2041 Sanctuary (Let There Be Light) (5 page)

Astrid put her hands to her face. ‘
Mon dieu
.’

‘I can’t see the Jiùshìzhǔ,’ Sandy said.

Tyler scanned the expanse for the Chinese Space Station, but he could see no sign of it. The bottom half of their view was blocked by the ejected science modules, which gradually moved away from the Archimedes. But as the laboratories continued to recede into the distance, a great rent appeared down their centre and the structure exploded into fragments as the stricken form of the Jiùshìzhǔ clove through it at speed, heading straight for them, a host of broken Sabre space-aircrafts drifting end over end along with it.

Tyler’s eyes widened and Astrid screamed.

‘Go!’ Sandy said as Tyler dragged Astrid aft. ‘I’ll manoeuvre us away from it for as long as I can. Suit up and get out!’

‘What about you?!’ Tyler said.

Sandy slid her mirrored visor down. ‘I’ll follow you out, NOW GO!’

Bulkheads and doorways flashed past. Red warning lights sent shadows cavorting through the ship. A door swished open and Tyler and Astrid rushed to the spacesuits and dragged them on. Seconds from destruction, they entered the airlock and switched on their magnetic boots. Tyler hit a button and the air left the chamber. The external doors opened and Tyler led Astrid out into the vacuum of space. They pulled their visors down as the sun rose from behind the Earth, and turned to see the Jiùshìzhǔ’s massive form bearing down on the Archimedes.

Sandy Turner emerged from a hatch a hundred feet away and Astrid grasped Tyler’s arm and pointed.

‘Sandy, move!’ Tyler said through his helmet’s radio.

She looked round, but it was too late, the out of control Chinese ship ploughed into them. Sandy disappeared in a mass of twisted metal, her scream cut short. Tyler and Astrid staggered back before turning to run along the hull of the fast disappearing ship, while dodging the chunks of space station that rained down around them. Tyler tripped and fell, his visor flipping up. Astrid stopped, ducked a fast moving object and helped him back to his feet.

She lifted her own visor. ‘There’s nowhere to go!’

Tyler had an idea, but before he could say anything a shadow loomed. On instinct he shoved Astrid in the chest. A look of shock crossed her face as she fell back. A giant solar wing swept past, barely missing her, and smashed Tyler from the Archimedes, carrying him out into the dark void of space.

♦

Astrid watched Tyler’s limp form spiral into the black. The Space Programme was destroyed. The hopes of saving Earth’s surface and those living on it, lost to sabotage and betrayal. Turning her head inside her helmet, she saw out of the corner of her eye the bulk of the Chinese Space Station rearing up above her. As it came crashing down, her last thoughts were of broken promises and lost love.

Chapter One

Spiralling end over end it skimmed across the heavens, dragged onwards by gravity’s hidden all-consuming embrace. On its metallic skin, criss-crossed with pockmarks and deep impact gashes, were the blackened symbol of NASA and a line of scarred lettering that had once formed a word.

Slowing against mounting air resistance, its rotation ending, the remnant of the United States Space Station, Archimedes, burnt up in Earth’s atmosphere, its outer edges flaring white hot and folding back on themselves as it fell from the sky – a manmade shooting star. Alongside this forlorn object, spread across hundreds of miles, other sections of trillion dollar spacecraft cut fiery orange swathes through the night skies. Far below on the Earth’s surface no one was witness to this metallic meteor shower and the dire prophetic warning of humanity’s ruination it represented, the debris from space slicing into and through the all pervasive dust cloud which masked its passage.

Moments later, emerging from the unseen, the brilliant arrows of light plunged into the Pacific Ocean, their intense auroral heat quenched by the cold, dark waters that bubbled and boiled around them. Drifting down, the ruddy glow from the scorched, twisted metal panel grew dim. Spun round in vast currents, the final journey of the devastated orbital vehicle eventually ended as it came to rest in what would be an eternal watery grave set deep on the ocean floor; the sound of its impact a dull thud that resounded against the hard bedrock beneath. Following these shockwaves across hundreds of miles of the planet’s surface, descending through layers of sediment laid down eons past, the density of compacted substrate hardened and then vanished. A huge void, located far underground and stretching for miles in all directions, dominated the continental crust under what were the deserts and mountains of present day Mexico.

This far reaching expanse, unlike everything surrounding it, was not born from nature’s timeless geological progression; in fact, it was an engineering marvel of ancient origins created long before the earliest of our civilisations, and even before the evolution of modern man. Hewn from the Earth by a means unknown, the builders of this underworld that functioned independently from the surface above were also lost to time’s unrelenting and uncompromising embrace. Where for millennia humanity believed itself set apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, sitting atop a pedestal fashioned by its own arrogance, a long extinct species with a similar lineage flourished for a million years, creating a legacy that put paid to our notion of unique superiority. The existence of this race, reclaimed from the past’s vice-like grip and from those that sought to keep it forever hidden, had now been allocated its scientific name by the select few learned in its ways, taking its rightful place amongst its closest brethren and slotted into the Hominid evolutionary timeline. What was the name of this creature that so closely resembled our own? Where we are Homo sapiens, they are Homo giganthropsis. And as the name suggests they were a beast whose size surpassed our own and yet they were also one that had become extinct, like all our other closest relatives. Why the demise of our larger cousin came to pass, no one knew, but what was for certain was that their advancement in science far exceeded our own.

Within this decaying goliath of a subterranean world, long silent cities of immense proportions littered pitch-black chambers so vast they had their own climates; and yet amongst these near endless interconnecting cave-like systems, ensconced near its heart, was a smaller, yet no less grand construction. A construction built not by Homo giganthropsis, or the Anakim as they were known, but by Homo sapiens. Home to twenty million souls and built in preparation for the surface apocalypse to come, this United States Subterranean Base, or USSB, was one of forty-five such bases commissioned by the planet’s leading nations and located around the world. This base, however, was by the far the largest of these monumental projects, and it was still dwarfed by the abandoned Anakim world that surrounded it, a world from which the USSB took its name and one that would stay in the annals of time as the greatest discovery in human history, the greatest civilisation ever to have graced the planet, a place that knew no equal, a place to those that knew of it called … Sanctuary.

Inside this underground immensity, under a twenty mile wide dome capable of producing its own sunlight and weather systems, the human city sprawled. The crown jewel in the U.S. Subterranean Programme, USSB Sanctuary consisted of many levels, burrowing down into the chambers built by the Anakim and producing a three dimensional metropolis on a scale unlike anything seen before. At the centre, directly beneath the great dome itself and on the USSB’s top level, an ancient tower cut a slender figure through simulated skies. Up and up this Anakim monolith rose, passing through the dome itself and into the dark of the larger chamber of Sanctuary Proper, beyond.

On the outside of this great spire, which had been moulded by the prehistoric vision of Anakim architects, an external lift system, added by human hands, hummed to life as it began its upward journey to the summit. Inside this cylindrical glass elevator stood a single passenger and, as if mirroring the structure he ascended, the man’s elegant frame was tall and lean. His self-assured stance, concealed in an upright posture, gave way to a stern, unfathomable expression formed by angular features and flat, cold, gimlet-like eyes that gazed out with a fierce intelligence. Expensive handmade Italian shoes supported his ensemble, their black leather uppers painstakingly stitched together by a master craftsman and setting off a crisp dark grey tailored suit that accentuated his narrow hips and shoulders to form a more masculine appearance. Curiously, despite the current lack of bright light, he wore a pair of sunshades attached to his spectacles which gave him a sinister, yet apt, air of power and influence.

U.S. and GMRC Director of Intelligence Malcolm Joiner surveyed the scene before him, his gloved hands held clasped at the small of his back. He was not a man prone to acknowledging the positives in anything, but even he had to admit the vista spread out below him as he ascended the three mile high edifice was spectacular.

USSB Sanctuary, the subterranean base run by the United States government in conjunction with the Global Meteor Response Council, lay shrouded in darkness. The artificial sunlight from the immense dome had grown dim, simulating night, and in response the underground city, containing over twenty million U.S. citizens, twinkled and shimmered like a star-encrusted galactic blanket. The uppermost section of the monotube rail system wove in and out of the plethora of manmade buildings and towers, which would have appeared majestic had they not been so close to the gigantic monument at the base’s heart. At two miles up the great dome glided past and then fell away below, reducing the majestic scene to a crescentic sliver.

Outside the dome the black abyss of the unfathomably large cavern sought to assert its pervasive mass upon the spire which bisected its body like a brightly lit needle. The air in the elevator grew cool, the heat island inside the USSB left behind. Joiner shifted position to ease his back muscles and looked up as a blue glow seeped into the transparent lift he travelled in. The spire’s pinnacle approached and his ascent slowed to a stop.

Two doors slid aside with a whisper to reveal a grand high-ceilinged hallway where four armed guards stood to attention on either side of the entrance. Joiner moved forwards and two of the men fell into step behind him in escort, the lustrous purple sheen of their composite armour glittering under the lights installed above.

The corridor, like the building surrounding it, was aesthetically beautiful and unlike anything built by human hands. Curved green crystalline walls, wreathed with intricate engravings, led those that passed through it across an undulating floor that resembled the sweep of rolling hills. The long hallway, echoing to the footsteps of the three people travelling its length, straightened, its features fading to blandness as it continued deep into the Anakim structure until it finally emerged into an enormous multi-sided room where two large red doors glinted and gleamed on the far side.

Cobalt radiance permeated the room’s semi-transparent walls from above and Joiner couldn’t help but look up again to view a section of the spire from the inside. If he’d been of weaker mind and easily swayed, the sight would have been truly awe-inspiring; instead, the effect made him feel small and insignificant, an experience he didn’t care for.

He walked on, noticing out of the corner of his eye that the two men that had accompanied him hung back before retreating into the shadows to return to their previous station. He knew very few people were allowed into this area and fewer still into the room beyond. As he reached the centre, directly beneath the spire, he stopped in the middle of a twenty foot diameter circle that had been sunken into the floor. Beneath his feet, the great seal of Sanctuary, wrought from precious metals, reflected light from its polished surface.

An odd absence of noise made his attention turn to the elaborate metal doors which now swung inwards. A figure passed through the huge gateway and moved to intercept his position.

‘Malcolm Joiner,’ the woman said in greeting, her voice strong and inflection flat.

Joiner gave a nod of his head in guarded acknowledgment. A waft of incense reached his nostrils as she walked past, her long, flowing dress fluttering behind her like a silken flag. He turned and extended his gait to match her long, measured strides, her height a few inches greater than his own.

‘Have you been successful?’ she said, her tone aloof and gaze averted as if his mere presence was offensive.

‘I will be.’

The woman Joiner knew as Selene Dubois slowed and her head moved a fraction in his direction. ‘“Will” is not “have”.’

‘My efforts are ongoing. The task you – the Committee – set is … complex.’

‘Should we be concerned?’

Joiner hesitated before responding, choosing his words with care. ‘The war instigated between China and its neighbours has destabilised the Asian block. Their attention is elsewhere, as you desired. GMRC personnel in the region are primed to be influenced or replaced.’

‘And the council’s Directorate?’

‘Since Professor Steiner has been removed, we have three quarters of the GMRC’s Directorate subverted to your cause.’

‘Your?’

‘Our,’ Joiner said quickly.

‘And yet the Subterranean Programme’s Director General still lives.’

‘Not for long; the professor’s luck has run its course.’

‘He has great influence and our actions expose us. One such as him, with the knowledge he holds …’

‘As I said, his time has come. If you are unhappy with my methods perhaps you should find someone else to do your bidding.’

Selene Dubois stopped walking and turned to fix him with an icy stare, her mismatched eyes boring into his. Joiner’s own eyes darted from the green iris to the blue one as he inwardly cursed his complacency.

‘The power you wield at the GMRC and within the U.S. government has emboldened you,
Intelligence
Director
,’ she said, emphasising his title. ‘You would do well to remember from whence your privileged position originates.’