Planet of death

CHAPTER ONE

Planet of Death.

The pinging of the sensor-alert woke Zhane in the pod's gel couch. It hadn't been activated however or blue-green gel would have covered most of him in a protective cushion. Perfectly dry, with a lot of space around him in the crystal case, he blinked sleep away. His right hand touched the silver bracer on his left forearm. He'd been half afraid they might take it away when dumping him in here.

"Sai? Where are we?"

"Not sure, Zhane. This planet is off all commercial star routes. I'm tapping the pod systems, taking control so I can get some decent scans."

Sai was his personal AI, not a factory model. All the companion AIs on Yuria were emotionless, with basic programmed responses, so he'd built his own with algorithmic emotions and deep loyalty. Unfortunately, that had drawn unwanted attention to him from the authorities like a lightning strike,

His world had never made it secret about Rejects being removed from society, but exactly how was classified. Thanks to his parents' position he'd been able to access sensitive files. This left him with two choices: go along with deportation or be put humanely down.

He'd made his choice.

Thankfully, the survival pod came with everything from extreme weather gear, to seed-stock, and even processors to make basic gel-tech items, not that that last did him any good.

"Zhane, I've connected to a primitive satellite and linked to a server farm for information. It looks like a few months ago this world—Earth, stupid name, but whatever—was infected by a necro-virus that kills its host and takes control over the brain while mutating the undead body."

"Download everything and show me where we're landing."

Above his silver cuff, a hologram formed. Zhane saw a blue-and-brown world with swirls of white cloud cover. The image jumped several times as the magnification increased.

The pod rocked as it hit atmosphere. Zhane rolled inside his cradle without any gel to stabilize him. He swung himself sideways and settled his back on one side, pushing his feet opposite. Anchored, he waited for the ride to smooth out.

"I've overridden the autopilot," Sai announced. "For some reason, it was trying to crash us on the polar cap."

So, Rejects aren't meant to survive after all.

His bracer continued to show him holographic images as the pod dropped. Soon, a large stone building appeared next to a river. "I think I can put us down here," Sai said. "Activating the pod's gravity sheer."

Zhane calmly studied the holo-images as the view skewed and expanded to show Yurian-like people lumbering along in the damaged streets.

If not for the overgrown yards and crashed four-wheel vehicles, this would look fine from a distance.

"Sai, what is that on the humanoids' backs?" He'd spotted scale-like patterns on spines and heads.

"Scanning." The hologram zoomed in on one of the walking corpses, showing it nude. "The scales are for photosynthesis, connected to the spines by a small crystal growth. One moment, Zhane. I've found additional information on this."

A new screen image appeared, showing a scene of people wearing all-white, standing around a table with one of the victims strapped down. One of the men in white talked while cutting into the patient. The language wasn't comprehensible.

Sai said, "Here's a translation." The original language was replaced with words from Zhane's homeworld:

"As you can see, the new-skin section forms this crystal to store energy. With this, the 'Zombie' feeds without food or water.

"Zombie," Zhane mouthed the unfamiliar word as the translation continued.

"They attack just to infect. The eating is just a reflex. We've also found that they reproduce asexually; when the crystal reaches its maximum size, it buds a smaller crystal and clones the host."

The display showed another Zombie, one with a hump on its back. After a while, the hump fell off and cracked open like an egg. A small zombie came out. Within a few hours, it was fully grown and on the prowl.

"Looks like we landed on a really strange world," Zhane said. "This could be a fun place, at least we don't have to worry about obviously being from another world. I'll need you to download the local language to his brain."

"Working on it now. Zhane, you should secure this building, I can't move the pod anytime soon due to the pod's flight system wiping itself while disabling propulsion."

"Wow, they really didn't want me come home. Any other surprises?"

"The molecular synth was upgraded to the one in your parents' lab. Also, the database has been expanded with incredible levels of compression. There's more knowledge than you could ever use. This is a good thing since the pod's internal AI self-destructed."

"At least they left me with a fighting chance. What do you recommend after securing the building, Sai?"

"Use the molecular synth to block most of the entry points. Kill all zombies inside with a sidearm and take a cold lance as back-up. And finally, connect the pod to this buildings power system. We can still use the pod's power generator since it's a standalone system."

Zhane nodded. "By the way, any chance I'll get infected?"

"Your body rejects even gel-tech."

Nothing else needed to be said; even his parents marveled at how strong his immune system was. The drawback was; this deprived him of extra centuries of life the gel-tech would have given.

"Good, can you use the bracer to scan as I go along?" Zhane asked, a little nervous.

It was true that he was more physically active than other Yurians his age, and knowledgeable of esoteric matters others thought useless, but after seeing the zombies on the video, his confidence needed a little support. Further details on the zombies sent chills down his spine as he read on.

The back of the pod opened as Zhane left his seat. The air smelled unclean with a hint of decay. Even atop the building, he could smell the zombies in the streets.

"Sai, start looking at air purifiers."

Zhane strapped on the sidearm, grabbed the cold lance, a foot long sonic blade and the molecular synth to seal-up the building. Equipped, he wondered if he'd missed anything. His black, skin-tight, nano-fiber suit would protect him from light to medium damage so he didn't worry too much but he still added a little armor plating.

Unlike most Yurians, Zhane was short, only six foot, with well-toned muscles bigger than most, not diminishing his flexibility. His red eyes were different from the silver or gold eyes of most Yurians, and his two-tone silver-and-black mane was unheard of.

"Sai, can I pass for a native without drawing too much attention?"

"Yes, as long as you don't display your full capabilities. These humans are similar to Yurians on the outside but inside, they are more fragile. I suggest taking a few of them in; we need more hands to survive and we can use the gel-tech to make them stronger." Sai's voice had a hint of happiness at the prospect of more company.

Zhane checked the power-cells on his belt as well as the ammo-cells before leaving the pod, crossing to the roof entrance. The moment he opened the door the flashlights on his shoulders lit-up the space.

Zhane took out his sidearm and went slow, checking every corner. The fifteenth floor only had one zombie, stuck inside a massive room right under the pod.

Facing a single zombie, Zhane didn't use his sidearm. Approaching the zombie, he extended his cold lance. The zombie lurched in and grabbed at him. Zhane stepped to the side and let its momentum double it over. He kicked it in the midsection. The zombie shot up into the air, crashing into the ceiling with a sound of breaking bones that was new to Zhane. His world had athletic events, but little general violence among so many perfectly breed citizens.

The creature slammed face down before him, its back a shattered mess. Surprisingly, Zhane's kick had almost severed the zombie. He felt nausea, seeing what he had done, but forced himself to stay alert. As the zombie crawled towards him, he heard the sound of popping vertebrae and joints. Jagged, broken bones ripping open flesh. The zombie just kept coming.

Finally, Zhane could take no more. He brought his cold lance came down on the zombie's head which shattered, brittle with near absolute zero cold.

"You can't drag these battles out so long. Next time, there will probably be more than one," Sai said.

Zhane nodded, taking deep breaths to throw off shock. "I just wasn't ready for this first time. I'll do better."

He straightened, looked up at the damaged ceiling, and got an idea. "I'll build a glass room up there and put stairs down to here so I can use this room. Sai, do we have any construction bots or do we need to make them?"

"We have none. No one wanted to be that helpful. And once you drain the power-cells to seal up the building, that synth will be useless until we get the rechargers working."

"Always something." Zhane bent down, ripped the red crystal out of the zombie's spine, and moved on.

After that he didn't find any zombies until the ground floor. Thankfully, the sprawling area had no windows and only two major ways in and out. There were a lot of machines standing in abandoned ranks, with seats, controls, and view screens to watch.

"What was this place?" Zhane asked. "A library?"

"According to records, this was a place of commerce called a casino. Ah, here comes trouble."

"I see them," Zhane said.

Drawing his sidearm, he took careful aim and splattered heads as snarling zombies kept seeking him out. Zhane jumped of top of a large vehicle someone had parked inside. He picked off all the zombies in the area, stomping his feet to lure them out. It took half an hour before he heard total silence. Zhane focused on any little noise but nothing more came. After sweeping every room, he felt secure.

With the extermination over, he inspected the ground floor accesses. These included a concrete dock for unloading delivered supplies. The area was blocked by a many-wheeled vehicle that had fallen on its side. That made three areas to secure since there were still ways around the fallen vehicle. The front doors and the back doors were locked but only made of glass. There was a glass section of external wall that he counted as a liability.

"Time to seal the doors," Sai said. "There's no sign of zombie crystal energy anywhere close."

Zhane went over to the front entrance once more and used his sonic blade to cut holes on the ground and walls. The foot-long hand-weapon cut solid steel without effort. This done, he went and freed many of the machines, dragging them over to block the doors as tightly as possible before unleashing the molecular synth. Turned on, the device emitted a thrumming blue beam.

The machines melded and fused into a solid wall anchored by the holes. He had to make many trips to get enough machines to layer his way to the ceiling.

He did the same thing to the second entrance, reducing sunlight quite a bit. His eyes adjusted easily.

"Sai, we need to connect the pod power to the building to get lights back on."

"I think there's a generator room for the building. It might be easier than extending pod power."

"You could have told me that sooner."

"Sorry, bracer sensors are limited. The server farm I've accessed is also very primitive. In some ways, I'm in the dark as much as you."

"As long as we both learn fast, we'll be fine."

After all the doors, Zhane went to the loading dock. Instead of making a wall, he made a metal frame and filled it in with heavy bars. They whole thing was wedged floor-to-ceiling and secured with layers of slag. If a door was needed here later, he'd deal with it then.

Zhane located a generator room and soon had the power system up and running once more. Next, they got the cell-recharger hooked up with an independent solar power source.

"Zhane, I'm connected to the buildings control center, looks like they were big on security systems. I can control even the water pressure in the showers." Suddenly, Sai voice squealed with static.

"Sai?"

"Uh, sorry. Apparently, I made an error. I've found humans hiding in the building."

Zhane's bracer beamed up images from inside a room. Skinny and listless, four women and two men seemed to be waiting for death. A girl in her late teens hugged a woman in her twenties that looked similar. One the men looked like he'd once been very large. He had arms over both of them, an attempt at comfort. The other two woman sat next to each other while the last man held a knife and had his back to a door, keeping it from being opened.

"They look like they've been there a while." Zhane said. "Where is this room?"

"In the kitchen, inside a massive refrigerator. They disabled it so they wouldn't freeze to death. It looks like what food they've got left has gone bad. What do you want to do?"

"We're sure no zombies are left, right?"

"Crystal scan is negative."

Zhane played with probabilities in his head. "How many gel-stones do we have?"

"Ten and the gel tanks that weren't used by the crash couch. We need raw materials to make more stones."

Zhane decided, "Well, let's help them so they can help us. We'll study their biology while they help us gather more resources."

"Approach carefully," Sai said. "They're used to being hunted and are more than a little afraid."

"I'll be careful. I didn't cross half the universe to die now."