Tales from the Colony: An Interstellar Saga Read online

om the Colony

  An Interstellar Saga

  Brett P. S.

  Copyright © 2014 Brett P. S.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Art

  Credit goes to NASA Ames Research Center

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Episode no. 1 … Number 22

  Episode no. 2 … Outbreak

  Episode no. 3 … Tinker Toys

  Episode no. 4 … For a Time

  Episode no. 5 … Run a Diagnostic

  Episode no. 6 … Distant Ping

  Episode no. 7 … The Creature

  Episode no. 8 … Night Terror

  Episode no. 9 … Old Johnny

  Episode no. 10 … Alien Autopsy

  Episode no. 11 … Wake Up

  Episode no. 12 … Martial Law

  Episode no. 13 … The Protector

  Episode no. 14 … New Life

  Episode no. 1

  Number 22

  Harris Ryder. Scavenger 22. Drinker of Coffee. Ryder adjusted his seat in mid-flight. He pushed it back a little and lowered the bottom. Space was big enough, but the space in his cockpit was too tight. He needed to breathe some.

  He looked down at his rear camera. The Colony at his 6 o’clock drifted through a massive asteroid field. The structure reminded him of pictures of whales from storybooks. Long and narrow, with an organic shape thicker at one end than at the other. Except lights dotted the surface. A thousand or more.

  Lurking behind it was a deep red giant that barely showed half across the edge. The Colony dropped out of FTL a few hours ago to resupply in this solar system. Asteroids weren’t going to hurt something that size and on the bright side, he might gather something of value for once.

  “Don’t wreck it this time, 22,” Sarah said.

  Her voice rang through the ship’s cockpit communicator. It came with a static presence that complimented the hum of his engines.

  “Don’t worry, Navigator. I’ll keep your tin can in one piece.”

  “I mean it, Ryder. We’re going to need all our assets intact.”

  “Why’s that?” he asked.

  “You’ll find out later,” she replied. “Everybody will.”

  Ryder surveyed the space outside. It was dark, but the red giant lit up the faces of the asteroids ahead of him. He flew down to a larger one with a cautious hand on his throttle. If he was going to rely on visual confirmation, then he needed to stay in the light.

  This was a massive piece of iron and nickel. Ryder flew in close and flipped two red switches to engage his drill and grip attachments. Two mechanical arms protruded from the sides of his craft. A diamond-tipped drill capped off one, while the other ended in a three-pronged pincer attachment.

  Ryder got to work, drilling and gathering. The labor took a few minutes before the craft’s rear cargo pod filled up. Ryder glanced down at his containment camera feed. There was still some more space. Sure, there was, but this section of the asteroid was falling out of grace. A shadowy blackness crept up to him. It was a side of the rock indistinguishable from nothing. Ryder engaged his reverse thrusters and backed off.

  “Almost bit the big one,” he said.

  You can never trust the dark side of an asteroid, he thought. Not now. Not ever. Ryder drove the ship over to another suitable mining point. The way he figured, he had about five more minutes of work before he filled every nook in the cargo pod. Ryder had a voice inside that told him what he’d already done was enough. He did, but he chose not to listen. Ryder sighed and blamed it on his pack rat mentality. The thing had to be full. To bits with protocol.

  However, as he thrust his drill bit into the rock, he noticed something buried underneath. The color was black and green, definitely neither iron nor nickel. He wedged his drill and burrowed deep by the object’s side. A few seconds later, the object fell out. He caught it and examined the piece. It looked like an egg, covered with pores and organic foliage. Plant life? In space? No, that couldn’t be right. Ryder stuffed the piece in his cargo pod and engaged reverse thrusters.

  “Hey, anybody receiving this?” Ryder asked.

  “This is Sarah Price,” the navigator responded. “I read you, 22.”

  “I found something interesting. I want a scientist to have a look at it when I get back.”

  “I’ll arrange that,” she said. “What did you find?”

  “I don’t know. Something alive, maybe.”

  “You’re in space, Ryder. Nothing is alive.”

  “I’m just going with my gut on this one, lady.”

  “Fair enough,” she replied. “See you back in a few.”

  With a static release, the transmission ended and Ryder closed in on the Colony. The red giant star that previously crept over the top edge now sat behind it, swallowed up by the stature of the whale. Over two million people lived there. He was only one of them and his story was insignificant, but each person aboard dreamed of a day when he or she could walk on ‘real’ dirt and breathe ‘real’ air.

  “Huh?” Ryder said.

  He noticed a rumbling sound coming from his cargo pod and quickly switched on his containment camera to see the commotion, but nothing was there. Piles of rock occupied the feed, but more importantly, the green egg had vanished.

  “That’s not good,” he said.

  Ryder broke away his view of the Colony to examine the rear of his craft manually. There it was. A tiny green and black quadruped stood on the outer hull. It looked at him with black beady eyes and a slimy tongue dangled from its mouth.

  “You got to be kidding me.”

  Episode no. 2

  Outbreak

  Miles Hendrix. Head of Colony Hospital staff, Sunset Division. Overqualified. Hendrix stuffed his hands underneath a stream of running water at the cleaning station and scrubbed. He dried his hands with paper towels from a dispenser and chucked the wrapped up mess into the trashcan by his waist. Two points.

  His office was more like an office and less like an operating room, though the intention was the latter. He kept his medicines in high cabinets easy to reach for somebody as tall as he was and the sink was on the opposite side. A waste containment receptacle sat by the medicine cabinets, labeled hazardous materials. It was chock-full of used syringes, tongue depressors and odd disposables.

  “Now, let’s see what’s making you ill, shall we?” he said.

  A young man, Carl, sat on an examining bench and waited while Hendrix slipped on a new pair of gloves. His body sagged and his movements appeared sluggish. There were rashes across his arms that showed on his bare skin. The boy wore a loose short-sleeved t-shirt, the kind teenagers these days wore when they were out playing. One rash peaked up at the base of his collarbone, partly covered by the collar of his shirt. Hendrix would worry about that one later.

  “Open your mouth, please.”

  Carl opened his mouth and Dr. Hendrix examined his insides with a tongue depressor and a flashlight. No signs of swelling or irritation. Especially the back of the throat seemed to be in good condition. Promising. Next, he looked in the ears. Hendrix used a scope with a built-in light and disposable tip. He checked the right ear first. Then the left ear. Good, no fluid buildup or redness.

  “Carl, I’m going to need you to take off your shirt,” Hendrix explained.

  Carl shrunk back on the examining bench and crossed his hands over his chest.

  “Are you sure?” Carl asked.

  Dr. Hendrix nodded, “Yes, of course, I’m sure.”

  “I … don’t think I should.”

  “Listen, boy. I can’t fix you if you c
an’t tell me what’s wrong.”

  Carl drew back his hands and slowly removed his torn t-shirt. The rashes originally showed themselves on his arms from the bicep down. However, as he revealed more skin, the scope of the illness became apparent. Reddish bruises covered him from the waist up with no more than a few inches in-between most of them. The progression of the illness knocked Hendrix back some, but he did his best to keep himself collected.

  “How long since you started seeing these rashes?” he asked.

  “About four hours.”

  Interesting. It didn’t behave like the flu or any illness he kept in his databases, though it was fair to say he might have forgotten a few by now. It carried a swift progression, but two unknown factors bothered him greatly. The first was how contagious it was. The second was the result. Could a body fight it off naturally or would something like this lead to…

  “Listen, Carl, if it’s alright with your folks, I’d like to keep you under observation tonight.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Can I call them?”

  “We’ll get you a communication channel. In the meantime, I’m going to take a swab from one of those rashes.”

  “Is it going to hurt?” Carl said.

  “Not in the least. I’m also going to prescribe an antibiotic. See if that clears them up.”

  Dr. Hendrix grabbed a cotton swab from his jar and scraped a bit of skin from one of the larger rashes on the boy’s side. He put the swab in a plastic bag and sealed the zipper, setting it on the table behind him. Hendrix pulled his gloves off and threw them in the hazardous materials receptacle. He grabbed a pencil and started filling out some of his paperwork when Carl asked a question.

  “Doc, am