The Terran Cycle Boxset

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  Sef looked away for a moment as if he was unsure of how to proceed. I have spent months building a network of programming designed to infiltrate various levels of Conclave security. I’m good with electronics. I have been able to listen in on chatter between the ships, as well as a few private conversations between the upper echelons.

  “Did they make it?” Li’ara just needed to know and Sef was telling her everything but. She needed to know if Roland made it out of Protocorps and if Kalian and Esabelle discovered anything in the Helteron Cluster. She needed to know they were alive.

  Roland survived, though he has already disappeared again. His Terran vessel makes it hard for the Conclave to track him. I haven't been able to piece everything together yet surrounding the events in the Helteron Cluster, but I know the Gommarian has been destroyed.

  Li’ara stopped chewing when she heard that. There was nothing that could even dent that ship, let alone destroy it.

  “What about everyone onboard?” Li’ara wasn't sure she was ready for the answer.

  They have been evacuated and are currently being relocated, but I haven't discovered the new location yet.

  Li’ara exhaled, unaware that she had been holding her breath.

  Kalian has returned, along with ALF.

  Li’ara looked up at the Gomar with wide eyes and the first feeling of hope she had felt since before the explosion. Judging by Sef’s expression, she could tell that he wasn't done with the bad news yet, and Li’ara realised he had yet to mention Esabelle.

  I came across chatter between High Charge Uthor and a member of their science division. The scientist was annoyed with Uthor for denying him the chance to perform an autopsy... on Esabelle. Apparently, Kalian won't let them near her body.

  Li’ara sat back and put her fork down. Esabelle was gone. They had never developed a substantial bond, but Li’ara had always appreciated the help she gave Kalian, even if they had been closer than she liked. Either way, death was not something she would have wished upon her. What could they have found in the Helteron Cluster that could not only destroy the Gommarian but also kill Esabelle, the most powerful Terran in the galaxy? Professor Jones had been strong, but he was no match for the two of them. When Li’ara’s head had filled with enough questions, she looked back to Sef and saw how upset he was with this particular news. His blue eyes had filled with tears and taken on a glassy appearance.

  “I know Esabelle was with all of you on the Gommarian. A part of your interface with the ship. I’m sorry -”

  Esabelle was more than that…

  Sef stood up from the table and made to leave, but Li’ara wanted to stop him. The commander stood up and held a hand out to catch the Gomar, but her right leg kept on going. She screamed for just a second, as the floor was quickly coming up to greet her, but she never made it. Inches from the cold, hard floor, Li’ara remained suspended in the air, where Sef had caught her. The Gomar corrected her, sitting the commander back down.

  “Argh!” Li’ara groaned in frustration. “I forgot… It feels like it’s still there! I can feel my goddamn foot!” She looked up at Sef, sure that she was wiggling her toes.

  It will take some adjusting.

  “I don't want to adjust. I want to walk again.” Li’ara tried so hard to keep the tears back, but it was impossible.

  I’m working on it. There is an augmentation facility not far from here. I have already started gathering the equipment I will need.

  Li’ara looked from Sef to her leg and back again. “You’re going to build me a new leg?”

  I aim to, yes. Though it will not look as it did. I do not have the skills to fully replicate a human leg, skin and all. The whole process is going to take time and healing.

  “Thank you.” It suddenly hit Li’ara how much the Gomar had done for her. Sef had saved her life in Protocorps, saved her from infection and was now going to help her walk again. “Why are you doing all this? Why did you save me? Why aren't you as keen on killing all humans as Savrick was?”

  Sef smiled, and it was hard not like that smile. Answers will come. For now, just know that we are on the same side with the same goals. Trust is something we build. And eat. You have quite the journey ahead of you before you can walk again…

  “Wait, wait, wait…” Roland sat upright on the sofa in the Rackham’s kitchen and looked at Li’ara with his one good eye. “You’re telling me that leg is fake?”

  Li’ara sighed, exasperated with the bounty hunter already. She lifted her right leg and pulled her boot off, revealing the skeletal, robotic leg and foot.

  “I bet that stung a bit.” Roland swigged his beer, while Ch’len flapped about the place, trying to collate all their medical equipment and give Sef a wide berth at the same time.

  “I felt kinda’ how you look right now.” Li’ara would never say it, but she was continually impressed with the beatings Roland was capable of taking. The idiot just refused to die.

  “What, this?” Roland shrugged and immediately winced. “I've got plenty of painkillers.” The bounty hunter waved his beer about. “So the gorilla over here’s on our side, huh?” Roland looked Sef up and down with no small amount of suspicion.

  Sef collapsed his helmet and Li’ara knew he was doing it to appear more familiar.

  “Hideous like the rest of them I see...”

  Li’ara couldn't help but chuckle at Roland’s sarcasm, though she hated encouraging him. In truth, she hated the way he looked at Sef, but she also knew that everyone would look at the Gomar that way. Just as it had taken her time to learn to walk and run again, it would take patience and time before people learned to trust Sef.

  “So you guys have just been shacked up behind the walls of the capital all this time…” Roland appeared to be chewing over the information. “You didn't think to communicate with anyone? Let someone know you were alive, maybe?”

  Ch’len turned on Li’ara. “Do you know how many people he’s tortured to -”

  “Len!” Roland’s face twisted in agony. “Easy with the leg, okay, it’s not a pork chop.”

  Ch’len went back to examining his leg while muttering under his breath about stupid humans and questioning what a pork chop was.

  “We had a different mission.” Li’ara looked to Sef, who in time had told her the truth of everything. “Sef needed my help, and we needed to do it in secret, partly because the Conclave would freak out if they knew a Gomar was walking about the place, but also because we didn't know who we could trust. Protocorps was proof that the cubes have infiltrated the Conclave.”

  “What mission?” Roland tried to raise his eyebrow but found only pain.

  “We need to find the rest of the Gomar and wake them up.”

  Roland looked at them both, expressionless, before bursting into laughter. “You’re crazier than I am! What did blondy say to you? It must have been good to convince you that waking up his genocidal buddies was a great idea.”

  If Roland had more to say, it was drowned out by his cry of pain, as Ch’len applied a blue, gel-like substance to the wound on his leg. Sef moved for the first time, putting both Roland and Ch’len on edge, and held out his hand, palm down. The floor of the kitchen responded by forming a sleek column that rose up to greet the Gomar’s hand. They had all seen Esabelle do something similar during their time on the Rackham together, and Roland had pulled the same quizzical expression then, too. The column opened up and a hand-sized cylinder of nanocelium floated to the top.

  “What the hell is that?” Roland asked. “I really need to read the manual…”

  Sef strode over, sending Ch’len scurrying around the small table, and held out the cylinder for Roland to take. The end of the device was identical to that of a syringe, with a series of small holes at the end.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” Roland took the object out of Sef’s hand as if it had belonged to him all along.

  Inject the nanocelium into your arm. It will heal you.

  Roland’s mouth fell open and
he stared at Sef for a moment, before turning to Li’ara with a questioning look.

  “He doesn’t speak, remember.”

  “It’s still damn weird. You had this for a whole three months?” Roland waved Ch’len’s questioning look away.

  “You get used to it.” Li’ara had come to enjoy the sound of Sef’s voice, often finding it soothing, especially when the pain in her leg returned. It had taken a couple more operations to get her new leg right, and the wound had to be opened every time. He had been there for her every step of the way.

  “I guess I just don't like the idea of someone in my head.” Roland stabbed his arm with the cylinder. “So how long does this stuff take to…” The bounty hunter stopped talking, which was a miracle in itself, and contorted his face and gripped his leg, then his ribs. “It feels weird.”

  Li’ara watched as his eye changed colour, before the swelling went down and his lids took shape again. The smaller cuts and bruises that had marred his face and hands slowly disappeared as well. Roland closed his fists and cracked the knuckles with a satisfied smile on his face.

  “I really need to read the manual…”

  Sef nodded, as if Roland had thanked him, and returned to his position on the other side of the kitchen. Roland on the other hand, stood up and tested his leg and patted his previously broken ribs. After a few stretches, the bounty hunter picked up another beer, dropped back onto the sofa and rested his legs on the table.

  “Well, it’s a damn sight better than nurse Len over here. So…” Roland downed half the beer. “Let me get this straight. You’ve been hiding in the capital for three months trying to track down the whereabouts of the Gomar, while also having your leg cut off and learning to walk again. And all the while, you’ve been doing it with him in your head.”

  Li’ara could see what Roland was getting at. The idea that Sef had been controlling her thoughts had come up a couple of times. Sadly, there was no way to prove he wasn't, leaving her to trust in his explanation.

  “He can't control our thoughts, it doesn't work that way. Because of our physiology, he can tap into the frequency our brains emit. He can see into our mind, but he can't change the way we think. Its also why Ch’len can't hear him, different frequency.”

  Roland became serious for a moment. “What could he possibly have said to convince you he can be trusted?”

  Li’ara looked at Sef, aware that it was his story and not her own. He nodded just once, approving of her to tell it right.

  “During the Gomars’ hunt for Earth, they were regularly put to sleep inside Rem-stores due to the scale of their search. When the Gommarian came across a civilisation or something of interest, the crew would be woken up and given the chance to investigate. This was all controlled by the ship’s pilot; Esabelle. There were often thousands of years between anything worth investigating. As you already know, Esabelle achieved a level of consciousness at some point along the way, and started training herself inside the virtual world.”

  Roland waved her on. “Yeah yeah, I remember; she’s the reason Savrick never found out the Conclave had already discovered Earth, blah blah blah. How does any of this change the fact that he’s one of them.”

  Li’ara ignored the insulting finger being pointed at Sef. “When Esabelle realised that the cube was affecting Savrick’s mind, and caused the civil war, she started strategising a way to combat it. During the periods when the crew was asleep, she would wake up a select few, twelve to be exact. The same twelve she kept behind when the Gomar attacked the Valoran.

  Now, she didn't wake them all up together, but one at a time, over a period of thousands of years. While they were awake and unable to enter their Rem-store, Esabelle would speak to them, incessantly, until they really started listening. Eventually she even showed them the cube and her findings. While Savrick and the others slept for centuries, millennia, twelve of his soldiers were being shown the truth he had kept hidden from them.”

  “What did Esabelle hope to achieve?” Roland had stopped drinking his beer. “Earth still got wiped out. Humans are on the endangered species list and, oh yeah, she’s dead.”

  Li’ara tensed, unsure of how Sef would react to Roland’s loose words. Sef had come to see Esabelle as a friend and mentor, closer to that of an older sister. As a testament to his self-control and mental discipline, Sef remained perfectly still, giving nothing away.

  “Even though she had convinced twelve of them that there was a bigger threat than humanity, they were unable to stand against Savrick. It’s hard for us to understand the kind of hold he had over them. He was seen as a father and an overlord. When Sef attacked us in the capital, after Savrick introduced himself to the Conclave, he wasn't trying to kill us. Esabelle had tasked him with getting Kalian to safety, but Kalian didn't give him the chance. On the Helion, it was the beast who killed all those aboard, not Sef. On Naveen, he had been tasked with destroying ALF by Savrick, but his intention was to get us to safety. It took him months to find a way onto the capital after the Helion crashed.”

  Roland sighed, taking it all in. “And since then he’s been jacking into every security console he can...” The bounty hunter looked away, as if something had occurred to him. “Did Esabelle see you, when we were in the capital?”

  Yes. We spoke briefly while you were entering a vehicle. It was Esabelle who charged me with locating the Gomar, when they were taken.

  Roland shook his head. “That’s going to get old, real quick. Wait a minute, when they were taken? Esabelle knew that the Conclave would discover the Gomar and take them?”

  Sef smiled. It is easy to forget how old one such as Esabelle was. After so much time, she had become very good at seeing patterns and interpreting data on a vast scale. Predicting future events was second nature to her.

  Li’ara tried to assess Roland’s take on it all, but struggled to read the bounty hunter; he had spent a lifetime perfecting that poker face.

  Roland looked up. “Rackham, what’s the ETA on our intercept?”

  “Three hours, nineteen minutes and eleven seconds.”

  “So you were looking for Gor-van as well?” Roland got up from the couch and stood in front of the wall of weapons. “Does he know where the Gomar is being kept?”

  Li’ara was happy that Roland had accepted Sef’s version of events so quickly. She could only hope that others would too, since it had taken herself at least two months. Roland was of a simpler mind, however, and didn't trouble himself with big picture stuff, but preferred to get lost in the present, usually by drinking or shooting something.

  “It took some time, but eventually we came across others who were hacking into Conclave systems. After more digging, it turned out they were all freelance, and being paid by the same person under a false name and a shell company.”

  “That sounds like Gor-van,” Ch’len commented.

  Li’ara nodded her agreement. “They were all searching for some kind of black site. At first, we thought it was a facility on one of the planets, but it turns out the black site is a planet. It’s been removed from any public star charts and is entirely uninhabited.”

  “I take it since you happened across Gor-van’s secret, little hideaway, you haven't got any coordinates?” Roland had started servicing his Tri-rollers on the kitchen counter.

  “We had an earlier opportunity to capture him, but Sef came across a communication that suggested he was setting a trap for you on Byzantial. So we thought, why not rescue you and get the coordinates at the same time.” Li’ara couldn't help the smug expression that crept across her face.

  Roland looked at Ch’len. “A rescue that involved you taking control of the Rackham.” The Ch’kara appeared somewhat sheepish at the statement. “We’re gonna circle back to that…”

  “It was Ch’len who managed to fire a tracking beacon onto Gor-van’s ship.” Li’ara didn't know why she was defending the ignorant, self-obsessed little alien.

  Roland snapped the Tri-roller back together again. “So I've be
en recruited, have I?”

  “I wouldn't say that.” Li’ara knew better than to give him an inch.

  “I would, since you left your stolen vessel back on Byzantial, and my ship is being used to track your prey. And since I'm the captain of this ship, that probably makes me the leader of this secret team. So here’s what we’re gonna do; we board Gor-van’s pissy little ship, I’ll torture him for the coordinates to the black site, and then, we go kill Kel-var Tionis on our way to the Gomar.”

  “Wait, what?” Li’ara stood up. “Kill Kel-var? We don't have time for that. The Gomar are pivotal in defending against whatever comes next, and it is coming.”

  “Yeah I get all that, but I've sort of been telling people that I’m coming for Kel-var. It’s gotten around that I’m going to kill him so... I kind of have a reputation to uphold.” Roland’s casual behaviour infuriated Li’ara. “It’ll be a short detour, I’m almost sure of it. In the meantime,” he looked at Sef, “try not to move around too much, because your girth will literally wreck my ship.”

  Li’ara rolled her eyes and made to leave, though where she was going to go on the small ship, she didn't know.

  “Aren't you going to ask about him?” Roland added casually.

  Li’ara stopped and waited in the doorway. Using Sef’s network, she had discovered that Kalian never returned to the new habitat in the Arakesh system. Wherever he was, it had been so secretive that no one was talking about it out there. She knew he was alive though, and that they were each doing what needed to be done. Her investigatory skills were essential for helping Sef look in the right areas, while Kalian was no doubt learning more about his power, which would be essential for when the war started, and Li’ara could feel that one was coming.

  “I get the whole working in the shadows thing, I get why you wouldn't tell me you’re alive, I’m a dick, but not telling Kalian… He kinda spiralled after that. He boarded the Sentinel and never came back.”

  Li’ara turned to face him, with Sef close by her side. “Come back from where?”