Scott Sigler - The Rookie

[TEAM DISEMBARK] the computer voice said. [ALL PLAYERS DISEMBARK]

“Aren’t we taking the shuttle down?” Quentin asked Yitzhak as the team walked out.

“Shuttle? Not on Earth, buddy. No shuttle traffic allowed. Everyone takes the tube to get to and from the surface.”

A recorded voice droned over hidden loudspeakers.

[WELCOME TO HUDSON BAY STATION. PLEASE WATCH YOUR STEP ON THE MOVING SIDEWALK. NO WEAPONS OF ANY KIND ARE ALLOWED ON HUDSON BAY STATION. WELCOME TO HUDSON BAY STATION…]

Just outside the hatch, a long, two-band moving sidewalk ran off into the distance, towards the station’s central spine. The band on the outside moved at a decent clip, while the central band seemed to move twice as fast. Just past the moving sidewalk was a large, clear tube. Inside the tube were two more tubes, side-by-side, each filled with water. Bubbles and bits of flotsam showed the nearest tube flowed towards the station’s core, while the one on the other side flowed out to the end of the pier. Inside the tube, Quentin saw Whitokians, Dolphins and Leekee swimming along like fish in a packed aquarium.

The team filtered onto the walkway, which briskly moved them along the pier. Quentin watched Yitzhak casually step onto the first band. As he moved away, he carefully stepped on to the central band. He shot down the pier moving at least twenty miles an hour. Quentin followed suit. He stepped on the first band and almost lost his balance at the sudden shift in momentum. He steadied himself, then stepped onto the second band to experience another surge of acceleration. He jogged down the central strip until he caught up with Yitzhak.

“Why don’t they use shuttles?”

Yitzhak laughed. “Because they don’t want to get blown up, that’s why. Anything that gets below the 80,000 feet boundary is instantly attacked and destroyed by a flight of Creterakian fighters.”

“Destroyed? But why?”

Yitzhak looked at Quentin for a moment, a quizzical look on his face. “Are you serious?”

Quentin felt a little stupid, but he nodded.

“Because of the suicide attacks,” Yitzhak said. “Purist Nation terrorists. They attack any chance they get, blow themselves up as long as they can inflict heavy casualties.”

Quentin felt defensive anger swarm to the front of his thoughts. “What makes you think they’re from the Purist Nation.”

Yitzhak put a hand on Quentin’s shoulder. “Don’t get mad at me, Q. There’s a dozen terrorist groups on Earth, and after an attack, they contact the media and actually claim responsibility. Their goal is supposedly to drive all aliens off the planet. The Purist Repatriation Assembly is the worst. Two years ago the PRA managed to nuke a Whitok city in the Atlantic, killed three million Whitok, Dolphins and Humans. That was just the initial blast. That area of the Atlantic has been utterly devastated. They’re still working on the radiological cleanup. Some people wanted to bring in a big team of Quyth engineers, who are the experts on cleaning up radiation, but there’s too much suspicion that the Quyth will squat on that spot the way they did on Ionath and Whitok.”

Virak overheard the conversation and walked over. “Those fears are stupid. Why would we want to start a colony on a planet that does not live in freedom?”

Yitzhak shrugged. “That’s Earth citizens for you. You know how suspicious they are. But hey, if you’d lived through 280 years of terrorism, your people would be suspicious, too.”

The walkway zipped along the pier, passing a regular progression of dock-locks. Most locks were closed, but some were open, and Quentin saw just about every species represented. The fast-moving sidewalks seemed to control congestion on the pier, but it was still a very busy place indeed.

“I hope there’s no construction this time,” Yitzhak said. “I’d really like to get down to the surface sometime in the near future.”

“There’s always construction,” Virak said.

The walkway entered a large, noisy, domed open space. Ornate lights lined the ceiling, and voices in all languages repeatedly echoed through the cavernous space.

[THE RED ZONE IS FOR LOADING AND UNLOADING OF PASSENGERS ONLY, PLEASE DO NOT LOITER IN THE RED ZONE.]

[NO WEAPONS ARE ALLOWED ON HUDSON BAY STATION. IF YOU ARE CARRYING A WEAPON OF ANY KIND, PLEASE REPORT TO THE NEAREST CONSTABLE AND TURN IT IN. CARRYING A WEAPON ON HUDSON BAY STATION IS A CAPITOL OFFENSE.]

The team moved towards a huge line of beings. Waist-high silver stands dotted the length of the line, a red velvety rope hanging between each of the stands.

Off in the distance, the line emptied into a cavernous, hexagonal central area. A massive circle, at least two hundred feet in diameter, dotted each of the hexagon’s sides. Three of the circles were nothing but a large blank space surrounded by a wide ring of deck. A huge platform sat in the center of the fourth circle. Concentric rings of seats filled the platform. Different colors denoted different sections, like slices of pizza, and each color had a different type of seat to accommodate either Ki, Sklorno, Quyth, Leekee or Human. Beings steadily exited the line and moved onto the platform, taking their respective seats. Once the seats filled (some species sat in seats that didn’t quite fit them right, but they didn’t seem to mind much), the platform simply dropped out of sight.

The last two platforms were blocked off by rings of orange and white barrels with small, flashing orange lights on top. Tools and equipment littered the area, although Quentin saw no workers. A sign read; “Your tax dollars at work! Upgrades to the Armstrong Elevator — faster drop-engines, to be complete in September 2684.”

“Construction,” Yitzhak said. “I swear, they’re never finished with this place.”

“ Two platforms are down?” Virak moaned. “We’re going to be here forever.”

Quentin waited patiently. While the line did move slowly, it didn’t bother him as much as is seemed to bother some of his teammates. Apparently, they’d never spent four or five hours standing in line while the Starvation Trucks dispensed food to an entire city of hungry people.

Finally the Krakens players reached the end of the line. Platform #3 rose up like some giant Leviathan, noiselessly filling the giant, empty circle that matched its circumference. They wandered onto the platform along with other passengers. Quentin found a seat next to Yitzhak, sat down and waited.

“You ever been on the chute before?” Yitzhak asked.

Quentin shook his head.

“Hope you don’t get motion sick,” Yitzhak said. “And if you do, don’t puke on me.”

[PLEASE FASTEN YOUR SEAT RESTRAINTS. THE PLATFORM WILL DESCEND IN TEN SECONDS.]

Quentin watched Yitzhak fasten a seatbelt around his waist, and followed suit. He silently counted to ten, and then the bottom dropped out of his world.

The huge platform simply fell. His hands flew to the arm rests, fingers digging into the worn plastic. Falling. Falling. All around the platform, metal walls slid by at a sickening speed. Then suddenly the walls were gone, and he was looking at nothing but blue sky and clouds. His stomach roiled and he felt dizzy. Yitzhak’s warning echoed in his thoughts, and he wondered if, indeed, he might puke. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth against an onset of nausea.

After five minutes, just when he thought he couldn’t handle it any more, the seat seemed to push against his butt and the floor seemed to press against his feet. They were decelerating. Quentin tried to calm his breathing for the next two minutes as the platform steadily pushed against him. Finally, it slowed to an almost imperceptible speed, and stopped with a slight, shaking jar.