The Terran Cycle Boxset

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  “Go!” Telarrek pushed them into the Fathom’s main cabin.

  Li’ara took Kalian straight into the med bay behind the glass instructing him to lie on the gurney. She put a small ready-made canister against his abdomen and depressed the button on top. The morphine would help until she could properly see to him. Ilyseal had already closed the door while Telarrek made his way through to the cockpit. Li’ara wasn’t surprised how easily they used the ship’s controls; she imagined it was quite a primitive design to them.

  She thumbed the panel on the wall activating the holo-image of outside. The ship lifted off tucking in the landing gear as it did. Telarrek rotated the ship one hundred and eighty degrees to face the hangar exit. Li’ara could see the armoured giant walking straight towards them as if Numanon wasn’t even there. The Novaarian launched at his opponent with the spear raised like an ancient warrior of Earth. His speed and agility were impressive, every move precise and clearly practised. As he bore down on the giant, he had his spear aimed at its head. Li’ara was sure this one blow would end the conflict. She was wrong. The giant caught the spear inches from its head pulling it down to the side and burying it in the floor. Numanon’s body followed the spear and the giant lashed out with its free hand, catching him by the neck.

  Numanon attempted to break free using all four of his powerful arms. It was no use. Li’ara could see him punch and kick and even try to pry the monster’s hand from around his neck. The giant brought Numanon’s face so it was inches from its own nightmare faceplate. She couldn’t tell if anything was said. The Novaarian’s body began to shake violently in desperation. A second later his whole body went limp, his arms dropped to his side and his head lolled like the vertebrae were not quite attached.

  Li’ara stretched her hand out to the holo-image and, forgetting it wasn’t glass, passed her hand straight through to the bulkhead. Whatever this thing was, she thought, it was strong and fast to have been able to catch the spear. As Ilyseal took a deep breath at the sight of Numanon being discarded on the hangar floor, the armoured giant raised his black hand towards the Fathom as if to grab the whole ship.

  What’s it doing?

  The sound was muffled from inside the ship but Li’ara couldn’t miss the rail-gun fire that suddenly bombarded the giant. Commander Hawkins appeared from the same door that they’d come through, his mouth stretched into a war cry as he continued to fire. He looked to Li’ara but she knew he couldn’t see her through the hull. He waved his hand signalling for them to flee. His attack had caught the giant’s attention like a wasp pestering a human.

  Telarrek steered the Fathom through the shielding membrane into the vacuum of space. Kalian silently appeared by Li’ara’s side still clutching his abdomen. They both watched in astonishment as the laws of physics broke down in front of them. The giant extended its arm towards the Commander who stood twenty-feet away. He dropped the rail gun as he was lifted into the air by some invisible force. The Commander’s face contorted as if in immense pain. His limbs twisted and bent into unnatural positions, every part of him being compressed into his centre.

  Blood and bone broke through his skin as he became a ball of broken limbs and torn flesh. His humerus snapped as it tore through the skin and shot into his encroaching face. The blood that sprayed from his many wounds froze mid-air as if floating in a mini vacuum around him. Eventually, his feet disappeared inside his groin with his pelvis shattering from the intense pressure. The Commander’s agonising expression became still, his vertebrae broken. The goliath lowered its arm and, in the same moment, the Commander’s body fell to the floor.

  Wasting no more time, Telarrek engaged the ship’s thrusters and left the Icarus station behind. Li’ara was speechless; she had never seen anything like that before. For just a moment she thought she might be in shock. It had no weapon, how could it have done that? The sight of Kalian yanked her mind back to the mission.

  “Come on.” Li’ara walked him back to the med bay. She quickly scanned the shrapnel in his skin measuring its depth. “You’ll need surgery but for now I can remove it and apply Medifoam.”

  Picking up the necessary tools, she pulled out the fragment and sprayed the Medifoam inside the wound, it quickly hardened on the outside preventing further blood loss.

  “This will keep you awake for now.” Without waiting for his response, she pressed another canister to the skin on his wrist. The stimulants would race through Kalian’s veins for at least half an hour.

  After helping Kalian, Li’ara became aware that an alien was piloting the ship. She marched across the cabin heading for the cockpit. Before she could enter, the Fathom shuddered as its landing gear touched down.

  “Where are we...” Li’ara stopped as she surveyed the outside world through the viewport.

  It was not The Hub. Instead they appeared to have landed on a massive landing strip inside the Valoran. The ship was being surrounded by Novaarians. The Valoran’s interior walls were a beautiful shining purple with hundreds of smaller, identical craft lining the hangar. She recognised the design from the craft Telarrek and his group had landed in.

  “The Valoran is the safest place to be, Lieutenant Commander.” Telarrek rose to his full height from the pilot’s seat.

  “We need to get back to The Hub, they need threat assessments, and we need to be debriefed. Right now they have no idea what they’re up against!” Li’ara was imagining that beast of a ship containing thousands if not millions of those armoured giants.

  Telarrek moved past her into the main cabin. His upper hand touched Ilyseal on the shoulder as they shared a moment. They had obviously been closer to Youl and Numanon than she had been to Commander Hawkins. She felt a sense of indifference towards his death, but that could still be the shock.

  Both Novaarians left the ship motioning for Kalian and herself to follow. She counted six Novaarians waiting outside the Fathom, each holding a spear in one pair of hands. There was an awkward moment of silence as they all stared at Kalian descending the ramp; Li’ara might as well have been invisible.

  One of the Novaarians stepped forward to face Telarrek. “My Charge...” He presented his bracer showing Telarrek several sensor readings that Li’ara couldn’t make out.

  Telarrek let out a sharp grunt as if he had just been injured. “Come quickly!” Telarrek shot off towards the enormous entrance to their hangar.

  The view was breath-taking. Li’ara was certain they could fit a small star-cruiser through the portal. Before they had even reached the edge, she could see the Earth and the moon with the Sun in the background. Of course, it was hard to miss the foreboding ship sitting in front of the moon.

  Li’ara wasn’t sure what she was looking through. The portal into the hangar was crystal clear, no glass or membrane to speak of. She was convinced there was nothing between herself and the cold space beyond. She was close to giving in to her curiosity when Kalian reached out and placed his hand into the empty space. The area around his hand became distorted, creating small ripples.

  “It tickles.” He retracted his hand.

  Li’ara was keenly aware that Kalian would need more medical treatment and soon. She had no idea how the shrapnel had affected his organs.

  “Our sensors are detecting pressure fluctuations within your star.” Telarrek’s words stunned her as he continued to monitor his own bracer.

  That deep pit returned to Li’ara’s stomach. In all the chaos she had forgotten about the unknown projectile heading for the sun.

  “That thing, the missile they launched... What was that?” Li’ara was becoming numb with dread.

  “The Valoran scanned the object but we could not discern its purpose. Its contents and configuration are alien to us.” Telarrek raised his upper hand attracting the attention of one of the other Novaarians. He paused a moment, taking another look at his bracer. “Prepare the Starrillium for an emergency jump!”

  Li’ara had no idea what he was talking about, but it sounded like they were about to leave.
“What’s going on? We can’t leave, you need to stay and help us!” She couldn’t protect Kalian from this, she was losing control.

  “It is too late...” Telarrek replied.

  The sun imploded in a second.

  In the blink of an eye, the solar system experienced true darkness for the first time in over five billion years. As quickly as it had imploded the reaction reversed, exploding in a blinding flare. Li’ara and Kalian covered their faces, watching with just one eye. The supernova continued to expand at a terrifying speed. Mercury and Venus had already been consumed in the growing fireball. It was humankind’s worst-case scenario. They had the determination and will to survive anything the Earth had to throw at them, but they couldn’t outrun the death of their own star. It was like an angry god descending from the heavens and wiping away the life it had nurtured for billions of years.

  Single tears fell from Li’ara’s eyes as she stepped back from the invisible force field. She felt helpless and terrified at once. The force field changed as it tinted to dim the glare of the dying star. She was frozen in place as her brain struggled to cope with the choices laid out in front of her in such little time. Li’ara wanted to run and hide while at the same time surrender to her fate.

  Nothing could survive this.

  The speed of its expansion was unfathomable giving her no time to make any choice. The sun had become a wall of fire eclipsing space altogether. She gasped as the sun touched the edge of the Earth setting the atmosphere alight in the perfect silence of space. She was only half aware of someone shouting behind her before the apocalyptic view jumped to the left and became a blur of streaming stars that melted into the abyss of subspace. Somehow the ship had entered faster-than-light travel without the need of a star spot. If it hadn’t been for the shock she would have questioned that. Instead, she looked down at the pressure on her foot. Kalian had collapsed and lay unconscious on the floor with a dark bruise spreading across his abdomen.

  4

  Kalian’s mind swirled turbulently like a storm. Every lightning flash was an image of the nightmare he had barely escaped. The viewport exploding, the corridors imploding, doors bursting off their frames as if they were made of paper and the hangar almost breaking in half with the Commander... his mind couldn’t make sense of that last part. It was all because of that hulking armoured creature. His mind flashed from one violent image to another as the giant marched relentlessly towards him, its plated gauntlet reaching out of the darkness to take him.

  The weight of reality tried to burst through his subconscious. The change from dreaming to the real world was confusing and violent. His dreams woke him with a feeling of dread and impending danger. Kalian was on the verge of consciousness as an unused part of his mind seemed to wake up. The feeling was new and all-consuming, as though he no longer had control of his own thoughts. He felt the confines of his body melt away as his mind pulsed into the space beyond.

  He became aware that he was lying flat on a cushioned table or bed, he wasn’t sure which. He could feel the size of the room that contained him as if his mind was pushing out and bouncing off the smooth curving walls. As his mind pushed outwards with every pulse, he could tell there were smaller tables and stations in various sections of the room and three identical pillars; he was surprised at how keenly aware he was of the exact space between each object as though his mind was filling the gaps in-between. His brain was alive with every atom in the room in their constant battle, pulling against one another.

  Kalian’s head jerked as his mind connected with something far more complex than a table or surrounding walls. It was more substantial and hard to interpret.

  “Kalian...” The voice was only a whisper.

  Kalian’s eyes opened as everything contracted back into his mind like an overstretched elastic band. The loss of the connection made him feel blind to his surroundings despite the use of his eyes and ears. For just a moment he had felt more connected to everything than ever before.

  He whipped his head around following the sound of the strained whisper.

  Li’ara!

  She was pinned flat against the nearest pillar, a foot high in the air. She was only suspended there for a moment before landing back on her feet. As she landed, Kalian heard the clatter of several metallic objects hit the ground and tables around the room.

  He began to panic; he could feel his heart beating through his chest. He had done it again, his thing. Only this time he had not only done it in front of someone but to someone. He had never affected another person before, he hadn’t even been aware he could. Up until now, it had only been small things or electronics, never anything alive. It must have been the nightmare, that golem reaching out for him must have sent his body into some sort of defensive overdrive.

  Li’ara stood up, brushing her coppery hair out of her face. It wasn’t hard to miss the blotchy red skin around her eyes, she had obviously been crying. Signs of her recent distress broke the dam in his memory as the images of his world ending flooded his brain.

  The Sun had gone supernova.

  He felt that blinding light again as he relived the death of the oldest thing in the solar system. It had actually happened, the worst natural catastrophe imaginable, only it couldn’t have been natural. The Sun was young for a star, billions of years away from death. It had to have been them. He remembered Commander Hawkins’ warning about the unknown object heading for the Sun. He couldn’t recall anything beyond the blinding light, he couldn’t remember... Earth.

  Kalian couldn’t remember seeing the fate of his home but he wasn’t stupid enough to imagine it survived. Nothing could survive a supernova. He had always been surprised when people laughed at the thought of ancient humans worshipping the Sun; after all, it has the potential of a god. It has the power to create and support life as well as the power to completely wipe it away. Had. It had that power, now everything was just stardust.

  The room blurred as tears formed in his eyes, slowly rolling down his face.

  His voice was shaky. “Did it really happen?” He already knew the answer but he had to hear someone else say it.

  Li’ara was just staring at him in shock, no doubt from being pinned to the pillar, but she understood what he was really asking.

  “Yes... it’s gone, it’s all gone.” She leaned against the pillar sliding down to the floor. He noticed she still had all of her armour on and her gun strapped to her thigh.

  Seeing Li’ara despair made it all so real. The cradle of humanity gone in an instant, his home, his students, the history of everything, it only existed in his mind now. He briefly recalled the touring children on campus and hated himself for not being able to remember their faces.

  He had no living family to mourn, he had been an only child and his parents the same. But how many actual people and families had there been? The last census had it at twenty-two billion human beings. The number was unimaginable to Kalian; he had never seen twenty-two billion of anything, the number was so big.

  He couldn’t believe how thoughtless he had been, Li’ara had obviously been crying for a long time before he regained consciousness. Did she have a family? Or a husband? Or even children? It dawned on him that he didn’t really know anything about his guardian.

  “Did you lose anyone?” He sat up on what he could now see was some sort of medical gurney.

  Li’ara glanced up at him briefly while she let out a long breath. He couldn’t read her. He imagined in her training she had been instructed never to give private details of her life, she was instead to appear above such trappings and present herself as a UDC soldier and nothing else.

  “How about you tell me what the hell just happened here?” Li’ara stood up, brushing the hair out of her face and becoming the soldier once more. “You looked like you were having a nightmare, I put my hand out to see if I could wake you and then...” She imitated the sudden blast that had pinned her.

  Kalian didn’t know what to say, he had never been directly questioned about it. �
��I’m... I have no idea what happened.” He looked down trying to avoid her looks.

  He was impressed with the skin around his abdomen; there wasn’t so much as a scar where the chunk of metal had struck him.

  I’m naked!

  Seeing his own body, he realised the only thing keeping his modesty was a thin piece of fabric draped across his midriff.

  “When did I lose my clothes?” He began looking around the room in hopes of changing the subject, but he couldn’t see them from his vantage, and he had no intention of moving.

  “They removed them before they operated. I say them but really it was that.” Li’ara looked up to the space above Kalian’s bed.

  It reminded him of a spider, in this case, a giant mechanical spider. The centre was a large dark red dome surrounded by robotic arms each with a different device at the end. Some were pointed and sharp, but most of them were unrecognisable with what he assumed was an array of scanners and other surgical equipment.

  “After they laid you down it just hovered over you while it operated. You had some internal bleeding.”

  Kalian felt a shiver run through his body at the thought of the mechanical spider cutting him open and digging around inside. Li’ara’s movement caught his attention as she approached holding a bundle of clothes. She dumped them unceremoniously on the end of the bed.

  “So, we found your clothes, that thing saved your life, now tell me what the hell is going on?” Li’ara had a dangerous glint in her eye.

  Kalian could sympathise, a lot of unanswered terrible shit had happened today. Kalian’s weirdness was apparently pushing her over the edge.