The Terran Cycle Boxset

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  Nu-marn balled his robotic hand. “They will never divulge the secrets to their nanotechnology! It’s an advantage they will hold over us, always teasing us with it but never sharing it. Even now they tell us it cannot be used on anyone but humans and Terran!”

  Elondrasa spoke in a quieter voice. “Should our offer of membership be solely based on what other species has to offer us?”

  Nu-marn turned to Xydrandil. “Leave us.”

  The Nix bowed his chevron head and departed the lounge without a word. Elondrasa knew she had brought up a much-contested topic, one that had even been protested over during the early days of her councilship and many times before that. Of the twelve species that inhabited the Conclave, only five of them were permitted to sit on the Highclave. It had been these five that originally formed the Conclave and brought with them technology that helped to shape their society.

  Nu-marn continued, “With nothing to offer us they would be dead weight, entirely carried by our resources. They will breed until they populate that world and require another one. Their needs will know no bounds, and we will have to be the ones who explain to the various heads of government that their resources must be shared.”

  “I agree,” Lordina added her vote.

  Brokk remained silent with his rectangular head resting in his large palm, contemplating.

  Ch’lac offered, “Can we not grant them a planet without membership?”

  The councillors looked at one another, having never considered that an option before.

  “Giving them a planet does have its advantages,” Brokk said. “They would be isolated and easily observed.”

  “No.” Elondrasa didn’t look any of them in the eye. “One cannot come without the other. If they are to be granted membership they certainly cannot be observed. Trust is required.”

  Nu-marn smiled wickedly. “And there you have it. You have just stated the very reason why they will never be granted membership or a planet. They are not only dangerous but mysterious. We are not in possession of all the facts - of that I am sure! These cubes that plague us are built from the very same material that the Terran manufactured. And we haven’t even got to Kalian Gaines! The AI told us of his tampering with their DNA on Earth. How long will it be before there are a hundred Kalian Gaines, a thousand, all of them?”

  Lordina was nodding her head. “If they are allowed to live amongst us and thrive, we could end up with a new Terran Empire inside the Conclave.”

  Ch’lac whispered, “They would be gods amongst us…”

  All eyes fell on the Ch’kara as his words sank in. Kalian was already uncontrollable and becoming more headstrong by the day. Why would a society of god-like beings fall in line under the rule of five less-evolved species?

  Trust, Elondrasa reminded herself.

  “They have done nothing but help us since their arrival,” the Novaarian pointed out.

  “They’ve done nothing but bring death to our door,” Nu-marn countered.

  “How many years before we give an order they don’t agree with?” Lordina placed her flute on the table beside her and watched as the liquid refilled from the bottom up. “What could we do if a hundred-thousand Terran turn around and say no?”

  Their starry surroundings disappeared when the craft passed through the outer shell of the Marillion. The launch tunnel was many miles long, taking the Highclave deep into the protective heart of the giant ship.

  Brokk held up his heavy hands. “None of this solves our current problem. We still have a hundred thousand humans, as well as the seven thousand on the habitat, who have nowhere to go.”

  “Let them stay aboard the Paladin,” Nu-marn waved his hand dismissively.

  “That ship was designed for transportation,” Ch’lac quickly replied. “It cannot support any quality of life. There would be rioting in the Conclave if we made a decision like that.”

  Elondrasa nodded her agreement. There were many in the Conclave at large who supported the humans and their right to live amongst them. The basic rights of any intelligent being were strongly upheld by many organisations, most of whom petitioned daily for the humans to be granted membership. Of course, there were those who sat firmly in the other camp and petitioned and protested daily that the humans be ejected from Conclave space and left to survive in the wilds of the galaxy.

  “So what do we do?” Elondrasa asked, exasperated. “How many times will we observe the humans rise up to protect us? How many times will Kalian have to fight for us before we recognise their efforts, their contributions?” Elondrasa stared at Nu-marn with her last word. “There are forces out there who wish to harm us. Their motives may be unknown and their origins may well stem from the Terran, but the people in that habitat and aboard the Paladin are human beings, not Terran. They have done nothing wrong. They are more victim to the Terran or whoever is behind these attacks than we are.”

  Nu-marn leaned forward in his chair. “There are still too many questions surrounding them. They might not be from the Terran Empire, but they are the fruit of their labours, created, designed, to continue their race. There can be no trust.”

  “Perhaps Kalian Gaines will shed some light on the matter…” Ch’lac adjusted the miniature force-field around his head, containing the poisonous gases he needed to live.

  Brokk nodded in agreement. “We shall continue this discussion upon his return.”

  “If he returns…” Nu-marn added under his breath.

  Elondrasa looked away, refusing to rise to the comment. “What of our three Protocorps prisoners? The board members.”

  The Novaarian was happy to turn the tables on Nu-marn. Protocorps’ long-standing involvement with the cubes had been quite the embarrassment for the Shay councillor, since their corporation was one of his largest contributors and supporters. The betrayal had stung them all, but Nu-marn more so. His involvement with the investigation had been limited to avoid any bias.

  “Bal-son Narek is close to securing a deal that will keep him out of the Relis Mines,” Brokk said. “Nal-mev Nargreen and Tu-garn Davorn are saying nothing. They appear to be afraid of reprisals from Kel-var Tionis and Gor-van Tanar.”

  “Who are both still at large…” Lordina added with a sour note.

  “Their resources make them elusive prey,” Brokk replied with his gravelly voice.

  Elondrasa met the Raalak’s black eyes. “Is the human still hunting them down?”

  “Our sources would suggest he is.”

  Roland North had proven to be just as much trouble as Kalian or Esabelle. The man was proof that a human didn’t need Terran abilities to cause trouble on a galactic scale - often noted by Nu-marn. His tenacity would apparently be the end of the Protocorps board members, however, much to Elondrasa’s satisfaction. The bounty hunter had had more luck tracking them down than any of their agencies.

  “More resources should be devoted to bringing that scoundrel in,” Nu-marn spat.

  “You would think that,” Elondrasa added quietly.

  Lordina gave a mirthless laugh. “Having seen the devastation he wrought on Protocorps headquarters, I just feel sorry for Kel-var and Gor-van. At least if we find the pair they’ll get a cushy cell. May the gods help them if Roland North finds them first…”

  8

  Byzantial was a barren planet to Roland’s eye, its surface void of any life or character. Like any other world it was covered in mountains and ravines and the usual vegetation the bounty hunter didn’t usually give a shit about, but Byzantial was dead by all appearances. Roland watched the land drift by, under the viewport, and knew that appearances could be deceiving, however. The Rackham’s sensors showed a hive of activity under the planet’s arid surface.

  Connecting to the local AI hub - under a false ship I.D. - Roland accessed information on the planet and its native inhabitants. He hadn’t put much forethought into a mission since his days on the UDC payroll, but this particular job required some finesse. Gor-van would be heavily protected, and if he was going
to discover the location of his little hidey-hole he was going to have to be sneaky.

  The Brenine, Byzantial’s bipedal inhabitants, were a race who lived in the dark, preferring to live underground. Their stark white skin was evident to this particular evolutionary path. Having dealt with a small handful of their race, Roland was more than aware of what made the Brenine so different. A holographic image popped up with a physiological image of a male Brenine, highlighting the unique tongue that belonged to every one of their species. It looked to Roland like that of a tentacle, similar to an octopus's. Avoiding that tongue was crucial, as a fully matured Brenine could drain him of his bodily fluids in under a minute.

  It was this special diet and their proclivity for darkness that kept the majority of the Brenine on Byzantial. There weren’t many places that accommodated their sensitivity to light or stocked the necessary fluids they required to drink. No one wanted to be near a stranded Brenine in search of food. Still, they were a species who had mastered faster-than-light travel and they lived within the Conclave sphere. It would have been impossible for the rest of the Conclave to ignore them. As it was, the Brenine were known for their lavish parties and exceptional nightlife.

  The empty landscape soon gave way to a vast ocean that filled the horizon. The white sun was kissing the ocean's surface in the distance, painting the sky in blues and a deep turquoise. Roland gripped the controls, enjoying the feel of control over the Rackham, and drove the ship low until its speed pushed against the water.

  “Lan-vid said the pimp was in Sector LV-1089.” Roland brought up the holographics from the nav-comm.

  “You mean Lan-vid who you tortured for this information,” Ch’len said through his constant snacking. “How can we take what he said to be true? He might have just been trying to get you to stop.”

  Roland had extracted information in a similar fashion many times before. He was confident in his ability to retrieve accurate information. Those memories never left him, no matter how many bottles he found the bottom of.

  “He was telling the truth.”

  The Ch’kara sighed. “Sector LV-1089…” Ch’len brought up an orange hologram and flicked it towards Roland until it came to rest above his station. “Commonly known as The Cove.”

  Roland looked at the images of a city teaming with lithe towers and pointed spires that almost touched the top of a rocky ceiling, which sheltered everything within. Stalactites intruded into the cityscape, though the Brenine had made no attempts to cut them back, but instead build around them.

  “It’s full of clubs, bars, brothels and casinos as bottomless as a blackhole.” Ch’len stopped chewing. “You’ll fit right in.”

  “I don’t plan on fitting in. Show me the Starlight Apartments,” Roland dismissed the current hologram as Ch’len acquiesced his command.

  The new image was that of a tower in the south-west quadrant of The Cove. the apex of the apartment block was saucer shaped and surrounded by glass for a three-hundred and sixty-degree view of the city.

  Ch’len cleared his throat. “You should know, a percentage of every illegal credit made in The Cove finds its way back to The Laronian.”

  Roland gave that a moment’s thought. Three months ago the crime lord had tasked him with inserting a ‘backdoor’ into the central AI’s backup generators, while Li’ara set the explosives inside the main chamber. This had been his price for getting them into Protocorps HQ. Despite succeeding in planting the datastick, the subsequent fight between himself and Kubrackk - the Novaarian bounty hunter who had gone to extreme circumstances in seeking his revenge upon Roland - destroyed enough of the servers to disrupt the hack, preventing any backdoor access for The Laronian.

  Thanks to Esabelle’s Terran abilities, Roland and Ch’len knew that The Laronian was, in fact, an Atari in disguise. The crime lord had contacted the pair with a series of threats for his failure, but smiling from ear to ear, Roland replied with a threat of his own, spelling out how the entire Conclave would come to know his secret.

  “He’s not going to be a problem. Besides, denting any part of his revenue will just be the cherry on my day.” Roland expanded the hologram. “Lan-vid said the penthouse belonged to Hon Valorga.” His mind was already working through the job.

  “Yeah I’ve heard of him,” Ch’len replied with a slither of Sak fish hanging out of his mouth. “He’s the biggest pimp in The Cove. He also has a small arms business on the side, but the last I heard he was falling behind in that particular market - either way, expect his entourage to be well equipped.”

  “I’m doing this job a little different to normal…” Roland was focusing on the apartment’s schematics.

  Ch’len laughed to himself. “Your normal is every other bounty hunter’s idea of crazy!” The little alien finished his snack. “Why the change?”

  “I need to get to Hon Valorga and learn where he’s sending the girls Gor-van is so fond of. If I go in shooting everything that moves then word will get back to that sack a’ shit before I can get my hands on him. If he flees Byzantial I’ll lose the trail and have to start all over again.”

  “Sooooo….” Ch’len slowly chewed on a strip of Yorva meat. “We had to track down and torture Kel-var Tionis’s personal attack team to find and torture Lan-vid - his mercenary broker- so we could locate Gor-van’s private pimp, Hon Valorga, who I suspect will be tortured very shortly, so that we can find where Gor-van himself his hiding on this barren rock of a world,” Chlen sucked in a breath, “so that you can torture him into telling you where Kel-var is hiding, so that you can torture him into telling you the truth about Li’ara - who's definitely not dead…” Ch’len added the last part with a tone of disbelief.

  Roland could hear how ridiculous it all sounded when said aloud. He didn’t care though, he just needed to know the truth. If he had to get his hands bloody along the way, so be it.

  “That’s a whole lot of torture…” Ch’len chomped on the dry Yorva meat.

  Roland sat back and accessed his personal file on the console. With a couple of taps, a new hologram was brought to life in full colour. The bounty hunter flicked it, sending the image floating across the expanse between Ch’len and himself. Roland met the Ch’kara’s eyes before they both looked at the image of the circular door, thicker than the length of a human arm and bent in the middle, with wrought edges where a dozen locks had once been fitted. Smoke and fire surrounded the broken vault door, along with the dead body of Sav-del Tanek, the Shay charged with maintaining the vault that housed the alien cube.

  “I’ve seen this already,” Ch’len held his stubby fingers up. “You showed this to me ages ago.”

  “It was you who told Esabelle and me about that door. Impenetrable, uncrackable, resilient to any and all weapons and made from the same material that houses starrilliums. The bomb that Li’ara set off wasn’t powerful enough to even scratch that door, let alone blow it off its hinges. Look at it!”

  Ch’len sighed and took another look at the hologram with the engineering eyes his species was known for. “I admit it’s… strange. This is the only reason I’ve gone along with all your craziness for three months. But I don’t see how any of this can mean Li’ara’s still alive!”

  Roland swivelled his chair to face Ch’len. “The only two people in the galaxy capable of ripping that door from its hinges were light-years away, fighting for their own lives.”

  Ch’len swung his own chair out to match Roland. “I get it, you think a Terran must have opened the door, but Li’ara was just a human, like you. Roland, I’m sorry, but everything in that room was reduced to ashes. Kel-var just showed you this to give his guys more time to rescue him. There’s probably a failsafe built into the door in case of an explosion inside the chamber. Had it not come off its hinges, there’s a good chance the pressure from the explosion would have caused catastrophic damage to the roof and caused structural weaknesses across the entire capital.”

  Roland turned away and collapsed the hologram. “Like I sai
d; if you’re not interested, Byzantial is your stop.”

  “Oh, I’m all in. I want to get to the bottom of this as fast as possible. One way or another, when it’s all over we can get back to work. Don’t get me wrong, I hope you’re right about whatever it is you’re right about, and that Li’ara is alive. I’m just tired of chasing the most ruthless and powerful criminals in the galaxy. I miss the slower, moronic variety of criminal that comes with a modest bounty…”

  Roland raised his eyebrow. “I don’t remember you doing a lot of the chasing, Len.”

  Ch’len snapped off the end of a new chewy snack. “We all have our skills, Roland. Speaking of; I’ve left some new gear for you in the kitchen. Just some new toys that might help to move this along a bit.”

  Roland smiled wickedly. “Just when I was thinking of throwing you out the air-lock you pull it back again.”

  “Very funny…”

  The vast ocean soon gave way to an island covered in blue and white trees and a small mountain in the centre. The sun was partially concealed by the sea now, its white glow turning purple. Dozens of other ships could be seen, all of them ascending or descending through the water. Others could be seen in the distance, flying in from other parts of the planet and heading for The Cove.

  “Say goodbye to the light,” Ch’len commented, as the Rackham increased its speed and dived under the water, two miles out from the island.

  Four head-lights switched on across the bow of the Rackham, illuminating the deep. The local AI hub made contact and requested permission to take control, in order to guide them through the water and unseen traffic. Roland looked to Ch’len before acknowledging the request and relinquishing flight control.

  “It’s all good,” Ch’len offered, checking his own screen. “We’re just a pair of Atari brothers on leave from the intrinium mines on the outer-rim and looking for a good time. Our ship is licensed as the Lovetug.”

  Roland blinked very slowly. “Always with the details… Wait, the Lovetug?”