The Calypsis Project Boxed Set (Books 1-2 - The Echo-Alpha Duology)

by Brittany M. Willows

“There is nothing we can do.” Kenon clutched his bow tighter, withdrawing from the console. “. . . We are out of options.”

  “No we’re not—there’s still time!”

  Lieutenant Knoble leaned in toward the camera; the static interference on the screen was growing more intense, distorting his face. “Alana, it’s okay. We’re going to be fine.”

  She knew that tone. It was the one he used when he wanted to convince her that everything was going to be all right even when it was clear that things were going very, very badly.

  The video feed to the shuttle died abruptly, and Alana immediately accessed TEAMCOM. At least she could rely on her helmet’s integrated radio to keep her connected with her stepfather. “Don’t start talking like that, Lance, you know it doesn’t work on me.”

  “What do you want me to tell you?”

  “I want you to hold onto hope.”

  “I can’t hold onto something that’s not there, kiddo.”

  Alana squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip.

  Lance Knoble was the only family she had left, and even though they hadn’t had much contact since her transfer to Calypsis, they’d remained close. She didn’t want to lose him—not like this. Not ever.

  “We’ve lost power entirely,” Knoble said. “You and I both know if there was anything that could’ve been done, it would have been done by now.”

  “I shouldn’t have left—”

  “It’s not your fault. Blame fate. Blame whoever it was that kept the truth about Calypsis hidden. Or blame the guys who went to Tyrill and didn’t leave when they were told to.”

  “You’re not going to tell me to stick it to the crazy-ass lizards for starting a war with us?”

  “Oh, I’d love to. But you wanted me to start being nice to them, didn’t you?” he chuckled. “Speaking of which . . . I know he’s not going to say it, so I’ll say it for him. Kenon says ‘bye’. And of course the Doc’s not going to say anything ‘cause she hates goodbyes, doesn’t she?”

  “Can’t say I like them very much either.” Tears ran down Alana’s cheeks and dripped onto her harness, shining in the dull light of the displays. She could see on the viewscreen that Pioneer was now a mere fifteen meters from the portal. “Lance, I won’t say goodbye.”

  “That’s my girl. You’ve done well. I’m proud of you. Don’t ever forget that, okay?”

  “I won’t. You know I won’t.”

  A long moment passed before either of them spoke again, and when Knoble did finally break the silence his voice was barely audible.

  “I’ll see you on the other side, sport.”

  “No, please! Lance!” she screamed.

  A horrible screech and crackle pierced Alana’s ears and the connection died. On the forward viewscreen, she watched as Pioneer slipped into the portal, which shimmered for a few seconds longer before shrinking and vanishing.

  The Nepheran battlecruiser, rather than attacking the Legacy of Night, pulled away and disappeared into a slipstream portal of its own. It wasn’t after them; it had only come out here to take care of the shuttle.

  Alana backed away from the console and lifted her helmet off her head, feeling claustrophobic. She drew her hand up and covered her mouth, her legs weak—shaking uncontrollably. She collapsed to the floor.

  Lieutenant Jenkinson hurried to her side and wrapped his arms around her in an attempt to calm her down, to comfort her.

  “He’s gone, Kurt,” she sobbed quietly, gripping his forearm. “They’re all gone . . .” It all seemed so surreal, like she was trapped in some kind of horrible nightmare with no escape. She couldn’t wake up.

  No one could wake her up.

  And although her friend was right beside her, holding her close, she couldn’t help but feel more lost and alone than ever before.

  ———PART IV———

  FAREWELL, GOOD-BYE

  Chapter

  —TWENTY-EIGHT—

  2120 Hours, January 17, 2439 (Earth Calendar) / Chambers Metamorphosis Research Division, planet Calypsis

  Dr. Robert Larson was an employee of the Bureau of Scientific Investigations and had been since the age of twenty-three. He was a member of Sector 3—the division dedicated to researching the Metamorphosis plague.

  For forty years he had worked alongside the Bureau’s best and brightest, and for thirty-five of those years he’d had the opportunity to operate under one of the galaxy’s most famous scientists: Dr. Charlotte Ann Chambers.

  Larson had learned very early on, serving as her assistant, that she could be a handful at times. Forced to work with BSI when she would have preferred to continue her studies alone, she was already ill-tempered—but if you rubbed her the wrong way, you were just asking for trouble.

  Her cynical view of the government was somewhat understandable—as was her attitude towards people in general. Having grown up in an orphanage and survived three whole decades on a dying planet filled with spiteful, vicious rebels . . . It was a wonder Chambers had even made it to Calypsis in one piece.

  There were quite a few incidences in the past in which Larson wished he had never worked for her at all; a few arguments that’d gone too far and nearly led to his resignation. But now he wished for nothing more than to see her in the office again, tapping away vigorously at her computer or running some wild experiment.

  Dr. Chambers had been missing for one month and thirteen days. The last anyone had heard of her whereabouts, she was aboard the assault carrier, Legacy of Night. That information had come directly from Admiral Phillip Anderson, and there hadn’t been any news since.

  However, there was a lot of strangeness and secrecy surrounding her disappearance. On that same day, a party of Sector 0 agents showed up to question Larson and his colleagues. They never left—even a month later they were still just hanging around in the building for no apparent reason.

  And if anyone were to pose a question regarding Dr. Chambers’ absence, the agents would carefully tiptoe around the subject and make out like it was no big deal. From Larson’s perspective, it seemed they had stopped searching for her altogether.

  Fingers snapped right in front of Dr. Larson’s face, so close they were out of focus, and distracted him from his thoughts. Blinking a few times, Larson shook his head and turned to look at Dr. Lang, who was walking down the hallway beside him.

  Jun Lang was a man of Chinese descent—an uncommon sighting within the inner colonies since most of China’s population had been wiped out during the initial Metamorphosis outbreak on Earth. He’d joined Chambers’ research group twelve years ago.

  “Are you even with me right now? Come on, come on, pay attention,” Dr. Lang said promptly. It was as if he were in some sort of rush. But if there was anything they had an abundance of, it was time. “This is important. Some guys over at Sector Two think they may have discovered a way to deactivate the containment shield.”

  The shield he spoke of first appeared back in December. It had expanded around the planet immediately following a series of violent earthquakes and trapped the whole of Calypsis’ populace on the surface.

  But if the alien tech experts thought they could shut it down . . .

  “They think?” Larson said. “I don’t like that word, Lang. Do they have any material to back them up, or is this just another theory like the one that drove Admiral Stanforth to attack the Drocain High City?”

  “Codes, data—that’s what they’ve got. They need an AI.”

  “Our AI is out of order,” Larson reminded him. For some unknown reason, Orion’s core had ceased all activity the same day Dr. Chambers went missing. “Point them to Sector Zero; Lincoln might be willing to offer his assistance.”

  “He’s no Orion.”

  “He’s the next best thing.”

  Larson and Lang stopped outside the open door leading into Dr. Chambers’ office. There were empty storage containers scattered about the room—metal for packing fragile items such as test samples and vials of blood, and plastic for whatever
else.

  A couple of large steel crates containing lab equipment had already been sealed, tagged, and stacked onto a hand truck by the entranceway. These crates would be moved into temporary storage whilst BSI conducted their investigations in the tunnel running beneath the building’s foundation.

  As soon as they were finished, a construction crew would come in, collapse the tunnel—preventing anyone else from accessing it—and then proceed to tear down the rest of the laboratory.

  The whole building was scheduled for reconstruction. In fact, it was long overdue because Dr. Chambers had never signed the approval papers. Now that she was gone, however, BSI could do as they pleased.

  Come autumn, this place would no longer feel like home. It would become a two-story building with a brand new security system and a more “convenient” layout. And since Orion appeared to be broken, S0 wanted to remove his core from the structure and replace it with a brand new one.

  Larson couldn’t allow them to do that.

  “I’ll leave you to it.” Dr. Lang patted him on the shoulder and then carried on down the hall with his clipboard tucked under his arm.

  Larson heaved a heavy sigh and entered the office, instantly noticing how huge and desolate it felt now. The tank containing Subject P37ER-01 was gone, probably inside the shuttle Pioneer . . . wherever it was. In case of an emergency, Chambers had had a second transportation rail built in to connect the tank to her shuttle—that way, it wouldn’t be lost if she had to vacate the lab in a hurry.

  Sitting down at the absent doctor’s desk, Larson stared at the mound of paperwork piled next to a small wooden case. Inside were an assortment of pens and extra nibs for a stylus. There was an old maple leaf pin in there, too. Most of the red paint on the leaf had worn off, and the silver ribbon behind it had turned to a tarnished gray.

  A memento from Earth—from the country Charlotte Chambers had grown up in. Larson reached into the case and gently picked it up, rubbing his thumb over the scratches as he wondered what Earth had been like before the plague.

  Remembering he’d come here to pack up the Doctor’s things, he slipped the pin into the breast pocket of his lab coat and then closed the case. As much as he hated having to do this, he couldn’t leave it to anyone else.

  He was Chambers’ assistant.

  It was his job to clean up, and his alone.

  Chapter

  —TWENTY-NINE—

  1100 Hours, March 22, 2439 (Earth Calendar) / Kingdom of Oe’Nhervon, planet Thei’legh, Phoenix System

  Thei’legh, home of the Leh’kin—a planet covered mostly by vast lands of flat reddish stone, deserts, and lush rainforests. It was very much like the Drahkori home planet, Dyre, only warmer. According to the locals, it was like this almost all year round.

  Corporal Alana Carmen sat on the golden sands that formed the shoreline of the Sea of Ocel. An old acoustic guitar sat in her lap; a 2401 Yamaha model she’d received as a birthday gift from her stepfather. Plucking at the metal strings, she played a melancholy song as the setting sun touched the sea to flame.

  A quiet memorial had been held on the beach a few hours ago to honor the memories of those who perished within Calypsis, and those who followed shortly after.

  Only a handful of people came to pay their final respects—Jenkinson, Carter, Parker, and Alpha Team. Each of them said a few words, shared some stories, and then cleared out; allowing Alana to have the beach to herself for a while.

  Three months had passed since the incident—since the demise of her stepfather, Dr. Chambers, and Kenon. She was starting to return to her usual activities, beginning to feel a little more cheerful . . . yet she still couldn’t make herself believe what had happened.

  Alana convinced herself that all she needed was time to sort this mess out, to work past the depression and the guilt—just as she’d done when her mother and little sister died. In another three months or so everything would return to normal and she would be strong enough to accept that Lance was gone.

  I thought for so long that if any of us were going to get shot, blown up, or reduced to ashes . . . it would be me. I thought that you, Lance, with all your experience in combat, would have been able to journey to the depths of hell and come out alive.

  But I guess when you get right down to the core of it, it’s not always experience that determines who will leave the field victorious. It’s the moment, the location . . . and you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  She wished she could say there’d been no warning signs, no unusual readings on the radar—but, while not blatantly obvious, there had been one. She’d gotten that horrible feeling in her gut—the feeling that told her something very bad was about to happen, and she’d ignored it.

  But she couldn’t blame herself. Lance wouldn’t want that.

  Alana’s thoughts drifted, replaced by the tune she played on her guitar. She drew in a breath and began to sing softly.

  “. . . I remember you said,

  ‘I’ll stay until the sun dies.

  I’ll watch with you as the sky breaks apart.

  But when hell rains down I’ll have to go,

  I must depart.

  I’ll see you again someday,

  but until then,

  stay strong . . .”

  She trailed off and stopped playing. Tears welled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as she stared at the waves rippling along the shoreline.

  “A beautiful tune; heartfelt and filled with sorrow. The words speak of disaster, yet they ring with hope,” a voice said from behind her.

  Face prickling with embarrassment, Alana quickly dried her eyes and looked over her shoulder to see who had come to join her on the beach.

  Levian ‘Nher stood a few feet away, hands clasped behind his back and tail sweeping the sands as he gazed out over the water. His purple armor gleamed pink and gold in the orange sunlight.

  “I sing when nothing else works,” Alana said, turning back to the sea. “When it’s quiet I think too much and the guilt starts creeping up on me again. Talking is pointless because I get so uptight and emotional that I pretty much lose my ability to speak.” Folding her arms over her guitar, she straightened her legs and let out a sigh. “I mean, I’ve lost people I cared about before, but . . . after I got transferred to Calypsis there was no one around to remind me of what had happened.”

  Levian came forward a couple of steps and stopped beside the soldier, but he didn’t utter a word—he simply stood there and listened.

  Alana met his gaze for a second, silently thanking him for being there, then looked away again.

  “You know, I didn’t think I would miss Kenon this much,” she admitted. “Dr. Chambers and Lance I’ve known for a while, but Kenon . . . I was with him for—what? Three or four days? I don’t usually form attachments to people that fast, let alone aliens from halfway across the galaxy.” Alana was sure that out the corner of her eye she’d seen a small smile flash across Levian’s face.

  “It is only natural to mourn the loss of loved ones and companions—whether old, or new,” Levian told her. “I have not experienced such tragedy myself . . . However, I know what my family would want me to do should they pass before me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They would want me to honor their memory and never forget the moments we shared—no matter good or bad. They would ask for me to move on and live out the rest of my life—not in misery, but in acceptance. You cannot save everyone.”

  And we’re only going to lose more people if we don’t stop the Nephera and the Drocain soon . . . We might not be able to save everyone, but we can sure as hell try, Alana thought to herself, accepting the blue warrior’s hand when he held it out. He pulled her to her feet and she brushed the sand from the back of her legs.

  “So, what do we do now?” she asked, picking up her helmet and guitar.

  Levian waved his hand, signaling for the soldier to follow him as he walked back up the beach. “We have been granted an au
dience with the King of Oe’Nhervon,” he said. “I want you to contact the admiral of your home fleet at once—tell him to meet with my knights at the docking station in Alqui as soon as possible . . .

  “. . . For tonight, Alana Carmen, we ignite a new flame.”

  ——EPILOGUE——

  AD VITAM REDITUS

  Long have I awaited your return, Valinquint.

  A decade turned to a century, a century to a millennium . . . and after nearly one hundred thousand years, you have shown your new face—reborn to complete your journey, to bring an end to the evil in this universe.

  . . .

  You may not yet remember who you once were—what you became, the blood on your hands, and the disasters in your name . . . But when it becomes necessary, when you are ready, all shall be revealed.

  Do I dare lie?

  No.

  . . .

  Though you lie frozen in time itself, I will see to it that you rise to see the light of another day.

  I have witnessed your true prowess, warrior.

  You will have your redemption, and I shall be the one to guide you to it.

  For you see, my dear friend . . .

  Your end has yet to come.

  And this?

  This is only the beginning.

  The Calypsis Project II REBIRTH

  By Brittany M. Willows

  ——PART I——

  TURNING THE TIDES

  Chapter

  ———ONE———

  0146 Hours, May 23, 2439 (Earth Calendar) / Caenlegh Castle, Kingdom of Oe’Nhervon, planet Thei’legh, Phoenix System