The Exxar Chronicles: Book 01 - The Erayan

by Neal Jones

  "That lifeform is cybernetic," Decev murmured.

  "This entire cavern is one giant, cybernetic organism," Frazier said. "We were right about this room housing the central brain. This lifeform has more cables hooked up to it than the motherboard of the Dauntless' mainframe."

  Decev nodded, staring back down at the lovely face and its pristine features. This was what she had been sensing telepathically all along. This lifeform was still alive, and its mind was incredibly advanced, much more so than the average humanoid's. The odds were good that it was also a telepath, and was probably the last surviving member of the race that had inhabited this planet and destroyed itself.

  "I'm going to wake the captain and Doctor Burke," Decev said. "By the time they get down here I want a full report ready. Scan every inch of this room and figure out why it's still on emergency power when we've been able to restore full power to the rest of the cavern."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  While Frazier and his team set to their task, Decev turned and walked out of the room. She cast one last, lingering telepathic "thought" to the lifeform inside the cryo-tube. The sleeping mind stirred, shivering a little, like a cat whose nap is being disturbed by the stroke of human fingers around its ears. But there was enough mental power in that "shiver" to send more threads of fear and excitement racing up and down Decev's spine. Her skin tingled with the enormity of this discovery, and she fought to keep her voice steady as she opened a channel to McKenna's commlink.

  ( 3 )

  He stands in the valley now, walls of fire seething around him, churning and roiling like the angry waters of a storm-tossed sea. The screams of the damned play a discordant soundtrack to the grisly scene of buildings collapsing, towers crumbling, as the whole of Gtheldron thunders to the charred earth in a fiery rage. Jolan screams, as much in fear as in anger, helpless to understand what all of this means, yet knowing in his subconscious what it must mean.

  "Eril!" The senator stumbles through the burning wreckage, desperately searching for his friend, his co-conspirator. "Eril! Where are you?"

  But only the fire answers, and another tower collapses, sending out a shockwave of flame and debris. Jolan is sobbing now, wondering if he is about to cross the River of Enld, if this is what death is truly like. He runs through the maze, the flames lapping and licking at his hands, clothes and bare feet, and he wants nothing more than to escape. But the smoke and the searing heat confuse him, and he falls to his knees, weeping and praying, begging the Gods for answers -

  "Jolan! Jolan, wake up!"

  Senator Nejra jerked up in bed, flailing about, his fist slamming into his wife's cheek, and she cried out as she tumbled backwards off the bed. It took Jolan a few minutes to realize that he was awake and to understand what he'd done to Annaias. He scrambled out of bed and knelt beside her, tenderly pulling her hand away and pressing his fingers to her flesh.

  "I'm sorry. I...I was..."

  "You were having another of your nightmares, Jolan." She winced as he pressed on the sore spot, and she took his hand when he held it out to help her up. "I'll get the regenerator. You stay here and calm down."

  Jolan did as she bade, reaching for his robe. His hands were still shaking, his breath still coming in short gasps, and he closed his eyes as he remembered every vivid detail of his vision. Yes, that was what this was, and he might as well accept it. This was more than a nightmare.

  This was a message.

  Jolan felt bitterly cold as he considered the ramifications. Visions only came to two kinds of people: the insane and the divinely inspired. Jolan was sure that he wasn't insane, but divine inspiration? Was he really, truly receiving a message from the Gods? His rational mind told him that was crazy, but another part of him argued that there was no other explanation. Who was to say that the Gods hadn't chosen Jolan to be their voice?

  The senator leaped to his feet and walked quickly from the bedroom. He charged down the stairs and into the kitchen, rummaging in the cupboard for the brandy. The bottle was nearly empty, but there was enough left to fill a tumbler, and Jolan drank half the glass in one gulp. He set the glass on the counter, and took full, deep breaths. It just wasn't possible. In fact, it was plain ridiculous.

  And yet ...

  And yet, the message was clear. You're just afraid to admit the truth, Jolan, he told himself. You know exactly what this vision means, and you know what you have to do. The invasion of the Federation would lead to the fall of the Jha'Drok Emperium.

  "No!" he said aloud. "No, it won't happen! It can't happen!"

  "What can't happen?"

  Jolan was so startled by Annaias' voice that he almost knocked the bottle of brandy off the counter. His expression softened with guilt at the sight of his wife, and he reached out to examine her cheek. "I'm sorry, Ann. Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine, Jolan. It's you I'm worried about." She clasped his hand and looked into his eyes, searching them for an explanation. "What's the matter? What's happening with you these past few days?"

  Jolan smiled wanly and, with his other hand, he gently brushed a few errant strands of her silver hair away from her eyes. Those beautiful green eyes. They were her loveliest feature and had lost none of their fire in the passing years. "Do you trust me?"

  "What? Jolan, why are you asking me that?"

  "Do you trust me?"

  "Of course. I always have."

  "If we had to leave all of this – the estate, my seat on the Senate, our wealth – would you come with me? Would you follow me?"

  "All right, now you're really scaring me. Jolan, what's going on? Is this something to do with the project?"

  "Would you follow me?" Jolan struggled to keep his tone earnest, to not sound too desperate. He could do what needed to be done as long as she would remain at his side.

  "Yes, yes, of course. Jolan, I promised my life to yours on our union day. I trust you. Now, tell me what's the matter!"

  "I can't." It hurt him to say it, a physical ache that blossomed in his chest like a cancer. "I need two days, and you need to be ready to leave in the late evening. Go about your days as if nothing's wrong, but pack only what can be carried on our personal ship."

  Jolan drank the last of his glass and put the cap on the brandy. He turned to leave, but Annaias reached out once more, grabbing his arm as one who grasps at a lifeline. "Wait! That's it? You can't tell me where we're going? I trust you, Jolan, but I need more than this!"

  When he faced her, there was such pain in his eyes and his voice that it silenced any further protest from her. "I'm sorry. I will tell you soon, but I can't right now. There's things I need to do, and I need your obedience." There was a slight pause before he added, "I love you. I'll be upstairs in a few minutes." He leaned in to kiss her on her damaged cheek. "Keep the bed warm?"

  ( 4 )

  High Chancellor Maliston Kroth walked into the Chamber of the High Quorum, and the excited murmur of the seventy elders ceased almost immediately. Kroth ascended to his seat in the center of the chamber, but he didn't use it. Nor did he open the session with the customary greeting and call to order. Instead, he said simply, "Councilors, I appreciate your presence at such a late hour. You have seen the same reports that I have. I have spent several hours in consultation with Chief Minister Ronnd, and he assures me of the validity of this intelligence. I open the floor to your voices." He grasped a stone sphere, which rested on the right arm of the throne, and hammered it once.

  Councilor Rynim was the first to rise, as usual. While he wasn't the oldest of the Quorum, he was among its most vocal, and he had an opinion on everything. "High Chancellor, I move that we call home the second and ninth battle groups. Thirty of our ships should be more than enough to stop an invasion of this size."

  "As long as we assume that Chief Minister Ronnd's estimates are accurate." Councilor Aum's raspy tones interrupted whatever else Rynim had been about to say. "We have no proof yet that the Haal'Chai had anything to do with the disappearance of the twenty-sixth battle group."<
br />
  "Who else would it be?" Councilor Burskel interjected. "The only two suspects are the Haal'Chai and the Jha'Drok, and since we know that both are in collusion with one another, it seems obvious to me that Vi'Sar is going to use that battle group to attack homeworld. And if he's managed to outfit those warships with the same technology that he used on the raiders that attacked Exxar-One, then I agree with Councilor Rynim. We not only need to recall the second and ninth groups, but the twelfth and fifteenth as well."

  "And what about Exxar-One?" Councilor Ormran was among the oldest of the Quorum, and his voice rivaled Kroth's in depth and volume. It was traditional for a councilor to stand to address his fellow representatives, but up until this point they had all sat while engaging in discourse. Kroth's dismissal of the traditional greeting and call to order had given them permission to do so. But Ormran was a traditionalist, and he stood before he spoke. "Why has Vi'Sar not sent his stolen fleet to that station? Why send it here to attack us?"

  "Exxar-One is nothing more than a diversion. It always has been," Councilor Rynim replied. "And after seeing this report from the spies at Om'Nalu, it's clear to me that attacking us has been Vi'Sar's plan all along."

  "He doesn't have enough support among the Haal'Chai – or even the Kauramide and the Sohnath – to stage such a coups," Ormran shot back. "Vi'Sar has allied himself with the Jha'Drok, and their intention is to destroy the treaty between us and the Federation in order to ignite another war. The only way to do that is to destroy Exxar-One. That plan has been his true intention all along, and this –" he motioned to his terminal whose screen displayed the latest intelligence report "- is the diversion."

  "That would presume that Vi'Sar knew of the spies on Om'Nalu and that he deliberately allowed this information to fall into our hands." Councilor Sulst was a thin reed of a man, and his quiet voice was sometimes lost among the clamor of the younger councilors. "It's also possible that both of these plans are correct; that Vi'Sar intends to attack us on both fronts. Ronnd's reports cannot give us a definite figure for how long the Jha'Drok have been supplying the Haal'Chai with the alien technology. It's possible that Vi'Sar has more than one battle group of warships at his disposal."

  Two more councilors spoke up at the same time, but Kroth's voice cut above them and turned every head of the Quorum to him. "That's my assessment as well, Councilor Sulst. I propose that we recall only the second and ninth battle groups, and send the eleventh to Exxar-One."

  "I second that motion," Ormran said.

  "As do I," Aum added.

  "Then we are in agreement." Kroth hammered the stone sphere twice upon the arm of his chair to signal an end to the session. "Thank you, councilors, for your service to the empire. You are dismissed."

  ( 5 )

  Commander Decev punched another command into her panel, and the holo-image shifted to bring up another data analysis. "According to this record that was pulled from the first archive in the database, the inhabitants of this planet were called Erayans, and their whole population was eradicated eight-hundred-and-seventy-three-point-forty-two years ago, local calendar. By the galactic standard calendar, that's one-thousand-and-twelve-point-twenty-eight years. From now on, all dates that are referenced will be GSD."

  "The Erayans." Captain McKenna rolled the word around her tongue, tasting it like the way one tries a new flavor of chocolate. It was nice to finally put a name to the creators of the technological marvel that was the underground central cavern.

  "So your initial estimates regarding the time lapse were correct," McCoy said. He was, as usual, seated to McKenna's left at the table in the wardroom. Commander Decev was to her right, and Lieutenant Commander Benson was at Decev's right. The rest of Dauntless' senior staff – Zamora, Burke, Voorhees, Lee, Juarez and Wolfe – occupied the remaining seats, and all of them were listening raptly to Decev's, Benson's and Burke's reports.

  "Yes," Benson nodded, responding to McCoy's statement. "The underground control cavern was built almost eleven hundred years ago, and it was designed from the beginning to be operated and maintained by a humanoid being."

  It took a few moments for the others to digest this. Their expressions were a mixture of skepticism, scientific curiosity and old-fashioned glee.

  "So that woman in the cryo-tube is a thousand years old." Lieutenant Wolfe was one of the skeptics.

  "That's right," Burke said. "She's a miracle of biotechnology." The CMO changed the holo-image to display the alien woman in her cryogenic suspension. "In simple terms, where Wolcott's Therapy slows the aging process for us, this woman's cybernetic physiology has nearly halted that process for her. I've only just begun my analysis, but, from what I've gleaned thus far, the biological and technological components are in perfect, harmonious balance. Every biological system is permeated with nanotechnology that's five times as advanced as our most current medical science. It's going to take me a few days to conduct a thorough analysis, and that's mainly because we still don't know exactly how she's wired to the cavern's mainframe. We need a way to separate her and get her out of cryogenic suspension without harming her."

  "Give me a number of days, doctor," McKenna replied. "Three? Five?"

  "Three should be sufficient, though I could probably get it done in two. But I don't want to rush the process."

  "Understood. I'll expect daily updates. In the meantime–" the captain faced her science officers once more "-how's the rest of the planetary survey progressing?"

  Benson tapped a command into her keypad, and the holo-image shimmered and shifted once more. A sprawling city appeared, complete with gleaming skyscrapers, multiple shuttle ports, public courtyards with perfectly manicured landscaping, and everything in between. The sky was the color of seared salmon, with a few wisps of clouds stirred in for garnish.

  "This is what the surface of this planet looked like thirteen hundred years ago, just before it was colonized by the Erayans."

  "Colonized?" echoed Lee.

  "That's right. This star system was just one of several hundred that the Erayan empire explored, claimed and settled during the height of their power. Unfortunately, there are large chunks of the database that have been purposefully deleted. All the files that we recovered pertain just to this colony. Anything about the history of the Erayan empire – its origins, the location of its homeworld, the coordinates of all the star systems and sectors that it colonized – none of that is in here."

  "The files were intentionally deleted?" McKenna leaned forward, massaging her chin as her stern gaze focused on the holo-imager. The city had been replaced by a desert vista that teemed with herds of animals that looked like a cross between a tiger and an iguana.

  Decev nodded. "We can't find an explanation why, but if I had to guess, I'd say that the Erayans didn't want younger races – like us – to get our hands on their technology. This species built the gateways, which are artificial wormholes that span billions of light years. Yes, you heard me correctly. It's only because of an isolated reference here and there that we know about the several hundred other colonies."

  "I agree with that assessment," Burke chimed in. "Any species which can create a lifeform like the one beneath the surface of this colony deserves our fear and respect."

  "I wouldn't go that far, doctor," McCoy replied. "The people on this planet annihilated themselves through civil war."

  "Actually, that assumption may not be correct," Decev interrupted. "There's a reference in the last archive of the database that alludes to first contact with another alien species. That was just over one-thousand-and-fifty years ago, a few decades after the underground control cavern was built and the planetary defense network was brought on line."

  The holo-imager now displayed a jungle with thick vines, tall trees, and all manner of reptilian predators. After a few seconds, the display shimmered and a sweeping view of expansive grasslands appeared. The vegetation was a deep purple with burnt orange and azure highlights.

  "But," Decev continued, "like the files
that pertain to the Erayan homeworld and other colonies, these were erased also. We have no information on the alien species whose arrival here most likely precipitated an armed conflict."

  Zamora scowled as he shook his head. "That doesn't make sense. If the Erayans didn't want anyone to learn of their existence or find any of their leftover technology, why leave behind this world and its only occupant? Why go to such great lengths to eliminate all information except that which pertains to this colony?"

  "It's a good question," Benson replied. "We haven't scoured this database from beginning to end yet, so the answer might still be in there somewhere. The Dauntless library mainframe is still analyzing and organizing the data. What we've presented here is a preliminary report based on some basic search criteria that we gave the computer. The images that you're seeing here–" she motioned to the holo-display "–were actually pulled from the database."

  "So it seems the next item on our agenda is to wake up the Erayan ASAP." McKenna nodded to Burke before glancing at Decev and Benson. "We'll continue the planetary surveys for now, just in case there's something else of significance to find. In the meantime, I'll see all of you at the memorial services later this afternoon. Unless anyone has anything further to add, you're dismissed."