The Silent Planet: A Space Opera (Cosmic Cyclone Series, Book 1) Page 11

  He glanced around and found his Marines wallowing in the fire. Some had passed out, others sat and rubbed their eyes.

  "I can't see!" he heard from several angles.

  "Stay where you are!" he shouted.

  Ben's gaze was on the newly forming fireball above him. This time the fog extended down to the ground and Ben was tempted to think that he was dealing with a sentient being; however, with one whose kind he'd never met before.

  "Can anybody still see?" Ben asked.

  "I can't," several anxious voices said.

  "Go prone, take your hands and cover your eyes," Ben ordered. "A second discharge may be imminent!"

  He looked at Captain Anderson, who lay slowly twisting on the ground. The man was either unconscious or really out of it.

  Ben's gaze went back to the ball of light, which was no ball anymore by now, but something like a glowing red ghost. He discovered two dark spots forming in the cloud, right within the ghost's head. Suddenly the dark spots were turned to bright and Ben felt that somebody was staring at him. Cold concern gripped his heart.

  Could this be?

  Was it possible that he was dealing with a being that had abilities like his own? If it was, then mankind had entered a dark hour and didn't know it yet.

  Lightning quick, he looked around. Everybody seemed genuinely blinded and he'd only promised them that they wouldn't see him to be any different from ordinary human beings. Right now his Marines didn't see a thing. This freed him up to be himself.

  Ben decided to act.

  The tunnel entrance covered the left half of Stella Halvorsen when the red blast ripped through the sphere and threw everybody, including her, down.

  Dazed, she found herself on the ground.

  She sat up and shook her head. Stella felt no pain, but realized that she was now blind in her right eye. She frantically rubbed it, but that did no good. Helplessness and despair washed over her.

  In a flash all the fear and the warnings of her mother flooded back into her heart. Mom was right. She shouldn't have signed on with the Corps. Her mother didn't know it, but Stella had decided to become a Marine only because of Benouli. After the incident where he'd forced her, she'd vowed to herself that something like this would never happen to her again. She'd learn how to defend herself and to kill, if need be.

  And now she was here.

  She had done nothing but stand around, had even been quite far from the source of danger—and now she was blind in one eye. Stella sank onto all fours, clawed the dust and begin to breathe heavily.

  With her right eye she began to search for the general. How was Harrow doing? She could see that every other Marine was down, too. But the general, whose hat had fallen away, was standing up now. His eyes were obviously untainted, because he gazed up at the newly-forming ball of fire.

  What would he do?

  Stella studied him, transfixed. When two eyes appeared in the apparition that hovered above the general, she stopped breathing for a few seconds.

  The general's features seemed to turn to stone when he saw it, too. He quickly scanned his environment, checking how his Marines were doing. When she heard him bark his order to go prone, she obeyed, too. It dawned on Stella that she was the only one who could still see—apart from General Harrow, who was different from everybody else.

  Her heart almost stopped when Harrow suddenly expanded, began to glow and became too big for his clothes, which fell away. With an open mouth Stella watched him turn into an electric-blue cloud himself, charged with energy that she could feel all the way to her position. She meant to scream, but no sound came out of her mouth.

  Everything they had ever said about Harrow was true! She was watching him do things that no human being was able to perform. Fear and awe and shock racked her and she sat down, leaning her back against the tunnel wall.

  By now Harrow was also five meters tall, a vibrating cloud of power. His eyes weren't red, but brilliant white and his cloud was denser than the red fog that hadn't moved since Harrow's transformation.

  They hovered opposite of one another, like fantasy images straight out of a 3D-holo in a big theater.

  She saw how Harrow's charged cloud suddenly flashed into the red fog of the Kasa ghost and merged with it. The cloud bubbled, but she couldn't make out what exactly was happening.

  Ben was feeling out the red mist and its glowing eyes. He tried to figure out what they were made of. His own nano particles swirled around the ghost's substance, coloring the red cloud purple. He especially checked out the eyes, which, he quickly found out, were not sensitive to his touch. There was no defensive reaction. The ghost meekly allowed him to analyze them. After a minute or two Ben determined that he was dealing with a self-assembling nano mechanism.

  The eyes weren't eyes.

  They were receivers who got their orders from some hidden transmitter in the wall.

  Need to get into this command center!

  That there were two of them did not serve the purpose of giving the ghost an anthropomorphic aspect, but was owed to system redundancy. If somebody somehow took out one "eye," there was still the other one to carry on with the mission.

  A two-ton weight rolled off his chest.

  This was not a sentient being, but only a machine. A brilliant machine for sure, very advanced, but still only a machine.

  A well-thought-out sentinel.

  At certain intervals it fired off nanoparticles, which coated the eyes of all that were staring at the apparition with just enough substance to strike them blind for a season.

  Brilliant.

  Surely, there were others like this one all over the station. He'd need to tell the battalion what they were and not to look at them when they appeared.

  Somehow he was sure that Vlad Jones and his colonists hadn't set up these advanced defensive measures. What mastermind was behind all this?

  He'd have to take care of his blinded Marines.

  But first things first.

  His own nano structure was much more refined than that of the ghost. It wasn't very hard for Ben to dismantle the glowing eyes and to turn them back into dust. After both were gone, the cloud slowly faded and the fire of glowing powder that illuminated the ground and the entire jungle sphere vanished with it.

  His electric-blue form now returned to white. The bright cloud that was Ben Harrow lost its glow as it shrank and once again resumed a human form. Satisfied that his Marines couldn't see him, he stepped back into his clothes, snatched his ear-piece from the ground and put it in place, and once again was General Harrow.

  Ben crouched down by dazed Captain Anderson.

  "Hold still, Marine. I'm going to work on your face." He opened Anderson's eye with thumb and forefinger.

  "Can you see me, Captain?"

  "No, Sir," came Joel Anderson's answer.

  "Don't move."

  Ben took his finger and checked Joel's eyeball with it. The man didn't notice. He didn't even blink. But Ben found now that the explosion had really blasted a coat of nanoparticles over his officer's eyes. He quickly scraped them off now. Anderson blinked a couple of times and Ben saw that he recognized him.

  "Go over to the waterfall and wash your eyes, Captain," Ben ordered.

  Anderson slowly got up and staggered over to the waterfall, where he did as told.

  In the meantime, Ben went from soldier to soldier and liberated them from the particles that messed up their vision. While he was occupied this way, Ben thought some more about the superior technology behind the marching Invisibles and those sentinels. A politician like Vlad Jones or any of his group didn't have enough expertise to create them, nor had they the tools. No. This was the work of a scarily advanced civilization. Somebody had taken over Vlad Jones and his settlers—and the entire planet of Kasaganaan. Somebody had figured out nanotechnology in breathtaking depth.

  Ben grew ever more convinced that he had a problem. One not-so-far-off day he might even meet his match.

  On the other hand, he d
idn't know for sure that the other side was as hostile as Daniel von Schwarz feared it was. It was falling to Ben to find out.

  The last person Ben treated was Stella Halvorsen. She shivered like none of the others when he touched her. When he was about to reach into her left eye, she blinked furiously and when he held the lid in place, her eye wandered around.

  "Hold still, Lieutenant," Ben said. "In a few seconds you'll be able to see again."

  She didn't reply, but each time when his finger came down on her eye, she averted her pupil and Ben realized that she wasn't blind.

  He looked down at her. Lying in the dust of the tunnel, her whole frame shivered like an aspen in the wind.

  His heart sunk. He was convinced she'd seen him. What could he do about it now?

  Nothing.

  Ben decided, if she wouldn't mention that she'd seen him, he wouldn't ask her if she had. This way they could both pretend that nothing happened.

  But Ben didn't regret that he'd dealt with the red ghost the way he had. It had been the right thing to do and the temporary blindness of his troops had even played into his hand. Halvorsen would have to get over it.

  Ben let go of her left eye and turned to her right eye, which she didn't move when his finger came down on it. He realized that her right eye was blind. Well, he figured, that was better than nothing. If she wouldn't see him transform again, perhaps after a while she'd simply forget what she'd seen. She'd stuff it into a recess of her mind, where this memory would lie dormant forever, never to be called up again.

  When he was done with Halvorsen, he walked back into the jungle, where the Marines were gathering.

  "How'd you do that, Sir?" Captain Anderson asked. His eyes were wide and he swallowed hard.

  Ben shrugged. "Had a bit of medical training in my day."

  Stella heard how casually he talked about what he'd done. But she'd seen him. The picture of Ben Harrow expanding and turning into an ethereal version of himself and exploding into a cloud of glory and slamming into this ghost was etched in her mind. She'd never forget it the longest day she lived. The hair on the nape of her neck bristled at the thought of it.

  He made her blind eye whole again.

  He made everybody to see again. He'd saved all of them from the miserable fate of being young and handicapped. And they hadn't even lost their eyesight in a certified battle. There had been no glory whatsoever in their wounds. No fierce enemy denying them an important objective had struck them blind. Fate had smitten them while they were unsuspecting.

  And General Harrow turned the clock back. He dismantled their attacker and he healed them.

  No, Sir. She'd never forget it. Never.

  "Captain, get the troops ready," Ben said, "and then let's head back. This time we're going for the command center."

  "Aye, Sir!"

  Joel Anderson and his lieutenants put the troops in line, and after they made sure that everybody was in working order, the general addressed them once more. He stood on the terrace by the water-wall. Leopard-spotted orchids grew on the dark-green grass around his feet.

  "What you just encountered was an advanced machine," Ben said to his Marines. "It is highly likely that we will run into more of them. If we do, I want you to turn away from that red light when it's forming and I want you to cover your eyes. I don't want to have to perform my surgical arts on you every time we meet one of those clowns. Understood?"

  "Sir! Yes, Sir!"

  "All right, keep your eyes peeled as we go and make for the command center."

  "Will we find the way back?" a young private asked.

  "You bet," Captain Anderson next to him replied in the general's stead.

  Chapter 15

  Their senses on high alert, the troops walked towards the command center, on the lookout in every direction. On their way they passed through modules and tubes that were remarkably clean. They didn't meet another one of Kasa Station's red sentinels.

  The tunnel widened and they discovered a docking station for small craft, cutters or pinnaces, at the short end of an intersecting tube.

  Shortly after that they stood in front of the vitrum swing doors that made up the entrance to the command center. Through the large panes they saw a hall like a waiting room or a concourse. Surprisingly free of dust, it was spacious and furnished with couches and seats of lightweight and easy-to-form styroleum. Judging by its dimensions, Ben figured it doubled as assembly hall or colony counsel auditorium at times.

  At the far end, a round steel door barred access to what was the command center proper according to the blueprints. After getting into this concourse, they'd have to find a way to crack that door. He wondered if his engineers were up to it.

  Of course, he could have gotten into the door and figured out the manual override with which all those doors were equipped. He could probably have opened it, but he'd promised his troops he'd appear like a regular human being—while they saw him—and he was bound by his word.

  Captain Anderson and Lieutenant Halvorsen stood next to the engineer, an expert lock picker, and watched him work on the swing doors.

  General Harrow hung back. Even though the space by the entrance was getting crowded, he enjoyed ample room as nobody got closer to him than a meter or two, and nobody dared to touch him.

  The engineer was successful. There was the grinding noise of gear wheels and the double doors swung open.

  Joel Anderson was the first to enter the gray waiting room with its furniture along the wall.

  And immediately a foul mood hit him.

  He glanced at Stella Halvorsen, who had entered right behind him and now stood beside him, scanning the place with wide-open eyes.

  Joel frowned.

  He'd always thought she was the cutest thing—a babe if there ever was one. But now, as he looked at her out of the tail of his eye, he saw for the first time how ugly she really was. He shook his head. Her blonde hair was scraggly like a mat of flax and way too short. It wasn't as short as his own, a fact that immediately aggravated him, too. Why did the Corps have to fry extra eggs for women? Why did female line troops get away with hair regulations that would get a male Marine taunted?

  Standing there, Joel shook his head at the unfathomable stupidity of the leadership of the Terra Gemina Marine Corps.

  Of all Terras everywhere in the universe.

  Because they were all the same. They all made idiotic allowances for women that they forbade in men.

  And Stella Halvorsen was so homely.

  Her eyes had black half-moons under them, her skin was so sallow that she probably had died and just hadn't noticed yet; her high cheekbones were so pronounced and her nose so small that they hurt his eyes. And her mouth that he thought so utterly kissable until now looked like a ragged hole. He winced.

  Momentarily he had to avert his eyes.

  And her posture!

  Her whole way of standing there was a mess. Why did everybody always jaw about what amazing poise she had? She looked awful. This was no way for a Marine to stand, slouching, one leg shorter than the other. And how dirty her uniform was. So ill-kept.

  She smelled rancid, too.

  And why was she staring at him so?

  Other Marines were coming in and filled the place up. Joel's gaze wandered over them and he realized what a sorry bunch they all really were. Everybody, positively everybody was frowning. They looked forsaken, needy, and had hungry eyes. They were frightened children lost in the woods. Hansel and Gretel afraid of the witch.

  Joel Anderson groaned.

  Marines were masters—of themselves and of their circumstances. They should have a certain air about them. Why couldn’t they act like the elite troops they were? Joel wanted to slug them and felt sorry for them at the same time.

  Two privates began to push and shove one another. Joel didn't like the vibrations.

  "Hey, you two clowns!" he shouted. "Knock it off right now!"

  Anderson turned around and glowered at Stella Halvorsen. "Lieutenant, I
shouldn't have had to address those two jokers. You see, that's what lieutenants are for."

  Stella turned pink. "Wasn't aware of the incident, Sir," she said.

  Her voice sounded the way her mouth looked: tinny and crooked. Why had he ever thought it melodious before?

  "So I see," Anderson hissed. "You should look around more, keep your eyes peeled. This way you won't fail again."

  Stella turned red in the face. "Sir, I resent that," she said, a bit too loudly.

  "Oh yeah?" Anderson replied. "Lieutenant, I will say to you whatever I want. I'm your superior. If I tell you to jump, you ask how high. Understood!"

  Stella stood and stared past him into oblivion. She blinked once before she said, "I will not be—"

  "And if I tell you to kneel down and bang your head on the floor," Anderson yelled, "you do that, too."

  Beet-red all the way to the roots of her hair, Stella shouldered her rifle and put her hands to her hips. "Sir, I will do no such thing! If you ever order me to kneel down, I will lift my foot and kick you on the shin. I will kick you so hard that you will go down on your knees yourself! And then I'll push you over. And when your nose hits the ground, I will stand and laugh. Like this." She threw her head back and laughed coldly.

  Joel didn’t want to trust his ears. Who did this homely, smelly—and incompetent—officer think she was?

  He came back with a biting remark, which she deftly parried, and they kept up their bickering without noticing that the other Marines were in strife, too.

  Barely suppressed anger charged the air like a storm brewing, ready to explode any second. There were semi-friendly slaps in the face and pats on the back of several heads. Others were pointing at one another with raised forefingers, speaking at the same time, not listening to what the other had to say.

  A grimacing engineer who'd leaned on the wall slid down and sat on the ground, grimacing like a man in pain. Others sat down, too, and put their faces in their hands. Their backs were bend as if burdens too heavy to bear had been placed on them.