Rebels of Jupiter Read online

  Rebels of Jupiter

  By Russell Beideman

  Copyright © 2014 Russell Beideman

  Kindle Edition. All Rights Reserved.

  Illustration by Anthony Maurer Design.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  To my friends and family for all of the love and support they provided me.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 1

  The Earth Commonwealth began production of helium-3 from the clouds of Jupiter in the late 24th century with the construction of the mining facilities on Callisto and Ganymede. The local production of basic metals from the surface of these moons led to the planning and development of the Jupiter Ring System. Soon after construction, the mining facilities orbiting close to Jupiter around Io began to supply the fuel needed for fusion generators. The precious reactants were scooped and condensed out of the atmosphere in the upper reaches of Jupiter. These reactants fed the reactors powering the mining facilities on the Galilean moons and the beginnings of the Jupiter Rings. Shipments of helium-3 from the Jupiter colonies were distributed out to the rest of the Commonwealth and eventually drone frigates made supplying large quantities to Earth economically feasible. Nearly a century after the construction of the first colony on Callisto the orbiting Jupiter colonies became the main supplier for fusion reactants and outpaced the mining on the Moon.

  -The History of the Earth Commonwealth

  -Year 2589-

  The ground curled up until it disappeared beyond the metal ceiling. Miles and miles it stretched, a sanctuary of life in the vastness of space around Jupiter. Home among the Galilean moons, a lone human stared out from a secluded dark observation deck. He watched as long slivers of metal pierced down from several orbiting stations, mining out the helium from the clouds for use in the fusion reactors. The mining stations were like the algae oceans of old Earth, Darvin Mooray thought, ugly yet necessary to produce the oxygen needed to survive on that extinction riddled world. These stations produced the helium for humans to survive with heat out here in the depths of cold space far from the sun’s light.

  Darvin stood there, only a few conscious thoughts fluttering through his mind as he looked at the swirling expanses of clouds that ring the mighty planet of Jupiter. His thoughts were focused on the only case he could never solve, his father's death. Over in the distance he could also spot the other four Rings all orbiting in the same orbital path. To his frame of reference the Rings looked like they just stood there, yet they were orbiting around Jupiter faster than the Moon orbited Earth. Darvin, a detective of the Jupiter Ring Three Police Force, fell to the ground as a shock wave rolled through the station.

  Darvin pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, staring into his Exovision as the tiny implant splayed a damage assessment across his sight. The graphical interface called Exovision displayed red and yellow boxes that overlaid the blueprints of the Ring back to the station's common grounds, where humanity here slept among the stars and moons. The blueprints minimized into a small map in the corner of his vision. Loud sirens played out from the ceiling as the light dimmed to a pale twilight. He looked back towards Jupiter as he got onto his feet, and noticed the frost now clinging to the edges of the windows. Darvin bolted for the passageways, knowing that frost only forms from a thinning atmosphere. It was that same thinning atmosphere that would trigger the safety catches along the walls, allowing the blast doors to drop to prevent the leak from following into the common grounds.

  Sweat dripped down Darvin’s face, his cheeks flushed with heat as his labored breaths struggled to get oxygen into his lungs from the thinning air around him. “Damn it,” Darvin said through ragged gasps as he put his hand on the wall, stopping momentarily to regain his energy. The oxygen count displayed as a red flashing light on his Exovision as he watched a blast door slam down a hundred yards ahead of him. Darvin doubled back down the corridor, hearing the sounds of more blast doors closing behind him, closer and closer. He turned down around a corner and ran down another passageway.

  The corridor splayed out in yellow as the sound of the sirens lowered in volume, a sign that the air was almost all gone. Darvin took as deep a breath as he could, holding it while he ran, and slammed his palm into the emergency drop pad on the wall as he fell into the next corridor and the blast door closed behind him. He let go of his breath too soon, the atmosphere returning but not quick enough. Darvin lay on his back, gulping for air involuntarily, staring at the ceiling as darkness crept onto the edges of his sight. The edges of his Exovision disappeared as his sight narrowed to a small cone. His body went numb as he tried to lift his arms to get himself up, nothing responding even as his thoughts slowed. He tried to lift his arms to get himself up but they felt heavy as he lay on the cold metal floor. His Biocomp was forcibly shutting his body down, even though his synthetic blood cells had enough oxygen in them for twenty minutes without breathing. The detection of vacuum across his skin was starting automatic procedures to protect his body. He pushed his Mindcursor over an icon in his Exovision, triggering it and reversing the process.

  A jolt startled Darvin back as he rolled violently onto his stomach, coughing hard. He vomited onto the floor, spilling a blue liquid that dripped down his numb lips as Darvin coughed up the rest of the liquid, a life saving feature of his Biocomp, a neural-integrated crystalline computer, which also held several different fluids stored in sacks inside his abdomen and controlled other technology in his body. The oxygen solution would have saved him for about six hours if he went unconscious, and was only slipped into his lungs if he was just about to, a sign of how close he was. The solution would have prevented his alveoli from rupturing in the vacuum. He didn’t click the icon fast enough before his Biocomp shoved the nasty liquid into his lungs.

  Darvin leaned his back against the cold metal wall, savoring the tingling sensations as feeling returned to his whole body. The dull reflection of his brown hair and black vest in the metal wall across from him snapped him back into focus. Still breathing hard, he stared back down the passageway he had run, imagining the observation deck and the view of Jupiter that was still there. He laughed to himself slightly at breathing so hard from what he went through. He was only twenty seven after all. Young; he thought he was in better shape. Pushing himself up he used his Mindcursor on his Exovision to place a call to his partner.

  “Darvin? For void’s sake, I thought we lost you,” Exsid said.

  Darvin walked down the corridor and came into the entranceway of the common grounds, the large open interior of the Ring. “Tell me what's happening,” Darvin said as his eyes adjusted from the darkness of the corridor to the light of the common grounds. He came out to one of the parks, where his car sat silently off to the side.

  “Some sort of an explosion, I can’t get in contact with Dispatch. Besides, why am I giving you a sit rep? I am your senior.”

  Darvin l
ooked towards where the police station should be. Two miles away, a large billowing pile of smoke poured up to the center of the Ring. The station was a bit under the curling expanse of the metal ceiling, giving him a perfect view of a circular cloud of death that expanded out was rising from where his brothers used to be. Used to be, Darvin repeated in his head.

  “Darvin, we need to meet up.” A slight stutter escaped from Exsid as he said those words. Cruel reality was starting to sink in for Darvin as well.

  “Meet me at Daniel’s Pub,” Darvin stated unemotionally and ended the call. The pub was only a mile and a half away, close enough to the station that other officers would frequent the establishment.

  Darvin climbed into his unmarked squad car as a plush seat enveloped him, an addition he made to his car that was against regulations and one he made sure it went unnoticed. But regulations be damned, Darvin thought, I love this car. He punched down his foot on the accelerator pad as he fishtailed, a brief rooster tail of sand spraying up behind him until all four wheels caught traction. Traveling down the road he came up to the hills of the park, illuminated by the wide light strips running along the middle of the inside walls on both sides of the Ring, providing lighting for the whole common grounds. The road curved around the bases of the hills while the other side sat the flowing rivers that supplied the park with the water it needed.

  Bringing up his Exovision again, Darvin dialed into the local news feed as reporters tried to get as close to the scene of action as usual. He watched as one reporter opened his mouth to say something, when a large eruption of gore from his chest blew out whatever he was about to say. A black cladded figure was slightly visible in the background holding what looked to be like a long barreled gauss rifle. Darvin put out a text message to Exisd. The text recorded and hovered over his vision. Terrorists out agin around station, it read. It was years since they have seen their kind. Damn Rebels, Darvin thought to himself.

  Use spell check for voids sake, Exsid sent back with the text appearing along the top of Darvin’s Exovision. Darvin was almost done reading the text when something exploded the front hood of his cruiser, sending his car twisting and flipping over his front end. Darvin went flying out the driver side window. He watched as the ground came up to meet him, slowly at first and then speeding up as if to make up for the time spent in slow motion. Rolling across the ground to a stop, Darvin stood up slowly, gripping his right shoulder where blood flowed freely. His Biocomp used his internal supply of nanomeds and closed the gash immediately. It sent extra synthetic blood cells into his veins to try to make up for what was lost.

  Darvin let go of his arm, reached down for his pistol that was still strapped to his hip in his holster. Pulling it, he pointed it at a figure that walked out from the top of the hill above the road. The rebel was dressed in an all black mechanized combat armor as he slung the short barrel of the rocket launcher onto his back. Little wisps of smoke still flowed out the back of the chamber as the rebel pointed a large rifle at Darvin. Well, Darvin thought to himself, at least I was right about the rifle.

  An amplified voice spoke out from the rebel, “Put your weapon down.”

  “No,” Darvin said, mostly to himself. He saw the slight change in where the rebel pointed his gun and dove to the side as gunfire erupted at the ground around him even as he was moving. “And I did like that car,” he muttered to himself.

  “I said lay down your weapon.”

  “And I said no,” Darvin said evenly, backing away slowly as he held his now meager looking pistol out in front of him.

  The rebel started walking towards his prey, slowly backing Darvin up until he was against the lip of the river. “You are gravely injured, your weapon is ineffective against this combat armor suit, and I am holding an assault gauss rifle,” the mad said in a pompous tone.

  “So?”

  “You are outmatched. Surrender now and you will receive the medical attention you need.”

  Darvin locked his eyes onto the featureless black helmet of the rebel. He knew this rebel was right. He was out classed in every way and this guy obviously knew how to handle the weapons he carried. That meant that this rebel had to have military training. But how could that happen? No civilians were allowed to undergo military training out in space as per an Earth Commonwealth regulation. Jupiter couldn’t even have a militia. And yet here was a rebel in front of him. Masked in a powered combat armor that amplified his speed and power, it gave him automatic targeting systems that interfaced with his Biocomp and with his gauss rifle as well. That weapon could tear him into shreds with a single shot. Those same targeting systems also allowed the rebel to fire on Darvin while he was diving and not hit Darvin on purpose. He wanted Darvin alive. But why?

  “Surrender your weapon and come peacefully,” the rebel said with more force behind his words this time. Darvin felt the lip of the river right below his heel, some of the soil splashing into the water. He quickly looked behind him at the river. The cold steel of his pistol began to warm from his white knuckled grip. Darvin looked back towards the rebel where he stood seemingly motionless in his armored suit. The rebel spoke more softly as he said his next few words, “My name is Sebe and we are only here to protect you. Come peaceful and I can guarantee you will receive medical care and be safe.”

  “No,” Darvin said unemotionally as he fell backwards into the river. The rebel watched as the dark water swallowed Darvin up. Darvin looked up as the Sebe peered down through the water at him, a red trail seeping through the water where his cut on his arm had reopened. The river’s current started to accelerate him downriver as he sank lower and lower. His view of Sebe finally disappeared as Sebe turned around and walked away from the river’s bank.

  Darvin’s Exovision showed him his oxygen level and how much time remained for him to safely stay underwater before his Biocomp would have to save him again. He had only a few moments, but Darvin let the current drift him down further rather then use up his oxygen to swim. His loss of blood had drained his oxygen capacity. His mind raced as he listed his dwindling options. The river would take him to the water treatment plant, which the facility was only a few blocks from Daniel’s Pub where he hoped Exsid would be by the time he arrived. He cursed himself for not getting Exsid’s location, and finally realized how much he did not know. His Biocomp sealed up his cut on his arm again, the water helping to stem the flow of blood. Artificial blood cells were inserted into his veins, but his supply was beginning to run empty.

  The oxygen count started to go below a minute, and Darvin finally surfaced. He swam quickly to the bank, lifting himself halfway out of the water with his left arm and taking a moment to rest before he took in his surroundings. The last events were finally catching up to him as muscle fatigue started to cramped his shoulders and legs. He flexed his right arm, his Biocomp bringing up a display of his arm and its available functionality. The nanomeds had done as much as they could, and he had almost ran out of them. Only a Medidrone would be able to restore full function, but at least he was now able to move it. Lifting something with it, Darvin grimaced as he stared at the gash in his right shoulder, would be another story all together. He lifted himself out of the river and walked to a grove of trees for cover.

  Putting his back against a tree, Darvin brought up his map display and overlaid it with his current position. His modified blood cells had enhanced oxygen carrying capacity and could allow him to travel underwater for nearly twenty minutes by not moving. His time in the thin atmosphere of the corridors had reduced that around to five minutes, the time he had spent underwater. A tiny timer depicted a little over fifty minutes for the full oxygen capacity to be replenished. He had traveled nearly over a mile while drifting in the current of the river. Now almost half a mile from the water treatment plant, he was at the edge of the park itself. Darvin also noticed on the map a familiar, and dreaded, location behind the tree he was leaning against.

  Canceling the map view program, Darvin stared out over the river and to the gl
eaming metal side of the Ring only half a mile away. Its silver sides matched the color of his eyes, forever reminding him of his past and of his parents. The place drew him to it as much as it repelled him away. He got off the tree and turned around. Looking at the dull black metal gate only a little off in the distance, it beckoned him to enter. He walked over and pushed it open to a site visited only by a few.

  The concrete monument stood in the center of the only place in the whole Ring that was nearly unvisited. Yet, it remained as a reminder of what had happened in the past. On this monument Darvin looked at the plaque containing his parent’s names. His fingers brushed across his mother's name but stopped right before his father's. He stood there for several moments, the wind whistling in its lonely voice every few seconds. The monument was there for the great deeds his father had done. That was before his father had suddenly changed.

  Darvin thought back to the last moments of when he watched his father gunned down by the militia twenty years ago. His mother was already dead by that point while his father was holding a gun to Darvin’s head. He had been a hostage for his father’s ill-fated plans for rebellion, or at least that was what was reported. He remembered looking out across the park towards the militia, feeling a cold piece of metal against his head, and looking up at his father. He remembered his father’s face contorted in anger as he faced down the black armor plated militia. He remembered the sensation of feeling and watching his father fall backwards after a bullet ripped through his forehead. Darvin saw his father’s silver eyes go dull as life left his body. After that, Darvin was the only silver-eye left. He had only been seven years old at the time, but that scar of a memory of the event was what drove him to become a police officer and eventually a detective. He always felt there was something wrong about what happened that day. Yet, that legacy always seemed to come back to haunt him. A drop of water, which Darvin didn't know if it was sweat, tears, or from the river he was just in, slid down his face onto the grass surrounding the monument. Those were the last days of the militia as well, disbanded by the Earth Commonwealth shortly after.