Chapter 20
When the white flash cleared, Roxanne took in the stark landscape with such wonder. It was easy to forget she had never seen the ground or the sky, or at least she couldn’t remember such sights. As barren as this world looked, and as drab as the sky seemed, everything was so new and exciting to the young woman.
Even Lieutenant Anders took a moment to absorb the world around him. His first deployment, he had not yet stepped foot on an alien world since his transfer to the Space Fleet. Remy watched them both thinking it strange he of all people had been to more planets and had more experience on other worlds than either of his companions.
“Now what,” Anders wondered. Remy turned toward the complex half expecting a greeting party even though the miners weren’t expecting his return.
“We go up there and knock.”
Remy grabbed Roxanne by the arm and dragged her onward toward the complex. Like his first trip, a single man left the structure to greet him, gesturing the group inside. As they removed their helmets, Remy recognized Ares.
“What are you doing back here,” he demanded. “I thought you were going back to the UN.”
“Lieutenant Anders thinks he can get you safely away from here.”
The title triggered alarm in their host as he raised his rifle against the officer. “You brought one of them in here?”
Remy put himself in front of the rifle. “Relax, Anders has been helping me. We found the experiments our doctor was running and he wants to help you.”
“I think I have an idea how to get you off this world safely.”
Ares eyed the Lieutenant suspiciously, but Remy caught his glare to offer assurance. As he lowered the rifle, he turned his attention to the blonde in the third suit. “And who is she?”
“Her name’s Roxanne,” Remy introduced. “She was a prisoner aboard our ship. I want you to take her with you when you leave.”
Ares extended his hand to the girl, who looked at it confused before Remy nudged her to take it. “Nice to meet you, mam.”
“My name’s Roxanne,” she corrected innocently to the amusement of the men.
“It’s a title of respect,” Remy informed her. He gave her a smile to show her it was a good thing.
Ares brought everything back to Remy. “You guys have a plan to get us off this rock?”
Remy, wasn’t sure himself. He had come and he committed Roxanne to this course on Anders’ word. “Do we?”
“Yes,” the Lieutenant proclaimed with the confidence of a Colonel. “We found the secret room in our own medical bay, and I figure if you can hide a room in this other dimension, why not a ship. We’re going to scramble your ship, then use that device to shift it out of this dimension.”
Hearing the plan, Ares’ body sunk within his armor along with his hopes for escape. “We can’t shift something that large. One of the first things we tried after getting rid of the administrator and the doctor was to shift the entire complex so you wouldn’t find us. When that didn’t work, we tried shifting just ourselves. The most we can take across at one time is five people. Magnus is the engineer; he could explain it to you. It’s just not possible to shift large objects across the dimensional planes.”
“But they got entire rooms across,” Anders protested.
Remy already knew how that was done. “They took a scrambler across and constructed the rooms from within the dimension.” When the Lieutenant looked at him amazed at his knowledge, Remy fessed up. “I messed with Sadile’s scrambler when your back was turned. On the plus side, the inhibitors do not work across the dimensional plane. We can leave them up around this facility and still build the ship over there.”
While Anders liked the idea, Ares did not. “The material we need fills an entire building. It’s too much to take over at once, and it would take too long to break it down and cross it over.”
“How far has Fortune’s army advanced,” Anders inquired. He earned some strange comments from Ares before explaining Fortune was the name of the field commander and not a description of the enemy. But before he could get the update from this miner, he received a different update from the ground beneath him.
The building shook as the floor suddenly felt like quicksand. A low bass-like hum filled the air as if a helicopter was trying to land on their heads. Remy and Anders looked up expecting something to come through the roof, when Ares pointed out the origin.
“Earthquake. They’ve been growing stronger for the past hour.”
He reminded Anders of the reports from Freedom’s bridge. “You don’t have much time before the magma swallows up this complex. It doesn’t matter how, we have to build that ship.”
He figured if Magnus was the engineer on site, it would be more useful talking to him. Ares agreed to take Roxanne to private quarters. With the lack of women in this man camp, it might have been safer, at the least more dignified, if she was out of public view.
“I’ll come see you in a little bit,” Remy promised, and the two pairs parted ways.
He and Anders headed upstairs where, according to Ares, Magnus’ office was located. As they climbed the stairs and stepped onto a walkway overlooking the central chamber, the Lieutenant had a question.
“Why do you do this? Why do you care about these people so much?”
“Somebody has to,” was the simple reply.
“Most people watch the bad things happening all over the world, but end of the day, they turn the news coverage off and expect it all works out. Most people have empathy for the unfortunate, but they can still go to work or school or the park, and they can still sleep at night without their dreams taken over by horrors like this. What inspired you to join the UN? What inspires you to put your life in jeopardy for this group of miners? What was so special about Roxanne that you had to go back for her before leaving the Freedom?”
Remy shrugged his shoulders searching for the easy answer his friend was looking for. “Tell me, what made you join me down here? It’s not just your life, but your commission that’s on the line for these people. Why are you helping me help them?”
Anders should have known it was going to be turned on him, but it was a fair turn of the tables. “I joined the Marines to protect my country from those that would harm us and our people. I know you guys in the UN think the world is a big happy place right now, but under those phony smiles and long-winded speeches on love and peace our diplomats share in those chambers, they’re secretly thinking about the plots their governments have to destroy each other. There has been an arms race going on since our nations came to dominance. All four nations out here among the stars, and a couple others that haven’t quite joined us, we’re all stockpiling weapons and technology until one of us has a clear advantage.
“I’m serving my country to keep the people back home safe. I accepted the transfer to the Space Force because I thought the future of our defense was out here. When I saw those files in Major Sadile’s computers, I had to admit I was embarrassed for my country. I didn’t want to believe my own government would sanction such gruesome experiments on its own people. I don’t know if those people created in his lab are really people, or if these copies down here are people, but it’s an abuse on the original patterns. I joined the military to protect people like this, not people who would do this.”
“Sometimes,” Remy reminded him, “you have to stop looking the other way. Even if all you do is speak up to bring attention to injustice, you make a difference. As you said, people tend to think these problems are for someone else to fix. I guess when I earned my doctorate, I decided not to be one of those people, but that someone instead. And back there, up on the ship, you decided the same.”
They stopped in front of a grimy door with Magnus’ name across the front. Anders was confused by the door knob, but for Remy, who had only been introduced to their space-age technology a couple days ago, this was more familiar. He grabbed the knob, and let themselves in,
finding their engineer working on his computer.
“Whatever you want,” Magnus snapped rather curtly, “I’m busy. If I don’t find a way to stabilize the ground, we’re all sunk in a sea of lava.”
Anders stepped forward, resting his hands on the desk and leaning across. “If you don’t stop that army so you can replicate your ship and get off this planet, you’re all dead anyway. All you’re doing is buying seconds when you need to buy days.”
“I don’t know who you are, but Dirk has a plan, and I have a job to do.”
“If this is Dirk’s plan, then it is garbage,” Anders challenged. “I didn’t betray my commander to come down and watch you all flail about in your ignorance.”
Remy took his companion aside to point out his confrontational tone wasn’t going to help these people or convince them to accept his guidance. With an apology, he returned to the engineer to lay out a plan.
“We have to distract the scramblers while you bring down your inhibitors, scramble the ship, and transport everyone aboard. We’ll need a few minutes, but Colonel Freedom can do a lot of damage in only a few seconds; and you only have enough material for one ship.”
Magnus was doubtful, but willing to listen as Anders laid out his plans for the distraction. It required whatever spare material they could scrape from their stores, and then some from the already thin and dissolving surface. Parts of this plan were laughable to both of his audience, and others were downright appalling to Remy who feared they were going to become the monsters they were trying to stop. Anders assured them both, this was doable without compromising principles.
“You should have the men suit up and prepare to defend the entrance. Things are going to intensify outside once Fortune realizes what we’re doing. He’s letting you think you’re decimating his forces and holding his men back, but he’s sitting on a full cargo pod waiting for the right chance to use it.”
Magnus liked the plan and left to fill Dirk in on the details. He knew their de facto leader wouldn’t like it, but it was going to unfold whether he approved or not. Remy meanwhile decided to check in on Roxanne to make sure she was ready to go once the ship was finished. He imagined as well, how lonely and bored she must be in those quarters.