Ix Incursion: The Chaos Wave Book 2

by James Palmer

  “After you,” said Tarl.

  Drizda raised her weapon and headed for the entrance to the ruins.

  They heard a rustling from the thick willowy brush off to their right and stopped, weapons drawn. Drizda knew of no large predators on this world. It could only be more of the automated servitors. Or—

  Three Draconi forms emerged from the vegetation, two of them with rail rifles already trained on Drizda and the pilots. The third was older. He was missing teeth, and had a long scar marring his snout. He wore a faded diplomatic sash, and a sigil under his left eye that identified him to Drizda immediately.

  “The Magus,” she said.

  The old Dragon clicked his remaining teeth together. “Very good. My reputation precedes me.”

  The Magus flicked out his thin tongue, tasting the air. “Put your weapons down. I have no wish to harm you. In fact, I brought you here because I need your help.”

  Chapter Thirteen:

  The End

  Planetary Administrator Sol Malmsteen barely had time to tightbeam a distress call before the first glimmering spires toppled.

  They had been a huge point of pride, those spires. Sol’s grandfather had been on one of the building crews that had erected them, printing them layer by layer out of neo-plastic substrate. Now they fell, shattering like glass as they struck the crowded concourse below. And all Sol Malmsteen could do was watch.

  But that lasted for only a moment. His next impetus was to run, to flee, to be anywhere but where he was standing in the control cortex of Tower Four. The elevators were offline, so Sol had to push and shove his way along a corridor crowded with people pushing and shoving against him in their own desire to be free of this madness. The robes of his office meant little to him. No one gave him a customary wide berth or even stole a second glance in his direction. When Sol did see one of their faces, it was a look of terror he saw. Mindless terror, nothing more.

  Sol felt himself caught in a rush of fleeing bodies, like a pebble pulled along in a raging current. He bounded down several flights of stairs, until finally, finally, he emerged, gasping for breath in the heat of the day made even hotter by bright fires that blossomed all around, sending dark, acrid smoke into the afternoon air.

  Someone stepped on Sol’s administrator robes, causing them to rip. Still he kept running, not sure of a wise destination. He stopped then, panting, his eyes darting fearfully. He needed a plan.

  “Get to a ship,” he muttered. Yes. That was it. And where were the ships? The naval yard of course. Just a klick due east. He could make it if he kept moving. Instead he watched the sky for a moment as a swarm of small, razor-winged craft spun through the air low overhead. At first he had thought it was the Draconi. After all, his world was startlingly close to their sector of space. But those were not Dragon ships raining death from above. This was something else. Something far more terrifying.

  Sol Malmsteen willed his feet into motion once again, carrying him in a direction he hoped would take him to the naval yard. His internal quantum uplink was gone, cut when the first spire, containing all planetary communications, fell. He was deaf and blind. As planetary administrator, it was his job to stay connected to the needs of the people. Now all of that was gone. He was just one of the faceless masses running in terror around him.

  Still he ran, dodging to the left as a group of people, a family by the looks of them, where incinerated by a jet of blue plasma shot from one of the alien craft. They screamed as they died.

  Sol ran, slightly off course, but not realizing it. The smell of burning bodies filled his nostrils, and it nauseated him. Who could do something like this? They had no defenses, no natural resources of any great value. Especially to a race advanced enough to do this much destruction in so short a time.

  The rational part of his mind pondered all this while his short little legs pumped up and down, up and down. Moving him in a direction he hoped would lead to his eventual salvation.

  More ships now appeared in the sky. Solar Navy? Sol paused briefly behind the burning wreckage of a civilian transport and scanned the battle-scarred heavens. No. They were too rounded, composed of some dull, blue-gray metal he had never seen before. The ships landed in the center of the destruction, seams opening in their hulls, extruding gangplanks. Dark, glistening shapes emerged, filling Sol with dread. He watched in horror as wave after wave of the beings disembarked. They looked like metal insects, jeweled red eyes took in the chaos they had caused, glittering weapons in their hands spitting blue death at anyone who dared run past them too closely. Amazingly, they didn’t kill everyone, but seemed more intent on rounding up survivors for some sinister purpose.

  Sol heard them then, buzzing in his head like angry bees. He squeezed his eyes shut against the mental onslaught, pressing a hand to his forehead. His skull seemed to vibrate with their malevolent intent. It was noise at first, but it quickly resolved itself from a chittering drone into a single word or syllable: Ix. IxIxIxIx. Over and over again in rapid succession.

  When Sol dared open his eyes again, the group of insect warriors nearest his position was looking right at him. The stood frozen, returning their inhuman gaze. They had reactivated his q-link somehow, and were using it to communicate with him.

  They were on him in a moment, surrounding him. They towered over him more than four feet, their strange weapons trained on him. But Sol was certain they didn’t want to kill him. Then what?

  “What do you want?” he said. “Just kill me and get it over with!”

  One of the Ix reached out and grabbed his arm, piercing the skin with blue metal claws.

  “Ouch!” said Sol Malmsteen. The Ix held him fast, watching him intently, its head cocked in a quizzical gesture.

  The administrator’s skin began burning. A needle sharp pain ran along his arm, and he watched in horror as the skin began to bubble and pucker.

  What are you doing? his mind screamed.

  We are Ix, came the only answer.

  It wasn’t until his skin began to turn to metal that Sol Malmsteen understood the full implications of what was happening to him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Magus

  The Magus stared directly at Drizda, a clear territorial challenge. But if she took the bait, she knew she would be killed by his bodyguards. Logic dictated that she remain still, stifling her every biological urge. She had to know what he wanted.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “I heard the Empress banished you.”

  This seemed to rankle him somewhat. He growled low in his throat before speaking. “You heard correctly. The Empress disagrees with my assessment of the tactical advantage these Progenitor ruins give our people.”

  “How so?”

  The Magus spread his arms. “Look around you. These are clearly the remains of a people who were navigating through the stars before we lost our ability to fly. I’ve been following your research, Drizda. You know these things to be true. And yet our people deem the Progenitors unclean, unworthy. Less than us. I think that is a lie.”

  Drizda bobbed her head once. “We are in complete agreement, Magus. But what does this have to do with me?”

  “There is something on this world of great value and promise,” said the Magus. “You came here for it yourself. I’ve been looking for it for many atons, but these Progenitors were very clever. They’ve hidden it quite well. Even my servitors can’t locate it. But they are finding many other artifacts of great tactical promise.”

  “These drones pillaging the site are yours?” said Drizda, flexing her claws. “But the quarantine—”

  “A ruse my office devised right before the Empress banished me. It was originally intended as a means to placate Her Highness, but in the end it has served me well as a cloak for my activities.”

  Drizda considered his words. He was pillaging alien artifacts on a world that was restricted, looking for items of potential military importance. But why?

  Drizda’s tongue darted from her mouth. “
You’re hoping to find some alien superweapon,” she said. “You want to start a war with our own people.”

  “I want to send them a message,” the Magus corrected, stabbing the humid air with a worn talon. “I want to show the Empress that I was right. Our people will unite under my banner, and together we will destroy those troublesome mammals once and for all, along with any other sentient life we encounter. I shall bring the will of the Egg Mother to every corner of this galaxy.”

  Drizda glanced over at Zarl and Tarl, who were staring at the Magus incredulously, their hands in the air. The Magus was clearly mad.

  “You still haven’t told me what you need of me,” she said.

  “Ah, yes. It is a simple task. One that you came to this world to do. I want you to retrieve the Progenitor Icon for me.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “That is also quite simple,” said the Magus, gesturing to his bodyguards. “My associates here will kill the freaks.”

  Zarl looked at Drizda, while Tarl continued to stare at their oppressors, a predatory gleam in his eyes.

  “All right,” said Drizda. “I’ll do it. I want no carnage on my account. But you are tampering with forces you cannot possibly understand.”

  “Don’t matronize me, scientist,” said the Magus. “The Progenitor Icon is the key to a powerful weapon, a weapon I shall use to fell our mighty Empress and destroy our enemies.”

  “There is a bigger threat looming,” said Drizda. “The Draconi and the humans have a common enemy. We—”

  “Silence! I’ll hear no more of your lies. Now, through process of elimination, I’ve identified the Icon’s most likely hiding place. Come.”

  The two bodyguards moved in behind Zarl, Tarl and Drizda, herding them through the tangle of brush toward an ancient stone structure. A tall angular doorway yawned open before them, like the patient mouth of some long-dead predator.

  “You three will go in there and retrieve the Progenitor Icon for me,” said the Magus.

  “What if it isn’t in there?” asked Drizda.

  “For your sake, you had best hope that it is,” said the Magus.

  “Then what?”

  “Then you will join my crusade or die.”

  Chapter Fifteen:

  Preparing for War

  The Wanderers were little more than rats toiling away in the dark to him, but Straker had to admire their ingenuity and resourcefulness. It wasn’t easy to live in the radioactive soup that was the void between worlds, but they made it work. Their preparations for war were no different, for that is what this was, Straker had told them. It was their final push for survival.

  Straker didn’t actually believe this, of course, and he cared no more for the Wanderers than he did the billions of citizens who were part of the League of Worlds. But the ruse worked. His fiery words sent the Wanderers into a frenzy, and like angry hornets they set about their work.

  Straker leaned back in the pilot chair of his ship, a huge grin on his face. Despite some unforeseeable setbacks it was all coming together now. The Ix were infiltrating both human and Draconi space. The Solar Navy would be decimated in a matter of standard months. The League of Worlds would be destroyed in a few standard years. And all sentient life in this quadrant would be no more. He supposed a few Wanderer clans would survive, for a while at least. But eventually they too would be overtaken. The Ix’s dominance was absolute. And if another race ever rose from the ashes and set foot in the stars—they too would eventually fall to the Ix. That was simply the way of things. It was a comforting pattern, this cycle of birth, dominance, and then death. It gave meaning to the random chaos of life, a balance to things. It pleased Straker to know that there was no action without consequences, no debt without repayment. No service without reward. And in the middle of it all, there he was, his fingers masterfully pulling the strings. For his reward, he hoped to achieve oneness with the Ix, joining their ranks forever as they made their endless way back and forth across the cosmos, finding and extinguishing the light of sentience and consciousness before it could spread and infect the perfect emptiness of the universe.

  But there was just one problem, one thing to take control of before it got out of hand. Just as Straker knew he had been chosen by the Ix to be their servant, their avatar, so too he knew that every force in the universe had its opposite. Life had death, and death—in the form of the Ix—had a living weapon strong enough to stop them: the Light of Ages. Just as the knowledge of the Ix had lived on the race memories of all sentient races, so too did knowledge of this weapon. The Progenitors did not want their genetic children to suffer their fate, so they created something that might just turn the tide against the Ix. And it was Straker’s purpose to find it.

  Drizda, that blasted lizard scientist, was dangerously close to doing just that. She had proved herself to be quite intelligent and resourceful, and he was content to let her do his work for him. He was confident she could find the fabled Progenitor Icon, saving him months, even years of work. But she must not be allowed to use it. She was even now, he knew through his contact with the Draconi government, searching for it on a planet in Draconi space. Once she had the Icon in hand it would become her tomb.

  Straker marveled at everything he had accomplished thus far. Like a game of three-dimensional chess with millions of pieces, he had set multiple players in motion, never really knowing if any one piece would ultimately do its job. But he was certain of success, just as he knew the Ix were coming, and would always come, until the heat death of the universe.

  All he had to do was sit back and wait, at least for now. The time for action was coming, but not yet. He watched through the viewport of his ship as the Wanderers made the needed adjustments to their vast habitat, preparing it for a final war and what they thought would be their comeuppance.

  Chapter Sixteen:

  The Progenitor Icon

  It was dark inside the ruins, and Drizda shook open a light wand so they could see. The tall opening had narrowed until they were standing hunched over in a low-ceilinged corridor. The architecture, though crumbling, was far more advanced than any Progenitor settlements she’d ever seen. She moved slowly, passing the light wand over the walls, noting the many symbols etched there. There was a smooth flawlessness to them. They had been machined. Perhaps through laser etching or some process her kind had yet to discover. Many of the glyphs looked familiar to her from her studies. They appeared to be simple directions.

  “I think,” began Tarl.

  “You’re ignoring—” added Zarl.

  “Our biggest concern,” said Tarl.

  “The Magus,” they both finished in unison.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” said Drizda. “But I also haven’t forgotten what I came here for, the Progenitor Icon. The rest I’ll worry about once I have it in hand.”

  The twins glared at each other in silent communication before following her up the corridor.

  “What is Shazara?” asked Tarl.

  “We’ve heard the stories,” added Tarl.

  “But what does it mean?” they both finished.

  “It means secret place in our language,” Drizda explained. “It was discovered many suns ago by one of the first Draconi space explorers. He returned to the homeworld many standard years later with wild tales of not only the first Q-gate, but stories of an ancient underground city alive with a powerful presence. He said a beacon of light had showed him that we were not alone in the cosmos. He was called a heretic at first, but others journeyed to this world and found the ancient settlement of the long-dead beings the humans call the Progenitors.”

  “No wonder it’s under a—” Tarl began.

  “Quarantine,” finished Zarl.

  Drizda nodded as they moved deeper into the tunnel-like corridor, which bent to the right. “The fact that there have been more advanced species beyond us is still troubling to many of our kind.”

  “We’ve spent more time among humans,” said Tarl.

  “Than our own ki
nd,” finished Zarl.

  “Plenty of stubbornness to go around,” they said together.

  Drizda clicked her teeth and continued examining the walls. Perhaps the glyphs would reveal some clue as to what they would find up ahead. Perhaps they would find a weapon they could use against the Magus and his minions. The corridor began to steadily widen, and the light from Drizda’s wand picked out a pile of debris up ahead. She moved more quickly, reaching the spot in under a minute, her tongue tasting the air. Something had dislodged part of the structure’s roof, and piles of broken stones lay in the path, blocking the entrance to some kind of room or chamber.

  “End of the line,” said Zarl.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Tarl.

  “No. Help me move these rocks.”

  Drizda leaned her light wand against the wall and began moving the smaller of the stones. Zarl and Tarl looked at each other for a long moment, then joined in. In a few minutes they had the path cleared just enough for the three of them to squeeze through.

  “We should have—” began Zarl.

  “Doubled our fee,” finished Tarl.

  Drizda ignored them, casting her light wand about the small room. She didn’t have any idea what she was looking for exactly, but she had come too far to back off now. She stepped carefully over a rubble pile and inspected the room further, while Zarl and Tarl stood watch, their weapons drawn. Their joint tail swished back and forth in nervous anticipation.

  The room looked as if it had once served as some sort of control room. A console made of extremely brittle plastic took up the center of the space. Drizda reached out to touch a section, and it crumbled beneath her finger talons. There were more machine etchings on the walls that were clearly star charts. Drizda didn’t recognize any of the star configurations. She remembered that the humans used to make familiar shapes from groups of stars, a water collection device, various heroes from their myths and legends. She wondered what Captain Hamilton or Leda Niles would make of these.