Red Eden: Homeworld Bound | Chapter 3: Dark Side of The Earth
Click the following link for the chapter listing:
https://www.minds.com/ME2007Vigil/blog/red-eden-homeworld-bound-table-of-content-913570321625583616
Chapter 3: Dark Side of The Earth
The first thing Jack noticed was the bitter, biting cold chilling him to his bones. He curled into a ball and shivered. As he blinked, his blurry vision slowly came into focus. He was inside a frost-covered glass tube.
The tube slid open. He was pleasantly surprised to see Ellen’s beautiful face. She wore her pearl-white and gold EVA suit, minus her helmet. She had on a utility belt, which had a thermos strapped to it. “How are you feeling?” She asked.
He smiled dumbly at her. “Like I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
She grimaced. “Here. Take this.” She pulled a blue blanket roll out of his locker and passed it to him. She then handed him her thermos. “And drink this. It’ll warm you up.”
He wrapped the blanket around himself and popped the straw-cap off the thermos. The pleasant aroma of hot cocoa wafted into his frigid nostrils. “Hmm… to what do I owe this VIP treatment?” He sucked the straw. Sweet, hot liquid washed down his throat and warmed his belly.
“Jack, there's something important I have to tell you.”
Is she about to reveal she's got a crush on me? “Go on,” he said with a wolfish grin.
“It's about your father and his crew. Mission control hasn't heard from them in over three months.”
He stopped grinning. “Why? What happened to them?”
Somebody coughed behind her. He leaned to his right and saw Derek wrapped in a blanket with a thermos in his hands. In the pod next to Derek's, a muscular Huoxing man slurped his cocoa through a straw. It was none other than Erwin Yu himself. Everyone else, including Jack’s mother and sister, remained afloat inside glass tanks filled with yellow antifreeze.
“Why are we the only ones awake?” Jack wondered.
“We have limited supplies aboard the Hiigara,” Ellen replied. “Anyone who isn't needed will remain in hibernation.”
“And what do you need us for?” Derek asked.
“Right now, I need you guys to listen. Shortly after we departed from Mars, a large force of Earth natives landed on the eastern shores of Iceland. Mission control sent Chief Hanlon and his crew to make first contact. According to Chief Hanlon's report, these newcomers spoke a strange dialect of English. They were on a religious pilgrimage to seek out the tomb of an ancient goddess.”
Erwin snorted. “This some kind of plot from a Wei-Chen film?”
“They found a bunker,” Ellen said. “Our engineers went inside. We haven’t heard from them since. Then, just a few minutes ago, I received a disturbing call from someone claiming to be Gabriella Romero.”
“The Gabriella Romero?” Derek asked.
Ellen nodded.
Jack didn't like where this was going.
“She has them,” Ellen said. “They’re still alive, if she can be believed. She wants us to turn back. Go home. She’s threatened to execute her hostages if we attempt to land on Earth.”
“So you're recruiting us for a rescue mission?” Erwin asked.
Ellen nodded. “I chose you three because you are physically fit. Extremely so. It took Chief Hanlon and his crew a full month before they could run a hundred metres without collapsing in exhaustion. Hopefully, you can hit the ground running. Furthermore, I’ve looked into your profiles. You have each received at least some basic combat training through your membership in various militias.”
“We’re not completely useless in a fight,” Derek said, “but we ain’t trained specialists neither.”
“You’ll have to do,” Ellen said. “No one else has a physical profile that even comes close to matching yours. What you lack in skill, you’ll have to make up for with your gear.”
“What are we up against?” Jack asked.
“I’ll get into that, but first I need to know you three are on board with this mission.”
“I won't abandon my father,” Jack said. “Derek and I – we’re doing this.”
Derek nodded.
Ellen turned her gaze towards Erwin.
The Huoxing man rubbed the thin stubble on his chin. “Sounds like a dangerous mission. What’s in it for me?”
Derek scoffed. “You're the so-called Hero of Huoxing. Or are you a hero only when the cameras are rolling?”
Erwin growled. “You're treading on thin ice, Blondie.”
“If not for my father, we wouldn't have electricity or running water down there,” Jack said.
Erwin shrugged. “That ain’t free, so why should I work for free?”
“My gratitude isn't enough?” Ellen asked.
“Unless I can cash that in for hugs and kisses, I ain't interested.”
Bold, Jack thought. Very bold.
“It would be disastrous for our colony if we were to lose our best engineers,” Ellen said.
“I understand that. I just don’t want others freeloading off my labour.”
“Fine. I'll pay you.”
“How much?”
“We can negotiate that later.”
Erwin crossed his arms. “Fine.”
Jack shook his head. He should have expected as much from Erwin. The Huoxing man typically played the asshole protagonist in his movies. True to life.
“Here’s the situation on the ground,” Ellen said. “We’ve got falcon drones in the air to act as our eyes and ears. We’ve got satellite coverage. As for the enemy, their cellular towers are in-operational, and their landlines are a mess, which means they don’t have any communications infrastructure. But they’ve got VTOLs in the air, patrolling, and multiple sentry posts scattered along the ring road that goes around the island. A small team can slip past them easily. And it’s important that you remain undetected. If Gabriella realizes what we’re up to, she will execute our engineers.”
“How are we gonna land without them detecting us?” Derek asked. “A rocket ain’t exactly inconspicuous.”
“As I’ve mentioned, they can’t report directly to Gabriella. If they detect you, you’ll have to shoot down their VTOLs before they can escape to warn her.”
“Where are our weapons?” Erwin asked.
“Our supply capsules arrived before we did. They’ve landed near Keflavik airport, on the west end of the island. Gabriella’s soldiers are there. They haven’t managed to open any of our capsules, but you’ll have to get past them to access your gear.”
“And how would we do that without our gear?” Erwin asked.
“You’ll land at night when they’re sleeping. Under cover of darkness, you will run directly for the supply capsules. I’ll open them for you. You will arm yourselves and eliminate all hostiles in the area. No one can escape. Got it?”
Jack's initial outrage now gave way to fear and uncertainty. He raised his hand. “I’ve never killed anyone before.”
“None of us have,” Ellen said, “except Erwin.”
Everyone turned their gaze towards the Huoxing man.
“Any insight you can give us?” Derek asked.
Erwin shrugged. “It helps to know they deserve it.”
“Any soldier who fights for Gabriella deserves to die,” Ellen coldly stated.
“They've initiated violence against our people,” Derek said, “so it's only fair we respond in kind.”
Jack stared at his shaking hands. The Martian people had never been to war. Even when the Directorate shot down the Martian fleet of transport ships, the Martian pioneers didn't-couldn't retaliate. Their only option was to tunnel underground and hope for the best. Jack had a sinking feeling this mission was going to end badly. Nevertheless, he had to find the courage to fight. His father's life depended on it.
“In one hour,” Ellen said, “we'll be in position over Iceland. Suit up. I'll meet you guys at the Dragonite bay.”
***
If Jack was going to die today, then he needed to look good. He leaned towards the mirror on the inside of his locker-door, put a razor to his face and trimmed his unkempt beard. He left just enough of a stubble to give himself that roguish good look that girls would die for. He leaned back and flexed his biceps. His form-fitting, smoky-grey EVA suit tastefully accentuated the curves of his muscles. The black patterns on his suit highlighted his deltoid, pectoralis major, vastus lateralis, latissimus dorsi, and gluteus maximus muscle groups, which for the Latin deficient meant his shoulders, his pecs, his outer thighs, his lats, and his butt. There was a silver 'Z' stitched above his left breast, Z for Zero-point, the company that manufactured the suit.
“I'm too beautiful to die,” he quietly mumbled, heart filled with woe.
His thoughts went to his poor mother. Would she survive losing both her son and her husband? What about Ray and Amy? Amy would die if anything happened to Derek. Jack wondered how his fans would react to his untimely demise, especially the fan-girls. I hope none of them kill themselves over me.
“Nice suit,” Erwin said.
“Huh?” Jack turned around.
The Huoxing man put on his helmet, which was shaped like a grotesque dragon's head. “What's the make?”
Jack tapped the Z-point logo above his left breast. “Zero-point R980, custom-designed. I had it upgraded with a carbon nanoweave layer. It can stop a speeding bullet, yet it's as flexible as my skin.” It was fortunate that he had shelled out the extra cash for the carbon nanoweave layer. It was the only thing that gave him hope he might yet survive this conflict.
Erwin thumped the Chinese characters on his breast plate. “Si-Tien 7878. Military grade. Carbon crystal plates are way stronger, in my opinion.”
Jack took a moment to size up Erwin's rig. The carbon crystal plates that covered Erwin's suit from neck to toe glimmered with a blood-red sheen. “Sure. They're strong, but brittle. Once it cracks, the whole thing shatters.”
“Trouble is getting it to crack in the first place. Can your suit handle point-oh-three kilopascals of vacuum pressure?”
Impressive, but not as good as Jack's. “Point-oh-oh-five.”
Erwin whistled. “What kind of thermal protection does yours have?”
“Z-point once filled their suit with ice cubes, then blasted it with rocket fuel. After a thirty second burn, the ice was still there.”
Erwin shrugged. “That's pretty standard. Give me hard numbers.”
Somewhat miffed by Erwin's dismissive shrug, Jack listed the numbers. “My R980 will keep me cozy at temperatures down to negative forty degrees Celsius. It can tolerate thermal burns of up to ten thousand degrees.”
“Yeah right.”
“Don't believe me? Look up the specs yourself.”
“How much did you pay?”
“Fifty thousand runits.”
“For the same money, you can buy two suits of similar build from Si-Tien.”
“Pfft. That's a knock-off brand.”
“Oh yeah? Well this knock-off comes equipped with VR. Does your suit have that?”
“That's standard across all Zero-point helmets.”
“Whatever. Si-Tien suits look way cooler.”
“Sorry, but you look like you're dressed for a cosplay.”
“Better than wearing a gay skin suit.”
Jack puffed out his chest. How dare he insult my suit!
“Guys, let's focus on the mission,” Derek said. His suit was similar to Jack's except Derek's suit was white with blue highlights.
Jack gave Erwin a dirty look before turning away. Jack grabbed his helmet off the top shelf of his locker. On the back of his helmet, a blue light emanated from a cross-shaped biofilm, indicating that the oxygen-producing cyanobacteria were active. He put on his helmet, and it automatically formed a vacuum seal with the collar of his suit.
“You got twenty minutes.” Ellen's voice blared over the PA system. “Are you ladies done dressing up? We're on a tight schedule here.”
Jack and his two companions kicked off from their pods and floated towards the crawlspace. He grabbed the ladder and followed the green direction arrows pointing towards the ship's rear. When he reached the end of the crawlspace, he kicked off the ladder and floated into the Dragonite bay. The bay had three rings of escape pods built around the cylindrical hull. The rings were stacked five metres apart, and each ring had seven Dragonite capsules docked to it.
All the pods were open. Ellen was inside one of them. Jack pushed off the wall and glided towards her. He grabbed the doorway to stop himself from colliding into her, then he gently pulled himself next to her by the window. When he caught sight of the wispy green aura dancing over a dark, cloudy surface, an airy breath escaped his lips. “Earth.”
“Seven point eight billion,” Ellen whispered.
Jack was barely listening as he was mesmerized by the electrical storm pulsing through the clouds on the dark side of the Earth.
“That's how much it cost to get us here.”
“Ah.”
“At the end of the day, we're a business,” Ellen said. “If word gets out that the Bitch-Queen of the Eden Directorate survived the Apocalypse, how many people do you think would still want to come?”
Jack thought about Vicenta and all the excuses she gave to avoid coming here. Now there was an even better excuse: a scary dictator still ruled the Earth.
“Your father knew what had to be done. He tried to kill her.”
“What?” Jack's father was no killer.
“She has to die, Jack. All vestigial remnants of the Eden Directorate must be purged from the Earth. No mercy.”
“I thought this was just a rescue mission.”
“This is war. Make no mistake about it.”
Jack was taken aback by her ferocity.
Erwin floated into the pod, followed by Derek.
“Ship's real quiet,” Derek said. “Is there a crew?”
“The Hiigara doesn't need a crew,” Ellen replied. “Her systems are completely automated.”
“When are we going to wake the others and let them know what's going on?” Derek asked.
“When the situation on the ground is resolved.”
“You mean after we've killed everyone and everything that threatens our colony?” Jack asked.
“Precisely,” Ellen said. “Once you've secured our engineers, I can send down the rest of our force without fear of alerting Gabriella. We will wipe her off the map.”
“If we're escalating to full-on war,” Derek said, “perhaps we should ask Mars for backup.”
“There is no one else but us,” Ellen said. “We only have one interplanetary transport ship. Further investment into the company is contingent upon a successful colony. Hence, it is important that we do not fail here. Failure means there is no future for our people on Earth.”
Erwin snorted. “Dapao-rep called it, alright.”
Ellen nudged herself off the wall and glided towards the exit. “Strap yourselves in, boys. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.” She shut the airlock behind her. Her voice blared over the radio built into Jack's helmet. “I've already inputted the trajectory. The Dragonite will guide itself to the landing zone. Remember, when you land, head straight for the supply capsules.”
Jack counted seven seats inside the capsule. He and his companions climbed into the front row of three seats. Jack took the leftmost seat, Derek the middle, and Erwin the rightmost seat.
The lights went out. A sixty five inch flat screen display swivelled down and locked in place in front of Jack and his companions. It showed them the Hiigara's trajectory around Earth. The Hiigara, represented by a blue dot, approached a red dot from which a dotted-line diverged from the orbital path. The dotted-line connected to a tiny island on Earth near the North Pole. A side panel displayed the Dragonite's speed and altitude, as well as the countdown timer. Only ten minutes left to go.
“So,” Erwin said. “Do you guys know each other?”
“We've been friends since we were kids,” Derek said, “and I'm going to marry his sister.”
“Creepy.”
“Why's that?” Jack asked.
“Cuz y'all grew up together. He watched her turn from a kid into someone he wants to, uh... I'm just sayin' I'd feel weird about it.”
“Yeah, we grew up,” Derek said. “You should too.”
“You have a sister?” Jack asked Erwin.
“No. A brother, though Darrin's such a sissy that he might as well be my sister.”
“Wow.” Jack would never say anything like that about his brother.
“What makes Darrin a sissy?” Derek asked.
“I always gotta protect him from the bigger kids on the block, and he's sensitive as hell. He ran into some trouble back in Huoxing. I had to get him out.”
“What kind of trouble?” Jack asked.
“Gambling debts.”
Jack shook his head. He would never allow his little brother to reach such a low point in the first place. “What drove him to gambling?”
“You sure you wanna hear my sob story?”
Jack crossed his arms. “Only if you promise not to bore me.”
“Funny. I'll use that one. Long story short: we had shitty parents who abandoned us. We got taken in by a shady orphanage where we lost a bunch of friends. We escaped. Lived off the streets. Got picked up by some do-good investigator who turned into our mentor, and eventually our father. That shady orphanage I mentioned, he was investigating it. He discovered it was run by the Cohong Butchers. They ran a human meat farm on the side. It's a delicacy, you see, seeing as we ain't got no livestock on Mars, and the synthetic meat we grow in bioreactors tastes like shit.”
Jack wretched.
“You want me to go on?” Erwin asked.
Jack wagged his right palm as he forced down the stomach juice that he'd wretched up. “S'alright. I saw the movie. I know how it ends.”
Erwin shook his head. “No, you don't.”
“What do you mean?” Derek asked. “You busted their operations. There was a big shootout. Your mentor died a hero. You guys single-handedly took down the whole gang.”
“The Butchers, yeah. But who did they sell their 'premium' meat to?”
“A bunch of fancy pants rich folk,” Derek said. “I can't imagine the shock they must have went through when they found out what they were eating.”
“They knew exactly what they were eating,” Erwin said. “I could never prove it, but I got close. Real close. Incidentally, guess who financed my debut film about the Cohong Butchers?”
Jack furrowed his brow, dreading what Erwin was about to reveal.
The Huoxing man glowered. “They offered to turn me into a superstar... in return for my silence.” Speaking in a faux-Italian accent, he brushed the underside of his chin with the backside of his fingers. “They made me an offer I couldn't refuse.”
“Why are you telling us this?” Derek asked.
Erwin eyed the both of them intensely. “Because we're a long way from home.”
A long, uncomfortable silence followed.
Erwin sniggered.
“Wait a minute,” Jack said with a laugh. “You're just messing with us, aren't you?”
Erwin grinned. “Maybe.”
Jack stopped smiling. Was Erwin joking?
“By the way,” Ellen said over the radio. “I can hear everything you guys are saying.”
“Ellen, are you spying on us?” Derek asked.
“I'll need your eyes and ears to stay abreast of what's going on down there. Once you're on the ground, your helmets will remain linked to the Hiigara via our satellite constellation. You can switch to private mode any time you like.”
Erwin snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“Jack, it's almost time,” Ellen said. “When the countdown timer reaches zero, hit the eject-button.”
Jack glanced at the countdown timer. Only ten seconds left to go. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Eject pod?
He glanced at his companions.
“Hell yeah,” Derek said.
Jack smashed the eject-button. The pod jerked as it detached from the airlock. The footage from the pod's external cameras popped onto the display screen. The dark side of the Earth rolled into view. The pod jerked again as it fired its retro-thrusters. The speed on the display ticked down. The pod's orbital trajectory diverged from the Hiigara's and curved towards the Earth. Minutes later, they skimmed across the atmosphere. The Dragonite trembled. Jack glanced out the window and saw plasma burning outside. The vibrations grew stronger. The G-force produced by the rapid deceleration pressed him hard against his seat.
He turned his attention back to the POV footage on the touch screen display. The fire around the camera lens dissipated. They plummeted through a cloud. Water droplets formed on the lens. Seconds later, they burst through the cloud, and he saw a dark coastline. The retro-thrusters fired again. He clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. The roar of the engines drowned out all other noise. On the display, the Dragonite deployed its landing legs and touched down on the ground. The engines cut out, and the Dragonite blew out a thick cloud of white smoke.
The hatch popped open.
Ellen screamed into Jack's ear. “Now go. Go. Go!”
If you enjoy my work, you can support me financially by purchasing the full novel (paperback or ebook) on Amazon: