Starship Relic (Lost Colony Uprising Book 1)

by Darcy Troy Paulin

  He found the promising-looking tubers days before, when he’d finally accepted that he would not quickly recapture the target. He realized he would need to put something in his stomach, if only to keep from the distraction of hunger. He knew from training, for his own survey, and later for his current occupation, that you could eat some wild vegetation. Some contained sugars that could be digested, netting him energy. Energy that he could use to continue his pursuit. He knew also that they would all taste terrible. And that they would turn his guts into a gas refinery, twisting them uncomfortably in the process.

  His training had not been wrong about his guts, which were, as expected, producing a great deal of gas and discomfort. He tried a number of different roots and plants before finding the trove of tubers. All the others had tasted worse than he expected. But these tubers didn’t taste too bad. It might simply have been in comparison with the other vegetation, but he thought they tasted good. Like food.

  Better still, they filled him with energy. Less good, he felt a distinct lack of energy after a while, the only cure to which seemed to be more of the tubers. The give and take of the new food wasn’t ideal, but it was an improvement over the first day with an empty stomach. Which was handy, as the target’s clever theft of the digester might otherwise have been a real problem, rather than being simply inconvenient.

  The hunter had not expected the target to get far. He didn’t think he himself had been knocked out for long and he half expected to find the target lying on the path, sliced in two by the same yigrit that had attacked the hunter. Then he remembered that the monster was working with the target. When he found the target’s trail leading away he assumed that he would catch up quickly, the target could move only so fast with his arms tied behind his back. But the target made good speed. His tracks suggested that before long he’d gotten his arms free. That forced the hunter to struggle merely to keep from falling too far behind.

  But he had shortened the target’s lead substantially in the last few days. In large part due to the target’s use of the hunter’s stolen bombs to clear a path. It allowed the hunter not only to note the direction of the target, but also to gauge his distance. The hunter took a gamble then, racing ahead to the point of the explosion, ignoring the trail with the intent to pick it up at the crater. And it paid off on both occasions.

  Then, disaster. The target found and followed a dry, rocky riverbed. Soon his trail disappeared completely. And the trail had been so fresh! The hunter had searched for any sign of the target leaving the river rock road. And he must have left, as the previously twisty river eventually straightened, leading north as far as the eye could see.

  The target always traveled relentlessly south, unless it wasn’t possible, and then only until it was possible again. With no sign of the target leaving the river, the hunter was forced to do the same. He headed south with the hope that something would turn his way.

  And something had. He encountered a wide band of gorger pits that went on and on in both directions, clearly an intentional boundary. He was certain the target would be to the west of the hunter’s position as he had chosen his path with that in mind. He was following the boundary west when he heard the sound of explosions in the distance. Not the small bombs in the possession of the target but those of a larger variety, tightly clustered. He continued to follow the edge of the forest west towards them.

  The bombs meant the Tawnee were on the target’s path. It should be bad news. But, the explosions kept occurring, suggesting they were missing the target with the clustered munitions… or simply casting a wide net. The hunter was still far off when he saw the aircraft fly fast over the band of gorgers. Moments later he saw the explosions, and seconds after that he heard and felt them. The shock wave traveled through his body, bringing a thrill to his senses. He had never before seen such a craft. The Tawnee were full of tricks weren’t they? He felt a sort of pride, in seeing such a craft, and its power, in the hands of his people’s allies. The Tawnee had always been strong. Hundreds of years ago when theirs and his people met, the Tawnee showed their strength, joining with them to drive out and defeat the corrupt rulers of the day. And together they had stayed strong. Together they had prevailed in the conflict with the north.

  And so, it seemed that the target’s woman did fly away after all. The hunter looked around at the wilderness and shook the smile from his face. The forest would happily consume him while he reminisced.

  This was his best opportunity. The Tawnee ship had recklessly or purposefully blown a path through what would have been a challenging barrier to cross. The target would find it and though he might not take the bait (if indeed it was bait) he would investigate. The hunter would be waiting.

  He arrived at the crossing and, after removing a group of foot sized talon grubs from his chosen branch, the hunter established a suitable position from which to fire and waited. He didn’t have to wait long. Little more than an hour had passed when he had the first indication that his prey had arrived. Though he saw nothing yet, he heard something moving, and it was coming closer. The hunter watched and waited patiently.

  Soon he heard the rustling sound of someone or something climbing a tree, no more than thirty yards away. Motion caught his eye and he was just able to make out the shape of a human foot through the branches of the tree. There was no sign of the target’s friend, the yigrit. The target sat in the tree for a few minutes and the hunter held his fire, waiting for a better shot. A popping sound came from the direction of the gorgers in the clearing. One of the smaller pits had closed up. And now the target was in motion. Reacting to the gorger closing. This was it. End game.

  The hunter could hear, but not see the target moving quickly down the tree and then across the ground. First a foot then the lower half of a body appeared at the edge of the forest stopping there as though the target was having second thoughts.

  The hunter had no more second thoughts. He fired, easily estimating the center of mass above the visible legs he could see below the tree cover. The bullet flew true and hit its mark. The target hit the ground with a thud and rolled to the side behind the wide trunk of the tree. Taking the time to reload his weapon, the hunter then climbed down the tree and approached the body, scanning the forest for the yigrit. He could just see the edge of the body lying on the forest floor to the other side of the tree. He kept the trunk between himself and the target as he approached the tree and looked one last time to make sure they were alone. He slipped around the trunk with his weapon aimed at the body.

  Chapter 49

  Snow approached the passage. She consciously set her face to casual mode and slipped a swagger into her stride. The doors to the passage were closed, which was as she expected. The guard had been lured away. Somehow a small troop of talon grubs had gotten into a nearby office. The slow-moving critters would latch onto anything in their vicinity with their namesake talons. The guard, Mareen, had been summoned to remove them, with the help of her singsong voice. And a pair of thick gloves.

  Snow’s plan remained intact.

  She approached the electronic door lock and rubbed sweat from her clammy palms on the pant-legs of her blue, Icarus-Core issued coveralls. About to enter the access code into the pearlescent keypad, she stopped. The door was already unlocked, which was unexpected. It didn’t impede the plan though, so she opened the door wide.

  It was important, in case that she was discovered, that she did not appear to be sneaking around. But there was no one in the passage on the other side of the door, and so for the moment she remained undiscovered.

  Down the short passage was another doorway, and it was wide open, as it should be.

  Go plan Go.

  Snow continued the swagger, which was only her usual walk with a dash of faux casual slapped over it and made her way to the second doorway. As she approached her goal came into view and she stopped in the doorway to take in the view. She was at the edge of a tall wide cylindrical cavern, a silo. Hoses and cables stretched out across the gap b
etween the concave walls and a long, vertical tube many yards wide. The giant tube was held upright by supports, so that it stood straight up in the center of the chamber. A bridge lead from the doorway where she stood across to the cylinder. Icarus.

  That Snow was alone in the silo was not chance. She’d adjusted the quasi-ritualistic maintenance schedule to make it so. The maintenance was ritualistic because Icarus was a symbolic device, not a practical one, and its maintenance too was mostly symbolic. She saw it as Quasi-ritualistic because all the maintenance work was completed properly, earnestly, and according to the manual. At least regarding those sections of the manual the Tawnee had available.

  Snow could already see some areas where Ravaea and her team of techs had been forced to wing it. She felt a stab of panic at the sight of the cloudy black rubber. She recovered quickly, but for a moment she’d felt real terror at the sight of the compromised seals. She couldn’t see any cracks from where she was standing, but she knew from the dull, slightly yellowed texture that the cracks were there.

  Lives are at stake! shouted a voice that was not hers, but was nevertheless, inside her head. But of course, no lives were at stake, not here. Not now in any case.

  She stepped onto the bridge and was halfway across before she remembered her plan to swagger rather than sneak her way in. She stopped at the hatch in Icarus’ side. There was a lever there and she pulled it out from its aerodynamic recession. Gripping firmly, she twisted it a full hundred and eighty degrees. It made no clunk nor any other noise at all that she could detect above the din of pumps and fans in the silo but operated smoothly as it was designed to do. She pulled the door open and stepped inside. She closed the hatch behind her and stepped quickly across the floor, past helmeted suits to either side of her, to a ladder that ran up Icarus’ center. Her plan continued intact. She grabbed hold of the rail and slipped her foot on the first rung. Go plan go—

  “Snow?”

  Snow took her foot back off the rung and spun towards the voice. Sitting on a smooth white equipment locker, lost amongst the suits and helmets, sat Freenan.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Speak of the devil,” Freenan said. He put down the paper he had been reading. “Or read of the devil in this case.”

  Snow pointed to herself. “Me? I’m not the devil.” She gestured behind her where a tail might be wagging. “No tail. No pitchfork. And anyway, the devil isn’t a lady.”

  “Ha! True. She is not. I meant only that I had been reading about you in the paper. You. Are. Famous.”

  “Not infamous?” she said. Freenan was not reacting correctly. Had he not just caught her sneaking around Icarus without permission?

  “Perhaps a little bit,” he said, “In certain circles.”

  Snow said nothing, she was trying to read him. He was up to something.

  He didn’t look like he was up to anything. And he was, as people went, rather transparent and easily read. But he had to be up to something. Didn’t he? He should be angry with her. Or perhaps scared for her, worrying about how he was going to smuggle her out, so she wasn’t in trouble. She was his prized discovery after all.

  “So, you have been here before?”

  Here we go. “Nope,” she said.

  “Really? You seemed to very much know where you were going. I just assumed this was not your first visit.”

  “No… I just saw it referenced in the database and—”

  “Well, I do apologize. I should have made certain you’d gotten a full tour.” He stood up. “We’ll do it now. Let me just find someone…” He looked up at the floor above. “No one up there…” he said, though to himself more than Snow. He opened the hatch and looked outside. “Where is everybody?” he said, finding no one. “Strange. Ravaea? Bob? Anyone?” he said loudly into the chamber.

  “That is very strange,” Snow said, “Isn’t it?”

  “It is,” he said.

  “It is,” she said.

  His eyes widened. “You!”

  She pointed to herself. “Maybe?”

  “Is this a caper? It is. It’s a caper. Ha! You sent them all away. Very clever. Very effective!” His mouth made an ‘o’ and he said, “You’re not here to… kill me?”

  Snow’s face crinkled up. “What? I didn’t even know you were going to be here. You’re not on the schedule.”

  “I wasn’t on the schedule, it’s true. I was just reading the paper,” he said, looking relieved. Relieved that she was not here to kill him. “I like it here.”

  “You thought I was here to kill you? Barf.”

  “Well… I don’t know…” he said, his cheeks flushed. “I realize you are still cross with me that Max has not arrived yet. I have just my best—Well… only man available on the task. He found you. I expect he will find Max too.

  Snow was still cross that Max had not been rescued yet. Maybe even murder cross. But not pre-meditated murder cross. But she felt this wasn’t the moment to press Freenan on the topic. “So, you like it here?”

  “Yes,” he said, further relieved by the change in topic. “I come here to read. And to center myself. When I have time.”

  “Seems like it might get a bit stuffy…”

  “It can get to be so, but when it does I simply open the hatch at the top and the one here, which allows a lovely breeze to flow through.”

  “So, I can come here whenever I want?”

  “Oh yes,” he said and chuckled. “You have access to the Core… there is truly no greater treasure of the Tawnee than the Core. Icarus is less beloved.”

  “Do I have to say that that is stupid?” Snow left the ladder which she had been leaning against and sat down on the other end of the equipment locker, one leg to each side.

  “Oh, it isn’t stupid. The Core is everything. All the information we have from… well, presumably from your people. And to think, most of it is locked away.” He looked at Snow, perhaps hoping for a hint of what lay inside the system’s database.

  Snow stayed silent. The Core’s login information was her only leverage. If she gave up that information now, Freenan might not still want to help her retrieve Max. If it was easy he might do it anyway. But it wasn’t going to be easy, or Max would be here already. She needed Freenan to need Max, or Max would be on his own.

  “Do you know what it is? What it does? Icarus.”

  “Maybe,” she said, and raised an eyebrow, “I mean… Isn’t it obvious?”

  “No. Not unless you have seen it. Even then, unless you’d happened to see the right type of movie…” He shrugged.

  “Sure. A small chance per person. But thousands must have seen it, swarmed it, studied it.”

  “Fewer than you think. Much fewer. For most that come to the Core, it is a lifetime appointment, and they are sworn to secrecy. Like you were. And most of those appointed have little more than a casual interest. ‘Oh, that’s Icarus,’ they say. ‘What a thrill!’ they say, before going back to work, maintaining the Core.” He turned an imaginary bolt with an imaginary wrench. “But yes. We think we know. I’m certain, but I don’t think the coordinator knows.”

  “You’re the coordinator… Aren’t you? You make no sense.”

  “Yes. No. I am the HOSaS science coordinator of post survey studies and juvenile ascendancy. There are many coordinators… from Prime on down to birthday party. Birthday party coordinator is of course a temporary position. But Coordinator Mortran, my predecessor and superior, has his sights on becoming coordinator prime. If that happens, though it’s more of a when than an if, he will be the coordinator of all Tawnee.”

  “He did your job,” she said. “He knows.”

  “If so, then he is confident it will never function. It certainly is not functional now, or he would have had it dismantled. For decades HOSaS has been apathetic, but Coordinator Mortran has not been apathetic. He has not been satisfied with merely holding back progress but has been driven towards regression. Not that there has been much progress to hold back. Not for a long time…”
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  “Why would he hold back progress? Dismantle Icarus?”

  “Power. And stability. The status quo is resilient. Tawnee is uncontested in its might on Grailliyn. The coordinator has set his sights low, on continuing to control that might as Prime.”

  “But Icarus? It’s soooo shiny!”

  “Because it is made of priceless materials. Various metals, which well, are priceless.” He paused to consider. “I can tell you now, now that you are here. The survey is really about these metals. Seeking more of them.” He looked around at the many hard metal components that surrounded them.

  “What.”

  “We have only a small amount, and they are crucial for building the technology of the ah… of your people. The tech of the first people, from which all of this comes.” He gestured all around. “It is largely metals based. We have very little metal and the survey was devised to search for more.”

  “Max is going to be… cross.”

  “It was also earnestly intended to find evidence of our origin… in the beginning,” Freenan said, a little defensively. “But Icarus has been close to the chopping block for a long time. Over the decades, parts have been replaced where they could be. Plastic took the place of metal panels and structural shell took the place of metal hull. They were reluctant to dispose of it completely.”

  “But your boss Mortran would destroy it because he hates learning new stuff.”

  “He would destroy it because it would lead us in the direction of progress. Because of what it is, what it does.”

  “Which is?”

  “You tell me.”

  “You first,” she said.

  “It’s a… Rocket ship?”

  “Ha! I knew you didn’t know.”

  “It’s not a rocket ship?”

  “Well, I can’t tell you. Obviously.” She looked at him pointedly. “No Max. No info. Remember? Our deal?”

  His shoulders slumped. “Yes. But…? You’re really not going to tell me?”