Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: The Official Movie Novelization

CHAPTER ELEVEN

General Noïntan Okto-Bar awaited them in the Alpha Space Station control room. The room was familiar to Valerian and Laureline. This was the nerve center of the station, and nearly every square inch of space except for the floor was covered with screens. Monitors of a variety of colors set against a black background displayed everything from the temperature of any given locale on the station to the number of inhabitants, from the chemical makeup of gases and liquids in the various districts to which doors were locked. From here, systems could be monitored and overridden if necessary. Life or death decisions were made by dozens of expertly trained technicians every second.

It was dizzying to look upon, even for spatio-temporal agents like the two who now entered. But they were used to the technology on display inside. What bothered them was what else was on conspicuous display this time: troops.

Valerian and Laureline exchanged glances. Something was definitely afoot.

Valerian was really starting to regret not reading the briefing on this particular mission. But even if he had, it was becoming abundantly clear that there were quite a lot of pieces missing.

General Okto-Bar turned to regard them, his lips pressed together in disapproval, his always-cool blue eyes now icy with displeasure. He was a tall man, fit but slim, with reddish-blonde hair and a controlled demeanor. Valerian knew that although the general had come from a long line of famous soldiers, he himself had no spouse or children; Okto-Bar had said more than once that his soldiers were his family. Everyone who had served under him knew the general always had their backs.

Except, perhaps, when he was annoyed with them. Like now, for instance.

“You’re late,” Okto-Bar said without preamble.

“Sorry, sir,” Valerian apologized. “The mission was a bit more complicated than we expected.”

“Always expect the worst,” the general stated. “You’ll never be disappointed.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, sir.”

“Did you check the converter?” the general asked.

Laureline smiled. “He’s in great shape!”

“Sir,” said Valerian, “we didn’t get all the info on this mission. May I ask what’s going on?”

For answer, the general turned to the main screen. “Declassify,” he instructed.

A layout of the entire station appeared on the screen. This was also familiar to the agents. But something was different.

Amid the cool blue lines was a hazy red spot located in its center.

“What are we looking at?” Valerian asked. His gut was already tightening in anticipation of the answer, which he was pretty sure he knew.

“This is an image taken a year ago. The red area is a radioactive zone,” Okto-Bar said grimly.

Shit.

“We discovered it growing right in the middle of the station,” Okto-Bar continued. “No signal of any kind could get through it. We sent in several probes, but none came back. So, last year, we sent in a special unit. Its mission was to get as close to the zone as possible and define the nature of the threat.”

The general paused. “And?” Valerian prodded.

“Nobody made it back from the mission alive,” Okto-Bar said bluntly.

Valerian and Laureline stood in somber silence. An entire special unit…

“Any idea who attacked them?” asked Laureline.

“None whatsoever,” the general replied. He couldn’t quite keep the anger out of his voice, and Valerian couldn’t blame him. “As I said—that was what it looked like a year ago.” He paused, seeming to steel himself, then said, “This is the situation today.”

He nodded at the technician, and she hit another key. A second image appeared alongside the first.

The red radioactive zone was ten times larger.

Beside Valerian, Laureline shivered, almost imperceptibly. Valerian himself felt slightly sick to his stomach.

Okto-Bar continued implacably. “The air in the affected zone is unbreathable and highly contaminated. And this… thing… keeps on growing. Like a tumor.” He practically spat the last word.

Another voice joined the conversation—masculine, strong, certain. “A tumor that we have to cut out as soon as we can. If we don’t, and the cancer keeps spreading, it will destroy Alpha in under a week.”

The speaker entered the control room. He was a striking figure in his blue-green uniform, his posture straight and his expression concerned but confident. There was not a crease in his uniform that wasn’t meant to be there, nor a hair out of place, and he radiated a sense of leashed energy. Valerian had never met him, but he recognized him at once as Commander Arun Filitt.

Filitt’s reputation preceded him, of course. It always did. He had blazed through the ranks and become a genuine war hero, promoted to general at the young age of thirty. Since that time, he had been redirected from active military duty in order to inspire humanity in other areas. His current position was commander of Alpha Station. It was whispered that he wasn’t overly fond of aliens, which, in Valerian’s mind, made him an odd choice to head up a space station in which aliens outnumber humans about a thousand to one, but it was not his job to question his superiors.

He knew that Okto-Bar had been a shoo-in for the position and had to be smarting at seeing Filitt in the role, but both men were behaving professionally toward one another.

Filitt was flanked by two of the K-TRON combat androids that served the station as police officers. While their bodies, which towered nearly ten feet tall, were somewhat humanoid, their designers had made no attempt to humanize them otherwise. Their heads were featureless, save for a light that blinked in two colors that all denizens of the station had come to know: blue for “move,” red for “eliminate target.” Their nearly impenetrable armor was shiny black, banded with yellow at the areas that corresponded to upper arms and thighs. Despite their massive size, they moved with fluid grace, speed, and efficiency.

Valerian and Laureline saluted smartly. “Commander,” Valerian said. Filitt nodded in acknowledgement. Valerian returned his attention to the screen, searching for and finding no clues there about the ominous red spot.

“Sir… this doesn’t make sense. Who’d have any reason to destroy Alpha? Practically every living species is represented here.”

Filitt turned his eyes to the screen and his mouth hardened. “This radiation is a weapon of mass destruction. And behind every weapon, there is a killer. So no matter who it is, Major, it’s a threat to us all, and must be eliminated.”

Valerian took in the news. He could see by Laureline’s expression that she liked it no better than he. Even so, he had to say something.

“Of course the radiation must be stopped, but if we could determine—”

He was interrupted by the appearance of the Federation’s defense minister on one of the screens.

“Minister,” said the commander, nodding a greeting. “I hope you have news?”

“I do, Commander,” the minister said. He was in his early seventies, but his black hair bore no trace of gray and the lines on his dark skin were well-earned. The ones on his forehead were accentuated as he frowned with concern. “The Council has given you the green light. But we strongly recommend that international law and the civil rights of all concerned should be respected.”

“Thank you, sir. And of course. I shall see to it personally,” the commander assured him.

“Also, I’ve assigned agents Valerian and Laureline to be responsible for your physical protection,” the minister continued.

That bit of information seemed to surprise Filitt, but he recovered quickly. “That won’t be necessary,” the commander assured him. He indicated the pair of silent robots beside him. “As you can see by the presence of my companions here, I have a unit of K-TRONs and I personally trained for—”

Frowning more deeply, the defense minister cut him off in mid-sentence. “It’s a direct order from the government, Commander. The two agents need to report on the outcome of the operations.”

A muscle twitched near the commander’s eye. But, “As you wish,” was all he said.

“Major, Sergeant,” the minister said, looking at each of them in turn, “good luck!”

The minister’s face disappeared. Filitt turned to look at his two new guardians with thinly disguised annoyance.

“Since we have to join your team, do you mind updating us on the operation?” Valerian inquired with perfect politeness.

The commander gave him a penetrating glance. “I am going to speak to the Security Council in a few minutes,” he said crisply. “You will have all the details you need to know at that point.”

All pretense of pleasantness abandoned, the commander turned and strode out of the room, followed by his K-TRONs.

Laureline watched them go. “Boy,” she drawled, “this is going to be a lot of fun!”

Commander Filitt walked through the station briskly, but he was not heading to his meeting with the Security Council. Not yet, anyway. There was something he needed to follow up on.

The area was secured, but his clearance permitted him entry. He ascended in a small lift that was tight quarters for him and two K-TRONs. At least he was not forced to make small talk. In so many respects, robots were superior to living beings, even humans, he mused.

He emerged from the lift and went down another corridor, which was dark save for blue lighting along the floor. The corridor ended at the door of a single room. Filitt keyed in his code and the door slid open. The two K-TRONs waited outside for their commander as he entered.

A K-TRON captain was stationed just inside the room, perfectly motionless, carrying his weapon untiringly. The room, like the corridor outside, was dimly lit, and the figure at the end of it was swathed in shadow. Its stats were monitored on a screen. It sat slumped in a chair, prevented from falling out of it only by the bindings that went around its thin frame. What faint light there was caught the gleam of medical instruments and various drips sticking out of the silhouette’s arms.

One of Filitt’s men was leaning forward, shouting into the creature’s face, demanding information. The figure in the chair remained infuriatingly silent.

Another subordinate was at the controls, observing. When the door opened, he stepped away from his station to stand beside the commander. Filitt watched impassively as the interrogation continued.

“Anything?” he inquired.

“We’ve tried everything we know,” his subordinate replied, “but for now we haven’t got a peep out of him.”

The commander grimaced. This was not good. Torture was a fine art, he had learned. With aliens, it was often so hard to know what they’d respond to. You couldn’t do too much, or else any confessions would be completely false or, worse, the subject would die without revealing any necessary information. On the other hand…

“Increase the dosage,” he ordered. The man nodded and returned to his station, touching a few buttons. Various liquids oozed through their tubes into the subject’s flesh. The subject arched its back, the hood it wore falling away to reveal a pale face contorted in agony. Its skin was almost luminous, like the luster of a pearl, save where it was discolored from beatings.

And although its mouth was open and twisted in pain, the creature stubbornly remained silent.

Damn you, Filitt thought. I’m running out of time.

He made a decision. “If he hasn’t talked within an hour, finish him off.”

“Yes, sir.”

The commander turned to leave, pausing to whisper to the K-TRON captain as he walked out. “If the operation goes wrong, you know what you have to do.”

The K-TRON captain nodded its inhuman head once. Before he left, positioning his body so that no one else in the room would see, Filitt discreetly gave the robot a small data storage device.

On to the meeting, Filitt thought, and squared his shoulders as if he were preparing to head into battle.

Because, in a way, he was.