Nepenthe Rising

by John Triptych

  Hauk activated his tactical display and was pleasantly surprised. It seemed the Nepenthe had already fired her gauss cannons before she activated the fusion engines. By the time the fourth destroyer had changed her heading, several bursts of tungsten and carbon rods had impacted the hull of the enemy vessel, completely disabling her.

  “Enemy vessel in front of us is out, and the ones behind us think we all died when the Amerigo went down,” Strand said. “We’re home free.”

  14 Commitment

  Once centrifugal gravity had returned to the Nepenthe’s habitable decks, Dr. Dhara Hayer slumped back on the side of the bed. The door leading out into the corridor was transparent in order to give the visual illusion of space, but the obvious reality of being confined in a prison cell couldn’t be denied by the mind.

  It had been weeks since her abduction, and she had dutifully kept her mouth shut. Dhara was surprised they didn’t torture her, since she had heard all sorts of rumors about the bloodthirstiness of these outlaws. The endless hours of doing nothing but staring at the walls turned her thoughts inward, and she spent each second poring over her regrets about what she tried to do just before they captured her.

  If I could just take it back, I would. The scene replayed itself in her mind over and over again. The images and sensations had burned so deeply into her psyche, and she could no longer recall anything else. She remembered the gun in her hand. The image of Maeve’s terrified face as Dhara pointed the weapon at her ward and pulled the trigger. The action had felt so reflexive, as if she had been conditioned to do it, despite her long-term affection for the girl.

  Dhara had been under orders. Her superiors had told her the same thing over and over again. Do not allow Subject Zero to fall into the hands of the enemy. She even surmised they might have placed a subliminal trigger in her AI implant, turning her into a killer when the proper circumstances arose. How else would she have had the courage to actually point a gun at the girl she once considered as her own daughter?

  No matter how hard she tried, the furies in her mind kept hounding her with guilt. As they were brought into the pirate ship, Maeve had refused to even look at her. Dhara tried to apologize for her actions, only to be angrily rebuffed. She had never known Maeve to act like she did, but then again Dhara had tried to kill her and nearly succeeded.

  Their argument in the main holding cell had become so heated even the pirates decided to separate them. Perhaps it’s for the better, she thought. Maeve wants me dead for breaking the trust between us. I don’t blame her for feeling that way.

  Her brooding dulled her alertness, and she didn’t notice the cell block door sliding open until a voice from the corridor called out to her. “Dr. Hayer, would you come out here?”

  Dhara got up in surprise. The voice belonged to the captain of the Nepenthe. Something was happening. With no other choices available to her, she slowly made her way towards the now open cell door in trepidation. Peering out into the corridor, she instantly saw the group of four standing in front of her.

  Commander Creull stood fully upright near the end of the corridor. “Hurry up.”

  With nothing else to lose, Dhara stepped out into the passageway and faced them. “What do you want?”

  Zeno’s emotionless stare was somewhat disconcerting to her. “We know about Maeve Lindros now. And of your work concerning the artifact uncovered on New Zion.”

  Dhara looked down at the floor. “If you know everything, then I guess this is the end of the line for me?”

  “We’re not going to execute you,” Captain Lucien Dangard said. “We’d like to ask you for your help.”

  Dhara was taken aback. “My help? You hold me prisoner for weeks and you want my help?”

  “The one who hired us didn’t tell us everything,” Zeno said. “From what we gathered, this faction is most probably a rival to the ones who financed your research. We suspect they are either executive oligarchs or high-ranking politicians with an agenda.”

  Creull wanted to get to the point. Her species had no tolerance for patient conversation. “Do you know who financed your team?”

  Dhara shook her head. “Not really. All I know is we didn’t have a budget per se, and we could do whatever we wanted.”

  Garrett Strand rubbed his chin. “Like altering personnel records to make it look like Maeve’s parents were childless, thereby owning her completely, allowing you to do whatever you want, right?”

  Dhara scowled. “It wasn’t like that! I was running things. I made sure no one ever abused her. We always treated her with respect.”

  “By shutting her away in a remote outpost and not even adding her existence as a citizen into the Union database,” Captain Dangard said. “You and your staff treated her like a lab animal.”

  Dhara looked away in shame. “Look, I myself requested to at least make her a citizen, but I was overruled. I had no choice. The Institute review board threatened me with a black mark on my record if I ever disobeyed their directives.”

  “So you placed your career over your humanity, huh? Pretty pathetic,” Strand said.

  Dhara pointed at the group in front of her. “You all talk about morality to me? You’re pirates! How many people have you killed, huh? You just go about plundering and pillaging whenever you feel like it. Excuse me for stating the obvious, but none of you ought to be lecturing me about ethics.”

  “You’re right,” Captain Dangard said. “We do all of those things and more. But the main reason we wanted to talk to you is because of her.” He turned and gestured with his hand towards the open bulkhead at the end of the corridor.

  Maeve Lindros stepped into the passageway. Dhara had to place a hand over her mouth to stop herself from making an inadvertent gasp. The teenage girl had been listening the whole time.

  Creull had instinctively tensed up, ready for action. She remained beside Maeve at the end of the cell block, along with Strand.

  Maeve’s voice was a pained whisper. “I’m just an experiment to you?”

  Dhara shook her head slowly. “No, Maeve. You were always a true person to me, my dear.”

  The teenage girl had tears in her eyes. “You tried to kill me! I trusted you!”

  Dhara looked down at the floor in shame. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight. I … I thought they were going to torture us, rape us. I … I wanted to spare you from that.”

  “It’s a lie and you know it,” the captain said. “You were under orders not to let the Institute’s most prized asset fall into enemy hands. Well, she did. You need to tell her everything now.”

  Dhara took a deep breath before she spoke. Perhaps talking about Maeve’s parents would gain me some sympathy. “Maeve, I was with your parents when the … accident happened. They were good people. Your mother was due to rotate out of the excavation site in order to prepare for your birth.”

  Despite what she had done, Maeve knew she couldn’t hate Dhara. The girl gave a slight snort to keep her nose from running. “What happened to them?”

  Dhara looked away and sighed, unable to make eye contact. “To this day we don’t know what really happened. Your parents and four others were right beside the artifact when it suddenly began to glow even brighter; nobody knew why. I was in the control booth and I told them to evacuate the immediate area at once.”

  Zeno recalled the exact words on the report they had retrieved from Azusa Station. So far she was telling the truth. “The files indicated the artifact didn’t explode right away. At least a minute passed. Why didn’t they follow your orders?”

  Dhara shook her head. “I don’t know. It was like they were rooted to the spot. One of the other researchers, Dr. Clancy, had fallen to the ground beside the artifact and began convulsing. Maeve’s parents remained where they were. It was as if some … some force had compelled them to stop.”

  “The other staff members in the area also sensed something,” Zeno said. “Could you elaborate on that part?”

  “We all did,” Dhara said. “It w
as like a shrill scream echoing through our minds. So loud it was painful. I cringed and could barely concentrate, even though I was in an environmentally sealed room overlooking the dig.”

  “Go on,” Dangard said.

  “The next thing I knew, the artifact we had uncovered at the dig site just exploded,” Dhara said.

  Zeno’s features were like a statue’s; only his mouth moved. “Exploded? How? The report said there were no debris after it had detonated.”

  “All I know is there was a blinding yellow light, like a supernova,” Dhara said softly. “Then it was followed by a shockwave emanating from the pit, and it wrecked all the buildings near the excavation. All of us were temporarily stunned by the blast. When we recovered, both the artifact and the noise were gone.”

  They had given Maeve a wrist smartcom. The girl activated the device’s holographic display, which showed the artifact in question. The dig site on New Zion was like an open pit, covered up and cordoned off by the Institute to shield the project from prying eyes. Only a portion of the relic was exposed by the excavation, and it looked like an ornate, five-meter-tall pointed cone made of strange, glowing metal. The surface of the bizarre artifact seemed to refract light in different directions, like the shifting currents of an ocean.

  “I led the emergency teams down into the site as soon as I recovered, but it was too late,” Dhara said softly. “Everybody down there was dead.”

  “You said the explosion was powerful enough to wreck the buildings around the site,” Zeno said. “Wouldn’t it severely damage the bodies of the researchers closest to it?”

  “It’s a big mystery,” Dhara said. “When we got down there, the bodies were intact, with no visible injuries. It was as if they had just fallen asleep.”

  Strand pursed his lips. “How did you recover Maeve?”

  “Our medical scanners told us that all life signs of the researchers in the blast were negative, except for one,” Dhara said. “Maeve’s mother showed zero life signs, but the child inside of her continued to live. I made the decision for an emergency caesarian section and we were able to save the baby.”

  Tears ran down Maeve’s eyes. “Who named me?”

  “I did,” Dhara said softly. “Your mother was fond of that name, so I figured it was appropriate.”

  Maeve sniffed again to keep her nose from running. “My parents, what did you do with their bodies?”

  “I don’t know,” Dhara said. “I believe the Institute sent them to another research station for analysis, or maybe even back to Earth.”

  “And the artifact?” the captain asked.

  Dhara shook her head. “Gone. As if it never even existed. All that was left was a huge sinkhole in the ground.”

  Creull’s tentacle whiskers scratched her own jawline. It was a sign that curiosity had overtaken her impatience. “What happened then?”

  “The board issued new directives to me,” Dhara said. “My team pivoted its research over to Maeve. They sent us to a remote facility on another planet. Maximum security. The deaths of the others were reported publicly as accidents.”

  The captain narrowed his eyes. “You stayed with the project for years, even though many in your team left after their regular rotations ended. Why?”

  Dhara finally locked eyes with the teenage girl. “I guess I grew fond of you. Maeve, you’re smart and very kind. I was offered other research projects, but I turned them down for you. I knew your mother very well and felt it was my duty to care for you after she passed on.”

  It was Maeve’s turn to look away. Her hatred for Dhara had largely dissipated. Maeve wanted to say out loud that she had forgiven her, but the girl’s throat was parched from the sobbing, and she remained quiet.

  “How soon did you find out about Maeve’s ability?” Zeno asked.

  “We received reports about Dr. Clancy—the one who convulsed before the explosion,” Dhara said. “It seems he was an intel operative for the Concordance. When they ran an autopsy on his body, they found a dead symbiote attached to his spine. Since it was Clancy’s first time at the dig site, I personally believe it was the proximity of the symbiote which triggered the explosion.”

  Creull made a low, incredulous growl. “You’re saying this artifact somehow detected a symbiote was present, and blew itself up?”

  Dhara nodded. “I know it sounds crazy, but we looked at everything else that could have been the cause. We weren’t doing anything new that particular day. Dr. Clancy had just been assigned to the field team and asked to go down and take a look at the artifact in person. It had to be a reaction against that particular species.”

  “Go on,” Dangard said.

  “We began doing experiments that confirmed an adverse symbiote reaction to Maeve,” Dhara said. “We used her blood samples, and it seemed to be toxic to their species; even the symbiote dead tissue deteriorated when exposed to her blood.”

  “Tell us about the live ones,” Zeno said.

  Dhara bit her lip. She didn’t want to openly admit to the time when one of her assistants left a container with a live symbiote underneath Maeve’s bed while she slept. It was a good thing the child had gone out to breakfast as soon as she had awoken, for the symbiote had crawled away from the bed and hidden in the closet; they had to kill it afterwards. “There were a few live tests, yes.”

  “Like the time you placed a box in front of me and told me not to open it,” Maeve said. “When I placed my hands on the top there was a loud squealing noise, so I got scared and ran out of the room. Did that box have a symbiote in it?”

  “Yes, it did,” Dhara said softly.

  “You never told me what was inside it. You said it was a mouse.”

  “I’m sorry, Maeve,” Dhara said. “I didn’t want you to be scared.”

  The captain raised his hand. “Alright, what’s done is done. So you concluded that Maeve is immune to symbiotic attachments. What were you planning to do with her?”

  “I don’t know,” Dhara said. “After the last report I sent to the board, the Institute ordered me to transport her to Earth—that’s when you intercepted us.”

  “Your reports about the extent of Maeve’s abilities are somewhat vague,” Zeno said. “Just how applicable is this ability of hers?”

  Dhara let out a deep breath. “Maeve projects some sort of energy field, not visible to the naked eye, but it can be tracked with electromagnetic sensors. Any symbiotes within close proximity of her somehow lose their mental hold on their host bodies. Prolonged exposure to this energy field kills them.”

  “There were a number of plausible theories at the end of your last report too,” Zeno said. “You postulated it is possible for Maeve to extend her energy field. How?”

  Dhara nodded. “It’s just a theory, but I believe we could empower Maeve further if there was a similar artifact of the same type her parents were exposed to. I’ve done some experiments with other sources of energy and they don’t have any apparent effects.”

  “I remember those,” Maeve said. “You made me sit beside a portable fusion generator for hours and you never told me what for. Now I know why.”

  “You have a gift, Maeve,” Dhara said softly. “If we could somehow enhance your ability, it could prove to be the key to freeing all those that are enslaved by the symbiotes. Think about it, you could be the key to uniting the galaxy once again.”

  Maeve scowled. “If this is a gift then I don’t want it!” She quickly turned around and stalked out of the corridor.

  Strand followed her out. “I’ll keep her out of trouble,” he said before disappearing from view.

  Dhara sighed. “So what now? I’ve told you pretty much everything.”

  “We had a vote,” Creull said.

  Dhara raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “The entire crew always has a say in whatever we do,” the captain said. “They all voted on whether to turn you both over to the ones who hired us, or to do something else.”

  “And what was the outc
ome of this vote?” Dhara asked.

  “The latter,” Creull said. “The majority voted to allow Maeve to become part of this crew. She accepted.”

  “I get it,” Dhara said. “So what about me?”

  “We could drop you off at our next stop,” Creull said. “Since we will not honor the terms of our bargain with this rival faction, we have no use for you anymore.”

  Dhara thought about it. If she returned to Earth empty-handed it would be the end of her career either way. “I’d like to stay. I still have affection for Maeve, and I’d like to make amends with her.”

  The captain crossed his arms. “So you want to join us just for her? You realize you’ll be hunted for the rest of your life.”

  “If I don’t bring her back to the Institute I’m done anyway,” Dhara said. “I guess I don’t have much of a choice.”

  Zeno turned to face his superior. “Captain, if I may suggest, there is a way for us to test the extent of this theory about Maeve’s energy field.”

  “Let’s hear it,” the captain said.

  “The database I retrieved from the station has a number of interesting files we are slowly decrypting,” Zeno said. “One particular artifact that seems to be of the same make is on the planet Horizon, in the Vela Molecular Region.”

  “That’s right on the border of Union and Concordance space,” Creull said.

  “Correct,” Zeno said. “Of particular importance is a joint dig site on Horizon. It’s a closely guarded secret and there is mutual cooperation between the Union and Concordance science teams stationed on that world. A tricky situation, but the description of the artifact found there is very similar to the one that killed Maeve’s parents and imbued her with this energy field.”

  “Sounds interesting,” the captain said. “We’ll take it up for a vote with the crew.”

  15 The Setup

  Over the centuries, Hellas Basin became the focal point when it came to terraforming Mars into a livable biosphere for humanity. It was one of the largest impact craters on the planet, and a huge transparent nanocarbon tarp, stretching over two thousand klicks, was spread out to cover the entire width of the crater to create the proper atmospheric density and composition so colonists would not need to wear any e-suits when venturing into the area.