Origins

by Jamie Sawyer

  “We have transport,” I said. “We can follow your signal. Just tell me where you are.”

  Elena’s eyes were so much harder than I remembered. Her mouth opened to speak. I willed her on, was desperate to hear her voice one more time: drew near to her so close that I could feel her weak breath on my ear.

  “Devonia,” she whispered. “Planetary coordinates zero-three, delta nine…” Those were grid coordinates. Not precise, but enough to go on. She swallowed. “I’ll be waiting.”

  And then it was over.

  The machine beside Elena began a steady chirping. Some of her vital signs were spasming. Shit! I grabbed Elena’s naked shoulder, clutched it as though this would stop her from leaving me. The bio-monitor gave out a loud beep. The previously jagged graphics on the holo began to flatten, indicating only one thing.

  The body was still; deathly still.

  Empty.

  Elena had extracted.

  How many times was I destined to watch the woman I loved die?

  I held her hand until it had become ice, watched the guttering light in her dark eyes. Around me, the Colossus rang out with the occasional warning chime, and I was repeatedly summoned to the briefing room by the ship’s AI. The announcements were gradually becoming more persistent, but I ignored them.

  This was the horror. This was the deep hurt.

  I’d lost her in Damascus, watched her fall from the Atefact’s Hub, having been shot by Williams’ Warfighters: a brief and terrible agony. Now I had seen her die from a Krell bio-toxin, body ravaged by alien venom. But I’d lost Elena twice even before then: once on Azure, when she had left me to join the Endeavour’s expedition, then again on Calico Base when she had gone into the Maelstrom. It seemed that history was destined to repeat itself indefinitely: that I was trapped in the spiral of Martinez’s Nine Hells.

  I leant forward and kissed Elena on the lips, reached for the bed sheet, and folded it very precisely over her. Her open eyes were the last thing I saw of her face.

  “I… I’m sorry. We heard what happened.”

  I turned to see Kaminski standing at the door. I’d been so wrapped in this moment that I hadn’t even heard him enter.

  “Seeing her like that…” he said. “Next-generation sims creep me out. Too close to the real thing.”

  I noticed that Kaminski was doing his best to avoid looking at the outline of the body on the bed, eyes flitting between the ground and me. He had known Elena too; had been recruited by her in the early days of the Sim Ops Programme. The three of us were locked into this unholy triumvirate: we’d been there at the start, but were we going to be left standing at the end?

  I stared back at Elena’s body. “It’s not like I haven’t been here before.”

  Kaminski nodded. He still carried the simulation stigmata: blood-red slashes across his shaven head and, with his uniform unbuttoned at the neck, visible across his collarbone too.

  “I read the Damascus debrief,” he said. “She really wants you to find her, Harris. This is the second time that she’s done this, and it must’ve taken some serious planning. Think about it for a moment: how did Elena know that we were on that ship?”

  “What’s your point?”

  Kaminski looked pleased with himself, a big kid who had worked out a homework problem. “You’re forgetting that tech is my speciality. I accessed the Endeavour’s mainframe from the Data Deck, before she went down. When we entered the ship, we tripped a silent alarm, and the ship’s AI activated the neutrino array.”

  The neutrino array: the faster-than-light communications suite.

  I rubbed a hand over my unshaven chin. “She knew that we were on that ship…”

  “She knew that someone was on the ship. Martinez has told me that he saw bodies in cryogenic suspension. I guess that those were simulants kept in storage for too long: turned sour.”

  I nodded at Kaminski, felt a swell of purpose inside me. Elena had heard the signal, made transition into the new simulant body… Provided she was in the same galactic neighbourhood, the neutrino array would’ve sent a signal to her within seconds. I guessed that, alerted by the signal, she had made transition to make contact with us. It was an audacious plan, but no more so than what she had done in Damascus, and it had worked.

  “Thanks ’Ski,” I said. “You did good.”

  “I try,” he said, “but I don’t know where the signal was directed.”

  “You might not, but I do.”

  “Then maybe you should come tell us,” Kaminski said. “The Legion is waiting for you.”

  The Legion, Professor Saul, Lieutenant James and Admiral Loeb all occupied the briefing room: quiet and still, awaiting my appearance.

  “That must’ve been rough…” Mason said. She sighed, her slender body shivering.

  That was far from an adequate description of what I was feeling, but Mason was only trying to be kind. I grimaced and nodded away the comment. I took the head of the chamber.

  “Elena is gone,” I said, flatly. “But we’ve got work to do. Anyone want to tell me what happened out there?”

  Loeb’s anger from back in the SOC still simmered, though I could tell given present circumstances he wasn’t going to confront me. “We should’ve pulled out, Harris.”

  “I had to save her. Surely you can see that.”

  Loeb nodded warily. “But that was still a very dangerous thing to do.”

  “We’re alive,” Kaminski said, coming to my aid. “Let’s just be thankful for that.”

  “We got out of the blast radius, if that’s what you mean, but only just.” Loeb looked back to me: “I warned you about the Endeavour’s energy core. A ship that size, equipped with a goliath-pattern power module, is just about the most dangerous weapon in the galaxy.”

  “You got to fight some Krell,” Jenkins added. “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

  “We were on top of the Endeavour when that damned Krell bio-ship turned up,” Loeb said. “We were neutered! Our null-shields were down. The Endeavour’s energy core cooked off. Spilled its payload across local space, and so far as we can tell it took out the Krell war-fleet with it.”

  “How exactly did the Krell get the jump on us?” Martinez asked.

  “That’s a good question,” Loeb said, “but it’s one that I can’t answer. They had no energy trail, and we barely saw them on the scopes until they were right in front of us.”

  Professor Saul leant forward across the table. “They’re evolving, Colonel. Science Division has found the same thing across the Quarantine Zone. They’re evolving all aspects of their bio-technology: able to respond more quickly, equipped with better stealth tech.”

  So turns the cycle of war… I thought.

  “That’d explain all those tertiary-forms,” Jenkins groaned. “The bastards on that ship were bigger and faster than anything I’ve ever seen before.”

  Jenkins sat back in her seat, awkwardly and uncomfortably. She was still suffering, and her reaction reminded me that I was too: every fibre of my body ringing out with ghost-pains from the extraction.

  Loeb continued the explanation. “From the CIC, we saw what was coming – saw the Endeavour’s drive core beginning to bleed off. We started to pull out…” The Buzzard’s words trailed off, and though he avoided looking in my direction the criticism was implicit.

  “Guess the Krell didn’t see what was coming,” Kaminski said, with an empty laugh. “Those stupid fishes aren’t so clever after all.”

  “So what’s the damage?” I asked Loeb.

  He shoved a data-slate in my direction and I took a second to focus on the holo-projection. It showed a green wireframe schematic of the Colossus, populated with red icons from port to stern.

  “In summary,” Loeb said, “there are numerous systems damaged as a result of the operation. A munitions store was compromised; the contents are now spread across near-space. Two water tanks have been ruptured. Deck A-11 was breached; that contained our long-range communications appar
atus. Our port-side thrust control has been lost.”

  “And the good news?” Jenkins said, with another painful wince.

  Loeb glowered at her. “Our energy core is stable, Lieutenant. That’s some very good news, as far as I’m concerned. That means that we aren’t in danger of exploding in the immediate future.”

  “Immediate?” Mason asked.

  “As in within the next few days,” Loeb said. “I can’t be any more specific than that. We suffered a hit on the life-support module, and we’ve lost climate control on most decks.”

  The temperature had noticeably dropped, but I had assumed that was a side-effect of my last extraction. Heating was an essential component of any starship’s life-support system; necessary to protect life as we crossed the void.

  “Can’t we jury-rig it?” I suggested.

  Loeb nodded grimly. “We can, but that’ll involve suspension of all non-essential systems: something I’d rather not do in the Maelstrom.”

  James cleared his throat from across the room. In a fresh sim, he was about the only member of the crew in fighting shape. Everyone else, I realised, carried the stigmata of the extraction: the welts and scars that their simulated counterpart had suffered during the operation.

  “But worse than any of this,” he muttered, “is the fact that we’ve been detected. The Krell know that we’re out here.” There were rumbles of agreement across the board, even from Jenkins. “Those were scoutships, and every fish head in this quadrant is going to be out here looking for us. Based on what the Professor says we probably won’t even see them coming.”

  James was right. Retribution might not be immediate, but by interstellar standards the Krell’s reaction would be swift. That was one of the many unknowns of the Krell intelligence network: exactly how a Collective was able to share information quite so quickly. It was hypothesised that deep within the bellies of those bio-ships were Krell specialised to communicate across the vastness of space, whose only role within the wider shoal was to speak to fellow fishes. Such an advanced fish head had neither been seen nor captured, but Sci-Div were sure that they existed.

  “Then we better get moving,” I said. “When the fish heads get here, we’ll be long gone.”

  “Where are we going?” Loeb said. “We can’t retreat back to the Core; we’ve been through this already—”

  “Devonia,” I said.

  Loeb’s reaction was immediate and uncompromising. “Harris,” he said, “are you out of your fucking mind? That’s surely Krell territory!”

  “We’re following Elena,” I said. “Before she died, she told me things.” I glanced around the room at the tired faces. “Some of which weren’t easy for me to accept…”

  I told them what Elena had said: about the Treaty, and about the coordinates on Devonia. They listened with patent unease. Couldn’t say that I blamed them; the disclosure sat as uncomfortably with me as it did with anyone.

  “Shit…” Martinez said, shaking his head. “This is a lot to take onboard.”

  “If there was no Treaty,” Mason said, “then why was the Endeavour still out here?”

  “You’re always with the questions,” I said. “Look, I don’t have all the answers, Mason. I didn’t get that far, but Elena directed us to Devonia, so that’s where we’re going.”

  Admiral Loeb breathed out slowly, his teeth to his lip. “I was afraid that you might say that.”

  “Can we make the journey?” I asked.

  “It’s possible,” Loeb said, “but it won’t be easy. In our current condition, it’ll take three days to reach under full thrust.”

  “Then that’s where we’re going,” I repeated. I turned to Mason. “And down there we’ll find the answers to those questions.”

  The room fell into an awkward silence as we all digested Elena’s disclosure, and considered what it meant.

  You’ve always had your doubts about what they were doing out here, the voice taunted. Don’t pretend that you didn’t suspect that this was the case…

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE TREATY

  Seven years ago

  The official Alliance Command line was that the Endeavour mission went MIA – missing in action – a couple of years after her passing into the Maelstrom, but the timescales were never precise and it felt like the Alliance had forgotten her a long time before then. The Treaty was a success, or so the politicos claimed, and the Quarantine Zone was established. The First Krell War was at an end, and other than the occasional border dispute the whole affair looked as though it would pass into history as just another example of bloody and pointless conflict so familiar to the human species.

  I didn’t forget about Elena, but everyone else did.

  Cassari Brooke’s new article was the first time anyone had ever called me “Lazarus,” and I tried my best to forget that. It was easily put out of mind but not easily forgotten. I rebuked troopers for calling me it, erased the callsign when I found it on after-mission logs. Tried to deny that which was inevitable. It was slow-burn but the name stuck.

  For a while after Calico, after the Endeavour’s launch, I followed Cassi Brooke’s news articles. I didn’t hear from her, which suited me fine, but I read her stories: exposés on the military, following squads to the frontline, typical war-reporter stuff. Though she’d certainly moved on from cats up trees, the casts weren’t really news to me. A couple of years after our meeting, Brooke just disappeared from the news-feeds. I guessed that she had probably got a marriage contract and a child licence; maybe retired from the dangerous business of being an investigative reporter. In real life, people did that sort of thing.

  I’d learnt an important lesson – that I never trust a reporter – and I got on with existing. Living, dying, drinking. I thought that the bottom of a bottle held the only answers I was ever going to receive.

  Then the strangest thing happened. I was stationed on Liberty Point, at a time when the outpost was still relatively new, when I received a message from her. Text-only, it was a request to meet.

  Somehow, through what method I didn’t know, Cassari Brooke had obtained a pass to Liberty Point. She was on-station and wanted to talk.

  Just as she had done on Calico Base, years before, Brooke chose the meeting place. In those days, with Liberty Point’s firm position as the largest military outpost on the QZ, there were more than enough bars and clubs to choose from. The Civilian District brimmed with drinking holes, but Brooke chose a diner in the maintenance sector. It was a small, rundown place frequented by many of the manual workers and dock-hands – a diner that could’ve easily been exported to the Point from downtown Detroit – filled with men and women wearing ragged uniforms, with grease-stained faces. People, I realised, who were the grist that kept the mill running. They weren’t heroes, and they weren’t proud, but they worked hard. I almost felt out of place in my uniform, with the shiny merit badges and the holo-tag proclaiming the number of times I’d died. These people didn’t care much for that, and as I entered the diner very few even bothered to look up at me.

  I searched the tables, frustrated at first that I couldn’t see Brooke. She’d been specific about the time and location.

  Then a voice called to me from across the room, a figure emerging from one of the booths in the corner.

  “Captain Harris,” she said. Waved a hand. “Over here.”

  I paused for a moment: the recognition wasn’t immediate. Cassari Brooke, formerly of Core News Network, had changed a great deal in the time since I’d last seen her. Patchy recollections of images of her from news stories I’d read came back to me, and she’d changed a lot since those as well. Somewhat reluctantly, I edged my way through the diner and sat with her.

  Her red hair was faded, scruffy, and though she didn’t look much older – I suspected that rejuvenation treatments had kept her objective years at bay – she looked more weathered. All glossiness had gone from her features; body shrinking into a dock-hand’s duffle coverall rather than a reporter’s sma
rt-suit.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said.

  “I could hardly miss it,” I said. “I never did get a chance to thank you for that news story…”

  She gave a pale smile. “Sorry about that. Really, I am.”

  “I wish that I could believe you.”

  “I’ve already ordered coffee,” she said.

  “I’d hoped for something a little stronger.”

  The smile became frosted. “I don’t do that any more.”

  “Yeah, well, I do.”

  “I’ve read about it,” she muttered. “You should rein it in. Take it easy.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first person to tell me that,” I said, “and you surely won’t be the last.”

  The booth at which we sat was beside an open observation window, allowing an unfettered view of the comings and goings of Liberty Point. Lots of warships drifted past; transports and cargo tugs flitting around the larger vessels. We thought, in those days, that we were invincible – that the Krell could never take what we’d made at the Point. Brooke watched the window, fiddling with the wrist-strap of her coverall, biting her lip.

  “Are you still looking for your girl, Conrad?” she asked me.

  “Is that what this is about? Another news story?”

  Brooke’s eyes remained fixed on the window. I noticed that there were no lights behind them: no data-link to the mainframe any more. Had she lost that ability somehow? That was surely a news reporter’s lifeblood.

  In answer to my question, Brooke said, “I don’t do that any more, either. At least, not via the official channels.”

  “I figured as much. I followed your stories on the Sierra Delta. On the war at Sigma.”

  “That’s good,” she said, although she barely sounded interested. “I worked hard on those pieces, and I hope that you enjoyed them.”

  “I wouldn’t say enjoyed,” I said, “but you did a good job covering the Sim Ops Programme involvement.”