He tried to tell others, tried to explain the coming holocaust, but it never quite worked. They always walked away imagining some kind of war, a noble struggle that would be harshly fought and justly won.
But it wasn't war they were facing. He remembered it through the eyes of starships watching from orbit, and Eireki warriors fighting and dying on the ground. He watched the sky darken above him, and saw the coming of the biomechanical horde, individuals operating as the many arms of one living organism that existed solely to eat, evolve, and expand. It didn't attack; it opened its gaping maw, closed its jaws around an entire world, and simply began to chew.
Nemesis was a predator and every living thing was her prey.
And there seemed to be no way to express that idea sufficiently. His own people were beginning to treat Marcus like a dangerous paranoid, never thinking that he might be crying wolf in an actual wolf-filled wood.
The raving and shouting didn't particularly help his case.
Suspended there in the darkness, he pointed at the Earth and imagined dotted lines around the fledgling nations. "And all of you," he said aloud. "How will you survive when the devourer comes? Where will you hide when you realize you can't fight back?"
He and Legacy felt someone approaching his quarters. Faulkland. Heart-rate up. Tense. Official business.
There was a time when Legacy freely read the crew's thoughts, and Marcus presently found himself pining for those days. It saved so damned much time. No tedious conversations or chains of command slowing him down. He simply knew important things and could act on them without delay.
There were privacy concerns, of course, and perfectly valid ones at that. No one felt comfortable aboard a living ship that could see their innermost secrets, so she put up a barrier and left human thoughts alone unless invited.
As much as it was a win for individual freedoms, it starved Marcus of the data he needed to make decisions. Worse, it left him bored out of his mind.
Totally out of his mind.
The images of the stars faded to reveal stark walls in off-white, a room with a simple bed and nothing else. There was no other furniture or decoration.
Marcus lowered himself to within a centimeter of the floor and feigned a standing position. Most aboard the ship preferred to walk or stand whenever possible, but not him. Operating the artificial gravity was now second-nature removing any need to walk at all, and the act no longer held any special significance for him.
As far as he was concerned, it was nothing but a trapping of mankind's past, another illusion they used to cage themselves to the ground.
Faulkland walked in, straight backed and stern. His metamorphosis from cowboy astronaut to taciturn admiral had occurred in record time, and though he was incredibly good at his new job, the transformation hadn't been kind to him. He was always frowning as if suffering a very large ulcer.
"What do you have for me, Alex?"
"We've found Subject Two," Faulkland said. Unlike so many others, he liked to get right to the point.
"Alive?"
"We believe so." He pointed to the wall and said, "Legacy, if you would?"
Legacy accessed the memory he offered her and displayed it, a topographical image depicting North America's Pacific coast.
"We have solid information placing him deep inside New Union territory. The location is a former Carbon Corporation research facility beneath Crater Lake."
The image of the lake pulsed with light.
"It's like a bunker dug out of the Earth and shielded by nineteen trillion liters of water. No surprise it survived the invasion, and God only knows what it was used for before then."
"Subject Two is a prisoner."
Faulkland nodded. "Reasonable to assume. He could be a willing guest, but I wouldn't put any money on it."
The West Coast was Colonel Galili's territory. In a nation full of angry freedom-fighters bent on eradicating the alien menace, Galili was perhaps the most accomplished and influential of the lot. Only Major Reyes who operated on the opposite coast commanded as much respect.
Like the rest of his countrymen, Galili had never shown much interest in honoring Marcus' polite requests, and Marcus thought it was time to consider impolite options.
"You're sure?" he asked.
"As sure as we can be, things being as they are."
Subject Two was a mysterious creature. Years of painstaking research had pegged him as a primary factor in the Battle of Arkangel's surprising outcome three years earlier. Witnesses said he was shaped like a man, but capable of things that defied belief. He moved like no man the Earth had ever produced, and if he was Oikeyan, no one had ever seen his like again.
Subject Two was holding important pieces of the puzzle, and Marcus was determined to reassemble the big picture.
He ascended into the air, staring at the otherwise peaceful looking lake. "Draw up exfiltration plans," he said. "I want Subject Two. At all costs."
"The New Union is a tinder pile, Mark. If he does belong to the aliens like we suspect, the Unies will see this as an act of collusion."
Marcus had a wry smile. "The die-hards down there already think I'm in league with the enemy... nothing I do will change a damned thing now."
Faulkland grunted. "So, then... full frontal assault is on the table?"
"If it will succeed, then yes. I don't care what it takes, Alex... I just want to win this one. It's time we remind the Union just how big and sharp our teeth really are." He paused for a second, waited for his heart rate to return to normal. "Any news on Subject One?"
"Corpsman Hernandez?" Faulkland said, and shook his head. "Completely off the map still."
Of course he was. That one was too damned good at hiding, probably deep in some forsaken jungle right that second, curled up in a cave where no one would ever think to look. This new world had no shortage of rocks to hide under, and not nearly enough hands to turn them over.
Marcus was done. He subconsciously engaged Legacy's gravity controls, lifted Faulkland off the floor, and pushed him toward the door. "Bring me options," he said. "I need a sure thing. Quick and definitive."
He ushered his friend through the portal and sealed it shut, then brought the globe back into view. Her traditional mosaic of green, tan and white was joined by a bright belt of orange around the equator. If he squinted, she almost looked like a billiards ball.
Down below, on a surface far from his wandering eye, thousands of lives were being extinguished in flashes of light and heat. The survival of those left rested on a knife's edge, and as of that moment, they were each and every one of them lost.
None of Earth's factions stood a chance alone. They had to become something stronger and new, or their time in this universe would be written in sand. And for that, they would first need to come together. They had to become one unified front.
What could motivate them? Maybe a dream of a better tomorrow, but history proved that such things only ever rose out of a hero's corpse. Dreams were precious and they demanded sacrifice.
The fact that stuck most painfully in Marcus' brain was that it wouldn't be him.
Chapter 02
Discovery
Deep in the forsaken jungle, Jack Hernandez was dangling from a rope. He slowly lowered himself into a vertical cavern with a wide mouth some thirty meters across, what the locals called a cenote. The word was found in common phrases for travelers like, "Help, I've fallen into a cenote broken my legs!"
Trees grew out of the uneven floor below, tall and lush with tops that largely hid the cave entrance from sight, and between them lay a small pool of water that glimmered like a cut gem in candlelight.
The cave's interior was treacherous. The soil surrounding the opening looked ready to collapse, and below it waited a motley collection of stalagmites like stakes in a tiger pit. With a bit of self-annoyance, Jack realized he was descending into yet another beautiful death trap, this one levered open like a viper's mouth.
He'd managed to explore half the region's cenotes
in the past six months with only minor injuries, but even minor injuries could prove lethal when exploring the jungle alone. He would have chewed anyone else's ear off for even thinking of such a terrible idea.
But Jack had to keep going even if he wasn't sure why. He was looking for something important, and he'd know it when he found it. Soon.
The rest of the world wasn't much safer, anyway.
His five-toed climbing shoes touched down in wet soil, and he released his harness with a click, then glanced upward and waved to his sole traveling companion, a living alien ship who hovered silently above. The ship's name was Felix and he was about the size of a short school bus, shaped somewhat embarrassingly like a tyrannosaur's athletic footwear.
Sometimes, Jack suspected that Felix could feel his mind when they weren't connected, even across a few hundred meters. The idea set his teeth on edge.
Felix responded to the signal and flew slowly off, taking the line away with him. He'd find a nearby place to land and no doubt eat anything and everything that grew from the ground. The little ship was always hungry and always growing.
Jack pulled a torch from his pack and it switched on in his hand. This was a new model built with the tech Amira Saladin brought back from Mars, some of that freaky Marcus Donovan shit. As far as Jack understood things, it was alive in some sense, but all he cared about was that it was bright, weighed little, and apparently never ran out of juice. Good equipment was good equipment.
The light afforded him a better look at his surroundings. Beneath the ground, the cave ballooned out like a bubble that had been slowly rising up from the depths for eons. Eroded walls spoke of flooding, while shadowed tunnels beckoned him further down into the Earth.
Jack's pulse began to race when he heard the call.
Whatever the hell it was, Jack heard the call as much as felt it, and he suspected he wasn't literally hearing anything at all. It was like a dusty childhood memory that suddenly surged to mind and obstinately refused to be ignored. It came to him like the plaintive cry of a wounded animal, something trapped and desperate. In the silence, he heard it pleading for release, for salvation. And so he followed.
He first recalled hearing it shortly after arriving in the Yucatan, but he sometimes wondered if he'd been hearing it subtly for some time before like a subliminal message. Had it led him there in the first place? He had no way to be sure
It was always louder beneath the Earth, as if the rock and soil and flowing waters worked as an amplifier. Here, the call was loud like a strong shout in a granite cellar, and that made Jack think he'd finally arrived.
"I'm almost there," he whispered.
He closed his eyes and listened. A breeze whistled over the cave's mouth, and leaves rustled in the trees. A pair of birds sang back and forth to one another nearby. A spring bubbled softly.
The call came. Powerful. Blood trickled from Jack's nose.
He turned toward the strange sensation and opened his eyes, discovering a dark tunnel little larger than himself. With a shrug, he attached the torch to his shoulder and slowly crept in.
Even with a good light, the space was dark and cramped, jagged and unpredictable. Some passages made it feel as if the ground were sinking its teeth into him from all sides at once, then a step later it would widen and welcome him deeper inside.
Then a ledge took him by surprise. He set one foot down too confidently and heard the sound of gravel scraping. Sliding. The foot slipped free into emptiness and his weight shifted.
His breath caught with a grunt, and he tried to react. His body bent at the waist, hands scrabbled in search of an edge to grab onto. Fingers stung as they latched onto something sharp. Only his left arm took hold, and his entire weight wrenched the shoulder.
But he was alive — enough to start breathing again and curse his stupidity aloud. His other hand dangled loose, shedding pebbles that never echoed in the chasm below.
He reached up and found a hold, took a deep breath and heaved himself back over the edge. From there, he crawled for a few meters further, and then a few meters after that until he felt the walls close in again.
Better off chewed up by the Earth than swallowed whole, Jack decided, and he returned to his feet only after he began to see some shred of light up ahead of him. The cave grew wider and sloped upward, gradually becoming smoother and easier to hike.
Then he came to the opening and it was beautiful. Another vertical shaft stood before him with a deep pool undulating gently at the bottom bathed in light from the scorching midday sun. The water was a rich shade of blue-green, seeming to glow from somewhere beneath. Jack imagined that meant an underwater cave led to another well lit chamber.
He leaned against a wall and attended to his hand. The palm had a decent gouge in it but it wasn't bleeding much, and he quickly wrapped a bandage around it while thanking his stars; dealing with one ruined hand was bad enough.
It didn't take Jack nearly long enough to make his next decision. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled, echoing out and back across the stone hollow. Then Felix appeared in the sky above a moment later and waited patiently, showing an underbelly covered in lights that danced like shadows in an aquarium.
Jack grabbed a small rebreather from his pack and put it in his mouth, then straightened up and dove off the ledge. When his hands sliced into water, he opened his eyes onto a surprising sight: three hexagonal openings were set into the rockface, with a cyan light pouring out of them.
He surfaced briefly to reorient himself, then swam back down to investigate. The light pulsed and ebbed in a slow rhythm like the breaths of a heavy sleeper. Unless Jack was mistaken, they grew brighter as he approached.
He made it to the first hole and peered inside, but what he saw didn't make much sense. The hole was a sharp-edged shape cut into stone, and beyond lay a cavity formed around a wide and patterned surface.
Jack heard the call and his atrophied sense of caution passed away. He slipped through the hole and swam inside, getting closer to the strange object with each stroke.
The size of it confounded him, like a two-story office building submerged in a tank of water, and the surface was like nothing he'd ever seen before. It resembled a mass of large cords overlapping one another; a roadside attraction, the world's largest ball of undersea cable.
He slowed near it and reached out a hand. Where his finger touched the surface, it wriggled and shook, no longer cables but now a network of living centipedes. The shapes leapt out from the surface, then snapped back and drew apart to reveal a cavity the size of a closet.
Jack heard the call and he hastily pulled himself inside. Then the opening closed, the water drained from the compartment, and the opposite wall came apart.
This new place was smooth and donut shaped, formed around a central column whose veins pulsed with eery light. The column was incomplete, with a gap in the middle nearly bridged by thin filaments which shivered and shook like grass blades touched by a spring breeze.
He walked forward across a springy floor of taut tendon and caught sight of an object suspended within the gap. It was a rounded pentagon made of glass, about the size of a pie-pan, with light inside that danced and shimmered like a school of sardines.
The chamber quivered around him and he heard the call again, but it was different. Long, high-pitched, surprised.
The threads of the column spasmed as the call cried on.
Jack removed the rebreather from his face, smiled and gently said, "Hush."
It grew quiet, then he heard a curious chirp like part of a humpback's song.
"What are you?" Jack asked out loud, but nothing answered.
He stepped forward more slowly. Inside the pentagon, he could now clearly see points of multicolored light swarming around a rippled ring. It was the strangest device Jack had ever laid eyes on, and God knew he'd seen plenty these past few years.
Against all common sense, he reached out again. The lights were attracted to him, repeatedly bouncing off the transpar
ent case in their eagerness to feel his touch.
His finger gently collided with the surface and he once again heard the call. It was exultant.
Every glowing thing in the room surged with blinding light, and Jack instinctively crossed his arms in front of his eyes. It all dimmed a moment later, then began to strobe and flicker with an intense rhythm.
A rumble started all around. The floor quaked and shook, and Jack could faintly hear the muffled sound of stone cracking somewhere in the distance. The entire structure was trying to move, fighting hard against thousands of tonnes of karst.
Jack fought to stay on his feet while the call took on a tone of frustration. The mysterious device in the column grew brighter and began to throb, sending small points of light racing out across every visible surface like trails of burning ants.
He was getting dizzy. He felt as if he were rising and falling at the same time, and there came one last flash of light. It filled Jack's eyes with white, and it was the last thing he remembered for a while.
Chapter 03
Into the Deep End
The thirteen-kilometer starship called Legacy waited above the Earth in darkness, hanging where thin atmosphere tentatively embraced the emptiness of space. It was quiet to her, lonesome, desolate. To maintain her position, she accelerated constantly using organs that created and controlled gravity wells. Legacy always fell in precisely the direction she wanted to go.
Far beneath her sat a round lake with a single island near its western edge. She scanned over the area with a vast array of sense organs, and saw it at once in multiple spectrums of light. She probed across the distance and felt the soft crunch of soil, the wet slap of rolling waters. She longed to go down there and let the wind rush over her shell, feel the needful pull of the planet's gravity as she grew closer.
Marcus soothed her the best he could. Soon, he assured her. This world isn't ready to welcome you, yet.
She'd already waited sixty-five million years; she could survive waiting a few more.
This was one of the ship's impulses that left Marcus worried and confused. He knew touching down on a planet required a great deal of effort, and it wasn't something she'd ever taken lightly in the past. This was a deep and mysterious longing that she ached to fulfill, but she kept the finer details close to her chest.
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