Isolation

Chapter 52

"What does it want?"

"The Frag Drive," he said. "It's after our main engine."

"What does it want with it?"

"To go wherever it wants in the galaxy," Cassidy said. "Possibly the universe."

"To create more hosts," he said. "We can't let that happen."

"It won't leave Sara, otherwise," Tim said. "We don't know what to do!"

"Mark, we've got a problem," Vera said. "It's getting taller."

"What's going on?" Damien asked.

"Our ship crashed on the planet's surface. The Drax have us trapped in some kind of force field. They did something to the animals' DNA here. Everything designed in this specific area was made to kill us."

"We're like rats in a damn science lab!" Vera said. "It's all one big experiment."

"Mark, there's a pretty big problem with what you just said."

"What's that?"

"Um... you're not on Earth."

There was a brief pause.

"Come again?"

"Your transmission isn't coming from the planet's surface," she said. "It's bouncing off the moon."

Another pause.

"Hold on. We're running a local scan."

There was some beeping followed by a chime.

"Son of a bitch," James said. "She's right. We're not on the planet at all."

"My god," Aiden said. "They made this hellhole?"

"Then it's worse than we thought," Officer Tanner said. "Either way, we need help. It's hard to explain, but we're running out of time. You said there was some kind of black organism, right? Maleable?"

"Yeah. Why?"

He sighed.

"It survived."

"What survived?"

He looked around at the teenagers.

"What I'm about to tell you is highly classified. I shouldn't even know about it."

"Spill the beans, Dad," James said. "You know what it is?"

"Yes. The ship that was found floating in space a long time ago, the Drax ship. That's what it came out of."

No one spoke for a moment.

"You kept a live Drax on the colony?"

That was Mark. Dominic took a seat.

"I told your father it needed to be destroyed, but he wouldn't listen. He said it could be useful. It had properties that helped with DNA replication. Reverse engineer it, and it could cure any disease. Human life could live twice as long as the normal lifespan, maybe even longer."

"Let me repeat. You kept a live Drax on a colony with millions of people?"

"It has been on the colony since before I was born. It was kept in isolation away from the colonists. No one was supposed to touch it, not even your father, until he was at the age to give the order."

"The order of what?" James asked.

"Of whether it should be used or destroyed."

Mark laughed.