Shades of Earth

Dad sits back down at the communication bay, wiping away the shards of glass scattered over it. We all watch as he types in his military codes.

“The disarmament function isn’t there . . . ” the rogue leader says. “What are you doing?” A new voice fills the communication room. “Colonel Martin, we have received your distress call,” a voice says. “The FRX stands ready to aid you.”

“The hybrids have taken over!” Dad shouts as the rogue leader lunges for him.

“Do you want us to remotely activate the biological bomb?” the man on the other end of the line says. His voice is utterly emotionless. “Please give your military authorization code.”

“No!” the rogue leader shouts. He shoves Dad away from the communication center.

“Zero-alpha-four-two-gamma,” Dad shouts. Half of the ten-digit code.

The rogue leader slams his fist into Dad’s face before he can finish speaking. The two of them grapple a moment, Dad’s hands around the man’s right arm, trying to wrest the weapon free—then the solar gun goes off, exploding a hole into the side of the building. Dad finally knocks it away from the rogue leader’s hands. One of the other men that came into the communication building with the rogue leader jumps into the battle. Chris watches, my .38 pressed hard against my head.

“Please note,” the voice on the intercom says, “without the full code we will not authorize the remote launch of the bombs. We do not wish to destroy our slave labor force except as a last resort.”

And I know: the people who sent us here in the first place, the ones that promised to protect us, have absolutely no problem sacrificing us. Not if it would mess up their “production.” They would much rather have us and the rogue hybrids kill each other off than to lose all the resources they could harvest from the planet. Using Phydus—if anything, that would solve their problems for them.

The third man who came into the communication building with the others steps toward Chris and me. His neck muscles are tense, and he seems to be silently asking Chris some sort of question.

Chris nods, then turns to me. “You know what? I thought . . . I thought we could be something.”

“We can never be what you want us to be.”

Chris sneers. “Because I’m a hybrid?” he asks. “Or because of that boy?” I wonder if he even notices that he’s used the same word to describe Elder that my dad uses.

I glare at him, hoping he can see the hate in my eyes. “Your DNA has nothing to do with the reason why Elder’s a better man than you.”

The other hybrid has moved out of my line of vision. I gasp in pain as something sharp pierces my arm. The man grabs hold of my shoulder firmly, digging his fingers into my arm so that, between his grip and the gun at my head, I cannot move.

But I can tell what’s happening. The other man has a syringe, and I can feel icy-hot liquid being injected into my bloodstream.

The rogue leader and his lackey have Dad back under control, and they slam him into the chair and turn his body to look at me.

The liquid feels like ice, and I have a sudden and sickening flashback to being pumped full of cryo liquid.

“What is that? What are you doing to my daughter?” Dad roars, trying to jump up and save me, but the rogue leader throws him back, grinning maliciously.

“In just a few moments, she won’t be human anymore. Not genetically at least. You set that bomb off, you kill her as well. She’s a hybrid now too.”

“No!” Dad jumps up, throwing the rogue leader out of his way. “Amy!”

My eyes are burning, streaming with water. I squeeze them shut, unable to bear how bright the light is.

“The pain will pass,” Chris says to me softly. Sympathetically. His gun lowers as the other man steps back.

I dry heave. It’s the idea of my body being changed irrevocably. I can’t bear it. And I can’t bear the way Chris looks at me now, as if I’m already one of them.

“Amy!” Dad shouts. It’s taking two of the men to hold him back.

“She’ll be fine,” the rogue leader says. Their voices sound metallic, too loud. I clutch my hair, pulling my head down, rocking. I can’t bear this, I can’t bear this. “This compound only has the gen modifiers in it, not the Phydus. She’ll have all the genetic modifications but none of the mind-altering control.”

“You bastards,” Dad snarls. “How dare you! My daughter!”

“Sit down, Colonel Martin,” the rogue leader orders. “Or I will make you.”

I slide to the floor. Chris says something, I can’t understand what. My bleary eyes can barely blink, but I can’t help but notice that the rogue hybrids all wear the same kind of boot, ones with metal grippers, three long, sharp pieces curving over the toes of their shoes. Ones that would make the same footprints we found outside the shuttle. Elder was right all along. They’ve been watching us since the very first day.

It hurts. My body’s DNA is rearranging itself to become some mutated hybrid, and I’m not even sure what’s happening, I just know it’s not human. It’s painful, as if there is a fire inside, burning up my blood. I try to open my eyes. Dad’s fighting against the hybrids while I’m becoming one.

Dad knocks aside the rogue leader, sending him crashing against the communication bay.

I think for one wild moment that he’s coming for me. He will pick me up and carry me away and make the hurting stop.

But he’s not coming for me. He lunges at Chris, grabbing for the .38 in his hand.

The gun goes off.

Dad lands with a thump on the ground, his eyes open and staring, inches away from my face but already out of reach.

66: ELDER

I try to re-establish the communication link, but it’s gone. All I heard was glass shattering and loud thumps and bangs, and then I was disconnected.

It’s not too late, I tell myself. Amy’s not dead.

I tell myself this, and I force myself to believe it.

I rush out of the bridge and back up to Godspeed. Bartie’s standing near the hatch, looking happy. “I don’t think it will take that long to load up the auto-shuttle,” he says, grinning at me.

“Now,” I gasp.

“What?”

“Now,” I say. “We have to go now. They have Amy, they’ve taken over the whole frexing colony.”

“What are you talking about, Elder?” Bartie asks, grabbing my shoulders. “Calm down.”

I shake him off. “You don’t understand! I heard it over the com system—Bartie, they have Amy. They’ve taken the colony.”

“Who?”

“The hybrids!” I throw up my hands. “The aliens! Whatever you want to call them! The monsters we’ve been fighting, the ones that have been attacking us! They have our people!”

A line of worry mars Bartie’s brow. “What can we do?”

“We have to go now. Get the people out. Whatever they can carry. But we have to go now.”

To his credit, Bartie does the all-call. Some people are already crossing the fields, heading toward the hatch, and I see them pick up their pace, running closer.

“But what can we do?” Bartie asks me. “Even if we left in the auto-shuttle right this second, what could we possibly do?”

“Come with me,” I say.

Bartie has to run to keep up with me as I tear back down through the hatch, running to the control panel on the bridge. “Here are the controls,” I tell him. “This is how you can fly the auto-shuttle back.”

“Me?” Bartie steps away. “You’re going to be flying the auto-shuttle!”

“No,” I tell him. “No, I’m not. You are. Now pay attention.”

I show him everything as people from Godspeed start to load up the shuttle. I show him how to operate the controls and the communication system. It’s really simple—the auto-shuttle was designed to function without human operations. Once I’m sure he knows what to do, I race out of the bridge, past the crowd that’s already gathering at the transport boxes, and down a flight of stairs.

The escape rocket Chris told me about is smaller than it seemed from the ground. I have to shimmy through a hatch opening that drops me straight into the seat. The controls are the same here as on the auto-shuttle but more compressed and with an additional “manual maneuvering” control that looks like a joystick. I’m not comforted by the simplistic controls, but they’ll have to be enough.

I flip on the communication system and hail Bartie, just above me in the bridge.

“Yes?” his voice says immediately. He sounds anxious.

“Just checking,” I say. “I wanted to be sure that the controls worked.”

“Elder, this is insane,” he says. His voice sounds a little tinny over the intercom, but I can understand him loud and clear.

“Yeah,” I say. “It probably is. But it’s my only chance of saving Amy.” I can go to the space station, and I can detonate the weapons there myself. I will protect Amy, no matter what the cost.

I turn off the communication link with Bartie and flip it to the compound’s system. A red light blinks several times as the communication link with the compound on the planet is established.

“Don’t break this communication link,” I say quickly once the controls tell me I’ve connected.

“And why not?” a voice I don’t recognize drawls.

“I am currently in the escape rocket. I will head straight to the space station. I will dock. And I will set off the biological bomb myself.”

“Elder, don’t!” a voice screams. Amy.

“Amy, what’s going on?”

“They’ve injected me too,” she says, then her voice is muffled. It sounds as if she’s being dragged away.

“What do you mean?” No answer. “What the frex is going on?”

“Amy has been injected with the hybrid compound. She will be susceptible to the biological weapon. We tried to negotiate with the other leader, Colonel Martin. We are done negotiating.”

“Let me talk to Colonel Martin,” I say.

“He’s dead!” Amy’s voice cries out over the intercom. Her voice sounds rougher than I remember, perhaps a bit deeper. “They’ve killed him!”

More muffled sounds. I have no doubt now that they’re trying to silence Amy, drag her away from the intercom. But I also have no doubt that Colonel Martin’s dead. Amy would never say that—not with that much anguish in her voice—unless it was true.

My hands are shaking. I have never been more scared.

There’s only one thing I can do.

“Here’s the deal,” I say. I hope I sound convincing. We don’t have much to hold over the hybrids, but we do have one bargaining chip. “We have the plans for the Inhibitor medicine. Chris can tell you that Godspeed had Phydus too, and you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you we have an antidote that fights the drug’s effects.”

No one answers me when I pause, so I just plow through. “My friend Bartie is going to land the auto-shuttle. He carries the plans for the Inhibitor drug with him. Shoot the auto-shuttle down—kill my people as they land—and you’ll lose the formula.”