X-Calibur: The Return
Page 6
“Almost,” Eve 221 cried, the pain almost unbearable as she gripped tightly to the arms of the seat.
Just as the fighters closed within firing range, the jump drive engaged and the small craft was propelled through an artificial wormhole to a distant region of space. To the fighter craft pursuing them, it was as though it just blinked out of existence, there one minute and gone the next. To the crew of the small ship though, it was as though someone had turned their bodies inside out before forcing them through a liquidiser.
Chapter 5
Going Home
Earth year 6238
Eve 221 was the first to venture out of her seat. Her legs felt weak and her stomach nauseous as she made her way to the rear of the cockpit to check on various readouts.
“Did we make it?” Adam 359 asked, releasing his harness but not rising from his seat.
“We must have,” Orlac 552 replied. “Death cannot hurt this much.”
“We managed to evade the hive ship,” Eve 221 told them. “It looks like we jumped approximately 12 light years.”
“Is that far?” Adam 359 asked.
“Far enough,” Eve 221 replied.
“Good,” Orlac 552 grumbled. “I don’t ever want to do that again.”
“I don’t think it’s normally like that,” Eve 221 said. “I just didn’t have time to raise the dampening field. Oh, and you’re welcome.”
“For what?” Adam 359 asked with a grin. “Didn’t you know we had it all under control?”
“Come with me,” Eve 221 replied. “Let’s get that arm looked at.”
Eve 221 led them from the cockpit and towards the rear of the craft. As they passed the gangway, the corridor split left and right, forming a continuous circular passageway around the gravity engine. The walls were made of the same shiny black metal as the floor, with subtle lighting all along the ceiling and control panels at various points along the walls. Leading off from the corridor were crew quarters, a galley, wash rooms and a small medical room, which was where she led them.
“You seem to know a lot about this ship?” Orlac 552 asked suspiciously.
“It comes with the piloting skills,” Eve 221 replied, tapping her temple with her index finger. “Adam 359, sit right here and let’s see what’s wrong with your arm.”
Adam 359 sat where he was told as Eve 221 moved the medical scanner to point at Adam 359’s right side. She pressed an area of the display and the scanner began to emit a green light which moved in sequence, up and down, left and right, all over Adam 359’s chest and upper arm. A moment later it was done.
“This is designed for the Mori,” Eve 221 said, “but it looks like you’ve broken a bone near your shoulder. The system recommends an injection.”
Eve 221 stepped to a cupboard and looked at the various vials inside, selecting the one matching the name on the screen. She worked it into one of the injectors and returned to Adam 359’s side, placing the injector over the broken bone.
“Just wait,” Adam 359 said, stopping her. “You said this is designed for the Mori, right? Doesn’t that mean that injection could kill me?”
Eve 221 thought about it for a moment. “I honestly don’t know,” she said. “The scanner did recognise you as human.”
Adam 359 looked to Orlac 552, who only smiled back at him. “You dragged me into this mess, despite my objections,” Orlac 552 remarked. “Why would you look to me for advice now?”
“Just do it,” Adam 359 said. “If it stops me having to listen any more complaining, it’s worth it.” Orlac 552 laughed as Eve 221 pressed the injector into the soft tissues over Adam 359’s right clavicle and pulled the trigger.
The small needle pierced the skin and injected the vial of nanobots into the space around the fracture. Adam 359 winced as they began to work, the microscopic machines fusing together the broken bone and damaged ligaments in seconds. Once the process was over, he found the pain a lot easier and made tentative movements of his arm.
“Still alive?” Orlac 552 asked.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Adam 359 replied. Turning to Eve 221 he asked, “So, what’s the plan?”
“The plan?” she said. “The plan was to get off that asteroid before we were killed. Looks to me like the plan worked.”
“But what now?” Adam 359 persisted. “Where are we going? How do we free the other slaves?”
Eve 221 looked at him incredulously. “Free the other slaves?” she asked. “That’s what I was doing until you turned up!”
Adam 359 was stunned. “You were working to free the slaves?” he asked. “How?”
Eve 221 took a deep breath, calming herself before answering. “It was Gar-Wan’s plan,” she began. “He believes the use of slaves is wrong, and he tried to convince the Senate to abandon the system and find a suitable planet for the humans and Dorgans to settle.”
“And who is Gar-Wan?” Orlac 552 asked.
“He’s my master,” Eve 221 replied. “I’ve been his house slave for almost two years, and he’s always been very kind to me. I prepared his meals, tended to his children and assisted his brood mate with her duties.”
“So what happened?” Adam 359 asked sympathetically.
“The Senate wouldn’t listen,” Eve 221 continued. “He was removed from office by order of the Queen, shunned by his fellow Senators. They humiliated him.
“So he decided on a plan. He wanted to show those in power that continued use of slaves would backfire, that we could turn on them. He overwrote my programming, used the implants to give me combat skills, piloting, and then he smuggled me onto the mining asteroid.
“He wanted me to cause trouble, interfere with ore extraction, and eventually rally the slaves into open rebellion against the guards. If it could happen on one of the mining asteroids, he would say, it could happen on the hive ship itself. The Senate would have no choice but to reconsider.”
“I’m sorry,” Adam 359 said. “All I wanted was to help. I thought that was what I was doing.”
“It’s true,” Orlac 552 added. “Was it Gar-Wan you were communicating with, back on the asteroid?”
“Yes,” Eve 221 replied, pulling her hair aside to show them the small scar behind her right ear. “Gar-Wan had accessed the layout of the asteroid, he was able to direct us to this scout ship so we could get away.”
“Are you still in contact now?” Adam 359 asked.
“No,” Eve 221 said with a melancholy smile. “We’re out of range. He wished me luck, and hoped I could continue in some way.”
They sat in contemplative silence, thinking over what Eve 221 had told them. Through his desire to free the slaves on the asteroid, Adam 359 may have ruined their only chance of freedom. He wanted to make it right, but he didn’t know where to start. If only there were more of them, maybe they’d have a chance.
“How far can this ship go?” Adam 359 asked, a hint of excitement in his voice.
“It’s one of the Mori scout ships,” Eve 221 informed them. “It’s designed to scout out planets and asteroids, to find resources and materials the Mori need for the hive ship.”
“So could it take us all the way to Earth?” Adam 359 continued.
“Earth?” Eve 221 asked.
“Earth,” Adam 359 said again. “It’s our home planet, where the Mori enslaved our ancestors.”
“Humans and Dorgans were created by the Mori, organic machines to do their bidding,” Eve 221 said, quoting her programming. “There is no home planet.”
“It’s a lie,” Orlac 552 told her. “Humans, Dorgans, we were all enslaved, taken from our home worlds and made to work, cloned and replaced when our bodies gave out.”
“That’s not true,” Eve 221 began, but her voice sounded far from certain. “The Mori, they created us. Only the Mori are powerful enough to do such a thing.”
“If so, who created the Mori?” Adam 359 asked, to which Eve 221 had no answer.
“Check the ship’s computer,” Orlac 552 suggested. “If no such world exists, so be it.”
“Try searching for the human origin world,” Adam 359 suggested. “Maybe Earth was the human name for it?”
Eve 221 tapped further icons on the screen, freezing as an image of Earth’s solar system appeared and zoomed in on the third planet orbiting the star. “That’s not possible,” she said to herself. “That’s, no. The Mori created us, Gar-Wan told me so himself.”
“We’ve all been lied to,” Adam 359 said, placing a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. “Can this ship get us there?”
“It’ll take some time,” Eve 221 replied. “Twenty-seven jumps to be exact. I’ll get started.”
*****
The gravity engines on the scout ship took eight hours to recharge between jumps. They worked by bending a region of space-time, forming artificial wormholes and bridging a distance of approximately eighteen light years, though nearby celestial bodies with their own gravity could markedly reduce that figure. The effect was like leapfrogging across the galaxy, with each jump through the wormholes instantaneous but followed by sub-light travel as they waited for the gravity engine to recharge.
They were three days into their journey to Earth and had managed to make the scout ship their own. They’d each chosen a cabin to sleep in, with beds far more comfortable than anything on the asteroid, and the galley was able to synthesise suitable nutrition for all of them. It was bland and tasteless, but it was food.
Adam 359 knocked on the door to the cabin Eve 221 had chosen. “Come in,” she announced.
Adam 359 stepped through the door to find her facing away from him, naked as she searched for clothes that would fit her. Though accustomed to seeing the other slaves naked, there was something different about seeing Eve 221 that way. It made him feel uncomfortable somehow, along with another feeling he couldn’t identify, though his programming reminded him that relations between slaves was strictly forbidden.
“Sorry,” Adam 359 said, looking at the floor. “Should I come back later?”
“No, why?” Eve 221 replied.
“It’s, erm, nothing,” Adam 359 said, blushing involuntarily as she turned to face him.
“Are you unwell?” Eve 221 asked. “Is it a side effect from the injection into your shoulder?”
“Maybe,” Adam 359 replied, eyes fixed firmly on the floor at his feet. “I’ll be fine, it’s okay.”
“Well what did you want me for?” Eve 221 continued, turning back to search through the selection of clothes.
“Orlac 552 and I, we were wondering if you could show us some of the combat skills you were given?” Adam 359 said. “If you’ve got time, that is?”
“There’s still a couple of hours until the next jump,” Eve 221 replied. “Why not.”
“Thanks,” Adam 359 said. “We’ll meet you in the empty cabin when you’re ready.”
Adam 359 left Eve 221 to continue getting dressed and headed towards the fourth cabin near the rear of the ship. He was still flushed and breathing a little faster than normal, and he found it difficult to think of anything but her naked form.
“Is she coming?” Orlac 552 asked as Adam 359 stepped into the empty cabin.
“She’ll be here in a minute,” Adam 359 replied. “Help me move the cot out of the way?”
Adam 359 and Orlac 552 cleared as much of the furniture as they could, making an empty space in the middle of the floor. Eve 221 joined them a few minutes later, dressed in loose fitting trousers and an oversized shiny shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows.
“Okay, if you’re going to be fighting the Mori,” she began, “you need to know about their weak points. Their chest-plates and leg guards can deflect several plasma rounds, and the chitin layers around their head and neck are similarly impervious to simple weapons.
“If you’re using a blade of some kind, your best attack is to strike here, between the chitin layers at the neck.” She simulated striking with a blade at her own neck to show the angle.
“If you’re using a plasma pistol or rifle,” she continued, “aim for the front of the neck here, or around eyes. Even if you don’t kill them, the plasma burns to their eyes will blind them and take them out of the fight.”
Eve 221 spent the next two hours showing them a variety of blocks, handholds and incapacitating blows. The height difference between the three of them made training particularly difficult, but ultimately Eve 221 just had to accept that it would take hundreds of hours of teaching and training if they were ever going to master the skills she had. Adam 359 and Orlac 552 were saved from further humiliation by a notification from the cockpit. The gravity engine was ready for the next jump.
“I think we’ll stop there for today,” Eve 221 suggested, trying hard not to laugh at the two figures rolling around on the floor before her.
*****
The final jump brought the Mori scout ship into the outskirts of Earth’s solar system. Eve 221 sat in the pilot’s seat, with Adam 359 and Orlac 552 sat behind her.
“The third planet,” Adam 359 reminded her as she tapped icons on the navigation console.
“We’ll be in orbit shortly,” she replied.
The scout ship flew past the rings of Saturn and through the asteroid belt as it approached Earth. “How wonderful,” Eve 221 remarked. “Do you think Earth has rings like that?”
“Maybe,” Adam 359 replied with a smile. As soon as they’d entered Earth’s solar system, everywhere he looked he saw something new and incredible.
As they flew into Earth’s orbit, they were all struck by its beauty. “It’s so blue,” Orlac 552 said.
Adam 359 stood and looked at the view over Eve 221’s shoulder. “That’s really it?” he asked. “That’s home?”
Eve 221 looked doubtful. “I’m not picking anything up from the surface,” she said. “No transmissions of any kind. No cities. There’s slightly increased radiation levels in the northern hemisphere, but nothing harmful.”
“That can’t be right,” Adam 359 insisted. “There has to be something.”
Eve 221 gave him a sympathetic look. “There’s extensive plant and animal life throughout the land and oceans, but nothing like civilization.”
“We can’t have come all this way for nothing,” Adam 359 pleaded. “Maybe they’ve hidden themselves somehow. Can you look more closely?”
“I can run a more detailed scan of the planet,” Eve 221 said. “It’ll take some time, but if there’s anything there we’ll find it.” Adam 359 nodded and returned to his seat, eyes fixed on the display as the ship began its detailed scan.
The scan took several hours, the scout ship changing its orbit several times as it analysed the planet below, cataloguing the surface and various layers beneath. Eve 221 and Orlac 552 took time to eat and rest, but Adam 359 refused to leave his seat, watching every update in the display.
“That can’t be it,” Adam 359 said to himself as the final images appeared. “They can’t all be gone, they can’t.”
The images showed a variety of ruins, the last remnants of great cities reclaimed by nature. Faint lines of ancient roads and railways littered every continent, while the decaying husks of great ships sank beneath the oceans.
Orlac 552 entered the cockpit from the galley on hearing Adam 359 talking to himself. After taking a moment to examine the scan results he said, “There’s an energy signature, on one of the islands in the northern hemisphere. Maybe something there can tell you what happened?”
“Maybe,” Adam 359 agreed.
“I’ll find Eve 221,” Orlac 552 continued. “We’ll land and take a look.”
*****
Eve 221 guided the ship through the atmosphere and towards the source of the energy signature. As the ship slipped into the cloud layer, they were struck
by the view. Great mountains and valleys of white, fluffy clouds spread out all around them, a veritable world above the world.
“Your home world is truly beautiful,” Orlac 552 said again. “So blue from above, yet now so white and green.”
“It’s incredible,” Eve 221 agreed, the ship slipping through the cloud layer and flying low over the forests and fields that spread out in every direction.
The signal appeared to be coming from deep inside a hill, surrounded by smaller rolling hills and copses of trees. The early afternoon sun cast hardly any shadow as Eve 221 searched for somewhere to land.
They put down on a flat expanse of bright green grass, just under a mile from the base of the hill. The ship slowed and touched down silently, the gravity engines causing little disturbance as the landing gear dug into the soft earth. They remained in their seats for a minute, taking in the view.
“I can’t believe this was our home,” Eve 221 said. “Is everything we’ve been told a lie?”
“Everything we’ve been told was to keep us compliant,” Orlac 552 replied. “If we knew the truth, we’d have resisted, fought back.”
“And we still will,” Adam 359 said defiantly.
They removed plasma rifles from the small armoury before stepping down the gangway towards the ground. The air smelled wonderful, so crisp and clear without the dust and fumes they had grown used to on the asteroid. The oxygen level was a little lower than on the hive ship, the Mori requiring a slightly higher percentage than that found naturally on Earth, but not enough to make them breathless.
As they walked across the field, Eve 221 bent down to pick one of the many wild flowers growing amongst the grass. She inhaled its fragrance, relishing the sensation. “Everything is just, so, wonderful,” she said, barely able to articulate the feelings which overwhelmed her.
They stepped over a pile of stones, all that remained of a dry stone wall which once bordered a farmer’s field. A herd of large animals grazed lazily, ignoring the people walking past. Adam 359 ran his hand along the coarse skin, laughing as the creature mooed in response.