Exiles (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book One)

by Dan Worth

  ‘So, do you love me?’

  ‘Yes, yes I do… and now you’re all I have left I think.’ She looked at him sadly. ‘Maybe all I want now is you, here at the end of things.’

  ‘Someone’s outside.’

  Chen listened. There was the sound of a heavy tread outside the lifeboat. It wasn’t her men, the footfalls sounded far too heavy for that. Maybe it was a wild animal, come to scavenge to crash site for food?

  There was a rushing sound. Something swooped through the air above the lifeboat and landed, then another and another. Chen felt fear grip her. She fumbled in the ship’s weapon locker for a side arm, though what good it would do her she couldn’t tell.

  ‘What the hell are those things?’ said Ramirez, wincing with pain. ‘Michelle can you see anything?’

  She motioned for him to be quiet and gripping her pistol she crept to the front of the craft and peered through the shattered cockpit windows. A vast silver face stared back, it grinned horribly in a parody of a human expression, its eyes and mouth three awful black pits.

  At that moment the roof of the lifeboat was ripped away in one swift motion and one of the insectoid creatures that had destroyed the fleet scrambled inside. Chen had time to recoil in terror from the awful segmented thing before it raised a skeletal hand, and both she and Ramirez knew nothing more.

  A state of panic had now descended upon the platforms as people fought for the few shuttles that could take them off the planet. It was a futile exercise. None of the ships were jump capable. Even if the craft succeeded in breaking orbit and avoided getting shot down they could never hope to get far enough away from the suns in time before they were destroyed. Steven was still trying to get through to Varish, but the radiation and jamming fields from the battle were blocking his transmissions.

  Further panic ensured when a sensors operator still at his post spotted a swarm of incoming craft, diving at supersonic speed towards the platform. They were neither Human nor Arkari, and there were dozens of them.

  Katherine looked out from the bridge and saw the swarm of specks approaching from a point beyond the wreck of the Arkari ship. Sunlight sparkled off their silvery bodies as they dove. The first group landed on the shipwreck and clambered quickly inside. Katherine could see them more clearly now, segmented armoured forms that changed shape from sleek airborne configurations to multi-limbed insectile ones as they landed. Despite their large size they moved with a precision that surprised her as they scuttled over the surface of the wreck like giant foraging ants.

  The second wave landed on the platforms en masse and began to swarm over the structures. The creatures seemed less intent on killing and more on information gathering. Though they quickly and brutally crushed the resistance put up by the squads of marines stationed aboard the salvage platforms, they largely ignored the technicians and engineers who fled in terror before their hulking metal forms. There was now no doubt that the things bore a striking resemblance to the remains they had found beneath the temple, albeit in a more sophisticated form.

  ‘What are those things!?’ Katherine cried amid the confusion.

  ‘I know what they are,’ said Rekkid quietly. ‘They’re us, they’re Arkari. I don’t imagine they’ll be too thrilled to meet me.’

  At that moment the armoured glass window of the bridge was shattered by the impact of the one of the creatures. It slid to a stop against the far wall as the assembled personnel dove for cover amid showering glass. Unfolding its legs, the thing approached a bank of consoles and began interrogating the platform’s computer systems. It slid nanotech probes into access ports. Decrypting their languages in moments, it scoured the archives for data as more of the things landed lightly just inside the smashed pane.

  The first creature turned and saw Rekkid who was standing with Katherine and Steven. It stalked towards them. It must have communicated with the others somehow since they too now began to surround the little group. Rekkid waited for them to strike, cut him down in a petty act of revenge.

  He had an idea. If the things were after information he’d give them something to think about. He pulled out his computer containing the log and held it out to the first creature. It snatched it greedily with two of its appendages and inspected the device.

  ‘Greetings, traitor filth,’ it whispered, haltingly in modern Arkari, Rekkid guessed it must have recently assimilated the language from somewhere. ‘At last our two peoples meet once more. You shall have the honour of being amongst the first to die. What is this? A gift?’ It gestured with the computer it held and appeared to chuckle, a deep warbling sound.

  ‘Read it,’ said Rekkid.

  ‘Very well, I shall indulge you,’ it said and slid its silvery nanotech probes into the device to access it. ‘Interesting…’ it said before raising its hands and stunning the trio into unconsciousness.

  Outside, the wreck of the Arkari ship was torn apart by a series of explosions. The AI, refusing to surrender to the swarm of Banished Arkari that crawled over it had detonated the vessel’s self destruct charges. The blazing wreckage fell back into the dust below with a series of dull thumps. Gradually, the Alreda Sea reclaimed the ship once more, along with all of its technological secrets.

  Chapter 36

  ‘Wake up, Admiral Chen.’

  She opened her eyes and looked blearily about herself. She was in some sort of large vaulted chamber. It was filled with ranks of odd looking machines and dozens of the armoured things that had destroyed the ship. They were swarming over the weird devices. She saw that the things appeared to be implanting a living network of circuitry of some kind over the devices which spread like a mat of iridescent algae about the chamber.

  She remembered being in the crashed lifeboat with Ramirez, hearing a noise and then… how had she got here? She had a splitting headache.

  A figure stood in front of her. It was formed from the same silvery material as the creatures but it did not share their appearance. Instead, it looked like a statue of an Arkari, albeit a rather stylised one. Its blank expression was rather unsettling. It spoke again; its voice had a hard, mechanical tone.

  ‘I see you have regained consciousness Admiral. Now, do you know who I am?’

  ‘As far as I can tell,’ she replied. ‘You’re one of the murdering bastards who attacked us without provocation and killed most of my crew. Also, would you mind telling me where the hell I am and what I’m doing here?’

  ‘Your moral judgement is irrelevant as to my identity. The actions we took were a military necessity,’ it said dispassionately. ‘We had to ensure the security of our re-entry into this galaxy. We did not know of your intentions and so we took necessary precautionary measures. As to your location, this is the main control centre for the portal itself. We are attempting to join with it as a species.’

  ‘You killed over ten thousand of my people!’

  ‘As I said, it was necessary. It may interest you to know that although we have captured many other survivors we have not harmed them. Now, do you know who I am?’

  ‘You resemble an Arkari but you’re not, are you?’

  ‘I was Arkari once, a very long time ago. My mind is still Arkari, but as you can see it inhabits a rather different body than the one that it was given by nature. My position within our civilisation is not that of leader - we abandoned all concepts of a centralised command structure some time ago since we now operate as what you might term a hive-mind. However, you may think of me as the Negotiator for our species or as a diplomat if you will.’ It paused. ‘Let me tell you a little story. In the ancient past our people had established themselves over much of this part of the galaxy, much like yourselves. We had begun trading with other races and slowly we began to dominate this area of space and we grew rich and prosperous from our ventures.

  ‘However, others like myself realised that our greatness was being checked, by those corrupt politicians back on the home-world, and by the multitude of degenerate lesser species who saw our prosperity as an excuse to beh
ave like parasites upon a host body, despite the benefits our enlightened rule had brought them. Naturally, we voiced our concerns about the crime and corruption and barbaric culture that they brought to the Arkari people, but no-one would listen. These parasites had been given rights you see? We had to respect that of course,’ it sneered.

  Chen listened mutely at the Negotiator’s diatribe. She began to wonder what the purpose of this history lesson was. It continued:

  ‘In the end, we like-minded individuals, loyal to the principles of the Empire, took it upon ourselves to seize power back from the corrupt politicians in the interests of the Arkari people. We would expel all aliens and restore the purity of our civilisation. But we were betrayed. Only half of the military would follow us, the other half remained loyal to the Senate, and naturally the lesser species sided with them. War ensued, billions died and we did our best to cleanse the Empire with what time and resources we had, even if some of our methods were… somewhat crude.’

  ‘So, who won?’ said Chen, though she suspected she already knew the answer judging from the bitterness in the thing’s voice.

  ‘They did. Our fleet was crushed and the survivors forced to surrender. We were to be exiled from the Empire for good, never to return. At first we thought this would merely entail being forced to resettle in another part of the galaxy, but no. There was to be one final insult.’

  It paused, as if for dramatic effect. ‘Those loyal to the Senate had discovered this place, a portal able to send ships to any point in space or time. They chose not to move our physical location, merely our temporal one. We were told that we would be given a galaxy to colonise. Naturally we assumed that this would be another galaxy, but it was this one! They sent us over a hundred billion years into the future. They sent us there to die. But we survived! Against all the odds we clung on. By transferring our minds into bodies such as you see before you, we were able to eke out an existence in that lightless place, thrive even, after a time. Though we yearned to return, we explored the corpse of this galaxy, exploited every morsel we could find. Then, at its centre, orbiting a blasted world that was falling towards the great maelstrom, we found something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A message from the past, from this time. It had been left there for us to find. It told us of a way back. It told us of a new order coming to this galaxy that we could be a part of if we co-operated. You too can join us Chen, you and your entire species.’

  The land and sky around the temple swarmed with Banished Arkari. A sea of thronging metal bodies guarded the entrance to the portal control centre where the creatures now attempted to interface with Maran and add his consciousness to their own, thus giving them direct possession of the portal.

  The inhabitants of the city of Marantis had largely given up and fled, though a few clerics and those too frail or wounded to move remained. Faced with a nightmare vision straight from the Dendratha version of hell, the city had emptied. Most of its inhabitants now camped in the network of gorges to the west side of the city. There they would remain until their god came to save them, ignorant as to whose side he was actually on.

  Katherine, Rekkid and Steven had been brought to the temple and lay unconscious on the floor under the main spire. They remained under guard but were not restrained. There was no need. If they attempted to escape they would be killed.

  Katherine was the first to awake, and with a start she realised where she now was. Four of the armoured creatures regarded her with interest from all sides. She saw Rekkid and Steven still deeply sound asleep. A fifth alien figure stepped briskly across the stone floor of the temple, a silver statue of an Arkari woman. She stood in front of Katherine and regarded her with cold expressionless eyes.

  ‘I am a Negotiator for my people. You are a member of the species known as ‘Human’ is that correct?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, that is correct. You on the other hand are or were, an Arkari I assume?’

  ‘Very perceptive, though from the data we found about your persons I’m hardly surprised by your insight. How did you come by it?’

  ‘I’m an archaeologist by profession. We study the past by…’

  ‘Yes, yes I’m aware of what an archaeologist is, please continue.’

  ‘We boarded the wreck of an ancient Arkari vessel whose name we discovered later was the Khostun. We found the data you refer to aboard. It’s the ship’s log.’

  ‘The Khostun?’ her interest seemed piqued. ‘Captain Cortill was an acquaintance of mine. Tell me, did you see his body?’

  ‘Yes I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Then they never made it.’ She said sadly and fell silent for a moment. ‘Do you know how old the wreck was?’

  ‘By our reckoning, about a million years. I think that’s about seven hundred and thirty thousand Arkari standard.’

  ‘Yes, and for all of that time we have been exiled. Locked away in the worst, most desolate place you can imagine: The future, the end of time itself. Now we have returned, thanks to you or should I say, thanks to those who sent you here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’ she chuckled. ‘You have been used my dear. You and your traitor friend over there were merely puppets all of this time, strung along by those who now seek to remake the galaxy.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Shapers.’

  ‘The Shapers are the ones who will bring enlightenment,’ said the silver figure. ‘They are old, impossibly so, older even than many of the stars themselves. They are wise beyond anything you or even I can comprehend.’

  ‘Where does their name come from?’ said Chen.

  ‘Their name? It is not what they called themselves originally, that is certain. It was given to them by those who faced them in the past. The Shapers remake things as they see fit, remake life itself through their mastery of all sciences. Most of all, they desire to remake the order of things and bend the galaxy to their will. They despise the weak and the false, they champion those who are strong, those who act decisively. They see the duplicity in the Arkari Meritarchs, in your own self-seeking government, they see that the K’Soth Empire will implode and bring chaos. They desire order, and peace. You cannot fight them, so will you join them as we did?’

  ‘I cannot speak for my entire species,’ replied Chen. ‘I’m not senior enough to make such decisions. Why don’t you appeal to my government?’

  ‘The government is corrupt, you know that. They are part of the problem. We need someone strong, someone pure and unsullied by politics. Think about it. With our resources we could defeat the Empire in days. The Commonwealth could side with us. You don’t need the Arkari Sphere, they only treat you like ill-behaved children, patronise you and hold back the power that they could grant to you if they wished. We would grant you everything. You could be the figurehead behind which your entire species could rally. We will crush the K’Soth, the Arkari, even the Esacir and bring back order to this part of the galaxy… and that would only be the beginning. A great wave of conquest would follow. A human imperium would rise in this spiral arm.’

  ‘What if I choose not to join your crusade? What if I choose not to make the human race nothing more than vassals to these “Shapers” that you mentioned?’

  ‘You would not be vassals; you would be part of the most glorious civilisation since the Bajenteri.’

  ‘Yes I’ve heard of them. They built this place didn’t they? What happened to them?’

  ‘The Shapers… saw that the Bajenteri were becoming too arrogant, too immoral, and too indulgent of the lesser races. They decided to get rid of their failing rule and replace it with something better, something purer. They swept the Bajenteri aside with a great plague!’

  ‘They wanted all the power for themselves didn’t they?’

  ‘Be quiet! Be glad that you are being given a chance to decide!’

  ‘If I refuse?’

  ‘You can’t fight them. The Commonwealth will fall one way or another, they will see to that
. Maybe it already is falling. This pointless war that you have started, for instance? In the short term however, I sure that we can persuade you…’ the Negotiator gestured towards the approaching figure of one the other Banished. It carried the unconscious body of Ramirez in its forelimbs.

  ‘We have kept him alive as a gesture of good will, only the medical fields of my comrade keep him alive. He was on the brink of death when we found you. We can repair his broken body,’ said the Negotiator. ‘But it’s very simple. Either you co-operate, or he dies.’

  ‘What does it matter whether I join you or not? I cannot compel others to do the same.’

  ‘We need you to speak for us. Persuade the others. Lead by example. There will be others for you to command who find the choice between godhood and annihilation an easy one. On one hand, you can rule the galaxy, on the other, your lover dies.’

  ‘He… he means nothing to me!’ she lied.

  ‘Is that so? Well, we are curious about human physiology, so perhaps you’d care to watch whilst we dissect him alive? I’m sure it will be most interesting.’ As it spoke the forelimbs of the Banished that had carried Ramirez reformed into vicious looking scalpels.

  ‘Choose,’ said the Negotiator.

  Varish was ready now. There was only one option left to him, and he had to act. The dreadnoughts’ weapons were approaching full charge. Already the stars were showing signs of disturbances; great solar flares blossomed on their surfaces. Routing all power to his engines he dove straight at the portal.

  The firestorm of the still raging battle engulfed him. He jinked and swerved as much as he was able to evade ships from both sides, barrel rolled through the hole torn through an Arkari destroyer, feinted and swooped to avoid the swarms of fighters and headed straight for the tunnel of light that reached out to welcome him.