Zero Star

by Chad Huskins

  Moira looked at the record that most historians agreed was probably the most accurate:

  The First Unknowns War – fought ~ one million years ago. (lasted ~ 120 years)

  The Second Unknowns War – fought ~ 600,000 years ago. (lasted ~ 30 years)

  The Third Unknowns War – fought ~ 230,000 years ago. (lasted ~ 9 years)

  The Fourth Unknowns War – fought ~ 217,000 years ago. (lasted ~ 400 years)

  The Fifth Unknowns War – fought ~ 163,000 years ago. (lasted ~ 6 years)

  The Sixth Unknowns War – fought ~ 120,000 years ago. (lasted ~ 200 years)

  The Seventh Unknowns War – fought ~ 86,000 years ago. (lasted ~ 58 years)

  The Eighth Unknowns War – fought 5,124 years ago. (lasted 2 years)

  The Ninth Unknowns War – fought 552 years ago. (lasted 20 years)

  There were plenty of images of the enemy ships from the Ninth Unknowns War, but only two images from the Eighth. The images from five thousand years ago had been corrupted over time, reconstructed, and reanimated. But all the images showed a clear resemblance between the enemy craft—long, black, and jagged, with random antenna-like protrusions at the front and two bulbous growths along the side. Capital ships a mile long. None of them had ever been destroyed. The instant that a battle did not seem to be going their way, the Unknowns had fled immediately.

  Always.

  They left behind no survivors, no bodies of their own kind, and very rarely left any scraps of ship debris. Nobody knew who they were or what they wanted, they just came, warred, and vanished. To where, nobody knew that either.

  “Huh.”

  Drawn in by her curiosity, Moira did a LOG search to see if she could discover the fate of the Ichidarod and its fleet. She was elated when she found that yet another diligent history buff from two hundred years ago had posted an obituary from an old military pubnet site. That history buff was probably long dead, but they had added to the breadcrumb trail Moira was following.

  Since the obituary itself was from more than five hundred years ago, the file was again somewhat corrupted, with names missing and no pictures of anyone. But the most salient point was there:

  SDFA ICHIDAROD – Fate: Eaton System (all souls lost)

  “The Ichidarod was destroyed in Eaton, Pritch.”

  Pritchard let out a tiny bleet at the ships jockeying for position around them.

  Moira leaned back in her seat, chewing on her cheek and thinking. Some of the historian friends she had told Kalder about had indeed been frantic about learning the truth about the Strangers, and some of them had believed that the Unknowns were actually the Strangers themselves, since both were so obviously gifted at leaving virtually no trace behind with which to follow them. But Moira had never believed that. The Strangers were very thorough about leaving nothing behind, and in her mind, someone who was that adamant about it did not have any plans on returning.

  Of course, anything was possible. The Strangers might have changed their minds, returning to the Milky Way after millions of years to try and reclaim something.

  But the universe is so large. If you can truly go anywhere, and if you truly were a civilization that could survive off mining on the go, and you could truly cultivate planets—which I can’t imagine they wouldn’t be able to do, since we figured it out—then I don’t see why the Strangers would need to come back. And why fight for a few years and then leave?

  No, the Unknowns and the Strangers were two different races, she knew it in her heart.

  “So Kalder wants us to go to a remote system that seems insignificant, Pritch,” she said, stroking him as he growled at the next potential line jumper. “Except that it’s not so insignificant. Humans fought the Unknowns there, and lost at least one ship. Does that have something to do with him wanting to go there? How would he know about it, if I had to do a lot of digging just to find it? Did he learn it from someone else, or…?”

  Or was he there? she thought. It felt a little too silly to say it out loud.

  Moira had not figured out Kalder’s age, so she supposed it was certainly possible the man had some hidden stockpile of regens.

  “…demons…All demons…”

  She stopped the audio recording, then sat in the near silence, listening to the air vents hum while trying to suss out what it could be about the Eaton System and Dwimer that had Kalder so intrigued.

  Then, a chime went off, one with a different tone. A voice said, “A-R-C-one-niner-niner-alpha-theta-six-seven-four-two-eight-seven, this is Monarch Station Space Control. You are cleared for landing in hangar bay two-one-four. Repeat, two-one-four. Sending you plot vector now, please follow vector exactly and meet with docking claw seven.”

  “About time,” she huffed.

  Moira activated OMS. It took the better part of an hour to reach the outstretched docking claw. She yawed just a smidge, lining up with the claw, and felt the shudder as it clamped down. It reeled her in and set her inside a hangar where her shuttle was laid delicately beside others. The docking claw retracted and the hangar doors shut. As soon as atmo was pumped into the hangar, Moira and Pritchard stepped out of the Series Seven and walked through the vestibule into a thoroughfare, and almost immediately bumped into a Harbinger.

  With outstretched hands, the Harbinger said, “You are going about your life, striving to find meaning. But you will find no meaning, and you know this.” He touched the infinitum engraved on his forehead. “Why not relent? Why not lay down? You know you wish to. Come, lay down beside me. Set aside all your burdens forever, girl, and talk with me.”

  Moira tried stepping around him. He blocked her path, spewing more misanthropic nonsense until she shoved him to the side. Behind her, Pritchard growled. The Harbinger was still calling after her as she walked away.

  The pipes along the hall were leaking, and the walls wept streams of water. At each juncture, she had to wait for a Vigile to open the doors for her—to save on power, pressure doors all over the station were being hand-cranked to open and close. Power doors would only be activated in the event of emergencies, such as sudden pressure loss in key compartments.

  Things were getting tight on Monarch. And dangerous.

  She made it to the New Forum and almost immediately gagged. She had forgotten what it smelled like. Even Pritchard made a hacking noise.

  She happened by the same xeno-owned shop she had seen her first visit here, and nodded at the creature sitting in the stall. It did not acknowledge her.

  She passed a couple of stalls that were roasting unknown animals from alien worlds across spits. One or two of the shopkeeps looked at Moira’s dog with avarice.

  “Stay close, Pritch,” she told the dog at her heels. “Don’t want someone snatching you up and making a meal out of you.”

  As she pushed through the throng of sweating bodies, she heard a fight break out. Someone had leapt over a stall of the Aid Outlet, the station for handing out emergency relief supplies. Four or five people were involved in the fight, and four Vigiles descended on them with stun-staffs, electricity snapping out of the ends as the men were quieted. During the fight, a few of the supplies—some kind of hairy orange fruit and bottles of water—had spilled and people in the streets were scooping them up and scurrying off like rats making away with scraps.

  “Kalder does not bend!” someone screamed. It was a tall man in a ragged robe, standing on a stalagmite that someone had hollowed out and turned into a stall that held pamphlets that were free to take. He appeared to be a Christer, for he wore the symbol of the cross around his neck, and pontificated in the manner of a zealot. “Kalder does not bend! Listen to him! He asks us to join him in a Crusade, not unlike the holy crusades thousands of years ago, when Pope Urban II asked the people to go to war against the Muslim forces in the Holy Land!”

  A crowd had gathered around him, and were looking with earnest faces, some with tears in their eyes and clutching their breasts. Even Moira found herself pausing to listen, so fervent and convincing were th
e man’s passions.

  “Remember where you come from! Do not forget from whence we are descended! Crusades such as this are in our blood, in our faith, and in the teachings of Lord Christ! Believe in the Crusade! It is our last hope against the hosts of world eaters and planetary invaders! Follow in the footsteps of the Strangers and follow Kalder to the end! He will not fail you, he will not bend! You know this! Stand behind him, as he has stood by humanity for three thousand years!”

  Three thousand years? she thought. Regens weren’t even around back then.

  Suddenly, Moira became aware of someone shouting her name.

  “Miss Holdengard!”

  She stopped, turned. The man running up to her was somewhat familiar, and it took a moment for her to place his face. Bald, tattooed. He was garbed in robes of red and green, with clattering jewelry hanging from his wrists and neck.

  The lobbyist she had seen sleeping outside of Kalder’s office.

  “Miss Holdengard,” the man said, walking up to her. He slipped in a puddle of sludge, nearly fell over, and regained himself. “I was hoping to catch you. I was hoping to have a word.”

  “About?”

  The man smiled, apparently excited just to have someone to talk to, someone who did not discount him outright. He had an obsequious look about him, overtly servile, definitely someone’s messenger or manservant. “I have been trying to speak with Senator Kalder about a matter of utmost importance, but no amount of pleading has yet availed me.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Thulm, and I come bearing the word of d’Arhagen and the World Serpent…where are you going?”

  Moira had already turned and was walking away. “I’m not interested in any new religions.”

  “Kalder said the same, but like I tried to tell him, I do not come in the name of any religion. God knows we get enough grief from the Harbingers.”

  “Then what do you represent?” Moira called over her shoulder, for she was outpacing the man.

  “I represent someone who may be able to help stave off the Fall of Man,” Thulm said.

  Moira snorted. “Sure sounds like a religion to me, it would take an act of God to reverse the situation we’re in.”

  “A god,” Thulm said. “Or a man like unto a god.”

  Moira glanced over her shoulder. “Yeah. You’re not helping your cause of trying not to sound like a religion.”

  “D’Arhagen is no god. D’Arhagen is a simple being who has seen many things, gone far and wide. He has uncovered many secrets of the universe, some of those secrets might very well be of interest to a man like Kalder. I understand the senator has an interest in Scrolls, and in Worshipper and Stranger sites. I think that’s why he hired you.”

  Moira stopped and looked at the man. “How do you know he hired me for anything?”

  “You’ve paid him a number of visits,” said Thulm, crossing his arms so that his hands disappeared into the cuffs of his robes. “And everyone has heard of this Crusade Kalder is embarking on. You’re a stellarpath, that much was easy to find on LOG. The rest is simple deduction.”

  “What does this—d’Arhagen, did you say?—what does he have to offer Kalder or me?”

  Here, Thulm smiled with great relish, and Moira found it more than a little unsettling. “Magonogon,” he said.

  “What’s Magonogon?”

  “The World Serpent. The last World Serpent.”

  “What the hell is a World Serpent?”

  Thulm took a step towards her. “Are you familiar with wyrms, Miss Holdengard?”

  Moira nodded. “Sure. Tamed animals, like large serpents. The navy sometimes uses them, some rich people on a few garden worlds keep them as pets. What of them?”

  Thulm twitched his head in a way that said she ought to follow him as he started walking again. Now it was his turn to lead. “Do you know, no one knows where the wyrms come from. Like so many alien species. Like that one there,” he said, gesturing behind at the xeno in its stall. “Where’s it from? Who’s to say? How long has it been here? Are there any more like it? Is it the last? Can you imagine being the last of your race, your last days spent being a shopkeep in a dismal place like this, surrounded by another species that wasn’t like you at all?”

  Thulm shook his head sadly.

  “But I digress. You asked what Magonogon is. Generally, it is considered that there are eight stages of growth for a wyrm—crodic, anguis, hatchling, coil, serpens, vipera, dragon and greatwyrm. Crodics are barely larger than me, of course, and a greatwyrm can be the size of a capital ship. You may know that fossils have been found of even larger ones, wyrms stretching miles in length, head to tail, and might have been the largest living organisms the galaxy ever produced.”

  Moira shrugged. “I’ve heard stories, though I’m no xenozoologist.”

  Thulm nodded patiently. “But you do know that no one knows where they came from? Humans have been taming them for centuries, using them as pack mules at first, once the Isoshi demonstrated the animals could thrive in the vacuum of space. But humans found their use as combat vehicles only because of the Faeydens, of course.”

  “I hope you’ll be getting to the point soon,” Moira said, glancing behind to make sure Pritchard was keeping up. “I have work to do.”

  “I understand you may be heading up an expedition for the senator.” Thulm smiled. “My congratulations. But I hope you will listen to me. There is another kind of wyrm, Miss Holdengard. One far larger, and far more terrifying than even a greatwyrm. It is Magonogon, the World Serpent, and only the great d’Arhagen commands him.”

  Moira sighed. Yes, it still sounded very much like a zealot’s boasts. Likely, d’Arhagen was a cult leader somewhere who had come across a large vipera, perhaps even a dragon, and had convinced his people of his ability to command the wyrm through godlike powers. Naïve zealots on some desolate rock, who had probably never seen a wyrm before, had exaggerated the wyrm’s true size. Thulm was just another follower.

  “I wish you to pass on this message to Senator Kalder,” Thulm concluded. “I wish you to tell him that Magonogon is coming, and that d’Arhagen commands him and is willing to help, for he too seeks the power of the ancients. The power of the Strangers.”

  “What makes you think Kalder seeks power?”

  Thulm came to a stop, and said, “All men of power seek power.” He nodded sagely. “Please tell Kalder to look into the events taking place in the Tapir System, as well as the Vlodonsk and Xang Systems. Learn of what d’Arhagen and his World Serpent have been doing there, and then tell him to come talk to me. I will be staying here, at an inn called Baradosh. I’m sure he can find it.”

  Thulm bowed slightly.

  “Farewell, Miss Holdengard. I hope to see you again someday.”

  Moira watched the man go, saw him wave off the beggar who came up to him, hands out. Moira smiled as the beggar pickpocketed Thulm, and the robed zealot didn’t even notice it. She looked back at Pritchard, who was looking up at her, wagging his tail expectantly.

  “Did you hear that craziness?”

  Pritchard bleeked.

  “JUST TO BE clear, I want him dead,” said Kalder, wishing for there to be no misunderstanding.

  “Of course, Master,” said Trix.

  Kalder handed the bot a slip of slinkplast that had been stamped with a signet ring. It had the Senate’s crest on it, and the special wax was irradiated so that any Vigile’s scanner would detect its authenticity. “Show this to anyone who stops you from going where you want. If you have to, give them my contact information, and I’ll see that you get through any doors barred to you.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “And, of course, you must settle…the other matter. But only after Cenagul. Understood?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  The bot turned and left.

  Kalder looked to his right, where Julian stood at the corner of his office, wearing a look of consternation.

  “You disagree?”

&nbs
p; “I thought you had decided to let Cenagul live,” said Julian, walking over to him. “You told him so. In your meeting, in this very room, you told him he could retreat back to his home on Asteron and that as long as he lived as a hermit and took no guests other than family—”

  “I meant it at the time,” Kalder said. “But I’ve thought about it since then, and I will not suffer a pedophile to live. Letting Cenagul go with such a mild punishment…it would not be a good way to start this new dawn we are approaching.” He looked at Julian. “We are Restorationists, you and I. Through and through. Restoring sometimes requires a restart. No mercy to such monsters. Agreed?”

  Julian nodded in a manner of slow acceptance. “Agreed, sir.” He added, “But if Trix’s intentions to kill Cenagul are realized before he reaches—”

  Kalder waved a dismissive hand. “Then I’ll claim it was a preemptive strike of self-defense, which is true, and lump him in with Hossel’s attempt on my life. Once I show the Vigiles the evidence I have on Cenagul he’ll be discredited, no one will listen to him. But speaking of Hossel, how goes the search for him?”

  “The Vigiles cannot find him anywhere. Rumor is he’s left Monarch.”

  “Smart move on his part.”

  Just then, there came a knock on the door. Julian walked over to open it, and admitted Moira Holdengard into the room. She wore a long green robe, and pulled the hood back from her head, revealing that fiery head of hair, and eyes made hard by experience. Kalder always thought she resembled someone he once knew, a resistance fighter, someone who worked in underground movements, never had any money, but was used to being in audience of powerful people. Lowborn, but not easily intimidated by money, opulence, or power.