The Terran Cycle Boxset

by Philip C. Quaintrell

He showed Li’ara the correct sequence to alter the pressure in the cabin and release the outer hatch. He had already explained that one of the containers brought aboard had vac suits for the two Novaarians in case of an emergency.

  It wasn’t long before Namek could be heard clambering around under the ship as his feet and knee pads had magnetic seals. Telarrek had sat on the floor at the back of the cockpit in what resembled a meditative state. They decided to leave him to it, for all they knew it was how Novaarians slept.

  The field of stars beyond the viewport was mind-numbingly vast. Kalian wondered how many of them were inside the control of the Conclave. They both sat in silence for a while; even Li’ara marvelled at the sight rather than play with the ship’s diagnostics.

  “Do you believe in fate, Kalian?”

  He was startled by the break in silence as well as the deep line of questioning from Li’ara. He supposed this view could give anyone perspective.

  “Can’t say I’ve ever thought about it, why?”

  “All those stars and worlds. Now we know how much is actually going on, and how small we are. Is it hard to believe that some kind of fate has put the two of us in the middle of it? Even if it’s something we didn’t want.”

  “A great man once said, ‘It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.’ We’ve had the worst thrown at us, we’ve endured the most, but whatever happens next, we will choose how it ends.”

  Li’ara had the visage of mocking shock but she was clearly impressed by his bold statement, in fact, he surprised himself. But he was tired of being hunted across the cosmos. He was sick of seeing so much death and destruction, with him apparently at the centre of it. He had made no decisions or had any choice in the events that led him to this very point. He felt battered and beaten, but he could feel the energy building in his spine and felt a surge of confidence run through him. He would choose how it ended because that was the only choice left to him now.

  “Tough talk for a history lecturer.”

  He loved the smile she gave him.

  “Who said that?”

  “William Shakespeare.” It was his favourite third-year module to teach.

  To his disappointment, Li’ara looked as though he had spoken in an ancient language of Earth. “Was that the guy who terraformed Mars?”

  Kalian laughed at her historical knowledge, or lack thereof. A week ago it would have just annoyed him: the lack of history people knew beyond the invention of Solar Drive. But now it all seemed so trivial.

  “I guess they don’t teach ancient literature at the academy.”

  “No... But I know a hundred ways to put you on your ass,” She retorted.

  They shared a laugh and he went on to give a small history lesson about an ancient playwright.

  After another hour of looking out at the stars, Namek finally returned and Li’ara pressurised the cabin. His return woke Telarrek and they resumed their previous positions as they re-entered subspace.

  They spent the next two days travelling at a speed that had no comparison in reality. Li’ara continued to train Kalian in defensive techniques as well as a few attacking styles. Even Namek volunteered his expertise with some unorthodox fighting. Namek was knocked onto his back a couple of times when Kalian couldn’t control his reflexes. He always felt the surge but found the concentration hard mid-fight. He had everyone’s attention while honing his abilities. He would always start by trying to lift a small object like his Datapad and progress to larger objects like the Novaarian containers. Telarrek and Namek watched intently as though hypnotised when the object lifted against the reasoning of physics.

  Kalian always felt the exertion more when he concentrated on one thing. He felt nothing when he lifted things in his sleep.

  After three and a half days they emerged into real space in orbit around Naveen. The moon was the colour of desert sand, much like the surroundings were at The Hub, back on Earth. The moon was crowned in a halo of cityscapes on the northern hemisphere, which formed smaller rings into the centre, where a city of spires touched the edge of the atmosphere. The rest of Naveen was an untouched desert. It was a beautiful sight...

  The Fathom rose over the moon giving way to the sight of Nova Prime. It was stunning to see a truly alien world that was actually a planet, rather than the broken artificial world of the Conclave. It was a swirling mixture of pinks and turquoises with a light-blue outline. Kalian knew from the data module that it was twice the size of Earth with a more even ratio of land to sea. In-between the clouds they could see the different cities on the surface. Being an older race than humans, apparently, they had kept the beauty of their planet by removing most of the cities in their terraforming years. Now the planet had a thriving ecology and beautiful landscapes. Kalian felt a pang of sadness that humanity would never have the chance to reach this golden era.

  “Activating stealth systems,” Namek announced.

  Li’ara swivelled in her seat. “Stealth! We’re invisible?” Humans had never managed to perfect that technology.

  “Only to scans, we are still visible to the eye. The Fathom is too small to possess the necessary technology for stealthware,” Namek explained in his usual monotone.

  “It is likely that Savrick is monitoring Conclave communications. We do not want our presence known.” Telarrek continued.

  Li’ara gave flight control over to Namek as he put the ship into a descent towards the desert surface of Naveen.

  They broke through the atmosphere with a sonic boom as the Fathom glided across the flat landscape. Under the umbrella of the atmosphere, the sky appeared turquoise with a hint of purple. The stars faded from sight as they dived closer to the surface. If it wasn’t for the alien sky they could easily be back in Nevada. The ship slowed as a small blemish on the surface became visible.

  The sound of the manoeuvring thrusters overtook the hum of the engine. The landing gear dropped out of its housing and set down on the rocky ground with a thud. Through the viewport, they could clearly see The Wall. It was an unusual structure; Kalian could see why it would grab anyone’s attention. It rose at least forty feet into the air and came to a sharp point at an off-centre angle. The side visible to them was completely smooth without as much as a crack. He wanted to see more but the lower half was hidden by a screen of sand kicked up by the thrusters.

  Before leaving the ship they gathered in the cabin with Namek unloading some of the containers. He proceeded to remove the cylinder from his thigh and take the staff off his back. A silent communication took place between the metallic objects as the cylinder parted down its length and wrapped around the staff. Once attached, it extended with previously unseen compartments until it consumed the top of the staff. Kalian had no idea how, but Namek held the patterned staff to his side as it grew just beyond six feet.

  Telarrek opened another container and displayed its contents to Li’ara. The box opened into several layers of weapons that were not that dissimilar to human weapons.

  “These are more powerful than anything you have in there.” His large swirling eyes flicked towards the armoury. “They fire Intrinium.”

  Li’ara looked at the weapons with a new fascination.

  “I thought you said Intrinium was too dangerous to be weaponised,” Kalian pointed out.

  “For your kind, it would have been; the technology was too new to you. The Conclave has been using Intrinium for thousands of cycles. All mining and distribution of Intrinium are strictly observed by the AI, every unit is accounted for and can be traced from its usage to its source.”

  Telarrek handed Li’ara a pistol with a boxy rectangular barrel, with a hole at the end big enough to fit a thumb through. The Novaarian picked out an identical weapon and with a snap forced the barrel of the gun to point down, exposing its inside. The barrel held a cylindrical compartment filled with red jelly. He snapped the gun back together and it responded with an affirmative beep.

  “The gun produces a small magnetic field that charges the Intri
nium...” Li’ara was working out the mechanism of the weapon.

  “Precisely, although the particles it fires cannot travel faster than light, the magnetic fields are not strong enough.” Telarrek removed another handgun and presented it to Kalian.

  It was similar in size to Li’ara’s except his was shorter in the barrel and had a miniature holographic reticular on top.

  “As for your explosives...” Namek depressed the touchpad as the container revealed another compartment in the side.

  They both recognised them as the gravity bombs Namek used against Savrick in the Highclave chamber. Apparently, these were not exactly the same. Namek explained that once activated they would scatter what Kalian interpreted as small metal ball bearings. These balls would stick to whatever surface they hit and create a distortion in the gravity well.

  “Effective in small spaces then.” Li’ara looked eager to try them out.

  It all felt like overkill for a rock in the middle of a desert.

  “Isn’t this a bit much?” He fitted the new holster to his thigh.

  “Whatever The Wall is, I am certain it must be connected to them. Having seen a limited portion of their capabilities, I feel we are not prepared enough for what we may find.” Telarrek readied his own staff and all four of them picked up at least two gravity bombs.

  The hatch opened with a hiss as the ramp automatically descended. They were hit by what Kalian realised was his first alien breeze, the first real atmosphere of an alien world. The sand was beginning to settle and they felt the heat of the distant blue sun above. Li’ara and the Novaarians covered their eyes as they adjusted to the brightness of the natural light. Kalian was about to do the same when the glaring desert began to dull, allowing him to see details in the landscape. He blinked a couple of times wondering what was happening to his eyes. This had never happened before. The Novaarians had managed to lower their hands but Li’ara’s human pupils were still contracting.

  How was this happening? He looked around expecting his eyes to hurt but, instead, he saw the perfect clarity of the Naveen landscape. Off to their left several miles away were a set of cliffs that rose above the flat landscape and spread out as far as he could see, which was surprisingly far. He kept this new development to himself and tried to ignore it for the time being.

  The ground felt hard under his boots and appeared cracked from lack of precipitation. The air felt dry and tight around him. He looked up, expecting to see the massive sphere of Nova Prime in the turquoise sky. As if reading his mind Telarrek explained.

  “Nova Prime is only visible at night, which is eight cyclics from now.” He noticed the human puzzlement regarding Conclave timekeeping. “Six point four hours.”

  He moved off towards The Wall at the front of the ship. Up close, it appeared even taller than in the cockpit. From side on, the rock looked very different; it resembled a wall from the front with a smooth surface but, from the back, it resembled a normal rock. It sloped down from the top extending ten or twelve metres back with a jagged surface like the cliffs in the distance. The two sides of the rock didn’t look like they belonged together.

  “Kalian...” Li’ara called him back to the flat side.

  She was standing with her eyes fixed on the indented handprint. To see it in front of him was extraordinary, a human handprint on this alien moon - it made no sense. Beneath the hand were three rows of hieroglyphs with the familiar karyogram in the middle.

  “These have never been translated?” He moved his fingers across the glyphs tracing their patterns.

  “No, we have studied them for thousands of cycles but, without any other source material, there are not enough characters to form a translation key. These are the only markings of the language ever found. Cultures from all over the Conclave used to visit this site; to see all that is left of our precursors. Now it is almost forgotten. We have studied everything we can from it. The rock is natural, though how it formed this way is part of the mystery. Naveen has been scanned to its core; there is nothing that should not be here.” Telarrek kept his eyes on Kalian’s hand.

  Kalian looked at Li’ara in despair. There was nothing they could do; he couldn’t translate the message thousands of years of study couldn’t. They would fail and the crew of the Valoran would die for nothing. His species would be hunted down and exterminated, possibly along with the Conclave, and Savrick and his people would never face the punishment. They looked around desperately searching for something, anything, which might help. In his mind, he knew it was a futile attempt. As if they could find something the Novaarians had missed with all their advanced scanning technology.

  Li’ara ran her own hands across the surface of the rock and even placed it inside the print. She found nothing. The rock was quite simply, a rock. It held no secrets beyond the unreadable language, which could be a recipe for an alien soup for all they knew. A wasted hour went by as Namek climbed the rock looking for his own clues while Li’ara worked out some explosive calculations. Telarrek paced the flat side of The Wall with Kalian sitting in the shade of the Fathom. He rested his arms on his knees while staring at the strange hieroglyphs. If only he could see into the heart of it, to understand the point of writing a message in the rock, why this rock, why this moon?

  The desert heat was intense and unfamiliar to him. He had sat staring at the rocky protrusion for at least an hour with nothing to show for it except dehydration. He was momentarily overcome with dizziness, which he at first mistook for heatstroke, making him feel out of body. He had experienced the feeling before when he first woke up in the med lab on the Valoran. Rather than shun the feeling and push it back, he poured the energy he felt in his spine into the dizzy feeling.

  The reality of the universe shifted, or he did- he couldn’t be sure. The difference between him and the world around him blurred as the universe contracted.

  He felt everything as if it were all an extension of him. If he wanted to he knew he could quantify the grains of sand on the floor, or if he focused he could cloud his vision with the individual molecules that made up the atmosphere around him. Like glowing beacons, he could see where his companions were despite his line of sight. The Novaarians were clearly different from Li’ara, who shone a bright gold when he thought of her. He could see the different waves her brain gave off in comparison to the shining purple of the Novaarians. He felt the pulse of their elongated hearts at forty beats per minute. How did he know that? He was aware of every bolt, panel, wire, pipe, fabric and liquid that made up the Fathom. If he wanted, he could pick apart any one of those things as easy as raising his own hand.

  He looked internally for a moment as he inspected his own body. The experience was profound as he felt the pressure of his arteries and motion of his blood. He could feel the individual cells passing through the walls of his capillaries and feeding his muscles and organs. Somehow he knew that, if he willed it, he could alter the balance of any function in his own body. He resisted the urge to stimulate his adrenal gland and give himself a rush of energy. He felt such an act would end this new ability.

  He pulled back his focus and saw The Wall in front of him. It was teaming with potential energy embedded within the material of the rock surface. He pushed into the rock, taking a closer look. They were microscopic in size, impossible to see with the eye. The Wall was made up of trillions of what looked like mechanical insects, each one containing unlimited potential just waiting for their commands. He followed the flow of these microcomputers noticing the dense population around the handprint. These tiny builders didn’t stop at the rock; Kalian could see them descend into the ground, forming a complex pattern beneath his feet.

  The revelation retracted reality until he felt himself looking through his normal eyes again. No one had noticed the trance and the deadpan stare he had been giving. He shot up from the ground, marching towards The Wall.

  “There’s something beneath us!” They all froze watching his advance.

  Kalian knew his comment made no sense sinc
e years of scanning showed there was nothing underground. He stopped directly in front of the hieroglyphs and placed his outstretched hand into the imprint.

  It had taken only a day for the Valoran to reach the Trillik system. Roland stood between the two pilots at the head of the bridge, gazing out the viewport like a pirate captain of ancient times. Forty-five thousand kilometres away the planet Corvus was just under half its orbit around the distant yellow star. It was predominantly green with small oceans and two ice caps at each pole. It wasn’t too dissimilar from Century, though Ilyseal told him Corvus was slightly smaller.

  From here he could only see two of its three golden moons, both of which had artificial rings that served as cities for the Trillik and any other species that decided to live here. He had yet to meet a Trillik although he may well have seen one at the Conclave and not known it. Just thinking about the Conclave reminded him of what they were up against. After a long day in the Observatory, he had gone through all the data stored from the attack on Earth and Century.

  He tried to push the thought away but it was sat there like a holo board in his mind. His race had been pushed to the edge of extinction and their homes obliterated forever. But he just didn’t care. Was he so detached from his own kind that he didn’t care that they were all gone? Was it the drinking, the sex, the work? Humanity had taken on a grey pallor over his decades of servitude to a government that in truth he thought was quite tyrannical. But they paid him. Was that all he cared about, the money and the freedom to do as he liked?

  Absolutely!

  For the first time in a long time, he felt excitement at the prospects before him. This Conclave offered new opportunities and freedom, not to mention the weaponry and wealth. Of course, he had to survive the next two days in order to get there. After he had fulfilled his ridiculous promise to Captain Fey, he assured himself he would always be too drunk to listen to his conscience. With that in mind, he set his thoughts to this new enemy.

  Their method of attack was savage and violent. With their technological capabilities, they didn’t need to attack in person. If they could engineer weapons to destroy a star, they could easily slag a planet from orbit. Their reasons for attacking were as much a mystery to him as they were to everyone else, but he knew it was personal. You don’t rip apart dreadnoughts like the Centurion with your bare hands if you don’t enjoy it. Then there was the whole being able to rip things apart with their mind thing. They might look it, but they aren’t human.