The Doomsday Chronicles (The Future Chronicles) Page 5

  Come on, boy. Pay attention. You’re slipping. How do you forget a bloodbath like that?

  Dastin rubbed his temples, anger beginning to rise. That’s right. The droids had taken care of those who’d been weak. Those who wanted to join the murderer in his plan to bring what was left of humanity together.

  You’d have given up by now if I wasn’t here to push you. To give you a plan. And a spine.

  Dastin glowered and blocked the voice out. He glanced around the empty bridge. It didn’t matter. A crew wasn’t necessary. The AI could do everything he needed. He shook his head to clear it from the fog of his growing rage.

  “Have you tracked the ships leaving the surface?”

  “Yes, Chancellor.”

  “Good. Pursue them. Full power to the engines and bring the weapons online.”

  The dark starfield on the screen was replaced by a virtual representation of local space. Red icons indicated the position of two fleeing refugee ships. Dastin cursed.

  Only two. What did I always tell you?

  “Failing to plan leads to plans that fail,” he said.

  That’s right. I always planned just how I would hit you so it wouldn’t show. That’s planning.

  He clenched his fists and swung into the captain’s chair. “Bring the targeting matrix up on the main viewscreen and give me manual firing control at the captain’s chair.”

  “Chancellor, the ship is now within firing range.”

  Dastin moved his fingers over the track pad on the arm of the chair and watched the crosshairs of the targeting matrix turn from red to green as it moved over one of the escaping ships and locked in place.

  His finger caressed the firing button. He ran his tongue over his lips and smiled. With luck, Jackson would be on the ship, and Dastin would finally have his revenge. The deaths of billions would be avenged. If he wasn’t, the deaths of those on the ship would be acceptable collateral damage. Dastin savored the feeling of power. The lives of thousands were his.

  Are you waiting for an invitation? Do it.

  “Yes.” It had to be done.

  If he hesitated, these vermin would escape and pollute the seas of another planet like they had on Earth. A long breath escaped his lips.

  You don’t have the nerve to press the button, do you? You don’t belong in that chair.

  “Not now. This is my time. I’ll show you exactly what I have.”

  Dastin closed his eyes and pressed the button.

  Blue electricity arced from the armrest controls and scorched the side of the chair. Dastin jumped out of the way as the lights in the bridge flickered and then returned.

  “AI, what just happened?” he yelled.

  “A relay in the ship’s weapons system was overloaded and has failed. Weapons systems will be inoperable until the relay has been replaced.”

  Dastin heard the laugh. It was mocking him again.

  Remind me. What exactly do you have?

  Dastin watched as, one by one, the icons representing the refugee escape ships scattered in different directions and disappeared from the viewscreen.

  Oh, how pretty. Watch them go. Going, going, gone.

  Dastin’s breath came in short gulps as he tried to calm himself. They should have all been dead. He had the superior ship, the weapons, the mission. How could they have gotten away again? He looked around the bridge, but there was no one to blame. No one to take his anger out on.

  He roared with frustration, his voice bouncing around the empty room. Jumping from the chair, Dastin looked for something, anything, that wasn’t nailed down. He picked up his tablet and flung it across the room. It smashed into the opposite wall and clattered to the floor in pieces.

  Are you going to have a little tantrum now?

  “Shut up!” Dastin yelled as he stalked toward a fire extinguisher. He yanked it from the wall and hefted it over his head, ready to hurl it into the viewscreen, when the AI’s voice cut through the fury.

  “Incoming transmission.”

  Dastin stopped, chest heaving, the fire extinguisher still poised over his head.

  “Who is it?”

  “Unknown. There are no identifying markers, but it is one of the refugee ships.”

  The extinguisher fell from his hands, landed with a loud thud, and then rolled several feet away.

  “Onscreen,” Dastin whispered.

  An image from his past appeared, and Dastin sat heavily into the captain’s chair. The face on the screen was older, lined with wrinkles, and the hair was snow white, but it was the same unmistakable face. The face of the man he’d once considered a friend.

  “Bennett,” Dastin said.

  “Why are you doing this, Felix?” Soot and ash streaked the dark face while bloodshot eyes pleaded through the screen.

  “Nice to see you.”

  “Nice to see you?” Jackson’s voice shook. “That’s what you say after you just killed a third of what’s left of our kind. Why? Why do you hunt us like animals?”

  “Because that’s what you are. I can’t allow you and your little band of rabble to breed and reproduce all over the galaxy. I’m here to stop you and your doomsday machine from destroying another planet like you destroyed Earth.”

  Jackson’s gaze flickered. Dastin watched the scientist massage his forehead, and he took pleasure in the guilt and pain heavy on Jackson’s shoulders.

  “Felix, we’ve made tremendous progress,” Jackson said softly. “For fifteen years I’ve studied what went wrong. We’ve turned barren rocks into places where humans can survive and thrive. If we can just find a planet with enough water. Just let us go.”

  “Never.”

  “What would Paula say if she saw you now?”

  Dastin jumped from the chair. “Never say that name! You murdered her! You and—”

  “I lost my family too! Christine would have been standing right next to Paula when we started the machine. She would have seen the glow and known something was wrong just as the energy wave rushed over her and killed everything. So don’t try to tell me how much you’ve lost. I lost everything too.”

  Dastin laughed. “And this is where you tell me you can’t fix the past, but you can change the future.”

  “You’re right. I can’t change the fact that the machine I built to fix the damage caused more. I live with that guilt every day.”

  “Oh, please. Spare me your—”

  “But it isn’t my burden alone. It’s yours as well. We did it together. I wanted more time, but you wanted good PR. You financed E.R.Ma., pushed it through the Senate. Where were you, Dastin, when everything burned?”

  Dastin marched across the bridge. “No, no, no, NO! It was you. This is all your fault!”

  “You were drinking champagne, wining and dining the important people on that ship. Trying to advance your career while I fretted and worried from the research station.”

  “Shut up!”

  “You said an event like that, the healing of an entire planet, should be seen from the best seat in the house. You got a little more than you bargained for.”

  “I won’t listen to your lies any longer!”

  “While we watched from our lofty positions, everyone else died.”

  He’s right. You pushed him into it. Made him go forward when he didn’t want to. Who’s really to blame here?

  Dastin pressed one hand to the side of his head and pointed at the screen with the other. “No, this is all on you! I won’t take what’s rightfully yours. I’ll stop you before you do it again. I’ll be the one to cleanse the universe of humanity’s sins.”

  Neither man spoke for a moment. The only sound was Dastin’s heavy breathing. When Jackson spoke, it was barely above a whisper. “Living in that ship, letting your hate eat at you, has turned you into someone I don’t recognize. I don’t see the man I used to call my friend.” Jackson shook his head and took a deep breath. “You can continue to pursue us. You can try and wipe us out, but you’ll never get us all. Humanity’s too special, too int
egral to the inner workings of the universe. I pity you, Dastin, and I’ll pray for you.”

  Dastin felt Jackson’s eyes on him, looking into his soul, and he hated the man even more. Then he blinked and the screen went dark.

  “Where is he? Track his ship, now.”

  There was a moment of silence, the AI no doubt struggling to keep up with the workload it was being asked to carry.

  “I cannot, Chancellor. The refugees have masked their positioning by overloading the permutation codes of the ship’s sensors. I am unable to track the ship or determine the direction of its jump.”

  He clenched his fists. If he’d been a couple of minutes sooner...

  And now you see. It really is your fault.

  Dastin reached out and gripped a console to steady himself. Rage spiraled around him; its intensity grew until all he could hear was the thunder of its power. It was like a train with no driver. There was no one to put on the brakes.

  The fire extinguisher lay on the floor where he’d dropped it. He rushed over, grasped it by the handle, and flung it across the deserted bridge. It struck the far wall, leaving a dent.

  Do you feel better now?

  “No!” he screamed. There was no one here to be afraid of him. The AI didn’t care how angry he got, didn’t care what he was trying to accomplish or what he was trying to prevent from happening again. All it did was follow his orders.

  Right back where you started. Failing, just like always.

  His chest heaved. Dastin squeezed his eyes shut and forced coherent words out of his mouth. “AI, continue scanning and run scenarios of where the survivor ships most likely jumped. I’m going to my cabin.”

  “Yes, Chancellor.”

  Dastin left the bridge and staggered down the corridor. The sound of his boots on the metal floor echoed around him. He trailed one hand against the wall, using it for support. The emotion of a few minutes ago had leaked out of his body, leaving his legs feeling weak. Seeing Jackson’s face had pulled memories from dark corners of his consciousness.

  It was odd the things that were clear in his mind and the other things that were foggy. The sound of his champagne glass shattering on the metal decking as he watched the destruction of his world still rang in his ears like it was yesterday. Yet Paula’s face, his wife of twenty-five years, was hazy, just a dark outline.

  He remembered falling to his knees, the metal decking cold and hard. He’d pressed his hands against the observation window, trying to will life back into the planet and convince himself that Paula was still alive. In the hours after the event, there were numerous calls from Jackson. His friend, dealing with his own guilt, tried to console him, but like the true scientist he was, took charge of the situation and began to make plans. They would use the ship Dastin was on and the research vessel at the station to gather what was left of humanity from the various orbital stations and head for the Mars colony. The settlement was self-sustaining, and they could regroup, figure out what went wrong and see if there was a way to fix it.

  That’s when his father’s voice directed him for the first time with three simple words: Kill. Them. All.

  The voice brought a sense of purpose and a plan to the chaos that had surrounded him. He’d listened. A simple tweak of the command codes was enough to direct the droids to move systematically through the ship, killing everyone on board. They’d been weak and scared anyway. None of them saw the necessity of killing Jackson. He was a criminal, and criminals deserved punishment.

  The destruction of the research station had been quick. They’d welcomed him with open arms, he’d come in with weapons hot. Somehow, Jackson and others escaped in the research vessel and were able to flee toward Mars colony. Dastin pursued, but the research vessel had enough of a head start to warn them and get the colonists ready to leave. The colony had burned easily under the pummeling of the ship’s plasma cannons, but Jackson and several thousand had escaped again.

  The scientist was always just ahead of him. Just beyond the reach of his weapons.

  It’s because you’re weak. Weak and old.

  He shook his head, trying to free himself from the voice. There were times it helped him, fueled his rage, but it also took every opportunity to tear him down.

  Look at you tottering down the hall like an old man, leaning against the wall so you don’t fall down.

  “Shut up,” Dastin murmured. Soon, he stood before the door of his quarters and pushed the button to open the door. Nothing happened. Above him, the lights flickered several times.

  Wearily, he leaned his head against the doorframe and jammed his finger into the button again. The door slid open several inches and stopped. He sighed, grasped the edge of the door, and pushed it the rest of the way. Once he was inside, the door slid back on its own.

  Dastin stepped over a pile of dirty clothes and discarded food trays. He entered the bathroom and leaned against the sink.

  He’d been so close. So very close this time, but the refugees had been clever. They’d taken precautions, prepared for the next time he would come. It was a setback, but he couldn’t stop. As long as his ship was capable of moving forward, Dastin would continue hunting.

  The dim glow of the bathroom lights gave off just enough light for him to see himself in the mirror. The face that stared back at him was almost unrecognizable. He tried to smooth his disheveled hair.

  You look terrible. Nothing like the important man you’re supposed to be. Just the scared little boy who cowered in the corner.

  When was the last time he’d taken a shower?

  He traced the deep wrinkles and dark lines of his face.

  Jackson put those there. If it wasn’t for him you’d still be on Earth growing old with your wife.

  “Yes.” He should be sitting along the shores of Lake Michigan with a drink in his hand, enjoying retirement with Paula.

  You let him do this. You and your misplaced trust.

  Dastin wrapped his fingers around the edge of the sink and tried to pull it off its moorings. Veins popped out on his arms.

  What are you doing?

  He spun around. It was a different voice. It was her voice. She only spoke after he encountered the refugees.

  Hurrying into the living area, he looked around, trying to find the source of the voice, but knowing he would find no one. He never did.

  “Where are you?” he asked into the recycled air.

  Silence.

  Why are you chasing them?

  He whirled in place, pressing the palms of his hands to the side of his head.

  “You’re dead. Go away.”

  I can’t, love. I’m a part of you. On the day we said ‘I do’ we became one soul. You know that.

  Dastin staggered toward the far wall of his quarters and stopped. He leaned his head against the window and pressed his palms against the pane. Sadness and grief welled up inside of him. He tried to picture Paula’s face, tried to remember what she looked like, but his memory of her was like trying to look through a dense fog. There was a familiar shape, but her beauty was washed out in the haze of time and madness.

  “He murdered you,” he whispered.

  There was a moment of silence. He felt an odd mixture of relief and longing. He longed to hear her voice, but he didn’t want her in his head like some ethereal, disembodied consciousness. She muddled things. Made him question everything he’d been doing for fifteen years. He hated his father’s voice, but it fueled the rage he needed.

  Dastin struck the window, and the sound echoed dully through the disordered apartment. “I miss you so much,” he whispered. “I’m so tired.”

  Stop this, and let Bennett go.

  He felt the rage begin to build again at the mention of the man’s name. The fairy tale always ended this way. Jackson didn’t deserve forgiveness. She, above all others, deserved to be standing beside him. Paula had possessed such a beautiful soul, and it had been snuffed out by Jackson’s faulty science experiment.

  “No!” he cried into the em
pty room. “Don’t tell me what to do. You haven’t been through what I’ve been through!”

  Dastin slammed his hand into the wall. Pain radiated up his arm. He groaned and crumpled to the floor. Tears spilled from his eyes.

  “Why aren’t you here? Why aren’t you here with me?”

  He closed his eyes. His chest heaved with great sobs. Leaning to the side, he let his head rest against the fraying carpet and wept. After a time, sleep took him and consumed his sadness.

  * * *

  “Chancellor?”

  Dastin blinked several times. He was still lying on the carpet, and his joints protested as he pushed himself off the floor. At first, he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. Then the conversation with his dead wife came back to him.

  “Chancellor, are you awake?” the A.I. said.

  “Yes,” he croaked. “What is it?”

  “There has been a development. I have been able to lock on to a specific signature and track it for the past hour. It is one of the refugee ships.”

  “Just one?”

  “Yes, Dr. Jackson’s ship.”

  Ice flooded his veins at the sound of the name. He stood and walked into the bathroom. The previous evening’s grief was replaced with the cold determination of a hunter. Fate hadn’t deserted him just yet. Leaning over the bathroom sink, he splashed water on his face.

  “Are you following him?” he asked.

  “Yes, Chancellor.”

  Dastin smiled. “Can you determine where he’s headed?”

  “Yes. His projected destination is Earth.”

  Dastin stopped. Several beads of water rolled down his nose and fell into the sink.

  Earth?

  Why would he be going back?

  “Do you know if any of the other ships are going in that direction?”

  “Unknown. Based on their last known trajectories, I do not believe so. I will continue to search.”

  Dastin dried his face and stared in the mirror. What’s your game, Bennett?

  Jackson and the refugees had always been so careful to mask their ship’s signatures and use various methods to throw off his pursuit. Why had he been so careless this time? Dastin shook his head. It didn’t matter now. The A.I. had found the murderer, and now he would run Jackson down.