The Terran Cycle Boxset

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  “The universe just got a lot bigger. Are you ready for what comes next?” Li’ara turned to him in her seat.

  Kalian rested his head back and smiled at the starry vista. “Absolutely not...”

  Volume Two

  “The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interrèd with their bones.”

  William Shakespeare

  Prologue

  With no sound at all, the Tempest was violently ripped from subspace and hurled back into the vacuum of reality. On every deck, alarms cut through the eerie silence of their long journey home. The Rem-stores automatically came to life, rousing their occupants with stimulants designed for such emergencies. Overhead spotlights illuminated the slumbering chamber in a soft glow, as the first of the Terran crew stepped out of their advanced sarcophagus.

  Adanae put one foot on the cold polished floor, trying to make sense of her own thoughts. Her heart was racing in her chest as the stimulants worked to rouse her as fast as possible. Using her Terran abilities, she connected to her body’s receptors and slowly began to take back control, slowing her heart rate to a steady sixty-five beats per minute. Pushing her awareness beyond the Rem-store, she felt the familiar presence of her fellow scientists and friends.

  After a few seconds, Adanae’s vision corrected the constant spinning, bringing back the clarity of the Tempest. She stepped out completely, allowing the connecting tubules to disconnect and the machine to close up behind her. The cold air was uncomfortable on her naked body. More of the Rem-stores began to open down the corridor with their internal green lights illuminating the walls. The gloomy corridor was filling with more naked bodies and a lot of confused expressions. The overhead lights flickered, telling Adanae the ship was diverting energy - never a good sign.

  As she held out her hand, palm down, the ship produced an oval column of liquid-like nanocelium that rose up to meet her, where it coalesced into a solid object. Using anti-gravity projectors, a triangular device with the apex cut off was presented at the top of the column, floating end over end. Adanae quickly scooped it up and pressed it below her navel. The nanocelium contained within immediately dispersed across her body like a second skin. Without thinking she opened her hand and used the emitters in her fingertips to create an orange holographic menu inside her palm. By flexing each finger, she manipulated the hologram into selecting the colour white for her armoured exo-suit. As a scientist, she had always preferred white, as opposed to the black typically worn by their warriors.

  “ALF, turn that damned alarm off!” With no response from the AI, she remembered that he was no longer on board but, instead, entombed on a distant moon, light-years away. “Tempest, deactivate the alarm.” At once the blaring signal stopped, bringing back the chatter of the others along the corridor as they suited up as she had. “Report.”

  “Light-drive engines have been manually taken offline,” the ship’s male voice stated. “In the unscheduled emergence into real space, the aft hull was breached. Life support systems are compromised.”

  As lead scientist, Adanae took charge and ordered the six nearest crew to leave and man the bridge, located two decks above them.

  “Tempest, how could the drives be taken offline manually? Everyone was in Rem-storage.”

  “Incorrect. Prior to the alarm, one Rem-store was opened ahead of schedule. Life-support at fifty-seven percent. Estimated twenty-one hours before complete depletion of oxygen stores.”

  Adanae felt her stomach flip. She knew exactly whose Rem-store had opened; he was the only one who would do this.

  “Where is he right now?”

  “Please specify.”

  “Where is Malekk, Tempest?” Dealing with a sub-AI was frustrating.

  “Engineering - deck three.”

  “You are to treat him as hostile, Tempest. Do you understand? You have to stop him before he does any more damage.” She knew it had been a mistake to keep him alive, let alone keep him on the ship. She turned to Grif and Nalana, signalling them to follow her.

  “Unable to comply,” the Tempest AI replied. “Internal security measures have been shut down.”

  Adanae groaned in frustration as they exited the deck. She instructed everyone telepathically to man their stations and have teams ready to fix the drives and life support after they dealt with Malekk. She wouldn’t normally use such an intimate form of communication on a large scale, but she needed everyone to receive their orders on the other decks as fast as possible. The grav tubes beyond the chamber allowed for a quick descent to the engineering deck.

  She knew that the ship, shaped like the head of a spoon, was spinning out of control in the middle of space. If it wasn’t for the grav plating, they would all be pummelled to death inside the giant centrifuge. She suddenly began to worry where they were. What if they were being pulled into the gravity well of a planet or a star?

  “Tempest, what is our location at present?”

  “Unknown. Sensors are currently offline while life-support is compromised.”

  She blamed the stimulants for not making the connection with the flickering lights earlier. The ship would automatically shut down nonessential automations to divert energy to life-support. She sent a quick telepathic message to Ryson on the bridge. She wanted sensors brought back online as soon as possible.

  “How long have we been in storage?” Grif asked.

  “Fifty-one days, eleven hours, twenty-eight minutes and thirty-four seconds.”

  “Is that it?” Nalana exclaimed. “Have we even left this arm of the galaxy yet?”

  “Negative.”

  “We should have brought a bigger ship,” Grif replied.

  “Or a Starforge.” Nalana joked. Without ALF it was impossible to use a Starforge. Only the AI could comprehend the mathematics required to fold space in such a way, and the individual components wouldn’t even fit on board.

  “Quit the jokes,” Adanae ordered. “We have to stop him.” They were approaching the doors to engineering.

  “We brought him down the first time, we can do it again.” Grif sounded confident as an organic ball of plasma was birthed in his hand, wiping away the shadows.

  “We should have killed him there and then.” Nalana activated her suit’s menu and reshaped the nanocelium. Her head and face were instantly encompassed in white plating that sloped down into her chin. Grif quickly followed suit, but Adanae didn’t even think about it. She suffered from claustrophobia enough as it was on board the ship, without coating her face with a metal helmet. She had been meaning to go through her mind and erase the fear but had been too busy with the Second Chance project.

  The console on the wall wasn’t responding to their touch, and the door’s sensors refused to recognise their presence. Adanae pushed out her awareness, feeling Malekk’s position beyond the door in her mind. He wasn’t hiding. It was playing out exactly the same as the first time they caught him. While in orbit around the planet of the future Terran, Malekk had tried to sabotage the genetic manipulation of one of the local creatures. They later learned that he had been in the process of building a communicator array, powerful enough to transmit a message to Savrick and the rest of the Gomar. Adanae was already regretting being on the side of keeping him alive for trial when they finally returned.

  The war had been black and white before people like Malekk came along, sympathisers to the Gomar cause, willing to kill their own on the orders of some madman. Savrick was only too willing to use the Terran against themselves; he probably thought it was poetic.

  He had killed two of their crew in their first encounter. He may be a scientist first but, like all Terran, he had been instructed in the ways of war when the first solar system had been wiped out by the Gommarian. Adanae knew he wouldn’t just surrender at the sight of them and, if his actions were anything to go by, he was intent on killing them all. Nalana removed two hilts from the base of her back and activated the nanocelium to create short blades. Adanae on the other hand, welcomed the tingle in her spin
e and the resultant heat flowing into her hands as she connected to the universe.

  They used telekinesis to slide open the door, breaking the internal servos. Speed and numbers were the only advantages they would have. Nalana dashed to the left, leaping up the wall to gain some height on Malekk. Grif slid to the floor, firing off a couple of plasma orbs in the traitor’s direction, no doubt using his connection to the universe to guide his aim. Adanae stood her ground, cocooned in a thick shield of telekinetic energy. More proficient in her telepathic abilities, she poured her consciousness into Malekk’s. His defences were good but she distracted him enough to give the others a chance. One of Grif’s shots fizzled against Malekk’s shield, creating a rainbow as the light refracted, but the second struck him across the thigh dropping him to one knee. Nalana came down at that same moment, her blades angled to plunge through his chest. In a last show of strength, Malekk held up his hand, telekinetically pushing her back into the wall. That use of energy was all Adanae needed to force her way past his defence and blanket his mind with her own suggestions.

  Pain was the only thing she had in mind. They all felt his shield disintegrate as his mind exploded in agony. Grif took advantage and strode over to the kneeling man, his fists clenched. There was no hesitation as he punched Malekk square in the jaw, dropping him to the floor like a stone.

  An hour later they regrouped on the bridge, having placed Malekk safely back inside a new Rem-store. How he had escaped his previous store was a mystery, but his proficiency with machines was no secret, much like his Gomar allies. Adanae watched him sleep on the holographic monitor, his short brown hair and cropped beard appearing green in the light.

  “The drives should be back online within the hour,” Ryson reported. “Life support’s back up and running at full capacity, but we’ll probably need to perform a full diagnostic across all the major systems. We don’t know what else he tampered with.”

  “Where are we?” Adanae asked. The feed from outside showed a solar system with a small blue star. There were four planets orbiting it, each one a desolate rock with no hope of conceiving life in the cold system.

  “We’re approximately twelve thousand light-years from the new world and three thousand light-years from the moon where we left ALF.” Ryson left his chair and joined Adanae and the others at the central station. Everyone on the bridge stopped and listened to them plan their next move.

  “Tempest, how long until we reach the empire at maximum yield?”

  “Twelve years, three months and nineteen days.” It was a hard pill to swallow for everyone. They had already been away from the empire and all those they loved for ninety-seven years.

  “Who knows what the empire will look like when we get back? Maybe we’ve already won and there’s a big party to return to.” Grif didn’t sound convincing.

  “Or maybe we’re heading into a trap,” Nalana offered, pessimistically.

  “Then at least we’ve secured the Terran lineage.” Ryson tied his blonde hair behind his head using telekinesis.

  “I’m more concerned about our immediate problems.” Adanae pushed the image of Malekk’s sleeping form into the middle of the station. “Twelve years is a long time for something to go wrong. He’s dangerous.”

  “What do you want to do, eject him into space?” Ryson was clearly against the idea.

  “Why not?” Nalana spat. “He’s a traitor and, more than that, he nearly killed us all in our sleep. I say we space his ass.”

  Grif stroked his goatee. “He’s still a Terran. He deserves our burial rites at least. He should be given back to his star.” Such rites were hardly used before the war since many Terran chose to live forever.

  “He was born on Crychek,” Adanae pointed out. “We can’t keep him on board until we reach that system. Besides, he isn’t actually dead yet. Until he’s tried it would just be murder.”

  “Ejecting him into space is murder!” Ryson looked shocked at Adanae’s words.

  She tried to ignore it but coming from Ryson it was hard. They had been lovers for the majority of their time away, and she couldn’t help being fond of him.

  “Then we just send him out in his Rem-store,” Nalana countered.

  That gave Adanae a thought.

  “He’d still die when the Rem-store loses power!” Ryson continued to protest.

  “ALF designed those things to last thousands of years.”

  “Then he’ll probably outlive us all.” Adanae announced, “I’m making an executive decision. We won’t kill Malekk, but he can’t come with us either.” She ignored the confused expressions and continued. “He is a killer and a traitor. I don’t think he deserves a Terran burial, but I can’t condone murder on my watch. So he gets to live, forever. We’re dropping him off on the nearest planet, inside his Rem-store.”

  Grif wouldn’t meet her eyes and Ryson simply walked off the bridge, shaking his head. Nalana was already setting the ship on course for the nearest planet.

  Another hour passed by before the drives were fully operational again. Most of the crew were already getting back into their Rem-stores and handing the ship’s functions over to the Tempest. AI Adanae took one last look at the monitor, seeing the abandoned capsule half buried in the planet’s rocky, dead surface. At least he gets to sleep forever, she thought. Who knew what they were flying home to? Adanae turned off the monitor, knowing she would be the last person to ever lay eyes on Malekk of Crychek.

  1

  The first sun had set beyond the horizon, leaving Kaldor gleaming in the setting orange glow of Hadrok’s second binary star. The golden spires and glittering pyramids reflected the beauty and harmonious culture that was all things Terran. The city created such a contrast with its bleak surroundings of slate-black rock and slow-rolling hills of white fog. The ground encompassing the circular perimeter was pocketed with ancient craters, and never-ending fields of colossal spikes where the molten rock had been blasted from orbit and cooled before ever landing. Before the singularity was achieved, the planet had truly been hammered in the last great war of the Terran. Before the Criterion’s creation and the emergence of ALF, Hadrok had borne witness to the last conflict between a race that could never be content.

  Thousands of the pre-Criterion ships had thundered through the atmosphere to be entombed where they fell. The majority of Kaldor’s population were here for scientific reasons, seeking out the old ruins in hopes of unlocking secrets to their ancestors’ lives. The idea of war was just barbaric to the modern day Terran. At their current height of evolution, they saw no need for violence or weapons; ALF provided everything they needed, leaving them free to explore their natural abilities and push the boundaries of all scientific law. They created beauty and art and unimaginable pleasures, constantly reaching for the limits of them all. They had expanded into the galaxy and claimed the stars as their birthright. Thanks to the teaching of the Avatar, the first Terran to learn how to rejuvenate his cells, they had even conquered death.

  Savrick would put that to the test.

  He rose to his full height atop the giant arcing spike that overlooked Kaldor’s high wall. He surveyed hundreds of vehicles, aesthetically designed, flying between the many buildings as they transported Terran at their leisure. Some he witnessed did not require the use of a vehicle and used unbelievable feats of telekinesis to move around the sprawling city. From his lofty vantage, they appeared as insects ready to be squashed under his boot. His hate for them had only grown over the years he had spent watching them.

  He looked back to the base of the mountain behind him, narrowing his vision on a small ledge with a cave entrance. Esabelle was inside waiting for him to return; she had been so scared when he told her where he was going. But he had no choice. All his training and hard work over the last six years had been for this moment - he couldn’t falter now.

  Savrick looked down at himself, amazed at what he had accomplished in that time. He had forsaken the Terran rags he used to wear and now stood in what he imagined wa
s a fierce sight. His armour covered his entire body exposing only his head, leaving his twin braids to flow in the high wind. He had spent years salvaging the hulls from various ships the Terran had yet to find. His instructions had been exact, detailing every size and measurement for its purpose. The cube had provided him with the necessary tools to construct the suit and implanted the designs into his mind. He gripped his right forearm at the memory of his first encounter with the alien cube. The pain had been intensely agonising to the point he lost consciousness. When he awoke it was with the faint memories of a conversation he had never had, like a dream he couldn’t quite recall.

  He knew then what he had to do though. The cube had given him clarity and purpose and the means with which to act. He had laboured for years making the armoured suit, consulting the alien entity more and more as the interactions became less painful. The designs had been hard to get to grips with, but he trusted the cube; it had knowledge beyond ALF. Savrick had spent days at a time permanently connected to the cube, allowing it to download fighting techniques he hadn’t even thought possible into his brain. It taught him strategy with the subtlety of stealth and the chaos of surprise, but most of all it gave him power.

  The suit interlocked perfectly with the Harness that had controlled him for so long. The armour simultaneously disabled the Harness while supplying the brain with genetically purposed stimulants, designed to enable the user control of their Terran abilities. To a Gomar it was freedom. He had spent the last two years learning about the universe, seeing it the way a Terran did. All matter was connected and yet disconnected as every particle constantly vibrated on a subatomic level. And that was a level he could manipulate.