Fallen Earth (First Colony Book 15), page 27
The two CDF soldiers were left holding his MPS. One of them had grabbed onto Cynergy’s leg and flung her toward the probe. Ethan watched as she pierced the containment field. Tendrils shot out of the probe and latched onto her.
Ethan tried to scream, but it sounded strange, like a mournful wail. He swam toward her, and several projectiles darted past him. The tendrils began pulling Cynergy toward the probe, but he was able to grab her waist. Ethan banged his fists against one of the tendrils and it let her go.
The probe was knocked back and it swayed for a long moment before falling. The tendrils detached from Cynergy, and Ethan pulled her away from the probe. She was unresponsive, and he started to panic.
Several large creatures swooped past them, but Ethan didn’t stop swimming. They soon reached the surface, and Ethan dragged her to a small island. He disabled her helmet and saw she was unconscious. Her skin was back to normal, but she wasn’t breathing. He lifted her chin and exhaled forcefully into her mouth. He did this two more times and she began to cough.
A bright flash came from the depths below and Ethan looked down at Cynergy. She was still disoriented. He kissed her forehead and then dove back into the lake.
Ethan embraced his hybrid nature, quickly adapting to the water, and darted toward the bottom.
His MPS was gone, and he’d dropped his rifle, but he could see. His eyes adapted to the underwater environment.
Bright flashes came from the probe.
He closed in on it and saw that the creatures had pinned the three soldiers to the ground. He spotted another figure farther away. He was retreating, and his combat suit was damaged.
Ethan swam over and saw that it was Jared, and he was moving with awkward jerks. The combat suit had large gouges taken out of it. The life support systems were failing, and the suit was malfunctioning. If Ethan didn’t do something, Jared would die.
The command center was a short distance away. Ethan grabbed Jared and swam to the access hatch of the control center. He closed it and the water drained from the room. Ethan removed Jared’s helmet.
Jared coughed and spat out water, then heaved several breaths.
Ethan stared at him.
The floor began to rise, and he suddenly realized they were in an elevator. It stopped and a door opened to the control center.
Jared sputtered, stumbling away from him, flinching as if he were about to be attacked.
“Damn it, Jared, I’m not the enemy!”
Jared looked over to the holoscreens nearby and then out some observation windows. “But the data, the reports. The hybrids succumbed to the probe.”
Ethan looked over at one of the holoscreens. There were multiple sub-windows active. They showed recordings of people reacting to the probe and the burst of energy that came from it. The images were time-lapsed and showed hybrids changing into Vemus.
Ethan swallowed hard. The people didn’t look like volunteers. They’d been forced to endure it.
He shook his head. “I don’t know how to explain it.” A shifting of the light and shadows drew his attention to the window.
Jared gasped. “The others.”
“The creatures have them,” Ethan said, trying to peer through the cloudy water billowing throughout the area.
“We have to get out of here!”
Ethan snarled. “I’m not leaving them behind.”
“You can’t help them!”
Ethan gritted his teeth as he tried to think of something he could do, but he didn’t like any of the ideas he kept coming up with.
“They’re already dead,” Jared said. “As soon as they’re brought to the probe, they’ll be gone.”
The cloudy water swirled, and he glimpsed the CDF soldiers fighting the creatures, but there were too many of them.
“Ethan, we have to get out of here.”
He spun on him. “What happened to you, Jared? First you try to kill me and Cynergy, and now you’re willing to leave them behind to save your own skin? Is this the kind of man you are? You were going to be a doctor. You’re supposed to save lives, not abandon them. Is this the person your fiancé loved? What would she think if she could see you now?”
Snarling, Jared stomped toward him, bringing up his sidearm. “Don’t you dare judge me!”
“Shooting me isn’t going to bring her back. Murdering all the hybrids isn’t going to bring her back. Nothing is going to bring her back!”
Jared clenched his teeth and jabbed the pistol toward him.
Ethan glared at him for a few seconds with a half-formed snarl, then looked away. All his anger and frustration melted away, and for a moment he felt exhausted, as if all the pressure of the things he’d been coping with had become too much. He lifted his gaze to Jared. “This is what happened before. This is what it did to everyone here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Vemus,” he sighed. “They nearly wiped us out. We tried to control it, and it divided us. It’s been hundreds of years and here we are doing the same thing all over again. We should know better than this.” He pointed at Jared and then at himself. “We’re better than this.”
Jared swallowed hard and shook his head, ashamed. Then he lowered his weapon. “I’m sorry,” he said and blew out a long breath. “You’re right, Ethan. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just miss her so much. I wish I could have had more time. I’d give anything for it, but you’re right. She would’ve hated what I’ve done.”
Ethan turned toward the window and Jared came to stand next to him.
“How are we supposed to go against that?”
Ethan glanced at him, taking in the state of Jared’s combat suit. “We destroy the probe.”
Jared’s eyes widened. “What!”
He nodded. “It’s the only way this ends.”
“But you said we needed to study it to learn more about where it came from.”
“Come out of the combat suit,” he said, moving behind him.
Jared initiated the shutdown and stepped out of the suit.
“Take the helmet, though,” Ethan said as he opened the power core.
“What good is this going to do me?” Jared asked after he grabbed the helmet.
“It’ll protect your head, for one. It has emergency life support, which you’ll need to get out of here.”
“What are you going to do?”
Ethan hefted the suit’s power core in his hand. It was a small containment unit, but it was very powerful. “Would you be surprised to learn that each of these suits has a self-destruct built in? It’s part of the power core, and it’s meant to prevent the suit from falling into enemy hands. But if I can get close enough to the probe, it just might be enough to shatter it.”
“Those creatures are never going to let you get close enough to do that.”
Ethan smiled and embraced his hybrid nature. The change was so quick that it almost felt normal to him now. “Not if I look like one of them.”
Jared frowned. “Maybe I could distract them,” he said and went to one of the workstations.
“Okay, but as soon as you see me reach the probe, you need to get out of here.”
“How am I going to swim to the surface with just a helmet on?”
Ethan shook his head and detached one of the suit-jets on the back. “This has backup power, and it should get you most of the way up. Emergency life support will be enough for you to reach the surface.”
Jared bit his lip and then nodded.
“You’ve got this. I’m going to help the others.”
Jared pressed his lips together. “Handler would’ve done it, you know. He would’ve killed you.”
Ethan nodded. “I know. He thought he was doing the right thing.”
He went back to the elevator and headed back down. Jared sat at the workstation, navigating through the interface.
Water flooded the elevator and the doors to the access hatch opened. The skin between his feet and palms expanded, enabling him to swim with powerful strokes.
The creatures swam in a wide circle around the space probe, kicking up dirt and material from the lakebed. Ethan swam toward them and then was among them. He could detect subtle vibrations coming from each of them—a chorus of clicking sounds followed by high-pitched whines. He started to mimic the sound, and it seemed to focus his mind on a purpose that wasn’t his own. He felt himself begin to slip and turned toward the Vemus probe. He angled toward it, working his way through the hybrids. They’d once been people, subjected to horrible experiments, but somehow they’d been preserved for hundreds of years.
Tendrils coming from the probe had lashed onto the CDF soldiers. They must’ve been powerful enough to overwhelm the combat suits. There would be no way Ethan could pull them off.
The containment field generator had toppled over, and the cables powering it had been ripped out. Ethan swam around the probe, trying to find the best opportunity to rescue the others and destroy the probe.
He looked down at the base of the probe and saw that thick tendrils had burrowed into the ground. A jolt of panic surged through his mind, and the compulsion he’d been feeling was pushed back. The probe was getting more powerful by the second. It emitted some kind of energy. He could sense it. It wanted to do what it was designed to do—convert, manipulate, and dominate. A surge of denial raged through him, and he faltered, falling out of harmony with the hybrids. They banged into him, and he felt something sharp lash across his back. The pain spread like hot lightning, as if his skin had been scourged.
Ethan pushed off one of the creatures and sped toward the probe. Black tendrils burst from the sides of it and Ethan dodged to the side, evading them. He grabbed hold of one as it retracted into the probe, and pulling out the combat suit power core, he slammed it onto the thick tendril as another one grabbed his leg.
Ethan watched as the power core disappeared from view, seemingly to be absorbed by the probe. He slammed his hands onto the tendrils that had ahold of him, but another grabbed his hands and brought him next to the CDF soldiers.
He struggled against their hold but couldn’t break free. Then he did something that went against everything in him. Every instinct demanded that he fight, but he knew it was a fight he couldn’t win. The Vemus space probe was much too strong for him to overcome. He thought about his father and everything he’d done for the colony—how he’d helped prepare the colony for the Vemus invasion and then fought the Krake in a war unlike any other that had ever been fought. Both times he’d managed to snatch victory from the certainty of defeat, and both times it wasn’t because the CDF had been stronger than the enemy. His father and the rest of the CDF won those wars through cunning and sacrifice, by doing the things that the enemy least expected. Ethan couldn’t overpower the Vemus probe, but he understood it more now than he ever had before. The probe was a programed biological intelligence. It was designed for a purpose, and it had rules.
He saw the CDF soldiers look toward him, and he stopped struggling, surrendering to the probe. Even though the tendrils squeezed him, he didn’t resist, and his body became completely limp. He denied the part of him that demanded he fight with everything he had and focused on his memories of Cynergy. The moment she’d changed him into a hybrid was imprinted on his mind, and he could recall it with stunning clarity. He’d used that moment to help him focus his mind whenever new adaptations presented themselves as a result of being a hybrid. It was a function of the Vemus that was now a part of who he was.
The probe loosened its hold on him just as he hoped it would. It was a machine, a biological machine designed for a specific purpose, and it believed it had achieved it in him. He was just another in a long line of converts, but he shielded himself from truly yielding to the Vemus. He was different from all those who’d come before because his hybrid nature had been introduced generations after they’d been created. That was the only explanation he could come up with and one he hoped he’d find evidence for if he managed to escape.
The tendrils withdrew from him, and Ethan floated toward the nearest soldier. Spotting the AR-74 pressed to Braxton’s side, he grabbed the weapon and fired it at the tendrils holding onto Braxton. High density darts tore through the tendrils, and Ethan opened the maintenance panel near Braxton’s hip. He activated the ejection sequence, and Braxton jettisoned from his suit. Emergency thrusters pushed him toward the surface.
Dodging Vemus tendrils, Ethan did the same for Murrey. He wasn’t sure if Murrey was even conscious. Handler was a short distance away. His combat suit was half torn off him, including the helmet. A tendril was in his mouth, and the skin around his face was becoming dark.
Ethan fired his weapon, severing the tendril. Then he reached for the stump and yanked it out of Handler’s mouth. He looked as if he was already dead.
Across the way, a bright flash came from one of the observation stations, followed by another. Each flash sent the creatures into disarray, causing a chaotic disruption.
Ethan grabbed Handler’s arm and activated his wrist computer. Warning messages appeared from Handler’s biochip, and Ethan activated the emergency override.
Dark shapes swooped toward him, and they reached Handler’s combat suit just as the self-destruct mechanism engaged. A red flash shoved the water away, creating a pocket of expanding force.
Handler’s combat suit opened, but not entirely. Thrusters fired, dragging them away from the probe, but only for a short distance. Ethan swam around and heaved him out of the suit, and Murrey’s combat suit exploded with such force that it diverted the creatures into the probe. The fallen hybrids clustered around the probe, following an instinctual imperative to preserve it.
Ethan grabbed Handler by his waist and swam upward, pumping his legs with all his strength.
A bright flash came from beneath him, the biggest one yet, and a burst of current pushed Ethan and Handler violently toward the surface. It took everything Ethan had to hold onto the fallen soldier, refusing to leave him in a watery grave.
They broke through the surface, and Ethan was finally able to inhale a breath. Waves crashed nearby and Handler’s body suddenly jerked. The blackness had spread across his face and neck. Ethan swam toward shore, dragging Handler’s body with him.
Cynergy and Clip were there and pulled them both out of the water.
“Get away from him,” Clip said. “He’s becoming one of them.”
Ethan stared at the CDF soldier, watching the change take place. Snarling, Ethan grabbed Handler’s arm.
“No,” he growled.
“Ethan!” Cynergy cried.
He looked at her. “Help me.”
She blinked. “I can’t do that for him.”
He’d hoped that she could somehow prevent him from becoming fully Vemus. Not wanting to give up, he grabbed Handler’s hand, and just as he’d trained Cynergy to alter her physiology for functioning in deep under water like him, he showed Handler how to be a hybrid. The Vemus inside Handler halted as if it had encountered a barrier, and for a few moments, Ethan thought it was going to work.
Handler opened his eyes and stared at Ethan.
“Fight it,” Ethan said.
Handler’s body convulsed in pain and Ethan watched as a wave of calmness overtook Handler. His whole body sagged as he blew out a breath.
“Not this time,” Handler whispered.
Another convulsion overtook him, and then he became still.
Ethan blinked, peering intently at Handler, searching for some sign of life. “Wake up!”
He shook Handler, trying to rouse him, but it was futile. Handler was gone.
Ethan looked up at Cynergy. “I should’ve been able to save him. He was so close.”
She squatted down, placing her hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “Ethan, he’s gone. There was nothing you could’ve done.”
Clip squatted down across from him. “You did save him.”
Ethan blinked, his mind refusing to understand.
Clip lowered his chin grimly toward Handler. “He’s not one of them. You stopped it from happening. One less soldier that the enemy can use against us.”
Ethan’s gaze sank toward Handler. The soldier’s face looked oddly serene, as if he were in a deep sleep. He let go of Handler’s hand, lowering it to the ground. Cynergy wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and he leaned into her.
“Clip’s right, Ethan. You saved him. If it weren’t for you, he would’ve been lost to the Vemus.”
Ethan turned toward the lake. “The probe?”
Jared surfaced from under the water. Quickly removing his helmet, he gasped for breath. The others helped him onto land.
Jared looked at Handler’s body with a pained expression for a few moments, and then he looked at Ethan. “It’s all gone. The probe is destroyed.”
“What about all the creatures?”
He shook his head. “Nothing was moving down there.”
“How did you survive?” Ethan asked.
“Locked myself in the elevator. The facility protected me from the blast. Then I did what you told me to do. Emergency power doesn’t last nearly long enough,” Jared said.
Clip regarded Jared for a few seconds. “The data you recovered. I want it.”
Jared glanced at Ethan for a moment, then brought up his wrist computer and made a passing motion to Clip. “There it is, but I do have a question.”
Clip checked that data had transferred and then closed his holoscreen. “As long as this vendetta against hybrids is finished.”
Jared looked away from him.
“You’re not the first, and you certainly won’t be the last,” Clip said.
Jared sighed. “Yeah, but it’s still wrong, and I’m sorry.”
Clip glanced at Ethan.
“I might have explained a few things to him,” Ethan said.
Jared nodded. “He did. What about the hybrids? The feral ones.”
“It’s not what we thought it was,” Clip said. “The data we recovered from the observation stations had records from other research initiatives.”
Jared frowned. “So, they’re not other hybrids like you?”
Clip shook his head. “Evidently not. The Vemus have remarkable preservation capabilities that almost negate aging. It was this capability that the scientists were trying to exploit. These random encounters we’ve experienced are the results of those experiments. They’re a certain type of hybrid, but not like us.”
