either case, it makes no sense to go anywhere near the Carver Institute if the fight is already over.”

Ryler reached for his helmet, but Mick grabbed his arm. “You’re not going anywhere, mate.”

“Try and stop me.”

“He won’t have to,” the veteran ranger said, and two of the Motragi soldiers put their hands on the grips of their rifles.

“Why is she called Red Donnika?” Koni asked.

Ryler hesitated.

“Answer the question, Ryler,” Janus said. “We talked about you hiding things.”

“She’s called that because of the number of people she’s killed. She led the aspirant teams into Prometheus Base.”

Janus saw red. His hands balled into fists, and his heartbeat thundered in his ears.

“Janus,” Lira said softly. “Let me handle this.”

The red mist partially cleared. Partially. From anyone else, Janus would have ignored the request and smashed Ryler’s face in, but Lira had lost her mother in the fall of Prometheus Base.

He unclenched his hands. “Fine.”

“Ryler,” Lira said, and Janus could almost feel her own anger building, like the tingle in the air before a lightning strike, “are you saying the person responsible for the Promethean genocide is there, in the Carver Institute.”

“No, not exactly,” Ryler said.

Janus growled. “Don’t you dare—”

“I said, ‘Not exactly!’” Ryler shouted. “She led the teams. The person who gave the order died seven years ago. That’s when she took over. She led the teams who killed your parents and the people of Prometheus Base, but at the time, she was just a compiler for the Cult.”

“Was she armed or just an observer?” Lira asked.

“You don’t get the nickname ‘Red’ for just watching,” Ryler said. “She hasn’t gotten less militant with time. We need to ask for help.”

Janus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Talk me through this. Let’s say your arbitration committee has decided against us, and Nikandros is under arrest.”

“That wouldn’t happen.”

“Imagine it did. You comm up to him, you tell him the situation, and they’re listening, right? They probably know exactly where you’re transmitting from.”

Ryler swallowed and didn’t say anything.

“Good. Now we’re aligned. We’re not getting in touch with Nikandros or anyone in orbit, right?”

“What if she’s gone rogue?” Mick asked.

Janus looked at Ryler. “Talk me through that option. I need facts, not opinions—at least not yet.”

“Planetary systems are big,” Ryler said. “Most of our people are on Lumiara. Those of us who are part of field operations and our families are scattered across the worlds and habitats, and there’s the Consensus… The whole reason the arbitration committee was formed was to make on-the-spot decisions about what Nikandos and Donnika could and could not do, but if Donnika took all four teams of aspirants out of cryo, plus Brago’s team already on the ground, that’s Survivor’s Voice’s full complement of troops.”

Janus processed what he’d just heard. The Cult had a… he had no idea what kind of ship was in orbit around Krandermore, but it only had twenty troops on it, all of them aspirants. Did the Cult have its own soldiers? “So, that’s it? She just gets to run wild?”

“No,” Ryler said, “but any response is going to take time. If she was out in the open, the Voice could crush her from orbit, but with her being in the middle of a city.”

“That’s why she came straight in,” Mick said. “By the time they knew she was on the ground, it was already too late.”

“That’s what I would do,” Koni said. She shrugged when Janus glared at her.

“Fine,” Janus said. “She’s in the city. The Consensus is trying to make decisions and reallocate resources. Brago’s team is on the run or dead. What does she hope to get out of it?”

“Fait accompli,” Lira said, glancing at Koni. “If she can achieve her desired objectives before the Consensus can punish her, she might be proven right by the outcome. If not, she could still limit the damage to her faction by taking the fall.”

Ryler squeezed his eyes shut and took a breath. “That’s why the scores are going down.”

“Do we know why they all went up in the first place?” Koni asked.

“Other aspirant teams started following your lead, solving problems in the cities they visited,” the veteran ranger said. “Even the Pugarians, although they charged for it.”

“And now they’re going down because she’s going to end that,” Lira said. “Instead of a general uplift, all people will remember is that the Cult shot up a city, and it will be years or decades before someone tries again—if they ever do.”

“That’s not what’s important,” Janus said.

Lira frowned. “What could be more important?”

“We don’t know enough. Why is Brago on the run? Why did Donnika risk everything to hit us now instead of hitting us from space when we were on the road?” He stared at Ryler. “Just what in the void are you looking for in the Eastern Labs?”

“Dr. Jahangir thought she was working toward Krandermore’s salvation.”

“What did the Consensus think she was working on?”

“Monsters.”