Ascension By Tom Kane © 2016

This is Chapter One of a short sci-fi story, which may end up as a book depending if anyone likes it. So comments are welcome.

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One

Brett awoke to the sound of panicky, whispered and frightened voices.

“Wake your father up. Quickly.”

He felt the nudge on his shoulder and fearful voice close to his ear. “Dad! Dad!” Another nudge, more forceful and then a loud cracking sound brought him to full alert, his military instincts kicking in. He was up, blaster drawn and searching for danger.

“What?” He hissed.

“It’s the walls, something’s drilling holes in the walls. Our air is escaping into the atmosphere.”

In the dark,half-light of the terra-forming habitat’s night mode setting, he met his daughter’s eyes, fear was there, but tempered with steel. Hard resolve. She was only twenty but he had trained her well.

“Over here as well,” his son was calling out to him. “All along the seams… it seems. Forgive the pun,” he said, smiling ruefully.

Another good soldier in the making, Brett thought.

“Be quite! Whisper it for heaven’s sake.”

The unmistakable fear in that voice, the trembling and weakness told Brett it was his wife.

Coming to this alien world was all your idea, and now you are fearful of what your actions may cost you. Pitiful.

Brett’s thoughts were his own, but it didn’t matter, everyone knew he had nothing but contempt for the leader of this expedition.

My wife!

He let out an involuntary snort of derision and his wife’s fearful stare caught his steady gaze.

Yes, I’ll get you out of this… again, Maggs.

Brett checked the outer-Hull vid-feed and at first saw nothing. His son, now standing to his left saw it first.

“Who the hell is that?”

Brett followed Ryan’s gaze to the top left quadrant of the big display and saw it too. A figure in black combat gear, obviously designed for hostile environments, seemingly made of a hazy, shiny material he didn’t recognize. “What the hell…”

“That’s personal shielding, isn’t it, dad?” Michelle, Mitch to her friends and family, seemed in awe… and rightly so.

“Yeah,” Brett said slowly. “Looks like… but, tha…”

“That’s impossible, isn’t it, dad?” Ryan’s voiced had an urgency to it, Brett recognized. He realised, as Brett did, this was not human technology they were witnessing. This figure was… Alien.

“Do something. Do something!”

Father, daughter and son all turned as one to look at Maggs. Her hands covered her mouth realising she had nearly screamed in hysterics at the situation. A situation no human had ever encountered before. Not only seemingly alien contact, but hostile alien contact. From the vid-feed it was obvious the alien figure was tampering with the habitat’s protective hull, allowing their precious air to bleed out into the alien atmosphere. This alien’s idea of first contact was not as humanity had hoped since man moved out to the stars, expecting this first contact at every new planet they found. Now, that moment had come and it had arrived on the Madison family’s watch and it was to be a deadly affair.

“Switch the view to the entire camp, Mitch,” Brett said, ignoring his wife’s pleading eyes and turning back to the vid-feed.

“Yes dad,” Mitch said, matter-of-factly. She looked down at the feed’s display and pressed twice on the holo-display. She heard the gasp from behind and looked up, her face turning from impassive to outright fear. “Two hab’s collapsed and the place is swarming with them. Dad?”

All eyes were on Brett. Though the mission commander was his wife, he knew this was his baby now. His mission speciality was maintaining the habs on this alien world, but also as security for the base. None of Earth’s terraforming missions had ever needed security before, until now. “Two habs down and we must assume the people in there are dead.” Brett looked at Mitch, knew she was thinking of Ben James in hab two, but not showing it. She would find time enough to grieve later, if he could find a way through this.

Good girl.

“Okay, we need a…” Another sharp crack behind them made them all whirl round. The loud squeal of escaping air brought reality back to the group. “Suit up. Now! Ryan.”

“Yes, dad?”

“Essential survival supplies. We have minutes left before a collapse of the habitat.”

“I’m on supplies,” Mitch shouted.

Brett looked at his wife. She nodded, sobbing, and began gathering essential medical supplies. Brett took stock and then suited up himself. They would have no chance getting to the Rovers, he noted, looking at the outer hull vid-feed. The black combat-suited aliens meant business and intended no-one to survive this encounter.

Okay, my alien friends. All bets off. This is war.

Brett busied himself gathering comms gear and weapons and at the same time formulating a plan of escape.

“Comms check,” Brett said as he sealed his helmet in place. “Brett, okay.”

“Ryan, okay.”

“Check,” Mitch said.

“Okay,” Maggs’ voice sobbed, loud and clear, over the comms.

“Okay, luckily we are still on the private channel from yesterday. They can’t hear us, but equally no-one else, if there is anyone else left, can hear us either. Line-astern, behind me and do as I do. Follow the training, we have practiced this…”

“A lot.”

They all recognised the amusement, despite the situation, in Ryan’s voice.

“Then no excuses. You all know the drill. Rear escape port. Follow me.”

Although survival habitats were essentially a round construct, a half-circle sat on top of soil, 10 metres around, each inner segment was divided into quarters and colour coded. Red for rear escape section in case of air-loss and imminent collapse. It made it easier for the human mind to understand their environment and react immediately in times of crisis.

Brett turned and watched his family line up behind him through the helmet’s HUD (Heads Up Display) and quickly moved to the rear. He pressed the emergency decompression button and waited for the air to cycle out of the hab. Collapse had been averted, just in time, but now they had to avoid being seen by the aliens roaming the compound. That was going to be a lot harder. As he waited for the depressurisation cycle to complete, Brett noticed that the seal around the emergency exit was crumbling. Now he realised the aliens had introduced a fast working bio-agent into the very fabric of the hull. The bio-agent was eating the hull, very quickly.

At that moment here was a whoosh of mass escaping air has the bio-agent, couple with the hab’s own attempt to remove the air conspired to cause the collapse of the crumbled hull. The hull simply vaporised in a colourless cloud of degraded plastic and carbon.

Brett and his family were exposed to the alien’s and there was nowhere to hide.

End

I’ll post further chapters of the Sci-Fi story over the weeks, but would greatly appreciate any feedback. Thanks.

Tom Kane (c) 2016
My website

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