1. Carter

ONE

CARTER

S tars glittered outside the porthole, a spectacular tapestry. It filled so many people with hope, fueled their dreams of exploration, acted as a backdrop for their romances and petty triumphs.

Not me, though. I look at the stars, and I see something different. A threat. Or to be more precise, untold billions of threats.

Every one of those brilliant, winking spots of light potentially held a world with intelligent life on its surface. And every one of those worlds with intelligent life was a potential hostile entity, bent on harming humanity.

It drove me mad to think that the IHC not only welcomed the aliens into our midst, they actively encouraged them to come to Earth.

We didn't spend centuries making Earth into a paradise only to have some aliens come and muck it all up.

My rage proved nothing more than impotent. I could not truly affect change. I'd tried that route, and been beaten down for it. Literally, in some cases. I looked at my reflection, translucent against the porthole glass.

You'd never know that my jaw had been broken a few weeks prior, and one of my retinas detached. All because of some overzealous Vakutan soldiers who were convinced everyone in Project Blue Dawn must be violent and evil. I told them I surrendered, and they still beat me half to death.

Typical lumpy behavior. Fight it or fuck it, that's all that Vakutan have room in their tiny brains for.

The door to my quarters hissed up into the ceiling. I had no expectation of privacy. I cringed inwardly when the door opened, but I put on my best stoic expression and turned around to face the two giant, scaled alien soldiers at the door.

"It's about time. I ordered room service hours ago."

Their glowers deepened.

"You're not funny, Reed."

"It's Doctor Reed to you."

"Fine. Come along with us, ‘doctor' Reed, or you'll be needing to see one yourself."

I shook my head and sighed as I came out of my quarters/prison cell and stood beside them.

"I really wish you Vakutan would be less predictable with your threats. At least the Grolgath know how to sling a decent insult."

The yellow-scaled guard's face twitched a snarl. His hands rasped into fists at his sides. His partner grabbed me by the arm and roughly shoved me down the hall.

"Get moving. And for fuck's sake, keep your damn mouth shut, human. Riel is just looking for an excuse to make you take ten steps into an eight-step airlock."

"Now, see? That's so much better. You could learn from your friend, Riel."

The red-scaled guard shoved me hard into the wall and squeezed my arm until my fingers went numb.

"You're asking for it, Reed."

"Doctor Reed. And I'm begging for it. Who's going to give it to me? You? I don't think so. Gowron has plans for me."

His face twisted into a mask of pure hatred. He shoved me ahead of him while Riel laughed.

"And you thought I would be the one to throttle him. You owe me ten credits."

The metal corridor below us reflected our images in reverse. The size difference between myself and the Vakutan was nothing short of staggering. I looked like a young child compared to them.

We passed by an observation port, where the green-white marble of Novaria shone like a jewel in the sky. The Alliance battle station was on the furthest range of its elliptical orbit. At its closest, Novaria would have dominated the view completely.

A short walk later brought us through two security checkpoints. The guards gave me a dirty look, even the human. Especially the human.

Species traitor. When the aliens come for you, you will know then how right I really was.

The vakutan guards ushered me through a set of wide-open doors and inside a spacious, half-moon shaped orbit. The Vakutan sitting behind the desk's pink skin showed how venerable he truly was, even beyond the way his scaled skin sagged here and there.

And yet, even this old, decrepit Vakutan could snap me in two without breaking a sweat.

The old man lifted his yellow eyed gaze and snapped it on me. Unlike the others of his kind, General Dowron's gaze didn't emanate hate. His eyes gave me nothing, in fact. I wondered if he ever showed emotion at all.

"Good morning, General Dowron. Perhaps you should look into the incidence of brutality in your ranks?"

"Brutality, Dr. Reed? We've seen to your every need. It would not be so on one of the prison worlds."

"And if you sent me to one of them, you would have nothing to threaten me with, would you?"

I rolled up my sleeve and showed the red mark, already deepening into a bruise.

"Your man assaulted me without provocation. I'll be filing a formal complaint."

"Without provocation? You human germ?—"

Riel made a go for me, but Dowron shut him down quickly.

"Enough. Leave us."

The vakutan guards gave me an extra venomous glare before departing. I waved cheerfully at them. The doors slid shut and Dowron sighed.

"Making friends, I see."

"I have no friends, and desire none."

Dowron snorted.

"That's not true, doctor. I'm your friend. Or the closest thing you have left in the Galaxy, now that Blue Dawn has been stomped out for good."

I kept my amusement to myself. I knew there were other cells, out there somewhere.

"Cut off our head, and like a hydra we will grow two more in its place."

"This is not an attitude I appreciate, Doctor. It was my hope that putting you with other men of science might help you overcome your prejudices. Your intellect is far too valuable to be wasted on such illogical opinions of aliens."

"What you call illogic I call the pure light of reason, General. If you want me to thrive, put me with human scientists."

"So you can poison their mind against the Alliance, and aliens in general? Not a chance."

"Then why am I here? Are you going to keep me on your station forever, as some sort of pet?"

Dowron picked up a pad and scanned his gaze over it, then set it back down. He faced me and folded his hands together.

"Doctor Reed, I have been advised by people who know a lot more about this sort of thing than I do that you are irredeemable. You are an anti-alien zealot, and there is little chance of you changing that mindset."

"But you think I can be rehabilitated."

It wasn't a question, though I was incredulous.

"In a word, yes. I believe that you can still make valuable contributions to galactic society. I've got an assignment for you."

"Assignment? Am I being paid?"

Dowron chuckled.

"Yes. You'll be paid weekly…very weakly. Less than a lab assistant, in fact, but the Alliance laws don't permit me to force someone to labor without compensation."

"So, I can expect to be paid when you ship me off to some godforsaken edge of Frontier space, am I right?"

Gowron shook his ridged head.

"No. You're going back to Earth…well, Luna to be precise."

"The moon?"

Now it was my turn to chuckle.

"What could there possibly be on the moon? Ninety nine percent of it has been explored already."

"Well, IHC scientists found something in the one percent that hadn't been explored. Something that defies explanation."

In spite of myself, my curiosity piqued. Dowron used a touchscreen on his desk to activate a holo generator unit. A green sphere appeared above the desk, about the size of my head.

As the program loaded, the sphere resolved itself into a photo-realistic image of Luna, Earth's moon. The gray-silver rock shared space with the glittering lights of human cities, protected by vast domes.

Dowron adjusted the display, and the image zoomed in on the dark side of the moon. The holo image kept growing larger, until we were plunged beneath its surface. We took a virtual plunge inside of the moon, following a wide mining shaft until we were more than ten miles beneath the surface.

The shaft opened up into a series of honeycombed chambers. I leaned over Dowron's desk, my jaw agape.

"This cannot be real. There have been so many scans of the dark side, and outright exploration. Someone should have discovered this by now."

"My science boys tell me that there's a layer of exotic minerals that appear to completely foul our sensor readings. The previous scans only detected solid rock, but I assure you that this compound is quite real."

I moved my hand through the holographic image, bubbling and distorting it.

Who knows what lies beneath? There could be untold technologies, knowledge enough to slake even my thirst. Moreover, there might be some way to defend humanity from the hordes of aliens in the Galaxy.

"I can see that you're intrigued, Doctor."

"Mildly."

I stared intently as the image zoomed in ever further. Ducts running in vertical patterns could have been for water, air, or neither one. The secrets contained by the hidden facility beat at my brain like the wings of a great bird. Buffeted by desire, I actually licked my lips.

"I think you're more than mildly intrigued."

"How far back have you dated the ruins?"

I would not allow him the satisfaction of knowing he was right.

"Our best estimates say the ruins predate the moon as a celestial body orbiting the Earth."

I shook my head, though I had been thinking much the same thing.

"It seems impossible. The facility would have had to survive the collision with a still-nearly molten Earth. What manner of technology could conceivably protect a facility this large?"

"That sounds like a dilemma for you and the science team, Doctor. I'm just a soldier."

"Do your ‘science boys' know if this is of Precursor origin?"

"Most likely, but that hasn't been determined yet. You are Earth's foremost expert on Xeno-technology, which is rather ironic considering your proclivities."

"More like, I am able to discern the logical functionality because I dispense with any cultural or sentimental attachments to the technology."

Dowron tapped his claw like a nail on the metal desktop.

"Whatever the wellspring for your genius, Doctor, your expertise is needed."

I shrugged.

"Sign me up, General. When do I leave?"

"Immediately."