The Terran Cycle Boxset

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  Captain Fey stood with Lieutenant Commander Ramone and Worth as they looked on in horror at the cargo bay monitors. The late shift had refused to leave the bridge while they were in an emergency, leaving their replacements to take up the extra monitors. She took one last look at the portal relaying the image of Commander Astill lying dead outside the basement with Esposito and Clark. He was a good man and an even better soldier, she would miss him, she would grieve them all, but first. “Rodriguez, status report.”

  “He’s making his way through the bay, Captain. His movements make him easy to track.”

  “But not so easy to kill,” Matthews commented from the wall hologram.

  “How can this be the same Professor Jones?” Worth asked as he double-checked the sensor feedback. There was no mistaking the hideous killing machine, even through the blood and tattered clothing.

  “How did he even get access to the basement?” Ramone countered.

  “Questions come later,” Captain Fey interrupted. “Right now we need to put him down. Suggestions?” The bridge crew looked to one another with the same expression of hopelessness. The Captain shared the sentiment; how could they stop something capable of taking that kind of punishment?

  “I’ve sent a priority alert to all UDC personnel off and on duty,” Matthews offered. “Several patrols are converging on the bay as we speak but it’s going take time to get there. All civilians are receiving orders via their handhelds to stay in their quarters.”

  “We need to evacuate the cargo bay as well. Tell the crew to go to the nearest nanocelium port,” the Captain ordered. “I’m inputting the master code now so they can replicate weapons.” She accessed the terminal built into the Captain’s chair and typed in the code.

  “Shit! He just killed Gardiner and Pitt!” Rodriguez reported from her station. The wall hologram showed the two soldiers moments before their heads were slammed together, ending their lives.

  “Where’s the closest Novaarian vessel?” Worth asked the cadet sitting at navigations.

  “Twelve light-years away, sir.” The captain could see the fear on the cadet’s face.

  “We still have a team of Novaarians in the hangar bay,” Rodriguez continued. “They’ve just finished installing the latest batch of translators.”

  “Keep them where they are,” Captain Fey ordered. “We have to contain him on this ship. If he tries to escape, we might need them to secure the hangar. Send them a warning and keep them updated.”

  “He’s accessing the lift to the bridge!” another cadet yelled.

  “Shut it down, keep him locked inside.” She kept her composure in the midst of the crew. She had to be fearless and in total control if the bridge was to be maintained. Seeing the pile of dead bodies in the cargo bay made that task a lot harder.

  “I can’t Captain, he’s doing something...” Matthews walked up behind the cadet to see for himself.

  “He’s overriding the servos somehow,” Matthews reported in a panicked voice.

  The Captain looked at the nanocelium port to the left of her chair. “Everyone pick up a weapon and aim it at the door,” she ordered. “That son of a bitch has killed our brothers and sisters, now we end him.” She was glad to see most of them nodding with hardened expressions. She needed them tough for what came next.

  Garrett had lost all hope when the micro-tubules bored through the palm of his hand and into the lift menu controls. When the lights went out he hoped they had found a way to stop him, but he was wrong. Moments after the tubules interacted with the control, the lift came back to life, resuming its previous course. He didn’t know why he was going to the bridge but he had the strongest urge to get off the ship and go somewhere specific.

  The lift gave a soft ping before the doors were blown in by the photonic blasts of over a dozen weapons. He felt every shot impact his body, taking chunks of him with them. It was hard to miss a fully grown man in a confined space. When the assault finally ended everything was dark to Garrett, but he knew he wasn’t dead, at least not any more dead than he already was. But what was the alien doing? From his surroundings, he could tell that he was slumped on the floor resting against what was left of the lift wall. He could smell the ozone from the discharge of so many weapons in such a small area.

  “Is he dead?” It sounded like a woman but he couldn’t identify her. The floor crackled as light footsteps made their way across the debris, drawing closer. Garrett felt the jolt of that same someone kicking his foot, looking for any response. His body didn’t move.

  “I think so!” There was hope in her voice and he knew it was the same woman that operated the communications, but he couldn’t recall her name. He heard her swivel round to the bridge crew at the same time Garrett’s body reacted with furious precision. He rose behind her, relying on their hesitation to shoot him through her, and wrapped his forearm around her neck, lifting her as he did. In the same motion, he tore the sidearm from her other hand and proceeded to shoot the bridge crew. She wriggled and squirmed in his grip, her toes reaching for the floor, but he kept her in place.

  Six of the crew were dead in the first five seconds, photonic scorch marks staining their bodies. He counted fifteen more as they jumped for cover behind various stations and chairs, the captain among them. They fired back with less enthusiasm, desperately trying to miss the woman he held in front of him. A few lucky shots found their mark, knocking him back slightly, but he found his targets much quicker. Another ten seconds and six more were dead.

  In what must have been a last-ditch effort, Garrett’s hostage pushed his firing arm into the door frame of the lift. One of the remaining soldiers took advantage and shot the pistol, sending it spinning from Garrett’s hand. He almost felt the alien shrug, as if it was no real inconvenience. With a quick squeeze, the woman’s neck snapped in his headlock. Before her body hit the floor, he had already snatched up the nearest soldier and put his fist through his chest.

  The next ten seconds was a blur of photonic light and sparks with splashes of blood throughout. There was so much blood he could smell it above the ozone. A few were left crippled as they scampered away with broken bones and internal damage. They were of no concern now; there was nothing between him and his goal. Garrett tried to shake off the thought, knowing it wasn’t his. He stepped over the bodies and pulled a young cadet off the station he required. Garrett had no idea what he was looking at or how to use the bridge controls, but it didn’t matter to the alien.

  Like the lift controls, he simply placed his hand over the monitor screen and watched as dark tendrils slithered within the nanocelium machine. The screen flickered as the internal emitters faltered under the invasive intrusion. A hologram appeared above the station, showing the schematics for a ship in the shape of a spoon-head.

  “Replication sequence has begun. Completion time: seventeen minutes,” the computer announced. The feeling he had was right; the alien was trying to get off the ship. But to go where? The hologram changed from the image of the ship to local star charts. The hologram flicked through the images until one system remained with the sun in the middle and six orbital rings with planets at different points along them. The top left corner read: Trantax System. Through some internal control that Garrett couldn’t fathom, the planet on the fourth ring became highlighted taking up the entire hologram.

  “Course laid in. The ship will be ready to depart in fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds.” After its final announcement, Garrett removed his hand and the tendrils within.

  The hangar bay was a thirty-minute walk away; Garrett made it there in under fifteen, after stopping to kill eight soldiers too stupid to run away. He didn’t even slow his momentum when he arrived at the hangar double doors. Continuing his sprint, he charged through the doors blowing them off their servos like a grenade. The first technician he came across didn’t have enough time to even look startled as he shoulder-barged him out of the way. He felt and heard the man’s bones crack and pop as he was flung aside.

 
Three nimble bounds put him twenty feet in the air, directly above the team of Novaarians. With the exception of two, they were mostly the Conclave equivalent of civilians. Despite their extra limbs and height advantage Garrett sliced and punched through their flesh and bone as easily as any human. Pulling the long arm off one, he used it to beat two of the others to death. He left the warriors for last.

  They twirled and spun their staffs until they were easily longer than Garrett’s five foot eleven frame. The first came at him with a jump, angling to bring the spear-like tip down into his chest. He made no move to evade. The spear cut clean through his body until it pierced the ground behind him. This brought the warrior’s throat within arms’ length, where Garrett whipped his hand out and squeezed. Everything inside the slender neck was pulverised, instantly killing the Novaarian. The second warrior made his play, dashing in from the side. Garrett gripped the spear penetrating his torso in both hands and snapped it in half like a twig. Using one half he deflected the attacking spear with ease while swinging the other half round at lightning speed. The resulting collision ended up with the Novaarian gasping for air on his knees, half a broken spear lodged between his ribs and protruding out of his right shoulder.

  Garrett released the spear allowing the Novaarian to drop on to the floor and die. The usual screams followed him as technicians ran in the opposite direction. The furthest platform was octagonal in shape and fifty metres in length and width. The last details to the ship were being applied by the ever-building nanocelium that moved across the surface like living liquid. There was no beauty in its design; it was purely functional, though its intended destination was still a mystery to Garrett.

  He entered the ship via a ramp on the starboard side as if he owned it. There was only one chair on the bridge and Garrett got the sense that it was the only room on the ship. Two columns rose up on either side, where he placed both his hands to spread the evil he carried inside. He was now one with the ship, the alien controlling its every action.

  “Course set.” The ship had already been programmed with its destination in mind.

  “Launch!” It was the first time he had heard his voice. It was twisted and deeper with an almost robotic undertone.

  It was... alien.

  6

  The Rackham entered the capital system seven million kilometres out from the main sequence. Shortly before emerging into real space, the stealthware was deactivated to make their arrival legitimate. After Savrick’s attack, there was no stealth technology capable of breaking through the capital’s defences. Ch’len had explained that they could have reached as far as the planet undetected, but nothing physical could pass through the atmospheric barrier unnoticed.

  The Ch’kara had also insisted on charging the Intrinium cells before they approached the Conclave itself; it was the only way to ensure a quick getaway, something he had apparently become accustomed to with Roland around.

  Extra lighting came on as the outer shielding closed off the ports on their approach to the M-class star. Roland kept a close eye on the sensor feedback regarding hull integrity. Sitting in a star spot was not the safest pastime when you didn’t have shields like a Nebula-class vessel. The Rackham was special in that it could charge its Intrinium cells without having to immediately release the energy like other ships its size, but the nanocelium could only take so much battering. Conclave citizens, who didn’t have their own Starrillium, had the luxury of parking their ship behind the protective shields of the fuel stations. These stations were situated over the star-spots behind powerful force-fields designed only to allow magnetic fields to pass through. Since the Rackham wasn’t legally registered, they couldn’t use the stations.

  The bank of holograms to his right informed him the temperature outside was just over two million degrees Celsius. From inside the ship, the sounds of the outer hull were unnerving as the exotic metal expanded and contracted under the immense heat. If this was the price he paid for true freedom, he was happy to pay it.

  “Hull integrity: eighty-four percent.” Roland had programmed the internal computer to mimic the voice of a seducing woman. Ch’len said it was the only voice he would listen to.

  “Alright, we’ve got enough juice to reach Raalakian space if we need to, we can go now.” Ch’len was looking around at the creaking framework, not entirely trusting of the alien ship.

  Roland waited until they were five million kilometres away before pulling back the outer shielding. Nobody wanted that kind of suntan. It wasn’t long before they could visibly see other ships congregating around the entry point to capital space. The Rackham’s sensors showed seventeen Nebula-class security ships and two Nexus-class destroyers forming a uniformed line over two million kilometres. Ever since the Gommarian caused the nova, new parameters had been set on all vessels carrying Starrilliums. Without express permission from all five Highclave members, the ships could not fly within a million kilometres of any inhabited planet.

  They may have been spread over a great distance, but even having two of the Nebula-class ships could be considered overkill. The only real threat was the Gommarian and they had that under control in Novaarian territory. Roland had seen this kind of thing before however; it was a simple knee-jerk reaction to being attacked in the first place. The Conclave hadn’t fought over anything for over a hundred and fifty thousand years. For the capital to be attacked and so many to die in the assault, it was only natural to see such a show of force.

  Checking the internal feed, as he periodically did, Roland found Esabelle sitting cross-legged in the engine room. He liked to keep an eye on her inside his ship, not just because she was easy on the eyes, but because her knowledge of the Rackham definitely surpassed his own.

  And God knows I’m sick of looking at that ugly little bastard.

  “And who are we gonna be today?” Roland asked.

  “Well, with your disguises in mind,” Ch’len continued, “I was thinking a Laronian couple, newly bonded, on the start of their round-the-galaxy trip. You’re here to see the big city before heading to Nova Prime to see the famous ocean of jewels...”

  “Is the backstory really necessary?” Roland asked dryly.

  “It is now, thanks to your genocide loving cousins! The AI doesn’t just want to know who and what we are anymore; it wants to know why we’re here in the first place!”

  While Ch’len uploaded the new identities, Roland slotted the ship into the nearest queue. The flow never stopped, so he entered the platform coordinates and let the ship fly itself. Smaller security ships hailed the occasional vessel pulling them out of the queue for physical inspection. This wasn’t the first time they had been scrutinized by an AI hub entering a new system and, despite Ch’len’s many flaws, Roland couldn’t deny his expertise in this area.

  He waited until the Rackham had passed through the atmospheric barrier before getting up from his chair. He kicked the empty bottles of alcohol aside, making his way to the exit with a head rush. He told himself he definitely wasn’t drunk, but it had taken an hour to reach the planet and he had inevitably started drinking.

  “Whatever you’re doing at Protocorps, I suggest you get in and out as fast as possible,” Ch’len warned. “Those are not the kind of people you mess with, Roland. They’re powerful with far-reaching arms. Taking out one of their board members was bad enough, but actually breaking into their HQ is suicide, even with her at your side. We’re supposed to be making money, remember?” Roland had already walked beyond the bridge door as Ch’len shouted after him, “And if this is just some ridiculous scheme to mate with that female, then you deserve what’s coming!” Roland gave him the finger from behind. There had been a few translation problems the day he explained that one. “Oh, very mature, child...”

  “Fuck you, Len!” Roland made his way to the living space below the bridge, a smile strapped to his face at the thought of Ch’len’s outrage. The living area was a combination of the kitchen and lounge with a circular table in the corner. He hadn’t bother
ed to decorate it yet. He was so used to moving on all the time he had never stopped to decorate anything before. Unless you could call a complete mess a form of decoration. Empty bottles were left lying around with half-eaten pieces of food and dirty wrappers. The lights came on as he entered but he still tripped over his jacket on the floor.

  “Len, you need to clean this shit up!” he shouted in the direction of the bridge. He picked his jacket up and made for the far wall between the adjoining rooms. With a knock, the wall parted in half, revealing its hidden wares.

  “You keep your weapons in the kitchen?” Esabelle appeared from nowhere. Even Roland couldn’t be that quiet.

  “Help yourself.” Roland stood aside having already retrieved his Tri-rollers and a handful of explosives and gadgets, cobbled together by Ch’len. Seeing the beautiful woman, he realised he was only wearing his trousers and a tight vest. He did his best to flex every muscle and remain tensed while he took a little longer to sort out his gear.

  “Thanks, but I’ll be fine.” The air crackled and sparked around her raised hand before a miniature sun was born in her palm.

  “Point taken.” He reached back in and pulled out his body armour. “You know what this is?” He gave the dark vest a slap, presenting it to Esabelle. “Callic-diamond armour. This is the same stuff the Conclave plaster across their hulls to keep out the sun.” It was one of his favourite possessions. It would have cost a small fortune if the Laronian he was hunting hadn’t offered it to him as a bribe. Of course, he took the vest and captured the bounty anyway, but he didn’t kill him so it seemed fair to Roland.

  “Want to test that theory?” Esabelle raised her hand again.

  “Trust me, it works. I once got hit square in the chest at six feet by a Quad-roller.” He really hoped not to see that particular weapon again.