EarthFall

Chap 14 Storm

Somewhere on Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons. 

The Directors quarters were dark. The ceiling shimmered from the reflected light of his fish tanks. They lined every wall and were filled with slow drifting octopi, glowing fish, and winding black eels that drifted in inbetween the shadows of the rocks.

It was serene. He lay in his purple, plush, silk sheeted bed, the sound of an ocean playing over the speakers. He imagined he was deep underwater. Drifting in the dark with absolute freedom.

The calm was broken when a message holo blinked on his bedside. He tapped it absentmindedly.

"Report?"

"Sir we've just got confirmation from Luna 1's cameras that the Team 23's Hitchhiker detonated..."

This was good. He would radio the Commander on Titan later and announce they were ago for the next phase of their resolution plans. The council would be pleased.

But there was a hesitance in the lieutenant's voice...

"Yes Lieutenant?"

"It appears that it went live prematurely. It detonated in the upper atmosphere. No signs of ground damage, Sir."

The Director shot up in his bed. What?

"Was it intercepted, lieutenant, or was it a malfunction? Any sign of AI interference in ANY of the Phoenix logs so far?"

"...Unknown. Last footage that was examined from the onboard 360 camera show a flash of light, approximately .8 seconds before detonation. No known reasons for malfunction. No projectiles seen of any kind. No logs of AI existence or otherwise in the data banks last time we remote uploaded them which was... 9 minutes ago."

"Evidence of solar flare?"

"None so far Sir."

This was stressful. The Director hated stressful. It appeared he would be having an entirely different conversation with the Commander tonight altogether.

"Understood. Anything else?"

"Yes... we spotted the USFS scout ship, Phoenix 6 leaving the region as well. Waiting on next cycle to get a visual again."

Hmm.. the Commander would become nervous if there were survivors. It was better to start the meeting with good news before he used the Old World Comm to contact him.

"...Understood. Activate scout ship sleeper Seppuku. Update parameters to Goliath. That will be all."

"Yes Sir."

The Comm flared off. The Director rubbed his eyes and stood up. He walked towards the wall of fish tanks. This was stressful. He wanted to move forward. This was the last mission to clean up the Earth before they settled. They were almost there... And now this setback?

He would have to deal with that rotting piece of meat of a Commander... He'd need to think of some story or some way of stalling him from acting rashly. The Commander was like a rabid Canis. Best kept on a tight leash.

He picked up a piece of meat from the display board and dropped it into the tank. He watched as his beautiful, jet black eels slithered out from the nooks and shadows of their hiding places. They found the meat in a matter of seconds. A few seconds later, they began to swarm and fight over it.

He needed to relieve some stress before his inevitable meeting with the Commander.

"Computer, call support."

~calling~

The speakers went silent for a moment before the voice of a woman came on.

"Yes sir?"

"Send in my next appointment." Fear crept into the woman's voice on the line. It aroused him slightly.

"I'm sorry, she's... she's not ready yet. We still need to clean and dress--"

"Shhhh shhh. That's fine, that's fine. Just a quick rinse and dry will be acceptable. At your earliest convenience, of course. Thank you."

He cut the comm's and put his hand gently to the glass. The eels paid him no attention. They simply continued to tear into their meat with violent abandon. Like a dark, slithering storm cloud of hunger.

The director smiled.