Ruins of the Galaxy Box Set: Books 1-6

by Chaney, J. N.

The alley broke to another hard-packed lane lined with torches, only these were closer together than the others. The circumference of the village’s circular shape was also constricting. He was nearing the center. He crossed to the opposite side of the street, hidden in darkness, and entered a similar gap between tents.

  Up ahead, he could hear the snarling, garbled speech of the Jujari. Then, as he approached the end of the alley, he saw firelight dancing off the side of the remaining meter of tent fabric. He slowed, edging forward.

  Magnus peered out from the shadows to see at least three dozen Jujari warriors gathered around a sizable fire pit. An oily carcass rotated on a spit, flames leaping every time black fluid dripped onto the coals. The beasts collectively lapped from metal buckets as the smell of something fermented wafted into Magnus’s nostrils. The scene was like that of any of a thousand warrior tribes across the galaxy: the calm after or before a storm when the fighters reveled in the fleeting breaths of their short lives. Brothers drank beside brothers, commiserating in their shared fate as those who would die for the society they prized above all else.

  Magnus realized that not only were these warriors not expecting a ground assault, they weren’t expecting any kind of assault. Which means we’ve not been seen. It wasn’t much, but it was something. And Magnus knew that every advantage, no matter how small, could be capitalized on to bring him one step closer to mission completion.

  For the moment, he needed to return to the women, get some fluids in them, and find a place to sleep for the night. With any luck, this troop might vacate at first light—or after their communal hangover wore off. Magnus withdrew into the shadows. As he sidestepped the way he’d come, he heard Piper scream in the distance.

  34

  Awen descended the Indomitable’s ramp with all the wide-eyed wonder of a child who’d just discovered chocolate cake. She could hardly contain her excitement as she took her first step onto the alien planet. Her boots pressed into the thick grass of the clearing TO-96 had landed in. Lush stands of trees lined every side, and just a few hundred meters beyond, Awen saw the city’s first foliage-covered structures.

  The urban sprawl rose toward the purplish sky like a mountain range covered in a green blanket, and Awen thought it was magnificent. She was most struck, however, by the metropolis’s size.

  No, it should be classified as a megalopolis, at least by our standards. The shipboard holo-projections hadn’t conveyed its scale to her.

  The air itself was warm and filled with fragrant smells. The scent of blossoming flowers mixed with the full-bodied earthiness of a forest’s underbrush, one alive with sprouting flora and decomposing matter. Insects buzzed, and strange calls trilled and blatted from within the trees.

  “Are you capturing all of this, TO-96?” Awen asked, unable to pull her eyes from her surroundings.

  “I am indeed, Awen.”

  “Good,” Awen responded, still not looking back at them. “Keep logging everything you see. This place is… it’s fantastic.” She took several more steps forward.

  “Star Queen, hold on,” Ezo said, pulling yet another blaster sling over his head. He already wore a backpack filled with supplies, two canteens, his holstered SUPRA 945 pistol, and a blaster rifle slung over each shoulder. “We need to proceed carefully. We have no idea what’s out there.” He grabbed several more energy magazines and tucked them into open battery slots on his belt and inside his coat.

  “It’s not like we’re going to war or something, Ezo,” she replied, wincing at just how many weapons he’d been able to drape on his person.

  “I feel I must side with Ezo here, Awen. Since this planet is completely uncharted, it would be wise to take extra precautions for personal self-defense.”

  “I get it,” Awen said. “But how many weapons do you really need, Ezo? Doesn’t Ninety-Six have enough to defend us from a small Republic invasion force?”

  “I admit that my armaments are—”

  “Rhetorical question!” Awen and Ezo said in unison. They smiled at one another and gave a laugh. The mood was light, which Awen thought was a good sign. They were, after all, the first people in their galaxy to step foot on this alien world—perhaps even the first in their universe.

  “Well, come on, already!” Awen protested. The two bounty hunters walked down the ramp and into the grassy field with her. TO-96 activated the motors, and the giant vertical door whined shut behind them.

  “The first main buildings are due north, eight hundred meters,” TO-96 reported. “The capital city’s name is simply listed as Itheliana.”

  “Itheliana,” Awen repeated, “capital of Ithnor Ithelia.”

  “That’s correct,” the bot replied. “We’re presently standing in what appears to be the remains of an old plaza surrounded by residential structures just inside the woods. I suggest we stay within the main thoroughfare.”

  Looking in the direction the bot indicated, Awen saw only a wall of green. “Why don’t you lead the way,” she replied, gesturing with her hand.

  “As you wish, Awen.”

  TO-96 took the lead as the trio moved across the open area and into the first group of trees. The light didn’t diminish so much as it changed. Awen looked up. At first, she thought the leaves were translucent, allowing the sun’s light to pass through them and kiss the jungle floor. But as she passed some leaves near a low-lying branch, she realized the foliage was not translucent but luminescent.

  “The leaves are glowing,” she said in amazement. “How is that even possible?”

  “They appear to be bioluminescent,” TO-96 answered. “Much like some forms of algae in our universe. According to my initial scans, the light is a surplus of what each leaf consumes, perhaps supplying it for layers of flora beneath it.”

  “Fascinating,” Awen said, noting the complex symbiotic relationship the trees had with the low-level species beneath them. She reached out to touch some of the leaves.

  “Ezo wouldn’t do that if he were you, Star Queen,” Ezo said.

  TO-96 stopped and turned around. Seeing Awen’s extended hand, he added, “I must agree with Ezo on that point. We don’t yet know the chemical composition and biological compatibility of the planet’s life with your own.”

  Awen pulled her hand away. “Fair point.”

  The trio continued through the forest before arriving at a pair of buildings connected by an arch about ten meters over the jungle floor. Awen could make out dozens of glass windows, an elevated portico, and several awnings that extended into the surrounding tree limbs. All of it, however, was smothered by tree limbs, creeping vines, and vegetation, which sprouted from every crevice and crack.

  “Maybe it was some sort of gatehouse,” Ezo offered.

  “Correct, sir,” TO-96 said. “Records show this was one of the city’s many entrances. The term gatehouse would be a misnomer, however, as defensive fortifications appear to be nonexistent.”

  “So you’re saying the city wasn’t defended?” Awen asked.

  “That appears to be the case, Awen. Both during the period of its initial construction all the way to its last use, it seems that the Novia Minoosh were never preoccupied with the threat of invasion. Here, let me show you.”

  TO-96 squared up to the buildings and suddenly emitted a wide beam of light. The holo-projection filled the foreground with an overlay of the city. As it once was. “This is what it looked like?” she asked in wonder.

  “Correct, at least insofar as the data provided to me conveys.”

  “It’s… it’s—”

  “It’s beautiful,” Ezo said.

  “Yes.” Awen nodded, biting her index finger.

  The holo-projection seemed to melt away the overgrowth, revealing gleaming surfaces and delicate architecture. Windows spiraled out to meet sweeping walkways suspended over intricate sidewalks. Planters dotted open plazas while arches rose and fell across them like the waves of an ocean swell. In the center stood the largest arch, bearing a script that Awen had never encountered
before. Its elegant lines looked like they overlapped one another in three dimensions even though the text was clearly engraved on a two-dimensional surface.

  “What does it say?” Awen asked.

  “The translation, at least as far as I can manage, says, ‘Welcome to all those who wander and wonder. Find direction in darkness, find meaning as one.’”

  “Clumsy, but poetic,” Ezo replied. “So, you can read their language?”

  “I would say I am learning to,” TO-96 said. “They provided what they want us to know. I am parsing the rest.”

  Awen blinked at TO-96’s holo-projection. Her imagination was lost in what it must have been like to wander these city streets when this civilization was at its height. What did the people look like? What clothes did they wear, what songs did they sing, what food did they eat? How were their family units structured, and what form of government did they employ? The reality was, however, that she’d never know. Judging by the amount of growth around the ruins, it had been hundreds if not thousands of years since any living thing had occupied this place.

  Awen felt a sudden sadness like she was mourning the loss of an old friend who’d passed away years before. The initial sting of death was long gone. In its place was the festering absence that bred a lifelong sorrow. It was an emotion that held on like a stiff joint or a bruised bone.

  Yet… She stood there, looking past the holo-projection into the rest of the city.

  Yet it feels like we’re not alone. Like they’re still here. She couldn’t tell Ezo or TO-96 how she knew they were being watched, but she was convinced they were—convinced that this civilization was not completely lost. The notion defied her sense of logic, of course, but so did most of what was to be found in the Unity.

  Awen closed her eyes and withdrew to her inner self once more. If there was something to be found, she knew it could be seen in the Unity of all things. She stretched out with her senses, observing herself, Ezo, and TO-96 as mere blips amid a planet fully awake. The impression of vitality was so overwhelming that Awen was nearly pushed from the Unity. She held on, forcing herself to stare at the cascading ripples of life that emanated from each place she focused on with her inner eyes. Each tree, each plant, each flying, swinging, and crawling creature radiated a life force more intense than anything she had seen before. But how? How could one planet’s life be so vibrant, so intense?

  “Are you okay, Awen?” Ezo asked from inside the natural realm. Her inner senses felt the words before her ears heard them.

  “Yes,” she replied, first from inside the Unity and then with her physical mouth. “This planet is incredible. I’ve never seen something so… alive.”

  Then Awen shifted her focus toward the urban structures, eager to see what treasures they might hold. Her inner eyes searched the first ones and then froze. Aside from seeing the buildings in wonderful detail—far more than TO-96’s holo-projection could have rendered—Awen noticed that a strong life current raced through the walls like bundled conduits of energy. The pipelines glowed green with a corona that faded from pink to white.

  “The buildings,” Awen said aloud. “They’re inhabited.”

  TO-96 raised his forearm with the XM31 Type-R blaster affixed to it. As if someone had threatened a beehive by swatting it with a stick, the nearest building’s colors shifted to an angry red and sent out high-frequency ripples in the Unity.

  “Wait.” Awen extended her inner hand, placed it over the bot’s arm, and gently pushed it down. TO-96 jerked away, as she thought he might since her physical hand was nowhere near his arm. “They’re not hostile, at least not as far as I can tell.”

  “Wait—they?” Ezo asked. “As in, the buildings?”

  “No, not the buildings, exactly. It’s more like something that makes up the buildings. Or is flowing in the buildings.”

  “And you can tell they’re not hostile?”

  “They didn’t like TO-96 raising his blaster,” Awen replied, noting that the red had turned back to the greenish, pink, and white glow from before.

  “They didn’t like it?” Ezo asked in disbelief. “How can you—”

  “Relax, Ezo,” Awen said, placing her inner hand on his shoulder for emphasis.

  Ezo winced and let out a yell, trying to brush the unseen touch from his body. “Splick! Was that you?”

  “Yes, Ezo.”

  “Don’t scare Ezo like that,” he said, placing his hands on his knees and trying to catch his breath.

  “More exists on the other side of the seen universe than you can imagine,” she added. “You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

  Ezo placed a hand on his chest and stood upright again. “Okay. So, you don’t think they’re hostile.” He looked to TO-96. “Any ideas where they want us to go, Ninety-Six?”

  “The only destination indicated on the stardrive is Itheliana as a whole.”

  “The whole city?” Ezo said.

  “That’s correct, sir. By my estimation, their invitation was simply to arrive and to explore.”

  “Explore?” Ezo asked, clearly stunned by such an idea. “The whole city? But it would take an entire lifetime!”

  “Based on square kilometers, you may not be far from the truth.”

  “I might have something,” Awen interjected. “There’s some sort of pulsing, moving inward. It seems to have a definitive direction. Like… it wants us to follow.”

  “It wants us to follow it?” Ezo asked. “Ezo’s not sure—”

  “I told you to trust me, didn’t I?”

  Ezo cleared his throat. “Yes. Yes, you did. Just please don’t touch Ezo again like that. It’s… it’s weird.”

  “I won’t have to if you keep up with my instructions. This is my expedition after all, isn’t it, Captain?” She could tell he wasn’t sure how to respond to her when her eyes were closed. Ezo raised a hand and waved it over her face. “Yes, I see you just fine, Ezo. Relax.”

  “So weird,” Ezo mumbled, lowering his hand. “Okay, lead on, Star Queen.”

  * * *

  The trio walked for over an hour, every street revealing a breathtaking view, inspiring architecture, and ingenious engineering. TO-96 kept his holo-projection displayed for Ezo’s sake while Awen remained inside the Unity. The trio stopped only for Awen and Ezo to rest their legs and take long drinks of water from their canteens.

  Not only did the buildings get taller as they moved toward the city’s center, but the streets and sidewalks moved upward as well. Some spiraled over themselves, while others leaped skyward with ramps, bridges, or elevated corridors. And while the jungle continued to retake the structures, it did so with less ferocity as the city moved up and away from the planet’s surface.

  Whatever beings had once lived here, they certainly seemed to have had the stature and preferences of humanoids in Awen’s universe—only larger. The doorways leading into buildings allowed her nearly twice as much clearance as she needed. She imagined the streets bustling with shoppers, enterprisers, and families, all flowing past one another on their various errands. Transportation lanes supported elegant vehicles that whisked people from one point in the city to the next. All around her, life swelled, rising and falling like the troughs and peaks of ocean waves.

  In the present, however, there was nothing but the sounds and smells of the forest. Awen wondered just how old Itheliana was and how long it had taken for the jungle to retake the land. She also wondered if she was the first to tread here since… since whatever happened to this species happened. Had others discovered it before her, perhaps others in this universe? TO-96 had called it “metaspace.” Perhaps these people had been conquered by a superior race in their own galaxy, though the city entirely lacked signs of war. Maybe a plague had wiped them out.

  Whatever it was, it had not taken them out completely. Something still lived in the walls and floors and ceilings. Something moved in the pavement and the concrete. As sure as Awen was of her own life force in the Unity of all things, she was convinced that
this place contained some remains of sentient life even if it was a shadow of its former glory.

  They walked on for another hour, following Awen’s direction as she followed the rhythmic pulses that summoned her forward. Even though Ezo couldn’t see what she could, he often intuitively chose the correct turn in a street or fork in the sidewalk. She wondered if the life force rippling through the city also summoned him in unseen ways.

  As they rose in altitude, the buildings grew increasingly massive and more elaborate. The structural interconnectivity produced an emotion in Awen—a sense of confidence, interdependence, and reliance on every other thing around her. It was as if these people had embedded the ethos of their culture within the walls of their buildings.

  By the third hour, the trio had summited the city’s uppermost echelon. Here, one building stood out. Its multitiered construction eventually formed a tall spire that seemed to struggle against the creeping vines in a desperate effort to launch itself into the void. Yet the sinuous fibers wrapped around it, forcing the spire to stay grounded, forever bound to the prison of its foundation.

  “In there,” Awen said, pointing to the structure’s large main doors. She could sense they led into a long hallway that proceeded to serve countless rooms, corridors, and plazas. The building was truly immense and felt all-consuming, as if it had an appetite for sentient minds to explore its many secrets. Yet the structure wasn’t a hungry creation that threatened to swallow them. Rather, it was already well-fed—satiated from the nourishment of a thousand generations—and, in fact, offered something to those who wished to partake.

  “It’s a library of some sort,” Awen said.

  “A library?” Ezo asked, taking a moment to look around. “A library is fitting.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We’d need a mountain of books to uncover everything there is to know about this magical place.”

  “And that’s precisely what I think it wants to share with us.”

  For the first time in over three hours, she opened her eyes and stepped out of the Unity. The transition was a shock, as she knew it would be. Remaining in the Unity for that long was difficult, dangerous, and—when you finally reemerged—disappointing, for nothing ever looked as vibrant and rich in the seen realm as it did in the unseen. Still, she was, like all other Luma, a mortal being in a corporal body. She was not meant to stay in the Unity—no more than a mammal was meant to stay submerged underwater beyond its capacity to hold its breath.