PLANESHIFTERS, Critical Mass: Book II, Chapter 2: Kieran McGinn

Thor placed his hand palm down on the already reprogrammed door lock scanner to the brig, then took a cautious half-step back as the huge steel door slid sideways on its well designed magnetic tracks to reveal a small room full of anxious looking cryo patients, some thoroughly adjusted to their new lifeline, some not so much. A couple of the older, more frail people were still in their cells, even though the energy fields were turned off by Sky before their escape from the Algol system. All the rest were either pacing around the room in deep thought, or huddled in a ring around the glowing central column of the cell room as if it was a campfire for the small amount of heat it generated, this being one of the many chambers onboard that maintained an uncomfortable, yet energy efficient 58 degrees Fahrenheit during deep space runs. All the rest followed suit… all of the rest, except one. Off to the right, sitting back against the partition wall between two cells was Kieran McGinn. The well built, 40 year old Irish man appeared, for reasons Thor could definitely understand, to be keeping entirely to himself, and mildly entertained by the cheap entertainment around him.

"Top of the morning' to ya!" Thor yelled. McGinn looked up from his daze.

"Captain Thorsson Krey, is it, now? Good to see you, to be sure… good to see you!"

"Let's take a walk." Thor gestured toward the door, trying very hard not to get into a conversation with anyone else, though he could tell they all had numerous questions for him. He held off until just before he shut the door behind him and McGinn, then turned back around to them and spoke directly. "Commander Davies and Dr. Astrydd will be with you momentarily and will require your full cooperation to prepare for the next leg of our flight… please see to it that they get it!" He placed his palm back on the door and it slid quietly closed, locking automatically, as no code was entered. "Follow me."

"Welcome to the future, eh?" McGinn laughed out loud, mostly just breaking the tension as he struggled to catch up with Thor, who was leading him quickly down a series of tight corridors.

"How long have you been awake?" Thor asked him quickly.

"About a week... I think. Time seems to be standing still in here! I still don't have any Goddamn idea where we are or what we're doing… All I've been told is to shut up and shovel this "crystal" shite, and next thing I know, were in a state of total mutiny and I hear your voice over the loudspeaker saying' you're the new Captain! Nice twist of fate, but why were we not free in the first place? And where the hell is CryoKinetics in all this? Is this their boat?"

Thor stopped and stared at him for an uncomfortably long time. He could see that Kieran was absolutely clueless about where, and more specifically, when he was, but there was something else. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he'd seen this look before… in the underground… This man was hiding something from him, he was sure of it. He had another agenda driving him and it seemed to have something directly to do with him. He decided to play along for the time being and see what transpired... guard up, of coarse.

He took Mr. McGinn into the computer room where he spent his first week learning how to manipulate the ship's shields with his mind and laid the entire scenario on him just as Captain Parnell had done for him. He told McGinn of the exodus that led mankind to live on space stations orbiting the Earth, and how a fleet of ships left to search for another inhabitable planet, orbiting potential prospects long enough to gather resources and raw materials, then setting off again, on and on, until the present time.

None of the planets so far have fit all the required criteria for prolonged settlement or terraforming, so no new roots had been planted. He explained a bit about their last mission, about their timetable and about their problem with the indigenous creatures penetrating their energy shield. He told McGinn how he was tricked into helping the fleet perpetrate a global genocide and how the whole event, including the destruction of their world and the formation of a massive black hole in its place could have been avoided. Mankind had become nothing more than interstellar planet-parasites. "In short, Mr. McGinn, you are not onboard a boat, you are on an interstellar spacecraft heading back in the direction of what hopefully will be a healed planet Earth."

"What happened to Earth… to The United States of America? Is there any world government left in place at all?" Kieran asked, fishing for something in particular.

Thor had researched most of what Captain Parnell had told him on this subject, and knew the basic facts to be true, so he broke it down for McGinn, carefully leaving out his family's involvement with the AFG. "There was a 25 year Arab war that started in the late 21st century, depleting most of the world's resources, especially in the smaller, more anarchic countries that had very little to begin with. In an effort to guard themselves from extinction, several countries brought the conflict to nuclear capacity, ironically feeling it was the only way for their particular race to survive, and justified it with religious zealotry.

"The Earth fell into a nuclear 'autumn' that lasted 3 long years, at the end of which, the world's population had dropped to less than 1/3 that which it was at the beginning of the century. Some died in the war, some died of radiation sickness and disease, and many to the increasingly severe weather patterns and natural disasters created by the environmental disruption, but all of this paled compared to the carnage that followed.

"The chaos and desperation quickly turned an already violent race of divided people into roving bands of nomadic pirates that swept from city to city, and across the countryside, raping, killing, and taking whatever they wanted, leaving behind scattered patches of defenseless victims with scorched homes that were spared nothing but their very lives, and sometimes not even that. As food supplies became contaminated, the soil no longer supported crops, and livestock and migrating animals fell prey to disease, they turned to the only food source they had left... other humans! With most of the world's soldiers dead, and those that remained hired to guard the palaces of the wealthy corporation owners and politicians, there was little hope of stopping this onslaught of devastation. It seemed mankind's ingenuity combined with an extreme lack of foresight had finally, and ironically, brought about his final demise.

"It was then that The Alliance For Gaia, a radical group of environmental activists, branded 'eco-terrorists' by the government, who went underground to escape prosecution, came down from the hills en masse upon every stronghold in the western hemisphere and took them by storm. Not only weren't there sufficient numbers left to defend against such a force, but they took them completely by surprise. The status quo had long since written them off as any kind of a threat and had no idea the Alliance had been preparing for this exact scenario all along by experimenting with new weapon technologies and tactics. Not only hadn't they been snuffed out and exterminated by the corralling efforts of the government, they were stronger than ever.

"They grew, not in numbered pockets that could be identified and stopped, or branded as a cult of extremists by the government, but rather, as an idea; a ghost in the machine, living among those who didn't care or were distracted by their own agenda, and quietly waiting for the right time to strike. Their strength was their anonymity. They used every manner of underground communication to spread the ideals of their cause like a brushfire… music, art, television, the internet… planning only in vague hypotheticals, until at the right time, when it was the only remaining option, the Revolution gave birth to itself! Those who were tuned in to the cause knew exactly what to do.

"There is always opportunity in chaos, and this sudden global shift of power was no exception. With the downward spiral the environment was taking, a new plan took root. A new Alliance was formed with the superpower from the East to build and launch a fleet of self-sustaining eco-ships to allow the escape of civilized man from this dying planet. All remaining resources were exhausted to meet this goal, and miraculously, it was accomplished. The Great Exodus had begun.

"Much equipment was salvaged during the construction process. Since it would have been far too inefficient to launch a fleet of this magnitude from the Earth, it was built almost entirely in space, orbiting around the Earth, while salvage crews collected everything of any use. Communication satellites, spy satellites, missile defense satellites, weapons, fossil fuel, just about everything left on the planet or floating around in space was collected, dismantled, then put to some kind of use… This included all of us floating human ice cubes on the massive CryoKinetics satellite!

"CryoKinetics had long since financially deteriorated and had clientele from every corner of the world, so our lives became subject to International Salvaging Claim law. The AFG's first notion was to leave us there, or shoot us down. After some heated debate, they chose to put us all in a state of deep freeze, excluding only the parts of the brain and soft tissue that would be irrevocably damaged by freezing, while keeping those parts under strict temperature control. This would allow for indefinite cryostasis. They could then bring us along, and thaw us out as needed for slave labor, after all, to most of the Alliance, we represented the upper crust of the 'elite' whose relentless self-indulgence helped bring the Earth to this state of unstoppable decay.

"Within one year of star mapping, and improvements to fleet for extended self reliance, all signs of civilized life on Earth had disappeared, and the fleet decided to move on…. To make the rest of the story really short, Mr. McGinn, that was around 700 years ago… It's the year 2749, not 2157... We were extremely fortunate to have been thawed out at all," Krey grinned as he punched in a couple commands on the holographic computer terminal next to them and brought up a 3D image of the black hole, complete with an updated rendering of the incoming shockwave, then turned the base around so it faced McGinn, who was still sitting with his jaw wide open and a blank stare, "and that's not even the best part!"

"I'm truly afraid to ask," McGinn said quietly.

Copyright 2011 by Gunnar C. Garisson, All Rights Reserved