c. 2024 Rod Ice
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(10-24)
When Dr. Judson Baines powered up the Digger shuttle for its final flight away from Evergreen Estates, a palpable sense of regret tainted the experience. He had become used to living alone in the rural development of mobile homes. A place that offered so many opportunities to study and learn about life in the previous century. Now, he needed to jettison this period of archaeological digging, and begin anew elsewhere. But as the C-drive propulsion of his tiny craft powered up with technological awe, he wondered silently about what course to take.
In any direction, the continent was a sprawling, overgrown mess. Not conducive to an explorer visiting from a colony on Mars.
He could feel the vessel rattle as it hummed with energy. Something that he attributed to the damage of crashing, many weeks before. This suspicious noise caused him to doubt that an extended voyage at higher altitudes was wise. But with the arrival of land drones and air bots from Calimex, he had few options. The Ithaca shotgun of his great-grandfather would offer little protection against this invading contingent.
With the engines throttled, and both hands at the controls, he punched in a code to authorize liftoff from the asphalt pad where his ship had been parked. At first, a gleeful moment of elevation made the view through his dashboard window change for the better. Then, there were more ominous creaks and groans from the hull of his transport. And suddenly, a crackle of blue, electronic fog.
The triad of vehicles that surrounded his adopted home were generating a static field, which suppressed the reaction necessary to propel his shuttle. This artificial veil also blocked his ability to send and receive transmissions. Or to use the onboard sensor array for navigational purposes. After a brief instant of being suspended in mid-air, the Digger plopped on its landing skids, with a loud thud of metal on the tarmac.
Baines cursed while fiddling with the controls.
“What the hell? I don’t get it! Why keep me here? What purpose does that serve to those gawdamm raiders from the west coast?”
He could hear an imaginary clock ticking inside of his head, counting down toward a moment of capture and capitulation. But this insistent drumbeat only intensified his desire to flee. With frustration and fear needling his brain cells, he switched the ship’s drive from its Cloitanium generator to a battery reserve. Something that would only last for a matter of minutes, because it had been designed as a taxi mode for moving around on the flight deck of a host vessel. He then activated the low-velocity impeller, which again lifted the Digger from ground level. With his instruments being blinded, and control protocols lagging, he steered up and forward, heading out of the trailer venue in a northern direction. This caused the land drones to circle in a pre-programmed arc, tightening their range. An offensive move that would ultimately doom their mission.
The university scholar thought hard about how his Digger craft had been created. He was not a pilot on any level, yet knew enough about the short-range transport to keep it on track across the rural landscape. There were no weapons systems incorporated into its design. So, he could not mount an attack to free himself from the mechanical marauders. But a loophole in the sensor grid would allow for crude broadcasts of malformed data, sent out on a backwards trajectory. Something that might confuse the guidance cores in each of the rovers.
He tapped furiously at the control dash. From memory, he wrote out sequences recalled from long days spent at the school laboratory, in New Cleveland. When the file executed, there was an immediate reaction from his pursuers, below.
The swarm of air bots began to sputter, and crash. Then, the drones spun their wheels in the mud, and wandered, wildly. It provided enough of a lapse in control that he was able to steer toward Lake Erie. He had once chance to cross this natural obstacle, before the shuttle batteries were fully sapped of energy.
Across the frequency spectrum once again received by his radio module, he could hear curses from engineers at Toqua Platte. The endeavor to capture and secure his tiny ship had failed. Now, he could shift toward pondering his own plight. Something that made him pause and reflect on the merciful fortune of the survival he had enjoyed.
About halfway across the water, his Digger beast started to manifest signs of structural failure. He could hear the hull protesting each maneuver. This dreadful climax made him realize that the limited store of battery power was less of a concern that making it to dry land, on the far side of his target. He knew little about the isolated state of Torontara, a territory never contacted or explored by anyone from his homeworld.
Landing in the midst of that land mass was a gamble he would have preferred to avoid. Yet with his work at Evergreen Estates complete, and the Calimex invaders forcing him to exit, there were no other options.
Over what was once the southern tier of Canada, he felt the impeller drive lose its thrust capacity. The shuttle descended in response, with no aerodynamic qualities to keep it aloft without being boosted. He jacked the motors to their full output, but could not sustain any useful amount of motion. With a mood of surrender taking hold, he braced for impact, while surveying the geographical horizon through a forward hatch. His windshield had been covered to prevent breaking glass from scattering.
Instruments on the console began to blink with warnings and messages. He crossed his arms while strapped into the pilot seat, and whispered an impulsive prayer.
“If there’s a God, some kind of cosmic creator, I could use a bit of your grace right now. My friend Kelly believed in your existence. I’m not sure what I believe, right now. My God is science. But if I’m wrong, if I’m wrong, then please forgive me...”
The impact made him tightly close his eyes. He could hear metal panels shearing away as the ship slammed into a sand bank along the lakeshore. This ring of granular material helped to lessen the force of deceleration, and soften the blow of an uncontrolled landing. When his head snapped forward, he took a virtual boxer’s punch to the face. This knocked him across the sentient divide, into unconsciousness, and oblivion.
Dr. Judson Baines would sleep for several hours. When he awakened, a new life on Planet Earth would begin.
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