Alex Kaidan S01E01 - Paradise Lost

Copyright © 2012 by Darren Hoyland

The pictures used for the covers are from NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt and from European Space Agency (ESA/Hubble), both of which have been released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en).

This is a work of fiction. Persons, living or dead, places or events are productions of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance is purely coincidental, which is probably for the best as it is set in the future, on several other planets and is about aliens trying to wipe out humanity. Your support and respect for the copyright of the author is appreciated.

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Alex Kaidan pressed the smiley face icon on his wrist console and all hell broke loose. Well, most of it anyway. The main lights cut out and the deck lurched as the coordinated computer virus and explosives did their thing.

“You better be ready, Dann!”

Following a pause of a length that could only ever be described as unsettling, Alex's second-in-command simply responded with, "Erm".

The artificial gravity suddenly increased in an entirely unintended manner causing Alex to be pulled to the floor and be pinned there for several seconds before it finally went offline completely. He cursed himself for his poorly written virus code as he pushed himself up off the deck, steadying himself so as not to drift away. He then activated the mini-gravs on his oversized boots, anchoring himself to the floor.

He took a deep breath, making a mental note to increase the O2 concentration next time, before he said, calmly and deliberately, "What do you mean, 'erm'? What could possibly warrant an 'erm' in this finely detailed and well-established rescue mission we spent weeks working on?"

“They, er, don’t want to be rescued”

“What?”

"Um, well the prisoners don't want to come. They say they like it here"

“They like it?” They’re not allowed to like it - it’s a prison”

“Actually, it’s quite nice. It’s warm and the food is awesome, ooh and they’ve got this artificial waterfall and...” He seemed to realise that he was wittering, and so finished fairly abruptly with, “Well, it’s better than my cabin anyway”

"Well did you explain to them that they’re being held against their will for the purposes of alien experimentation and that what's left of their own race is depending on them for its very survival?”

"Hang on," he said. There was a short pause and then Dann returned to the conversation, “Yeah, they don't believe me, but the spokesperson says that even if it was true, it’s a relatively small price to -”

Alex cut him off mid-sentence, “Dann, I’ve just triggered the explosion on the main part of the station. We've also killed the gravity here. Atmosphere is venting out and any second now the institute's security force is going to be on us, and that’s if they haven’t started to abandon the station which, I hasten to add, is now probably well on its way to being in a decaying orbit”

“Yeah, we felt a bit of a judder - it’s starting to look as if you’re going to have a few angry homeowners down here, let me tell you”

“Tell them that they’re will be a few dead homeowners very shortly unless they come with us”

It took him a few moments to process what Alex had just told him, before he cautiously ventured the response, "So....You want me to shoot them...?”

“No, Dann. I meant if the space-station is about to crash into the planet and kill them all unless they come with us.”

He breathed an audible sigh of relief, “Okay, I’ll tell them”