Intrinsic: Book One of the Terran Cycle

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  Captain Fey was the first to come out of cover. “Thank you, Commander.” She wiped the sweat from her head. “What is that stuff?” She pointed in the general direction of where the green goo had encompassed four of the crew. Roland wondered if they had been killed in the blast or whether the goo had protected them.

  “It looks like they want most of us alive.” He returned his weapon to its housing on his thigh. “We still need to get to the armoury, it won’t take them long to find a way round the blast door.” Taking notice of the bridge crew he saw a young man, a lieutenant from the insignia on his uniform, accessing a terminal on the wall.

  “Can you find the Commodore, Lieutenant?” The captain asked. The young lieutenant flicked his eyes to the corner of the screen, activating the command nodule. They were wasting time. They should forget about the commodore and the chain of command, right now was about survival. Counting the heads he knew they wouldn’t all fit in the shuttle, let alone with that fat bastard of a commodore. He considered just walking away now while they were crowded round the monitor.

  “Inquiry, location: Commodore Landis.” The screen responded with an image of a corridor filled with smoke and bullet holes. Amongst the dead bodies strewn on the floor, the monitor highlighted in red a larger body slumped against a wall. Next to it the word, DECEASED, was flashing.

  “Guess that makes you the boss.” Roland checked his vest to take in an inventory. He had one tungsten grenade left, two shock grenades and his belt had two fully loaded magazines. The barrel of the LX on his thigh felt hot to the touch. He would need to leave it a while to cool down; he only had one left now.

  He pushed the lieutenant to the side, “Let me see that.” He took over the monitor, flicking the image to the hangar bay. The camera was high on the wall looking down from one of the corners. He expected to see chaos and fighting, the way he had left it earlier. There had been at least a hundred soldiers flood into the hangar when the invaders arrived. The view was very different now. The human survivors were being marched at gun point into the alien vessels.

  This was bad. There was no way he could reach the shuttle now. He had been planning on using the fight as a distraction to escape. There were few options left to them now and he was running through them, working out consequences in his mind. They could go for the armoury and hope to maintain a foothold there. That sounded good until he ran the whole scenario through and couldn’t reach a viable ending. Even if they made it, how long would they last? There was no food or water in the armoury, meaning they would have to leave their foothold to find supplies. If the aliens continued their assault, the armoury would eventually run out of ammo and who knew what other tech the invaders possessed? It would only be a matter of time before they controlled the ship and then killing them would be easy; all they would have to do is switch off the life support.

  They would have to move around to survive and that wouldn’t work; there are only so many places you can go on a ship in space. Thanks to being sober he had already ruled out a frontal assault on the hangar. The last scenario that came to mind was a familiar one.

  Callisto.

  The second largest moon orbiting Jupiter and home to the most secure bank in both solar systems. The bank had been built into one of Callisto’s many crater‘s on the surface. Shaped like an ancient wagon wheel, the installation spread out across the crater with the vaults in each arm. Central Parliament hadn’t wanted the news to get out that its most secure bank had been taken over by the latest group of separatists.

  Hence the need for Roland North.

  It was his job to regain control of the bank quickly and quietly and remove all threats to Parliament. He had run through multiple scenarios to gain entry to the bank and found it truly was impenetrable. It had been an inside man that allowed for the separatists to take over in the first place, and he didn’t have one. Like now he could only see one option for moving forward.

  At the time he had deliberately made no attempts to subvert the proximity alarms landing his ship on one of the arms. The automated turrets had only taken five seconds to cycle round and blow the craft apart. Of course he had already left the ship and was being pulled in by Callisto’s gravity in free fall. Using Mem-jelly to break his fall, he landed on his back in the bubble of blue jelly and pulled himself free as it began to decay, allowing him to float above the moon’s surface. The Mem-jelly could only be used with a breather on, as it would suffocate the person within before they could break free.

  The trick was making it look like a real attack. Planting charges under the main hub, he continued to detonate knowing it wouldn’t be strong enough to breach the hull. A minute later three armed men in vac suits and suction boots surrounded him. As far as they were concerned it was a botched rescue attempt and he would add to the hostages.

  The only scenario left to him had worked. It was ultimately a risk but he had to rely on his training to get him through. His instructors had always told him that it didn’t matter how many guns or grenades he had, he was the weapon. The separatists had taken him inside the very place they were trying to keep secure- from people like him. Like then Roland saw this as the only option left to him. He would have to allow them to capture him and hope he could figure something out on the other side. Of course there was the matter of the bridge crew and the captain. He knew they wouldn’t be confident enough to go through with his plan.

  So he wouldn’t give them the choice.

  As predicted, the sound of heavy boots was audible down the corridor. The sneaky bastards had already found a way around the blast door. No doubt the fire-fight had attracted more of the invaders. The bridge crew became antsy again as they checked the level of ammo left in their side arms.

  Moving away from the monitor, he stood at the corner of the corridor with the crew and the blast door to his back. He quietly removed the shock grenade from his vest and set it to its highest setting again. They were mostly used for scrambling electronics but on the highest setting it would render a human being unconscious for about an hour. He just hoped they would be found in that time. He let the canister roll from his hand, coming to a stop in the middle of the bridge crew. Captain Fey looked to Roland with shock, unable to comprehend his course of action. Before she could react the grenade flashed once stunning every one of them, attacking their central nervous system.

  Roland felt the implant in the frontal lobe of his brain fight the onslaught of electrical attack. It was designed to wake him up after ten seconds should he ever be knocked unconscious. The surgical procedure was standard for everyone in his specific line of work. He was aware however that a stun grenade would temporarily short-circuit the microscopic device, stopping him from waking up so soon. The pain in his forehead was blinding, with an intensely sharp pain burrowing into his temples. Five agonisingly long seconds later he joined the bridge crew on the floor as a numbing darkness swallowed him whole.

  Chapter Eight

  Their second day aboard the Valoran turned into quite a painful one, for Kalian. Whether it was to take her mind off recent events or focus her thoughts he wasn’t sure. It was impossible to tell the difference between day and night on a star ship, but judging from how tired Kalian felt, when Li’ara woke him up on the second day, he guessed it to be early morning. She had insisted that they begin training immediately if they were to even hope of surviving whatever came next. He had to admit it, his life had taken a violent turn since he was forced out of his lecture theatre.

  In just her undersuit, with her boots taken off, she had cleared away a space in the middle of his cabin. Being as spacious as it was, that didn’t take too long. He sat on the edge of his bed in just his trousers hoping to God that aliens had decaf. His thoughts were hard to keep hold of as Li’ara began stretching the various muscle groups in her body. Li’ara was attractive and he was sure no man could deny it, but the tight undersuit made it a lot harder to concentrate.

  “Are you ready?” She ominously cracked the knuckles in her right han
d.

  “Ready for what?” He was pretty sure he knew the answer but he was just stalling for time. He had taken part in hand-to-hand combat before in his teens, while experimenting with different ways to sharpen his focus and gain control over his thing; he didn’t like the idea of hitting Li’ara though.

  “I had one last order before the UDC...” she looked away for a moment, stretching her arm as a distraction from where that sentence was going. “...I will protect you to the best of my abilities, Kalian. But I don’t know what’s out there, I don’t know what’s coming and I might not always be there when I’m needed. I wouldn’t be doing my job right if I didn’t train you some self defence.” She reached down and touched her toes. “We’ve got just under a week and I intend to make sure you can at least throw a punch.”

  He could empathise with her situation. Li’ara had lost everything and was now clinging to the last piece of normality she had left- her orders. Between them they had no idea what kind of life they could make now. Their whole culture had vanished in a single day. Nobody knew how many survivors there were, if any. For all they knew they could be the last man and woman in the galaxy. He tried not to let that thought get away from itself.

  This Conclave they were about to enter was a completely new society, with its own rules and laws, not to mention all the new species. How were they expected to fit in or adjust? Even when he was presented to the Highclave he had no idea what was expected of him. He couldn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know from their centuries of studying humans. Telarrek had promised to meet up with him again on this long journey, and he would be sure to ask him more questions.

  “Attack me.” Li’ara stood perfectly still with her arms by her side. Kalian could tell from her stony expression she was being serious. He stood up from the bed and quickly stretched his shoulder joints, flexing his chest muscles. He noticed Li’ara’s brief attention but she remained silent. He bit back a smile and just lunged for her with an unplanned attack. He pulled his punch afraid of hurting her too much; his mistake.

  Like a snake striking its prey, Li’ara reacted with deadly speed pushing Kalian’s fist wildly off target. Without stopping, she landed the edge of her open hand onto the carotid artery in his neck, causing his head to spasm around her hand. In the same motion she used his momentum against him by wrapping her right hand around the back of his head and spinning him round only to force him face down on the floor. To finish the move she dropped knee-first onto his back, pinning him.

  To Kalian it had been a dizzying blur of pain and humiliation. If he hadn’t had the air forcibly removed from his lungs he would have verbally expressed his discomfort.

  “Again.” Li’ara pushed off his back and resumed her previous position. “This time I’ll attack you...” Kalian slowly rose to his feet rubbing his injured neck. “Kalian,” she waited until his full attention was on her, “I am going to attack you, and I will not hold back. It will hurt, you need to know that.” Why was she telling him this? Was she trying to unnerve him and put him off? Either way, he felt the rush of adrenaline at the thought of the coming attack. He braced himself, unsure of what she might do next. His fight or flight response was battling with itself, should he evade or fight back? Feeling the pain in his back, he decided to fight back.

  Li’ara moved with the same whiplash speed as she stepped within arm’s length. His reaction was instinctive but also out of his control. He raised his hands in a clumsy attempt to defend himself from the expected pain of Li’ara’s blows. Before she could land a single hit, Kalian felt a shiver pass from his spine through to his hands making his hair stand on end. He felt the sensation leave through his hand at the same time as Li’ara flew across the room.

  Tumbling end over end, she rolled into the sofa on the other side of the room. Kalian couldn’t move. What had he done? How had he done it? He stood in shock as Li’ara used the sofa as support to stand up. Her copper hair fell over her face like a mop.

  “I knew it...” she flicked her head back to remove the hair. She didn’t appear to have suffered any injury, though she did sit on the sofa rather than walk back over.

  “I’m so sorry...” he didn’t know what to say. This thing was starting to get out of control. To his surprise Li’ara sat there with a smile on her face.

  “Don’t be, I was hoping something like that might happen.” Now he knew why she had been psyching him out. She wanted him to be aware of the pain he was about to experience. He thought back to their conversation about the night his parents died. His body was responding to a threat in a way he couldn’t explain.

  “How did I do that?” He looked down to his hands as if some answer might be found there. They appeared like normal hands, no marks or abnormalities, but he had definitely felt the sensation resonate from them. He kept flicking his fingers trying to shake off the tingling feeling.

  “I have no idea, but you need practice.” She strained her neck to the side as if it pained her.

  Practise?

  How could he practise what he didn’t understand? How could he practise something that was instinct?

  Kalian and Li’ara spent the next two days running through the same daily routines. She would wake him early and practise hand-to-hand combat. They would always start slow moving through different routines, allowing Kalian to learn the attack and defensive stances without Li’ara being flung across the room. After becoming more proficient they would increase the speed and eventually flow into sparring without predetermined moves. It allowed him to eventually experience pain in a threatening situation and learn to hold back.

  It was hard at first. Every time he perceived a threat he could feel the tingling sensation build in his spine, eager to be unleashed. He couldn’t be sure but at one point he thought he had blocked one of Li’ara’s blows without actually touching her. When she landed a hit he often felt the shiver flow through to his palms ready to be pushed out. He didn’t manage to hold it in every time but he was learning the feel of control.

  They would do this until Ilyseal arrived with food for lunch. Though hesitant to begin with, they soon loved the food she brought. It reminded them both of steak, though the animal certainly wasn’t cow. Ilyseal had told them it was a species similar to deer whose origin was Nova Prime. Being a tint of orange Kalian wasn’t convinced it was edible, but it soon grew on him. After lunch, Li’ara had a different idea of how to exercise his apparent abilities. Kalian wasn’t always fond of what happened next. Using various ornaments and the occasional boot, Li’ara would throw the different objects directly at his head.

  They soon learned that his reaction would vary depending upon his perception. Through this he was able to gain some measure of control, however tenuous. If he felt the object posed a serious threat, he could repel it with the same shiver that ran through his hands. After being hit in the head multiple times he finally learned to recreate the feeling, now that he knew where it came from. After the hours of practice Li’ara would leave to check on the Fathom and have a shower. She suggested he spent the time in a form of meditation to try and learn a greater control. He often gave up in preference of reading his Datapad and looking at images of Earth. He often threw the pad away in frustration however. What good was it to look at a dead planet and read about a history that no longer matters? History was supposed to influence the future, to provide a learning curve for the generations to come. Now it was just another black hole in space.

  Kalian had told Li’ara everything Telarrek had explained on the observation deck. This subject held a lot of their concentration. They constantly speculated at the origins of The Wall and what it could mean. They exhausted all avenues of what Kalian’s DNA could allude to and whether that was responsible for his abilities. They avoided the topic of what their future would hold for them and the human race, whatever was left of it. Most frustratingly though, neither of them could fathom why they had been attacked in the first place.

  It was on the third night that Telarrek arrived
unannounced while they were eating the Novaarian equivalent of a salad, though Kalian found it a bit tart for his liking, not to mention the fact that the leaves constantly moved on his plate. Saying very little, he told them he wanted to show them something. It was either that or they both remained in his cabin to finish the night off with more sparring, and neither of them wanted to give up the chance of asking Telarrek questions. On their way out he reflected on the last three days of practising. He was impressed with his new found measure of control as well as learning to fight. He was still no match for Li’ara though.

  After descending the vertical walkway, they were presented with two of the sleek hover bikes he constantly saw flying above his head. Standing next to one was a Novaarian they had never seen before.

  “This is Namek,” Telarrek gestured to the guarding Novaarian. He was similar to Telarrek though the freckles around his eyes were red rather than blue. Like other Novaarians he wore the purple dress wear with the multicoloured armour plating. One exception he found however, was the milky white tendrils that sprouted from above all Novaarian mouths. Namek’s facial hair, as it were, hung low beneath his jaw like a moustache; Kalian found himself wondering if they cut these tendrils but he couldn’t help but imagine it to be painful.

  “Namek will control your sled Lieutenant Commander, I will take Kalian. But do not worry; we are going to the same place.” Telarrek gestured for Kalian to take his place on the long bench of the sled as he himself sat in the front. The controls reminded him of a bike with the handles extending horizontally from the main console. He peered round Telarrek to see the different read outs but was dismayed that he still couldn’t translate the Novaarian language. Li’ara had been able to translate whole sentences now.