Holden stirred. His eyes crept open and he eased out of a deep sleep. He felt refreshed, well-rested, and blinking his eyes as he sat up, he reached for his glasses in a small niche built into the bunk. He slid them on and pressed them to the bridge of his nose; now that he could see past the length of his own arm, he noticed Ike sitting on the edge of the opposite bunk. Ike was bent over his knees, supporting himself on his forearms, head level, eyes staring straight ahead.
“Oh,” Holden said. “You’re awake.”
“I’ve been awake for a while,” Ike said.
His voice sounded distant and Holden frowned; as brief as their time together at The Project Center had been, he did recall that Ike had sleeping issues.
“Did you get any sleep?”
“Some.”
“Good.”
Holden draped his legs over the edge of his bunk and glanced around the lab. He listened for a moment, then held his hand flat against the bulkhead. “I think we’re stopped,” he remarked after a moment.
“We are. Stopped early this morning.”
As Holden nodded and removed his glasses to clean them, Ike felt relieved; the tension of their last, heated exchange seemed to have lifted with the passing of the night, and Ike was glad that such was the case. As far as he could tell, Holden was back to his normal self, and even though the two of them were far from being out of the woods, it was good to see that Holden had apparently bounced back from the previous evening. Deep down, however, Ike did have his concerns…Holden was a strong, smart individual, but Ike questioned his colleague's long-term wherewithal in the face of their bizarre predicament. Unlike Ike, Holden had friends and family back home—and though he had not yet voiced anything, Ike knew it had to be wearing on him.
“I wonder where we are,” Holden said curiously as he slipped his glasses back on.
“I have no idea.”
“Well…let’s find out.”
Holden made his way to the lab’s main computer and woke it with a wave of his hand through its beam of proximity light, and a parade of colorful holographics expanded and wrapped around him. He navigated through a series of interfaces, and on a large, crystalline panel above the main computer, a video feed winked on.
“I’ll pull up the vid system, and…” Multiple video feeds cycled on the transparent panel until Holden landed on a particular moving image. “Here we go.”
Ike joined him and looked up at the newly selected feed to see armies of people hiking their way up and down a massive ramp that had extended from the landship’s belly onto the desert floor. Many of the people carried large canteens and storage containers, while many more wheeled barrels and tanks.
“We must be at a watercrop…” Holden scanned the image. “Yeah, there they are. I see the collectors.”
In the distance of the scratchy feed, Ike saw a grid of tall, dome-topped, pylon-like devices sticking out of the sandy ground. With squinted eyes fixed to the objects, he was about to ask what they were when a sharp hiss pierced the quiet air and the lab’s hatchway panels parted.
Ike and Holden turned around as Guardian Galidd stepped in.
“Galidd! Uh, good morning—”
Holden had tried to hide the surprise in his voice, but stumbling over his words had undermined the effort. Galidd didn’t seem to notice, though, or care, and with his head assembly already retracted, he peered at Ike and Holden with a deadpan face.
His eyes, however, were direct and intense.
“Both of you, get ready and meet me at the crop in five.”
“We’re going out to the watercrop?”
As Galidd turned and exited the lab, he simply answered, “See you in five.”
With people moving out of his unwavering path, the Guardian strode into the corridor and disappeared. As his heavy footsteps melted into the distance, Ike asked, “What’re we doin'?”
“I’m not sure…but we’d better get going; Galidd doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
On a flat stretch of desert sheltered by rolling foothills and dusty sand dunes under a burning sky of blue, the landship stood silently. From between the towering vehicle’s multiple sets of gargantuan treads, a long, chunky ramp had been lowered, and it rested on the heat-warped desert floor several dozen feet below. On the ramp, entering and exiting like swarms of worker ants, people moved up and down the tilted plane. Among them were Ike and Holden, Holden weaving himself and Ike through the organized chaos toward the ramp’s base; three-quarters of the way down, they stepped out from the shade of the landship, and the desert’s raw wall of heat hit Ike like a wrecking ball.
His breath caught and he coughed on the hot air.
“Breathe slowly,” Holden instructed, “or you might burn your lungs.”
Ike tried to heed the advice and watched as the crowds of people dispersed into a neatly arranged latticework of compact, tower-like machines protruding from the ground. Pulling at the levers that poked out of the contraptions, they caught streams of water in everything from tiny canteens to massive drums.
“What is this place?” Ike said dryly.
“It’s a watercrop; it’s how the desert fleet replenishes its water supply. These machines gather moisture from the air and condensation from the ground and produce clean, usable water.”
The two reached the bottom of the ramp and stepped onto the hot, sparkling sand. As their feet sank into the soft ground, Ike stared in awe, watching the acres of intricate machines dispense water to the lines of people.
“So this is where you get your drinking water…”
“Drinking, cooking—and of course, the water also acts as the fuel agent for the water-electric engines. The landship’s refiltration systems recycle the majority of the used water, but watercrops make up for what can’t be refiltered.” Holden nodded past Ike. “There’s Galidd,” he said, “over on that quad.”
Ike looked over and through the bustling watercrop activity saw a chunky, four-wheeled off-road vehicle parked amongst the busyness. Galidd stood on its raised back and calmly observed the surrounding movement of people.
Ike and Holden walked across the sandy ground and entered the sprawling grid of machines, their feet half-submerging in the desert’s soft, golden sand with each step. Looking over his shoulder as they walked, Ike saw several workers haul massive hoses from the landship, twist-lock their ends onto a row of larger watercrop machines, then throw the levers on the hoses’ connectors. High-volumes of water began flowing through the hoses with wet, refreshing sloshes.
“So everything runs on the water-electric engines,” Ike surmised, feeling a bit thirsty.
“Actually, no. The engines run in tandem with an energy source that is much more abundant than water.” Holden smirked. “Any guesses?”
Ike could hardly make out Holden’s smirk under the glaring sun; his scalp tingled with heat and he shielded his eyes to look upward. Relentlessly roaring overhead was the massive fireball of the sun, and in the unsheltered desert wasteland of Altearth, there was nothing to protect against its twelve-hour burn. The ingredients, as it were, such as thinned atmosphere, open land, no obstructions, and a bald sky, made this sun far more potent than the sun that Ike was used to.
Then it dawned on him.
“Solar.”
“Solar-thermal, to be exact,” Holden said. His face erupted into a full, proud smile. “All the vehicles are equipped with solar-thermal absorbent skins; any amount of light, or heat, is absorbed, converted, and stored in biobatteries as energy, or used for direct-drive power. And, if the solar-thermal grids aren’t producing enough power due to lack of light or heat, the water-electric engines take over. It’s a totally and completely self-sustaining system.”
Observing the landship with keen eyes, Ike noticed a fine cross-weave, similar to carbon fiber, integrated into the majority of the superstructure. Bonded to the surface material of the landship, the grayish-black, molded weave was also on the watercrop collector machines, and as they approached Galidd, Ike saw that the vehicle the Guardian stood on was coated in the solar skin as well.
Anything that needed power seemed to wear it.
“So everything is electric,” Ike realized.
Holden smirked again. “Everything.”
Galidd acknowledged their approach with a quick, “Parks. Bannors.”
Ike tried not to gawk at the all-terrain “quad” that Galidd stood on, but as a part-time gearhead, he found it difficult; it was unlike any vehicle he had ever seen, like a concept car come to life—except that it was more like a dune buggy blended with a tank than an actual car. A unique merger of performance and utility, the vehicle’s exterior was sharp and jagged with mean lines and fast angles, and its wide, chunky tires and broad, low-set stance made it look like an animal ready to pounce. Though it was sitting completely still, the vehicle’s aggressive, forward-swept design made it appear as though it were screaming by at a hundred miles an hour, and if the looks were at all indicative of its performance, Ike had no doubt that it could easily do so without breaking a sweat. The interior was equally impressive: the tightly packed, open-sided, jet-like cockpit boasted a plethora of controls, dials, buttons, and switches, and along with various gauges and other built-in gear, an array of holographics wrapped snugly around the two front bucket seats. The cockpit, cradled within the quad’s main structure, looked more like it belonged in outer space than on terra firma.
Holden looked up at the Guardian and said, “So what’re we doin' out here?”
Galidd dropped to the sand with a thud and hit a button in the cockpit, triggering a horizontal shelf fitted with weapons to smoothly slide out from the quad’s thickly plated side. Ike shifted his eyes from the heavy, segmented tread of the vehicle's massive tires and gazed at the extended weapons rack. Sitting securely inside an arrangement of custom-shaped moldings was a mini arsenal of sophisticated-looking firearms. Some, he saw, were similar to the firearms he had seen Plugs armed with, while others were similar to what he had found in the armory room.
Galidd addressed Holden. “Tell Bannors what he’s looking at.”
“I failed out of combat training, remember? The memory melds helped, but I still don’t like—”
“You remember the call signs.”
Holden sighed.
“Yes.”
“Then tell Bannors.”
Pointing to each piece, Holden listed, “Sidearm, light repeater, medium repeater, heavy repeater, scattershot, farshot.”
Ike didn't know Holden well, but knew that he disliked violence, and Holden quickly explained that the combat training had been one of Jaylin's conditions for allowing him to stay while Ike was in his coma. Ike, on the other hand, was very familiar with firearms, and he trailed his fingers admiringly across the weapons. He felt their sometimes smooth, sometimes angular surfaces, and, noticing something he hadn’t while under the anemic lighting of the armory room, he leaned in for a closer look.
“The grid…”
The same thermal grid that was on the surfaces of the vehicles was smoothly integrated into the firearms as well.
Holden smirked again.
“I told you, everything here works on electricity,” he said, pride once more in his voice, as if he'd had something to do with the technology's creation. “Instead of primer and propellant, these weapons use magnetic field propulsion to fire bullets! Electromagnets in the barrel energize igniter plates on the bullets and propel them out at an extremely high velocity.”
Ike grunted and murmured, “Fully functioning railguns.”
“Exactly,” Holden said. “Stronger, faster, and more accurate than the firearms you and I know.”
Ike picked up the scattershot. “Didn't think you were the type to get excited about guns,” he said.
“I'm not excited about guns,” Holden clarified, his enthusiasm diminishing. “I'm excited about the technology behind them.”
Ike pumped the scattershot's grip, caught the ejected, unspent cartridge, and quickly reloaded it into the weapon’s firing chamber. Seemingly satisfied, he replaced the scattershot in its rubberized indentation and picked up a repeater. He had just begun to inspect the weapon when a panicked voice rose over the watercrop, calling for Galidd. All three men looked toward the ruckus and saw a Plug rushing straight for them, leaning forward in a stiff run. Sand sprayed from his thrusting combat boots and he cradled his repeater in his swaying, pumping arms as he stared straight at Galidd.
The armor-clad warrior quickly moved to meet him.
“What is it?”
“Contacts, sir, incoming contacts!”
“Keep your voice down,” Galidd growled.
“Sorry, sir, but we’ve got contacts,” the Plug urgently explained under his breath. Moist sweat glistened on his forehead and visceral fear swelled in his eyes. “We’re picking up multiple contacts on the scanners, approaching from the north…”
“How many?”
“Couple dozen, maybe more.”
“Biosignatures?”
“No matches, sir, so they’re not us and they're not Pariahs.”
“Pariahs…?” Ike quietly repeated to Holden.
“Outcasts,” Holden explained. “Convicts and criminals of Finalstand who have been banished to the desert…”
His voice trailed off as he tried to listen to Galidd and the Plug.
“Does Commander Sims know?” Galidd asked the young soldier.
“Yessir, we informed him immediately and he’s got a scout patrol standing by, but he’s waiting for your instructions—”
Galidd looked to the north.
“Set up a perimeter around the watercrop and double up on the north end. Be prepared to open fire.”
“Sir, what about the scouts, should we deploy them?”
“No, keep the scouts here.”
“Yessir,” the Plug acknowledged, ready to sprint away.
“Go.”
“Yessir!”
The Plug hustled off and Galidd strode back to the quad.
“Contacts?” Holden inquired nervously.
“Contacts,” Galidd flatly confirmed. He retracted the weapons rack and was about to enter the quad's cockpit when he gave Ike a sideways look. “Up for some target practice, Bannors?”
“Why? What’s happening?”
“We’ve got life forms approaching from the north…and they’re not human.”