Busy Skies: The Council Dissolution Read online

  Jess said nothing, and he continued, “Ha, ha, ha, there is not stopping this, not even over my dead boy”.

  “Councilor, I had it wrong all the time”, said Hank. “I thought it was Cox all along.”

  Councilor started walking across the room, towards commander Hewitt, fixating on Hank, and Hank continued. “It is you who is the bad-code”, he said. “Only a sick and broken mind can be capable of this”

  “Now dear captain, why would you go and say something so rude”, asked the councilor, adjusting a setting on his weapon. For a brief moment their eyes locked, and then the councilor screamed “aaaa”, as he fired the weapon towards Hank, who fell down first on his knee, and then on his back.

  “You need to learn to respect your superiors!” - shouted councilor Krueger.

  At that moment Jess realized that commander Hewitt gained conciseness and managed to partially lift himself on the knees. Just as commander Hewitt was about to react, the counter was showing 30 seconds before the launch. The councilor noticed commander Hewitt getting up, and he fired another round but missed. The commander strongly punched the councilor knocking his weapon away towards Jess. Unfortunately, the commander was still a bit nauseated from the weapon, so he fell to his knees.

  The councilor fell to the floor and noticed that Jess was about to pick up the weapon, but he kicked her away. She fell on the floor and he stood up. He faced commander Hewitt and kicked him in the stomach several times.

  “Don't get up, soldier!” - he yelled.

  As he turned around, he realized Jess had the weapon and before he knew it, she fired. He was blown away and fell on his back in the middle of the room. The counter was now at 20 seconds.

  Jess knew that he had bound his chip to the launching procedure, and the only way that this stops is if he is dead, or if the chip is removed from his head.

  “Jess, the chip, we need to get it out”, said commander Hewitt. “Those missiles must not leave, there is no kill switch.”

  Jess got up and took an ornamental knife from commander Hewitt's desk. The computer started counting down as Jess was staring down the end of the blade. The computer started the final countdown, 10, 9, 8...

  She couldn't do it. ...7, 6 ...

  She was sure that if she cut into the councilor's head to remove the chip, it would kill him. She doesn't have it in her to kill another human. Councilor Krueger gained consciousness and realized what's happening, he picked himself up partially.

  ...5, 4, ...

  Jess finally threw down the knife. Councilor Krueger was surprised that she couldn't do it, and he went into a dispassionate laughter, with a disgusted expression on his face.

  However, he wasn't aware that Hank managed to pick himself up on his feet, and that he was standing right behind him. Hank was nauseated and weak, however he grabbed the councilors head from behind, kicked his back so he fell to his knees. In a swift move, without any announcement, he snapped the councilors neck like a twig. The blurry windows suddenly became transparent again, and personnel from the hallway for a half-second stood there as if petrified. Upon realizing what's happening, they rushed into the room.

  Jess was standing there in disbelief, crying, having her hands covering her mouth, and looking at Hank with a worrying look. He then fell to his knees and collapsed.

  ...2, 1, Launch successful!

  In disbelief that the launch wasn’t stopped, Jess looked across the room, commander Hewitt wounded on the floor, councilor Krueger dead, and the missiles getting launched. There was a slow-motion commotion all around her until she finally took a hold of herself. A couple of soldiers came to her to check if she was wounded.

  The computer started reporting,

  Missile 1 launched successfully.

  Missile 2 launched successfully.

  Missile 3 launched successfully.

  Missile 4 launched successfully.

  “Abort launch, abort a launch”, Jess shouted!

  Unable to execute the command. - said the computer.

  Four missiles launched for Luyten B planet. Estimated time of impact, 65 years.

  Epilogue

  Hank woke up in the ambulance room in the Saharan military base. Looking to his side, there was commander Hewitt, talking to someone from his staff, and through the glass window, he could see Jess.

  She was impatiently going back and forth across the hallway, throwing her hands in the air. Clearly, she was on the phone. He could see the hologram of Mrs. Potts and Mr. Holtzman.

  After a short while, she looked at Hank through the glass wall and saw he was awake. She ended her call and entered.

  “How are you doing Hank?” - she asked.

  “I think I’m alright. They patched me pretty well. I'll be up in no time”, said Hank, looking at a nurse nearby, who nodded agreeingly.

  “Mr. Bishoff”, the nurse said, “you are free to go if you can stand up.”

  Very slowly, Hank got out of the bed, and stood on his feet. “Ah, you’re alright”, said Jess, “come on, let’s get out of here”. Hank turned towards commander Hewitt, saluted and said, “commander, we'll be in touch. Take care.”

  Commander nodded, and Hank and Jess went outside towards the main hallway. Everyone seemed to be busy, and there were a lot of things happening. The hallway was huge and in the nearby park, overlooking the labs, they sat down.

  “Alright Jess, what's on your mind?”, asked Hank. “I've seen that you had a rather busy phone call. What does the council say?”

  “The council has been dissolved, Hank”, said Jess. “. You were recovering for the entire night, and it has been a rather eventful evening. Earlier, I was talking with Mr. Holtzman, about Dr. Quill’s death. They tried to reach me yesterday during the incident with the councilor. Lee, Carlo and Mr. Holtzman managed to recover the recording that Dr. Quill took at the Lunar observatory. It’s terrible. The council was informed, they had a long meeting and councilor Larsson made the decision for dissolution."

  “What's going on?” - asked Hank.

  “Dr. Quill had a meeting where he explained the latest data analysis of the Rock to commander Hewitt, and the councilor. However due to poor bandwidth and encoding, we assumed, as did commander Hewitt, that councilor Krueger was on the other side. But, they zoomed in on the silhouette of the councilor, made some video enhancement and they noticed that the councilor was nervously scratching an ear. Her ear, Hank. You know how councilor Frost tucks her hair behind her left ear when she is nervous? The silhouette repeated this several times. It was her all along.”

  “Are you sure?” - asked Hank, not quite believing it. “What about councilor Krueger?”

  “Who do you think pointed Ryad Cox to Aquary? Councilor Krueger is not the bad-code, however Ryad Cox is”, said Jess. “And Ryad is scheduled for genetic readjustment. But never mind that, the disturbing fact is that councilor Frost knew everything, and both her and councilor Krueger were the ones to postpone the closed session of the council.”

  “So that means she is also in on it?” - asked Hank.

  “It gets more complicated Hank”, replied Jess”, “Councilor Krueger may be an innocent victim in this whole thing. Mrs. Potts told us that councilor Frost was in charge of the oversight while this facility was being built. Since it’s unique location, the caves, and everything, it was in the domain of the environmental scientists to scout the location, however it seems that in the past, someone also thought this was a good spot for a military installment. It turns out that more than 30 years ago her team found traces of MKU-X, which is speculated to be a storage place for it, back in the 23rd century”.

  “Yes, Krueger mentioned that yesterday, what is it?” - asked Hank.

  “It's an old and forbidden mind control drug developed and used during the wars in the 23rd century, and she found a supply of it”, answered Jess. ”This thing is banned from development and usage since it affected the brain to be more agreeable, but also much more aggressive, and in the long term permanently damagin
g. In the video of Dr. Quill's death, when the window was opened and the huge commotion started, one of the closets opened and there was a clearly visible tank of MKU-X. The medical here, performed a blood test on councilor Krueger, they found a significant amount of that drug. He was completely under the influence, we believe he was under complete control of councilor Frost. Unfortunately, they found traces of it in commander Hewitt also.”

  “Fuck me! So now what?” - asked Hank.

  “We made a complete report to the Council, and presented all the data we had. Councilor Frost is gone and cannot be found, and there are several tanks of MKU-X missing from the Lunar observatory 9. The ones Dr. Quill caught in his video. Lunar observatory was the launch site, and it was reported that she had extended visits there. Not only did they manage to produce the missiles with the new propulsion system, they were also developing and fine tuning the sensory equipment for the Antarctic research facility”

  “Ha, ha, what the hell?” - asked Hank, producing a laugh of amazement and sarcasm.

  “Yes, she made sure that all the measurements taken at the South pole aligned with her agenda, the one that councilor Krueger revealed to us yesterday. As for the missiles that were launched, unfortunately, there is no way to catch them with our current technology, nor do they have the kill switch.”

  “So now, we don’t have any leadership, what’s happening next?” - asked Hank, and Jess answered. “Before the council was dissolved, they arranged a big meeting in which everyone will be informed of the current situation, and will have a say on the next steps. The council is held responsible for allowing this to happen, and new leadership will be chosen”

  Both of them sat on the bench overlooking the entire facility, as some rays of sun found their way through the white, partly cloudy sky to light the spot on which they were sitting. Hank looked up to appreciate the sky, which brought a slight smile on his face, he then faced Jess and said, “well then, we have a species to discover and a potential war to prevent.”

  Acknowledgments

  My favorite science-fiction books are Foundation series by Asimov and the Interdependency series by Scalzi. Those novels are short, on point, packed with action and quick in plot development. The reader gets pulled deep into a new world in such a way that it becomes hard to close the book. Modern SF’s on the other hand are brilliant with respect to new technologies, great thoughts and visions of the future and amazing plots, however, classics feel timeless.

  Guided by this thought I started developing a world on my own. Thinking about this, I would often get lost in his world imagining how it would look, and consequentially it became a perfect escape from this, Earth-bound reality that we currently live in. So, motivated by several good friends, and also the pandemics of 2020, I decided to write an experimental novel on my own. Therefore, after a long day at work, or during the weekends, with a cup of coffee, I would be staring at the screen, walking circles around the room, and developing a plot of Busy Skies. As mentioned, this book is my experiment, and I would really love to see my own SF novel in my book shelf. Having said that, I didn’t bother with editor, nor did I find time to do it and so I must apologize if you found any misspelled words or mistakes. Those are almost a certainty, however, I truly that you enjoined the book, or better yet, the world of Busy Skies. The series is originally intended to be a trilogy with the possibility of a prequel, however, I deliberately didn’t end the first part with a cliffhanger in the case that the sequels never come. Be that as it may, thank you for reading!

  To conclude, I must thank my wife for putting up with me while working on the book, and for reading it (first). Also, I would like to thank my friend Darko, a foremost authority on SF/fantasy for providing useful feedback for an early version.

  About the author

  Ivan Švogor was born and raised outside the small town of Varaždin, in beautiful northern Croatia. Growing up, he enjoyed science fiction cartoons, movies, and novels, which somewhat sparked an interest in science. Ivan holds a PhD from the University of Zagreb, however through work and study he had extended stays at Mälardalen University, Sweden, and Montréal Polytechnic, QC, Canada. After returning to Croatia he worked as a Senior Robotics Engineer and at the moment of writing Busy Skies he is a Research Engineer at an Artificial Intelligence Institute in Vienna, Austria.