The Last Outpost and Other Tales by Z.S

Author:Z.S.
Language: eng
Format: mobi

Corlin woke up rested. After they ate a couple of cold ration bars, they went to see Dimitri.

A bustle of activity greeted them at the science complex, visual fields flickering with data loops, portable analyzers humming. A few stasis capsules passed them on floating sleds. Corlin wondered why they were being moved when he saw Dimitri sitting alone and staring at a holoscreen.

Hanna shook her head slightly, and he gazed at the images, trying to swallow his disappointment. Dimitri’s hybrid disassemblers didn’t work either; they just sat at the edge of the sub cellular structures of the ancient colonists.

“Commander,” he heard from behind them. Eugene Thomas, the geophysicist waved at him, his voice filled with trepidation. “Please step over here.”

He dashed to the other end of the room, Hanna behind him.

“Something’s tunneling through the ice.” Thomas pointed to his visual field.

The base with its flickering containment field and the alien site above ground was rendered in color. The images below the ice looked a ghostly monochrome, but he could clearly see a bullet-shaped object heading in their direction.

“What is it?”

Thomas shook his head. “It’s coming from here.” He pointed to the central construction in the alien maze. A convoluted passage began below the ice, moving even as they were watching, not fast but relentlessly.

“Site III,” Corlin whispered. He contacted the base EI. “Track the object’s progress and work out the location of its emergence.”

“I am tracking and prepared to isolate the intruder,” said the EI.

“Keep an eye on it,” he said to Thomas and left.

The containment fields had been borne out of the Plague Years centuries ago, a brutal span of eighty years during which billions of people died and thousands of ecosystems were ruined. Everyone had worn them outside their communes and enclaves back then. As the plagues had reorganized themselves and adapted, people invested more and more in field developments. But would the fields protect them now?

He sighed and opened the general com. “This is Commander Corlin. Everyone suit up and activate a personal containment field. This is an order.”

Then he transmitted his report and recommendation to the Celestis.

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