Stars Rain Down (Biotech Legacy)
Page 32
He tumbled through the void. Aimless. Broken. He was so young, but maybe it was his time to die.
“Jack!” a distant voice called.
Gravity pulled him downward. He fell down toward the alien planet, hot air rushing up and over him. So much terrible heat.
Death approached. He could let himself break apart, and burn up in reentry. Then his pain would be over. Perhaps he had done enough to earn an honored place in the great beyond.
“You have to wake up!”
Whose voice was that? Amiasha scanned everywhere within himself, looking through each of his ten thousand eyes for the source of that voice, until he finally came to the chamber. There was something strange going on inside.
They did not belong. Land-bound. Oikeyan and Nefrem gathered in a circle around the cradle. His Alarhya dead on the ground, and a Nefrem joined to him instead. Who was that Nefrem?
“Please wake up, Jack.”
Flash. He was looking at his own body lying in that cradle. He was the city and the Nefrem at once. The tide rose up and swallowed him again.
After all of this, couldn’t they just let him die? Let his suffering end.
The armor along his bottom was flaking away, exposing the soft inner flesh. He felt only the searing, white heat, blotting out every other thought.
The pain brought silence. The silence was a gateway.
Jack surfaced again, twitching between the circular prison and the reality of Amiasha Aum-Samaraya plummeting through the Earth’s atmosphere.
It would all be over soon.
“Jack!”
But it wasn’t just Jack that would die. Lisa, Charlie and Nikitin would also. Ferash and Dojer, too. It wasn’t just Amiasha who would die. Sey Chen in the thousands would perish.
He couldn’t allow this.
Thrust. His tired and bleeding organs surged into action, and he pushed. He fought against the unrelenting pull of gravity. Still the ground approached. Still the searing heat increased.
He poured everything into the struggle, but it wasn’t enough. He didn’t have enough.
When no hope remained, only then did he hear the chorus of the Sey Chen. They sang quietly but with beautiful voices, and their strength grew with every passing moment. Their singing filled him with light and life. The five stars burned inside of him, brighter, stronger and hotter than ever before, and he found new power.
Thrust.
The ground approached, and Amiasha Aum-Samaraya braced for impact. He howled out as he crashed into the Earth, and the ground split beneath him. The world quivered at his touch.
He was down and it was complete.
***
“Are you okay, Jack?”
He couldn’t tell. His head hurt bad, like he’d been on an all whiskey diet for two weeks straight, and he felt displaced. Displaced?
He groaned.
“Can you open your eyes?”
He tried. Something was short circuited in his brain. He knew what he wanted to do but couldn’t find the switch.
The darkness was kind of a relief.
Then he found it, and his eyes slowly creaked open. Everything was blurry. There was vaseline on the lens.
“Lisa?”
“Yup,” she said.
His eyes began to focus, but the splitting headache continued unabated. “This seems familiar. I could really get used to seeing your face when I wake up.”
She smiled.
“We don’t have to run anywhere, do we?”
“Not this time, hero.”
“Thank God,” he said, and tried not to fall back asleep. At that, he failed.
Chapter 53:
Aftermath
Marcus Donovan and Vijay Rao walked down a wide, blue-green street overflowing with activity. There was so much foot traffic that Marcus could hardly see a few feet in front of him. It was another fine example of humanity’s ability to cope in even the most dire of circumstances, and it impressed him and Legacy to no end.
Four months had passed since the Battle of the Ark, which unexpectedly ended with both sides withdrawing. The strange events at the end left the humans and Oikeyans equally vulnerable and confused, and retreat was the only option that made any sense. A tense cease-fire followed.
“Who could’ve expected this?” Marcus asked.
“I stopped making predictions about the future,” Rao replied. “Was costing me too much money.”
They pressed on through the crowd, and Marcus marveled at the multiple levels of the city up above, each built on its own web of catwalks. This was his first visit to the Oikeyan city called Amiasha, which had removed the Ark’s self-destructing fusion reactor at the height of the battle, and saved countless lives. Afterward, the ship came crashing back down to the ground a few kilometers away, then took root in order to heal itself.
There was some kind of mutiny aboard the ship, but the details remained a mystery. The Oikeyan legion abandoned it, and beat a hasty retreat back to their colonies in Africa.
Meanwhile, the Ark had been torn to shreds, and a hundred million human refugees were once again homeless. It didn’t take them long to come and investigate the city ship, like children poking a dead animal with a stick. But this animal was still alive. Just barely, but alive.
What they found was simply amazing; the only aliens left aboard the ship were the pacifist Sey Chen, who welcomed the refugees with open arms. The rest, as they say, was history.
Still, there were too many mysteries about that day for Marcus’ liking, and clues were few and far between. Why was the Ark’s self-destruct activated in the middle of the battle? How did the city-ship become aware of the impending explosion? Marcus had come down from orbit to find out.
As they walked down Amiasha’s crowded streets, Marcus and Rao turned and cut through one of the many markets where people were busy selling all kinds of wares. At the far end, where the tents thinned out, they found the man they were looking for.
He wore a set of army fatigues that had obviously been mended a few too many times, and his skin was thoroughly pitted and scarred. It looked like someone had splashed molten lava on him. Still, he was all in one piece, which was better than many soldiers could say, and he’d found work as a guard for one of the new merchant class.
“Excuse me, are you Sgt. Karpov?”
“Commander Donovan?”
Marcus nodded, and Karpov snapped a salute. Marcus returned the gesture clumsily, sure he’d never quite get used to it.
“I wanted to ask some questions about the day of the battle, if that’s alright.”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“I understand you were working guard detail in the reactor section. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“It’s all in my report, sir,” the scarred soldier said.
“That’s alright. I’d like to hear it in your own words.”
And Karpov told his story. Unfortunately, it matched the debriefing reports to the last detail. Someone or something had breached the Ark at the height of the battle. Many described it as an invisible monster that ran faster than bullets. Karpov saw only a blinding light that rushed his position and melted a steel barricade with its touch. His was just another of the hundred ghost stories that came out of that day.
When Karpov finished, Marcus thanked him and went on his way. Someone out there had the missing puzzle pieces, and Marcus Donovan wouldn’t rest until he found them.
Sixty-Seven
All beneath the heavens call my Tao great. Because of its greatness, it seems strange, But if it weren’t strange, it would’ve faded long ago.
There are but three treasures I cherish and cling to: The first is mercy, the second economy, And the third is indifference to winning. From mercy arises courage; from economy, generosity; From humility, the power to effect change.
These days, men belittle mercy, yet celebrate courage; They forget economy while exercising generosity; They cast asid
e humility and always strive to be first. Thus do they court their downfall.
Through mercy, struggles can be surmounted, And defenses made impenetrable. This is how the universe preserves and protects.
About the author:
Chris J. Randolph (hey, that’s me!) is a writer, futurist and possible killer robot originally from Redwood City, CA. When not talking about himself in the third person, he’s usually writing about fictional people who pilot spaceships, fight dinosaurs and seduce green women… and somewhat less often about green women who pilot dinosaurs, fight people and seduce spaceships.
His other interests include linguistics, cooking, video games and digital publishing advocacy. He’s the proud recipient of several literary awards he made up himself, and he currently resides in Rocklin, CA, with a family who somehow puts up with his shenanigans. He hopes to someday own his own tropical dictatorship.
Interested in more indie fiction? Come visit our label at oktopods.wordpress.com
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Table of Contents
Dedication:
Chapter 0:
Chapter 1:The Hidden
Chapter 2:First Response
Chapter 3:Snake Oil
Chapter 4:228 Days
Chapter 5:Contact
Chapter 6:The Earth Stands Still
Chapter 7:Broken Bird
Chapter 8:Jonah and the Great Fish
Chapter 9:All In
Chapter 10:Are You Alive?
Chapter 11:Anatomy
Chapter 12:Exterminators
Chapter 13:Eye in the Sky
Chapter 14:Valentine
Chapter 15:Evermore
Chapter 16:Legacy
Chapter 17:Survival
Chapter 18:The Silk Road
Chapter 19:The Distant Shore
Chapter 20:A Call to Arms
Chapter 21:Reunion
Chapter 22:Red Carpet
Chapter 23:Becoming Caesar
Chapter 24:Remedial
Chapter 25:Womb
Chapter 26:The Weight
Chapter 27:Cellular
Chapter 28:Scarification
Chapter 29:Snare
Chapter 30:Dissect
Chapter 31:Dreaming in Color
Chapter 32:Forward
Chapter 33:Tin Can
Chapter 34:Peeping Tom
Chapter 35:Civilian
Chapter 36:Jack and the Beanstalk
Chapter 37:Detachment
Chapter 38:The View From Above
Chapter 39:Interrogation
Chapter 40:Solitary
Chapter 41:Comrade
Chapter 42:The Wake of It
Chapter 43:Rendezvous
Chapter 44:Dead Sea
Chapter 45:Millipede
Chapter 46:Homecoming
Chapter 47:Hoosegow
Chapter 48:Salamander
Chapter 49:Donovan’s Counter-Attack
Chapter 50:Right In Two
Chapter 51:Symphony
Chapter 52:The Quiet
Chapter 53:Aftermath
Sixty-Seven
About the author:
Copyright Notice: