Interstellar

by Bob Mayer

  “’Here’?” Amun said. “’An incident’? Inside the shield wall? What happened?”

  “A rogue acolyte,” Anubis partially lied. “It was dealt with. Best to be on guard.”

  But Amun was still behind. “A mothership is coming?” Amun asked it like a question even though Anubis had told him exactly that a minute earlier. “Do you think there will be replacements? Orders for the rest of us to leave this forsaken rock?”

  “If any of us leave,” Anubis said, “it will be for another world just like this in order to breed more humans to expand Teardrop.”

  “But we’ve been here forever,” Amun complained. “If our humans succeeded, shouldn’t we be rewarded?”

  “We’ll all probably get a nice shiny medal,” Anubis said, “and our names listed in the Scroll of Honor. Do you think anyone even looks at the Scroll anymore? After all these millennia you could probably wrap it around a world with all the names on it. At the very least a moon.”

  “Speaking of moons,” Amun said. “How is Osiris?”

  “He was not out of sleep when Horus activated the FTL, but I’ve sent a command to bring him back.”

  “A shame, really, what happened to him and Isis.”

  “I need to get the talon ready,” Anubis said. “Are you cogent enough to take command?”

  “Yes, yes,” Amun said. He cinched the belt tight around his robes. “Where are the weapons?”

  “The same place they’ve been since we came here,” Anubis said. “The armory. In—”

  “Yes, yes, I remember,” Amun said.

  “The Hegemony army is assembling,” Anubis said. “They will march north to here. If Horus feels he needs them, he will send a messenger for them to deploy south on the Lion’s Road. If he does not send a messenger, hold the army outside Seventh Wall for the Tally.”

  “Yes. I heard you the first time.” Amun waved at her. “Go, go. I’ll be fine. Just a bit light-headed. You know the feeling coming out of deep sleep.”

  “Be alert,” Anubis warned and then left.

  As soon as Anubis was gone, Amun left the sleep duat and went to one that contained racks of power-spears and other weapons, including a row of nuclear warheads of varying yields in red backpacks similar to what Teardrop used. Amun went to a locker where he punched in a code. The door slid open revealing numerous thin red strings with small loops at each end. He grabbed a handful and stuffed them into a pocket.

  Then he headed to the Control Sphere.

  *****

  Anubis rode the lift to the hangar bay for the MDAC. They’d landed with nine on board the mothership. Seven MDAC, along with the talons HQ considered ‘excess’, had been taken back by Fleet over the years. The other one had disappeared to the south on an unmanned mission. It was possible it had suffered an accident or equipment failure. But it had gone off-line and Anubis had not been able to track it down, which indicated something nefarious.

  When they’d landed on this world, the Airlia had found artifacts from an earlier civilization, which wasn’t unusual. Worlds in the habitable zone around stars cycled through many stages and types of life as well as various geological and climatic eras. Indications of Scale life were not uncommon. Wormehill Tower, the top third gone, was one of those and an enigma as the stone it was composed of defied analysis and wasn’t present anywhere else on the planet, raising the possibility it had come from off world. This again, had occurred before. The Airlia were not the only interstellar empire at the moment and there had certainly been previous empires of various Scale species.

  There were a handful of other Scale sites scattered around the world, but no clear indication of the species other than that which could be judged by the scant artifacts, which indicated Airlianoid in composition: two legs, two arms, one head, similar size. Something that was common among Scale life.

  Things had gone wrong from the start of the occupation. Bad luck most of her comrades had believed. But Anubis had always felt there was something behind it. Or someone. They’d scanned the planet before landing, of course. No indication of current Scale life but the scan was broad-based and it was possible some small group had been missed.

  As per the standard process, the Airlia had seeded the planet with humans and the vegetation and animal life that was compatible. But things kept going wrong.

  The worst had been the placement of a ruby sphere, as policy, to act as a destruct to blow the planet apart as the ultimate defense against being reaped by the Swarm. Following a detailed geological survey, a deep rift was found over a split between tectonic plates in the West Ridge. A ruby sphere was to be emplaced over an opening bored through the rift in the planet’s crust that went through to magma. If the ruby sphere was dropped and detonated, it would start a chain reaction cataclysmic event that would wipe out all life on the surface. The plan was that this would be used as a last resort once a reaping began.

  Isis and Osiris had been in charge of completing this task. They’d finished the bore hole. However, as the ruby sphere was being maneuvered over the hole, Isis made a mistake. Osiris was never quite clear what happened during debrief. The result had been obvious: Isis became trapped in the rigging, a cable snapped, she was beheaded, and the ruby sphere dropped unarmed into the borehole along with Isis’s head, lost into the magma.

  Isis’s body was still in the Rift, wrapped in the broken cables as beheading was a wound even the nanites couldn’t cure. Osiris, whose story was inconsistent, was banished to the FTL transmitter control center on the moon which was named after his sister, a dark joke among the Airlia, couched as a nominal honor. Normally that duty would be rotated, but Osiris’s assignment there was made permanent. The event was a failure for the entire team, which Anubis and most of the others believed led to them being placed even further down Fleet’s status.

  The Teardrop program at that time, and for millennia afterward, had been a low-priority experiment among a number of measures the Empire was experimenting with in the search for ways to counter the Swarm. The fact it appeared to have finally worked was shocking, but also gratifying.

  Anubis stared out over the city of Atlantis as the lift reached the hangar. The seven walls encompassed considerable land, although they were compressed on the southern side where the ridgelines met Lion’s Head. But east and west, they were spread farther out with fields and towns inside, especially in the outer three circles. Seventh wall was over fifty miles across at its widest, east to west along the coast. Anubis didn’t need spies to inform her that people were leaving. The levy reports showed a decrease in tax collections of the vitals needed to keep the warrior-guides and wedjat fed and equipped. As the lift stopped, she knew that Fleet was going to have to make more of an investment in the Tally if they expected results.

  Anubis climbed up the side of the MDAC and entered, shutting the hatch behind her. She slid into the pilot’s seat and powered it up. She flew out of the tower, stopping just short of the shimmering shield wall. She tapped the console, disabling the shield for the few seconds it took to fly past, then it snapped back in place.

  The MDAC flew due north from Atlantis, passing over the harbor crowded with sailing vessels, both cargo and warships. Once out of sight of shore and beyond the shipping lanes, which tended to stay within visual contact with land, Anubis checked the display. Once she was exactly where she needed to be, she let the autopilot take over the next phase.

  Through the transparent floor, Anubis watched the water rush up as the MDAC descended vertically. Into the ocean and then down. Light dimmed and then all became dark. A sliver of light appeared below. The sliver widened as a cargo bay door on the mothership opened. The MDAC entered and settled into a landing cradle. The door slid shut, then pumps emptied the chamber as Anubis waited.

  Once it was pressurized and dry, she exited the MDAC and headed for the central corridor of the mothership.

  NORTH VALLEY, EARTH15

  Horus was in his element as he held the controls of the powered three wheeled char
iot. He was at the head of one thousand Shakur mercenaries and four hundred warrior-guides, marching south on Lion’s Road. He had flankers deployed in the forest on either side and a platoon a half mile forward guarding against ambush.

  Horus was a warrior, by nature and training. His Selection, the formal phase every Airlia went through when they came of age, had been simple and linear to that profession. Besides the fact most were slotted as warrior anyway, Horus had desired the posting. Others wanted to be engineers or pilots or maintenance or medical or scientist, but there had never been any doubt in Horus’s mind of his life’s calling.

  He was particularly happy in this situation because it was low-tech, face to face, no power weapons, satellites, or any of the other advancements that took away from personal combat. He had a sword on his hip, a spear in a holder on one side of the chariot, a bow and quiver on the other. The sound of the soldiers’ leather boots slapping on stone and dirt behind him in step, well, at least the warg’s were in step, was music to his ears. The Shakur was more a shambling column.

  He raised a hand, halting the convoy as two scouts came running back from the advance platoon. They prostrated themselves, while one gave the report, which was difficult to hear given he was facing the ground.

  “Lord, there is no sign of enemy for a distance of two miles south of the North Wall.”

  Horus waved his arm forward and they resumed the march.

  *****

  Arcturus stood on the outer staircase of Wormehill Tower, where it had been shattered. From this perch he could see the surrounding terrain for a long distance. The wind was chill, with the promise of rain in the evening. He put his hands on the stone, feeling the roughness where it had been blasted apart. Actually, the top third of the tower had been vaporized, which was why there was no debris.

  He’d watched the recon platoon ride on the Lion’s Road through the North Wall. He also saw the flankers coming this way, along the wall. In the distance, to the north, was the long dark column of the advance party of the Airlia’s army. Arcturus squinted. Horus in a wheeled, power chariot at the head as there was no mistaking the height and the glittering crown on his head.

  Arcturus whistled, a low sound, barely audible at human frequency, but carrying far. A dark form came dashing on four legs from the forest to the south, across the open ground toward Wormehill. It looked like a wolf, an unusually large one, with black and brown marking. It ran across the stone bridge where Arcturus was waiting.

  “Ise,” Arcturus said.

  The beast sat, panting. Its head in this position was higher than Arcturus’s.

  Arcturus ran a hand through the fur, scratching an ear. It was neither wolf or dog. A unique species that had evolved far away on another world a long, long time ago. A handful had been brought here well before the Airlia landed by the Ancients. A small enclave had survived the various cycles of the planet in an isolated valley far to the south, in deep forest and making their lairs in caves.

  One was always at Arcturus’s side until it became too old to run, then he would return to the pack with it and get a fresh one, just past being a pup. In return, he helped keep their location and existence a secret. Like the Nagil, wolfram were myths.

  Arcturus leaned close and whispered instructions into the beast’s ear. It didn’t take long. She raced off, out the gates, across the stone bridge and to the south. Arcturus climbed the stairs back to his position at the uppermost level.

  A rumbling noise announced the stone bridge over the moat withdrawing. The stone arch slid inward, until there was no sign of it. The tower was isolated, unless one dared the raging water in the moat.

  SWARM BATTLE CORE, INTERSTELLAR, FASTER THAN LIGHT TRANSIT

  The dragon flew into a chamber lined in black, dropping down and skimming the floor before releasing Kray. The parasite didn’t react his body well and he slammed into the floor, getting the wind knocked out of him. The dragon disappeared through the same tunnel, the only way in or out.

  The parasite had Kray stay face down on the floor.

  He lay there for several minutes. Finally an individual Swarm entered, moving smoothly on its downside tentacles. It was a gray orb, five feet in diameter with eyes spaced evenly about the body so that it had a complete field of vision in every direction. Between the eyes, also in all directions were a dozen knobs from which tentacles, four to eight feet long, extended. Each was thin, barely an inch or two in diameter, but strong. The end of each tentacle consisted of ‘fingers’, ranging from three to six in number. Four of those tentacles were currently used as ‘legs’ so it could move to a position astride Kray, two on each side. Three eyes were in the field of vision and they stared at him in his red armor.

  The creature had no ears or mouth or nose. Each tentacle housed a basic brain stem that communicated with the one of the four brain hemispheres, whichever was closest to its attaching knob.

  While it waited, the entrance to the chamber filled with red, organic material, sealing it. The red began to harden. The chamber was in a part of the Core that had suffered damage from the Teardrop attack. On either side were nuked hangars with debris and radiated material scattered throughout.

  Once the chamber was secure, the Swarm lifted one tentacle and opened the metallic rectangle on Kray’s back, exposing the nuclear warhead. It was a standard Airlia design, which the Swarm had encountered before in missiles and during reapings of Airlia worlds. The Swarm disarmed the warhead. Then it removed the weapon from the back of the suit.

  It carried the nuke several feet away.

  Kray was forced to stand by the parasite. Then he removed the red armor suit until he was naked.

  A four-foot-long tentacle detached from the Swarm and slithered across the black floor and crawled up Kray’s body.

  He felt it but could do nothing. The parasite on his spine forced his mouth open. Kray’s stomach churned in revulsion and the muscles in his jaws vibrated from powerful conscious and subconscious desires to close his mouth. The fingered tip of the tentacle entered his mouth and slithered inside and down his throat. Once it was completely in, it partly dissolved, spreading out, seeping into every part of his nervous system, including his brain. It also absorbed the original parasite.

  Despite all this, Kray still controlled his conscious thought. Even though he couldn’t say it out loud, he thought it with all his being: May we travel on through All-Life with joy in our soul.

  STONEFENDING

  HEGEMONY, EARTH15

  The standing stones were set in a circle on the edge of a fifty-foot cliff above a lazily flowing river. There were twelve, of varying heights, ranging from three to four meters. Horizontal lintel stones connected the tops of several. One lintel had been pushed or fallen off, landing askew on the outer edge.

  “These do not belong here,” Orlock noted. “The stones are from the ridge. This area is limestone. How did they end up here? Placed on end? And lifted to the top? Your ship?”

  “Markus and I put them in place,” Bren said. “When we first arrived on this planet. We cut the stones out of West Ridge and flew them here. It took a while.” She smiled sadly, remembering that long-ago time. “But we were in no rush. After being on the mothership in deep sleep for so long and then the long flight into this system, it was exhilarating to be able to breath fresh air. To be out in the sun. In the rain.”

  They walked between two stones. The grass was knee high, but there were well worn paths crisscrossing the space inside.

  “People come here,” Nagil noted.

  “Yes. To worship. To meet. To look at the night sky. This place has served many different purposes over time for the humans in the area. The key, though, is that no one settles close by. They only come for a specific reason. Mainly to wonder what you just wondered. How these stones were brought here, put on end, arranged so carefully. We aligned them with the sun, with the moons, for different key times of year.”

  “We’ve heard of this place,” Orlock said. “The people in Hegemony
call it StoneFending.”

  “It has had different names over the years,” Bren said, “but that is the one that has endured.”

  “Where is the ship?” Orlock asked.

  Bren pointed down. “Below us. We cut into the cliff face, then fused the limestone, sealing the opening.” She went to the largest stone. She placed an amulet from her pocket on a certain spot and a door slid open, similar to what the Nagil used for their tunnel entrances.

  “There is shielding over the ship to protect it from Airlia scans,” Bren said. “It has not moved since we landed.”

  They entered the tight space and the door closed. They dropped down, roughly twenty feet to a small opening on top of Bren’s spaceship. The ship was in a space barely larger than its dimensions, limestone walls a foot away. The craft was saucer shaped with a bulge in the front center. There were two pods in the rear that encased the engines. The skin of the craft was dull gray, covered by a red mesh; the shielding. The hatch was in the center top.

  Bren used her medallion to open it and descended a ladder. Power came on, providing light. The two command chairs were actually depressions set in the floor. Behind them, crammed near the engine compartments, were two black tubes with a console in between at the near end. Inside each was a body: clones of Bren and Markus. Set in the rear wall was a vat of green fluid. The vague outline of a human was barely visible, the base material for a new clone.

  Each body in the tubes had a skullcap with wires running from it to the command console.

  “Their eyes are open,” Orlock said. “Are they aware?”

  “No,” Bren said as she typed into the console. “They’re blank slates.”

  Orlock looked at the female body, then Bren. “Exactly the same?”

  “Exactly. Except for this.” Bren tapped the side of her head. “There are nanoprobes running from what’s on their head into the brain. When I insert this—” she removed the ka from the chain around her neck—“into here.” She put it into a slot on the side of the console. A light glowed orange on the board. “I can send the last iteration of Markus into the clone’s brain. It’s more than just his memories. It’s his personality. Everything.”