Children of Earth

© Joe Veronese

Everyone knows the story of how the Earth was lost to mankind. The Great War burned it to ashes and man was forced to search for a new home among the stars that we once looked up at so affectionately. Thus were born the inner colonies, the first seven planets that we could successfully terraform to sustain an earth-like environment. Unfortunately mankind multiplied, as we always do, far too quickly for expansion to keep up. That is how the A.R.C.S.' were first conceived. With large metal rings rotating around a central command point, the Artificial Rotating Colony Stations were built to house the overflow. Some had once nicknamed them Noah's A.R.C.S. but the meaning had faded over the years. No one could remember who Noah was, only that he was most likely a god in the Old World, charged with watching over the oceans and weather.

That is where Sael found himself, watching as the waves crashed into the cliff face that he stared over. This was the middle ring of Station 12, where the environment was built to emulate that of the equator region of the Old World. The large palm trees swayed in the artificially created wind as a mist of salt water sprayed over the cliff side with each crashing wave. Sael always wondered how station's creators had known what the Old World was like when all they ever had to go one was pictures, as even most first hand accounts had been lost over the decades. He had always wondered what it was like to walk on the face of Earth, or any planet for that matter. What would it be like to walk on a large sphere of rock instead of the large metal rings he had spent his entire life on.

That was why he had joined the Interplanetary Task Force. He had hoped that he would be stationed on some distant planet for his first campaign, not some “ring world” that was exactly like the one where he had come from. He looked up at the large metal pillar that split the sky, the central command of the colony and the heart of the station. From there one could subtly change the rotation rate, temperature, and weather conditions of any one of the three rings that were attached to it. What would it be like to see a sky without that he wondered? The waves kept crashing on the cliff side in an almost melodic rhythm.

Suddenly a bright flash sparked in the sky, a ship exiting hyperspace to dock. He'd never seen that ship design before. Its smooth, round metal build made it look like it was almost all of one piece. Wait a second he thought, he realized that the ship was approaching far too fast to be docking. He watched, dumbfounded, as the ship struck into the side of the colonies core, causing a large fire ball to engulf the crash zone. Then he saw them, more flashes lighting up the sky, hundreds of ships entering the atmosphere. They were scattering, heading for all the different sections of the middle ring. At that moment he knew that the crash was no accident, the station was under attack. Who would attack them? No time to think . Quickly shooting up, he hopped onto his transport bike and flew off to warn the nearest towns that they had to evacuate.

He zipped over the landscape like a bullet, trees and bushes just blurs to him. First he saw the ground around him dim before he heard the thunder of one of the ships flying over him towards the nearest town, Halevan. Its engines were loud, yet somehow it was a clean noise, no crackles and jerks like the ship engines he had always heard. There was no way that he could catch up to it, but he rode on as fast as his bike would carry him. I can't fight blind he thought, he had to know what he was up against. He reached the hilltop looking over the town just as the ship sat, hovering above the spherical houses. Dozens of small hatches opened up on the ships underside, letting loose dozens of missiles. In seconds the town was covered in a warm orange glow of napalm induced flames. He watched horrified as the town burned, people rushing around trying to put the fires out. Suddenly more hatches opened up, and a fine mist covered the town putting out the fires. A shock tactic he realized. They were trying to throw the townspeople off guard.

Ropes began to drop as men descended from the ship, their black leather armor shining in the artificial sunlight. They had some strange insignia on their chests, a green and blue circle. There's no time to think about that. I have to get to the command core and issue an evacuation. The men began gathering the people into the middle of the town. An execution. They lined all of the townspeople, men, women, and children, up against the houses and open fire. It all finally hit him like a punch to the face as he turned away in disgust, spewing his lunch onto the hillside. He tried with all of the strength he could muster to drown out the screams, but he couldn't. All he could do was crawl his way back onto his bike and drive as fast and as hard as he could towards the main road to the central command core.

As he pulled onto the long metal highway, cars cluttered the route away from the core. However this lead to incredibly few cars being left on the road that lead to the Gravitational Shift Gate that allowed transportation to the Colony's heart. By altering the way that the stations gravity effected the body it would allow him to shoot himself from the ring world to the central command core in a matter of minutes. Soaring down the long, empty highway, Sael watched as more and more ships ripped themselves out of hyperspace, scattering to even more sections of the ring. They were like ants taking over a discarded piece of food, a never ending stream of ships.

He looked ahead, watching as the Shift Gate slowly came into view. The trees began thinning out and the grass slowly replaced itself by concrete and metal. The Shift Gate itself looked almost like a large glass cube connected to a long metal tube with small glass panels that you could look out of. He pressed his palm to the small pad beside the door and entered. In seconds he was shooting though the long, unending tube watching as the world under his feet grew smaller and smaller. Slowly he felt the gravity shift and his body began to float in the cubes center before gradually turning until his feet faced what had once been the rooms top.

He began to slow as he approached the large pillar that sat at the colonies center. As his feet landed back on solid ground he saw what he had been looking for. It was a small console that sat on one of the far walls of the long metal hallway between all of the blinking lights and flashing screens. He ran for it arm outstretched. With that console he could activate the evacuation protocol as well as activate the station's defense system to neutralize any aircrafts that were still entering atmosphere. Then he felt it, the sharp pain in his side. A loud crack followed shortly after.

Collapsing to the ground he turned to face his attacker. He reached for his pistol, it had fallen out of the holster when he fell. He recognized the man holding the gun. Alibaster Wolt, the man in charge of maintaining the station's computer systems, stood there in a long black coat that boar the same odd symbol as the soldiers. He had arrived from another colony a few years back and had been over qualified for his position. He took a few steps closer to Sael, who was lying on his back, bleeding out on the floor.

“You should have known that your kind would never escape us. The Great War was only just beginning when you left. You did have a good run though. Even managed to survive long enough to build these colonies, fascinating things they are. ” As he raised his pistol Sael recognized the symbol, it was something he had seen pictures of hundreds of times. It was Earth. “ I'm sure that my superiors will love to hear about them in my report.”

At that moment Sael didn't want to be here, he didn't even want to be on another planet. He just wanted to be home, eating dinner with his parents and sisters. He felt the slight pressure on his forehead just before everything else faded to black.