Intrinsic: Book One of the Terran Cycle

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  “Well it’s not working now.” Li’ara began to unclip the chunky pouch on her hip. Her hand froze over the clip. “What’s that?” The central column blinked to life, looking back at her was the armoured faceplate of one of the aliens. The sunken pits where the eyes should be just stared up at her from the angled console. Being so close she could see the intricate lines that ran across the surface of the mask. Kalian came up beside her to see what had stopped her from removing the explosives. The Masked figure turned away for a moment before looking back and cutting the feed. A mechanical groan erupted from somewhere deeper inside the rocket.

  “We’re speeding up!” Li’ara was checking readouts on her arm. Kalian could see over her shoulder as it recalculated the time before reaching the corona. Panic and despair mingled as one emotion at the sight of the number four on her arm. They now only had four minutes to back track and somehow escape this nightmare.

  “At the new speed the Fathom won’t be able to keep up for long.” She roughly tore the clip off her pouch and removed two halves of a sphere no bigger than her hand. The surface was covered in bits of tech Kalian had never seen before. Putting the two together they connected with a magnetic hum.

  “What’s that, a bomb?” As Kalian asked, the seven columns switched off and began to sink back into the floor like melted chocolate.

  “A Nuke.” Li’ara cradled the sphere while activating different sections. Kalian couldn’t believe his ears.

  “You had that onboard? You had it attached to your hip?” He couldn’t say everything he was thinking. Why they had brought a nuclear bomb aboard for a diplomatic mission he couldn’t imagine.

  They were both knocked to the floor as a blinding column of light connected the two pyramids. The noise was deafening with the roar of what sounded like a primal beast. Bolts of green lightning shot from one apex to the other mixing with the beam of light.

  “Run!” Li’ara jumped up leaving the nuke where it fell. Pulling Kalian up by the arm they both broke into yet another run for their lives. He wasn’t sure how many minutes they had left but he knew it was less than four. Looking back at the spectacle he saw the nuke shining in the light. It was only a quick look but he was sure the same black liquid from the floor was surrounding it, blocking out the flashing red LED. He had no time to think about it now, his focus was not falling over.

  They were back in the corridor running towards the T-junction. There must be less than a minute left. Almost crashing into the wall and each other they made the sharp turn back to the airlock. The passage between the two vessels looked different now. The Fathom was clearly being dragged as the tungsten filament was at a diagonal angle, obscuring the hatch. Li’ara jumped through the gap head-first and deftly span mid vacuum. Her slim form slipped through the emergency hatch allowing her to land on her feet, adjusting to the change in gravity. Kalian was not so lucky. Unsure of the correct strength to apply he copied Li’ara’s technique diving head first. Using too much spin he ended up facing the hatch head first again.

  Shit!

  Li’ara was able to move out of the way as he crashed into the cabin floor in a heap of limbs. She quickly kicked the ladder off its axis and typed commands into her touchpad. The consequent thud from above came as the filament and frame fit back into place.

  By the time Kalian had regained his senses Li’ara had already left for the cockpit. He clambered through the door and fell into the seat beside her. From the view it was clear they were spinning through space as they detached from the rocket. Century and the orbiting battle were too far to see. The view port was entirely black, having dimmed so much to compensate for Solson’s proximity.

  Li’ara frantically punched in commands to the console.

  “Come on you advanced piece of shit!” As if responding to her rage the view port levelled out and they found direction. “We’re going to be too close,” Li’ara hesitated, “I’m activating the Solar Drive.” Even with his sore head that didn’t make sense to Kalian.

  “But we haven’t charged the Solarcite!” It was common knowledge that all Solar Drive powered ships needed time within the star spot to charge. As he argued his point, a horizontal lever ascended from the middle of the console. Putting her hand over it Li’ara paused, the readout on her arm hadn’t informed her of the nuke’s detonation. They had failed. Every hologram and sensor activated at once with warnings that flashed emergency red. Kalian could no longer hear Li’ara screaming over the different alarms, her hand resting on the lever.

  Solson had gone supernova.

  Time seemed to slow down for the next few seconds. The exploding light overwhelmed the view port allowing for a brief glimpse of Century, though only a speck from here. Billions of lives currently existed on that planet. Humankind’s last hope for survival was yet again caught in the wave of a god. It couldn’t be tempered, it couldn’t be bargained with, and it couldn’t be stopped. Even as their last shred of hope died, Li’ara couldn’t switch off her survival instincts. Through blurred eyes she pulled back on the lever. Only moments before the nova engulfed them, the Fathom blinked from existence penetrating the space between spaces.

  Chapter Six

  The dome covering of the Valoran Bridge had tinted immediately to protect its occupants from the barrage of light. Century’s star had collapsed in a heartbeat, its immense energy surging out into the solar system. Telarrek’s crew were well trained and highly experienced, plotting an emergency escape vector without waiting for his command. Standing at his podium, the old Novaarian felt overcome with emotion. He had watched the humans for centuries, absorbing their culture and observing their every way of life. The spectacle of witnessing another supernova was lost on the sobering consequences.

  “They are gone...” Telarrek sagged in his command post, resting his lower limbs on the bar. The Bridge crew were looking at one another in shock. They had taken part in this mission and invested just as much as he had. The humans had meant something to all of them. He felt anger bubbling to the surface at the thought of the hulking ship. The Conclave had a history of sins it couldn’t hide from, genocide included, however accidental it was, but to actively seek out another race and wipe them from the face of the galaxy? It was monstrous.

  He felt Ilyseal’s hand rest on his own. He could tell from her expression that anger was not her current emotion. He squeezed her fingers to stop her skin from changing shade. It was important the crew saw them as strong and ready to act.

  “My Charge, we have detected the Fathom’s Solar Drive!” It took a moment for Telarrek to process the information.

  “Where?” He asked the crewman.

  “They have dropped out of sub space three light years away.” Telarrek looked to Ilyseal in astonishment. How could they have escaped the nova?

  “We need to take a closer look at that ship.” Ilyseal said with a flicker of hope on her face. Telarrek felt a special bond with Kalian. He supposed it was to be expected, given their level of involvement in his life since the day he was born.

  “If they survived, it is possible others did as well.” It was a candle-light of hope in the dark, but he would hold onto it. “Set course for the Fathom, maximum yield.”

  “I would not advise that, Charge.” It was Lakrandil, his chief engineer. “The radiation flash from both novas has damaged the Starrillium. I wouldn’t feel comfortable pushing it past sixty percent.” It was minimal damage compared to what a supernova was truly capable of. They had been lucky.

  “Very well,” he conceded, “We will pick up the Fathom and continue home. When we reach a safe distance from the effects of the nova, we will stop to make repairs.” The compliment of nods saw his orders put into action.

  Carrying its previous momentum, the Fathom ruptured the fabric of reality and emerged in real space. The ship was burnt black from Solson’s heat; no UDC ship had been designed to get that close. The main exhaust port flickered as the fiery blue light from the thrust was no longer maintainable. It died out completely, le
aving the ship to float out of control as it continued on its path.

  Both occupants in the Fathom’s cockpit sat very still. The only sound was coming from the main console as a small hologram next to the engine symbol flashed from red to blue. Kalian heard himself swallow; his mouth was dry, unlike his eyes. The details in front became blurry as tears streaked down his cheeks, giving him a salty taste on his lips. His voice was croaky as he turned to Li’ara.

  “What just happened?” The copper ringlets of her hair covered her face. He sat looking at her for a while as she didn’t seem inclined to answer. He saw her chest plate rise as she inhaled a long breath.

  “We failed...” Her voice sounded fragile like she was trying to say as little as possible. Kalian knew what she meant though; they had failed to save Century. Humanity had become an endangered species in a single day. Kalian was confident that not every human being had been on Century or earth when they perished. Central Parliament was always sending explorers and scientists into the deeper reaches of space. But that probably didn’t equate to more than a thousand at most. And how would they all find one another without the UDC or Central Parliament?

  To have the power to decimate two solar systems and an entire species in a day, what were these creatures? How were they so powerful? Why did they even attack? Kalian couldn’t fathom what could fuel a race of advanced beings to wipe out a lesser species they had never met. It obviously wasn’t for fuel or resources, they clearly didn’t even want the population. Just complete annihilation.

  He looked out across the spinning star field and wondered where they were, though a part of him wondered if that even mattered anymore. Where would they go, how would they survive in a galaxy without Earth or Century?

  “How did we get here?” It took a moment but Li’ara finally responded. She tapped two buttons silencing the engine alarm and using her right hand, lifted a new hologram from the central projector. It showed the Fathom in comparison to Century. From the looks of it they hadn’t travelled too far away, just enough to escape.

  “I programmed a random jump to take us one parsec away. That was all we had the fuel for anyway.” Her hair fell away from her face to show a rogue tear falling down her pale cheek. Kalian thought about reaching his hand out to her own, he didn’t really know how to comfort another person. He spent a moment wishing he had spent a little more time around people than he had history books. Before he could reach out, Li’ara stood up and walked over to the monitors behind them. It just hit Kalian what she had said.

  “How did we even jump at all?” He asked. “We weren’t even in a star spot. And what the hell is a parsec?” His mind cast back to Commander Hawkins. He implied that the Fathom would allow them to escape at a pinch, but would not explain how. Kalian could see how they had escaped he just couldn’t understand it. The fuel cells must have already been charged with the Solarcite, ready to cut into sub-space at a moment’s notice.

  But how?

  Once charged there was no way to safely store the ionised Solarcite. If the engines could hold onto the Solarcite without tearing through sub-space there would be no need to travel to a star every time. The ship could be fuelled up once to maximum yield and then use the Solar Drive whenever they wanted. Had this been invented centuries ago, The Paladin might have made it back home.

  With no answer he pressed her, “How is this technology possible?” He wiped away the tears from his face and noticed he was covered in sweat. Li’ara stopped whatever she was doing with the monitor, though Kalian guessed it was just a distraction. She looked at him like he was a petulant child that wouldn’t do as he was told.

  “How do you think?” She retorted, “We invented it. Since its discovery we finally improved on the Solar Drive. Whatever the Laronians had, we made it better.” Again everything came back to the downed ship on Charon. It was an impressive feat, though Li’ara’s mood took the edge off it, and she still wasn’t able to look him in the eye. He had to give her that, they had both lost their species and their home, but he sensed she had lost something else, maybe someone else.

  She made for the cockpit door, stopping in the entrance. Kalian swivelled his chair to track her movements; her eyes finally found his. Her features softened for a moment almost apologetically.

  “3.26 light years... that’s a parsec. Don’t touch anything.” Her face steeled again as she walked away from him. He heard the door slide shut on the armoury. She needed time, who knew how much time was required to deal with something like this; lost in space with no engine or home to return to. But Kalian figured all they had was time now, at least until the life support ran out.

  He stayed in the cockpit after Li’ara left; he couldn’t see the point of going anywhere else in the ship anyway. He let his mind wander as exhaustion crept in. He thought of places on Earth he had never even got to see, let alone Mars or Century. He had always wanted to stay in the Everest hotel. It haloed the peak of Mount Everest with what he had heard was the best views on Earth. Or even to walk through the red forests of Mars and breathe in an air that wasn’t of Earth. He had a sad thought that he would spend the rest of his life regretting the things he hadn’t done.

  Eventually sleep won out as he rested his head on the seat. His last thought had been something simple like wishing he had taken one last shower.

  He bolted forward in his chair, hitting his knee on the console as he did. A different alarm was flashing blue and red. The frequency was hard to listen to. Kalian rubbed one of his eyes while looking around for Li’ara. He wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep but he would have been happy with some more.

  The central projector emitted a new hologram in shades of yellow. He had no idea what he was looking at, some kind of graph that clearly wanted him to see a spike in the even gradient. The levels of something had obviously changed but he had no idea what. Were they about to run out of oxygen?

  His answer came in an unexpected form. The stars to port were instantly eclipsed as a flash of light preceded the Valoran. It must have been thousands of kilometres away as Kalian could see the whole ship end to end. The arcing spikes that protruded from the back end were glittering in shades of purple like great amethysts. It didn’t appear to have taken any damage from the fight, Kalian wondered if the invaders had even attacked them. Thinking about it, it was no great surprise they had survived the supernova. The Valoran’s engine was obviously similar to the Fathom’s in that it could store charged Solarcite, or Intrinium in their case.

  Li’ara appeared soon after with a sense of urgency about her. Seeing the Valoran she relaxed somewhat and fell into the pilots chair. Kalian couldn’t help but notice the lack of armour. She was only wearing the flat black undersuit that clung to her body like a second skin. She still had her weapon strapped to her thigh though, with the chunky boots that normally went with her armour.

  Like a concert pianist her hands danced across the console, shutting off the alarm while bringing up sensor readouts. Yellow holographic images popped up showing the state of the engine and the depleted stores of Solarcite.

  “We’ve got nothing.” Li’ara said. Her hair was still a little matted from the heat on the rocket and her eyes looked sore and red. Kalian suspected she had stopped crying a while ago but couldn’t get rid of the blotches under her eyes. Seeing Kalian’s inspection of her face Li’ara turned away as if some new readout was important.

  “I’m sure Telarrek can get us aboard.” It felt tense between them. Neither one knew what to say or talk about. In many ways they were complete strangers. But the last twenty four hours had put them through hell together.

  He wanted to reach out again and reassure her everything was would be alright, that they would get through this.

  “How do you get over something like this?” He hadn’t really meant to say it out loud but he was still too exhausted to keep it all together. Li’ara looked up across the viewport but didn’t make eye contact. The Valoran was beginning to block out the entirety of space as it slow
ly approached them.

  “We push on.” Kalian could hear the soldier in her again. “And we destroy those bastards.” The plan seemed simple the way she put it, and Kalian didn’t have the energy to hypothesise the complexities of it. He just agreed.

  The next twenty minutes took their minds off it as the Valoran sent help. A fat looking ship that reminded Kalian of a beetle approached the ship. There was no communiqué between them as the fat ship turned around in front of the viewport. Four large panels extended at the corners like the wings on a beetle as it attached five cables to the Fathom’s hull.

  “There goes the paint job.” Li’ara said dryly. She was starting to sound like Li’ara again. Kalian wondered if she had buried her feelings and replaced them with the driving force of obliterating their new enemy.

  The cockpit shook as the cables began to retract, pulling them into the beetle’s grasp. The four wings closed around the Fathom and cast shadows into the cockpit. Li’ara silenced the alarms before they could begin.

  It wasn’t long before the Fathom was sitting in the Valoran’s hangar again. Li’ara had activated the landing struts before the beetle ship put them down. An escort of six Novaarians were waiting outside the main hatch. They followed the same path as before back to the Translift and up to the command bridge. Telarrek was waiting for them. The bridge had the same hum of activity with the crew constantly interacting with their hard light projections and consoles. The fact that they could actually touch and feel their holograms was evidence of their advancement. Humans had never been able to invent such technology; the sad thought crept into his mind that now they never would. Human history had come to an end.

  Before even speaking, Telarrek unexpectedly dropped to one knee in front of them. Kalian couldn’t help but be fascinated by the double jointed nature of their legs. Even more to his surprise, the entire bridge crew stopped what they were doing and copied Telarrek’s bow. Even the armed escort dropped to one knee.