Intrinsic: Book One of the Terran Cycle

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  “But I saw that spark in them, that potential the universe had seen fit to create before me. They were my flock as it were; I was to protect them, to guide them along eternity’s way. It will be hard for you to grasp this, coming from such a young culture as yours. In that time I helped to change Terran culture for the better. I created wormhole technology that allowed for instant travel and communication between worlds. Ships were just for leisure and exploration. I took over every aspect of survival and labour. They never had to work if they didn’t want to. This gave them the needed time to concentrate on themselves, to better themselves, to truly introspect. And there was peace that looked to never end. It took nearly a million years before they reached the apex of their evolution. It was something I had seen in the early years of my creation. The Terran brain is more complex than any other structure in the known universe. It has the potential for, well at the time I had no idea. For an entity that knew everything you can imagine how exciting that concept would be. So I shepherded their evolution.”

  The hologram changed again to that of a sprawling city of magnificent architecture and design. There was a massive crowd inside a circular park, all of them human looking. They were all facing a man standing on a balcony high above as he addressed the crowd. He wore a robe similar to ALF’s but his long auburn hair fell past his shoulders. Like Savrick he had strong handsome features but no tattoos. The hologram emitted audio as the man shouted to the crowd, ‘We are Forever!’ Where had he heard that before?

  “They were beautiful. In the beginning I was the child and they were my parents, as it were. But by this point,” ALF gestured to the city. “I had witnessed countless generations be born and die, I was now the parent and they were my children.” Kalian still had hundreds of questions but didn’t dare speak. The information ALF was giving them was like oxygen and he needed more of it to live.

  “They didn’t know it but they each held the potential to be just as powerful as me. Each Terran mind, as small as they are, holds the power to contain and control as much as the Criterion does. Or did I should say, with Savrick being here I can only surmise that my physical housing has been destroyed.” ALF stopped and looked at their faces. Again Kalian assumed he didn’t need to actually look but was merely imitating human life. “Forgive me; I am sure you are more concerned with current events.” As a history buff, Kalian was beyond eager to hear the history of another human species, but he needed to know why everything was happening.

  “To you it would have been just over two hundred thousand years ago,” ALF looked at Kalian and Li’ara. “When the Terran were at the height of their evolution, there were those who were still catching up. As you have already seen, Terran people possess what you would call paranormal abilities. What they really have is a complete mind-body connection and control. With access to every facet of the brain, they are able to connect with the universe around them as well as themselves and each other. You have witnessed only a fraction of these abilities. Being able to mould reality and change the laws of physics is a dangerous thing however. It was my role to help guide them in this area of their lives.” His features turned grave for a moment.

  “But there was a small percentage of the population that could not control the entirety of their minds. They were the most dangerous of all. We were unable to locate the source of this genetic default. We could not prevent them from being born, nor could we predict them. Such is the inherent chaos of creation. I tried to help them but it was futile. Some would try and lift a pebble with their mind, only to bring down a building and kill thousands. Eventually it was decided that every one of these Gomar would be fitted with a Harness that would stop them from accessing that part of the mind. It was attached to the central nervous system where it would remain for the rest of their lives. Without the ability to connect with their own body the same way everyone else did, they were unable to stave off death.”

  “You mean Terran people can live forever?” Li’ara asked in astonishment.

  “Yes. A Terran can rejuvenate any and all cells in the body, preventing ageing and disease. But the Gomar were fated to die from birth. It was reasoned however that this would still be the case even without the harness. I once observed a young man try to heal a scratch on his arm; he turned every cell in his body cancerous and died within moments. Evolution never meant for them to survive.

  But it was years later when breaking point was reached. On the Capital Albadar, a baby girl was born. Her birth was already illegal since Gomar were not permitted to procreate. But she was kept secret even from me. At the moment of her birth she cried out like all babies do. Her first cry knocked out everything electronic for a hundred miles. Every ship and vehicle I was controlling fell out of the sky. But worst of all, the fusion reactor that powered the city was within the blast radius. Stopping the reaction so quickly caused a feedback that ruptured the containment field. Millions died.

  We quickly converged on the epicentre of what we thought was an electromagnetic pulse. But we found the baby instead. Her parents naturally put up a fight as we tried to take the girl; she needed containment. Being born of two Gomar made her more powerful and uncontrollable. Unfortunately the mother died in the struggle, the baby became distressed after this. The building could only take so much. More Terran died that night, but the father survived and took the baby with him. It was my fault, I didn’t train them to be violent, and they didn’t know how to fight. But her father had a knack for survival.”

  “It was Savrick, wasn’t it?” Kalian knew it had to be. ALF stared at him for a moment.

  “Yes. In the blackout I was unable to track him and the baby. Of course I now know he fled to Hadrok, a planet on the outer edge of the empire. He hid there for many years...” he sighed at the thought. “When he finally resurfaced, he had amassed a great following of Gomar that believed they were being repressed. I don’t know everything he did in the years of his exile but he learned things, old things I thought long buried. I believe his first creation was the armour. He designed it to counteract the Harness, giving them a measure of control. They couldn’t do everything the Terran could do, but they didn’t need to. He mastered his abilities around the art of destruction. He taught his followers the same. When they attacked, we were not prepared. Every Gomar fought for his cause. They were embedded in every infrastructure on every planet. We were attacked from all sides.

  The first years of the war were the most devastating to us. The Terran had no idea how to fight; I had spent millennia making sure of that. He built weapons I hadn’t seen since the early days of my creation. The Eclipse was the worst. I don’t know where he dug up the designs for that weapon but he used it to destroy whole systems like he did your own. The next four hundred years were spent in a war I saw no end to. Even if we did win, the Gomar would continue to be born into society. The Terran lost a lot of what they were over the course of the war.

  We had no way to fight back. They had no world they called their own. I scorched the surface of Hadrok but they didn’t care. The Gommarian was all they needed. Only once did we get an agent aboard, the Avatar himself in fact.” Seeing the quizzical faces ALF waved his hand. “Later. The information we received was invaluable but it came all too late. The Avatar was never heard from again, killed by Savrick no doubt. The information he gleaned told me the worst. I had always theorised how he was able to control the ship without me, the nanocelium had only ever responded to my connection.” ALF looked disgusted at his next thought. “That monster had plugged his own daughter into the Gammorian’s processing unit. All that potential I spoke of? He was using it to power the most destructive tool in the galaxy. By pushing her limits with a constant source of energy, she was able to bend space and time to push the ship through sub-space. I thought the Terran were millennia away from realising that potential.

  But like I said, it was all too late. They were winning and the end of Terran life was in sight. So we made plans.” The hologram changed to that of a ship, similar to the hea
d of a spoon in shape. “I am only a part of the whole, a third in fact. At the start of the war I tried to factor in every potential outcome. One of the outcomes involved separating myself from the Criterion. Having achieved this, I was transported in the Tempest across the galaxy with a team of my best scientists. We had to use a ship instead of a Starforge, since we didn’t actually know our destination. With a Starforge we could have crossed the event horizon instantly, rather than travel through sub-space for years. Our mission was simple; ensure the survival of the Terran species.” Kalian had a falling sensation in his stomach. He couldn’t be right about what he was now thinking.

  “We found a habitable world with a young star and primitive wildlife. With our technology it wasn’t hard to recreate the life you call human.” There it was, the biggest question humanity could never answer; what is the meaning of life? And now he knew. Human beings were simply a backup plan to ensure the survival of the oldest DNA in the galaxy.

  Li’ara’s face was blank. Coming to the same conclusion as him, they were both in shock. All that history now felt so artificial. He wondered briefly if Terran history had started the same way, having gone through the different ages of industry and evolution.

  “That still does not account for the uniqueness of Kalian in comparison to the rest of humanity.” Telarrek had picked up on the timelines. ALF had stated it took the Terran over a million years before they developed evolutionary advantages. Humans had only been inhabiting earth for two hundred thousand years.

  “We didn’t just drop two Terrans onto Earth and tell them to start making little Terrans.” ALF went on as if the concept was simple. “We wanted to give Terran life another chance, but with some tweaks. We first changed the evolution of a creature with the closest DNA to Terran. Once that was achieved, we altered the rate of evolution to hurry things along. The key was to place a dormant gene in all of them with an accelerant. As evolution progressed, this accelerant would become active throughout the generations, slowly increasing the amount of the brain they could access. I’m sure if you look through your history you can find a plethora of individuals that all displayed incredible talents others couldn’t.” Kalian promised himself to go through that list later.

  “The process took a long time. But to a species that doesn’t measure time like you do, it was inconsequential. It was decided that an Outpost would be established in another part of the galaxy. When you were ready, you would find this place and I would point you home.” ALF looked away. “Of course that was depending on us winning the war and having a home to return to. Since I have received no data package in the passing time and Savrick is here...” He sighed as he waved his hand at the hologram ending it all together.

  “So you lost the war, but succeeded in your backup plan. So why is Savrick here?” Li’ara had switched back on to current events.

  “Having spent so long here, creating your kind, the Terran I brought with me grew restless. They wanted to know how the war was going. I warned them against returning, the knowledge of Earth and your kind was a dangerous thing to return to the Gomar. I’m sure by now you have grasped the level of hate Savrick and his kind have for you. I believe it derives from the Terran motto, ‘we are forever.’ It was said to remind them of their immortality, especially during the war. It was supposed to make them feel strong and enduring; that no matter what Savrick did, they would survive. It only amplified Savrick’s hate. It highlighted the fact that without those suits of armour, the Gomar were doomed to die.

  He has come to end your race because you represent that motto. He finds the idea of Terran life abhorrent, no matter how devolved it is. I imagine your DNA is even more offensive, Kalian. You are a raw but fully functioning Terran, you are the end result of the gene accelerant.” Finally, he had an answer for his significance. He was one of many unknown genetic divergences designed millennia before his birth. It was a fluke of circumstances that he was the only one alive at the time of Savrick’s attack. It could easily have been one of the others Telarrek had mentioned from centuries ago. And now he remembered where he had heard it. Savrick had said that motto to him back at the Conclave, though somewhat ironically it seems.

  “Though I do not have confirmation, I believe it is apparent that upon their return the Tempest was captured by Savrick. How much he learned from them I don’t know, but it couldn’t have been your location or it wouldn’t have taken him so long to find you. Two hundred thousand years is a long time to scour the galaxy, even for a Terran. I can only assume they were in Rem-stores, stasis chambers, for the majority of the journey.”

  It was all so much to take in at once. The answers to so many questions, and answers he couldn’t have imagined. Despite this new found knowledge, Kalian only had more questions. In fact he wasn’t sure he would ever run out.

  “You’re all exhausted,” ALF suddenly declared. “Trust me, nanocelium doesn’t lie.” The thought made Kalian itch. “I have prepared rooms for you all. Sleep well, tomorrow we begin. And by tomorrow, I mean in six hours.”

  He knew it had been ten seconds since he lost consciousness. It was always ten seconds. Roland sat back in his chair and felt blood trickle down the right side of his face. He tentatively examined his scalp and found the cut in his hairline, it didn’t hurt yet. He experimented with his other facial features and discovered his nose was broken, which did hurt, along with a cut bottom lip and a potential fracture in his cheek bone.

  He had the rationale to understand he was in shock. He knew from training and experience that it would slow him down and dull his senses in a hostile environment. He quickly removed a small cylinder from his belt, another item procured from the Fathom, and pressed it into his neck. A sharp hiss issued from the object as adrenaline entered his blood stream. He felt the energy become almost too much to handle. Remaining seated was no longer an option, he had to get moving.

  He hit the switch over his chest and the straps retracted. He stood up feeling the pain across his chest in the same X shape as the straps. He knew the bruising would be bad and wondered if he had fractured any ribs.

  The cockpit was dark, illuminated by an overhead emergency light that blanketed everything in blue. His first reaction was to find his guns, which were still holstered to his thighs. He felt better feeling their weight in his hands. Movement in front caught his eye as Ilyseal began to stir. He noticed she was covered in some kind of jelly that had burst from the now ruined console. He looked aside and noticed the same of Selek. Ilyseal pushed herself back in her chair using her upper arms, her right lower arm was hanging lifelessly and dripping dark blood.

  She glanced at Roland before removing a circular patch from her belt. She placed one on her lifeless arm and one on Selek’s shoulder. The patches instantly vacuum-sealed against their skin, delivering whatever alien drugs they contained. A moment later Selek inhaled a deep breath as he lay half over the console. Ilyseal began to wipe the jelly from her face and shoulders and Roland noticed a score of cuts and bruises across her skin. Roland assumed from the look of the exploded console that the jelly was some kind of shock absorber that activated in a collision.

  “Did we make it? Are we inside?” Roland asked. Ilyseal offered him a patch but he declined, unsure of the alien toxin.

  “We would be dead otherwise.” It was Selek who answered. He sat back in his chair revealing a swollen left eye that now covered the golden swirl within. One of his fangs was missing along with a cut that ran up his left cheek.

  “We have new problems now.” Ilyseal interjected. “Before the Starrillium went critical our sensors only detected seven hundred and ninety-six invaders. We do not know how many split from the ship to Naveen but we should assume there are at least a dozen or more left.” Roland couldn’t stop smiling despite the pain in his cheek and lip. They had succeeded in killing, no, obliterating hundreds of those bastards in a single blow. There may only be a dozen left, but he liked those odds; besides, how hard could it be to kill just a dozen of them?

 
He stopped laughing as they all heard the external noise. The view port was still covered by the outer shield, leaving them blind to their surroundings. It dawned on him how truly massive this ship was; how the hell were they going to find them? The silence was broken by the cockpit door sliding open to reveal the three remaining warriors. Roland lowered the gun he had instinctively raised. He had to hand it to these Novaarians, they could take a beating. The warriors looked better than them in their protective golden armour.

  The view behind them was unbelievable. One of the four arcing spikes that mimicked the Valoran had penetrated the ceiling of the craft. Sparks continuously flowed out of a conduit in the back corner, where the hull had crumpled in. It looked to Roland as if the exterior arc had broken off in the tunnel and taken the hull and a couple of Novaarians with it.

  “The ramp will not descend, my charge,” stated the lead warrior. Roland moved past them to investigate the hole; it was obviously oxygenated, as they hadn’t suffocated yet. Any way out through the hole was blocked by an internal wall of the hulking ship. The question was how far down the tunnel had they gone? He was just thankful the missile had worked otherwise they’d be like a fly on a wind shield.

  “Use your staffs,” Selek pointed to the floor, where the ramp was supposed to activate. “But be quick or the heat will overwhelm us.” All three warriors immediately set about their task, removing their staff from the holstering on their armour. After they extended, each one positioned them over the floor with the cylindrical extensions pointed down. They all covered their eyes as three intense beams of bright blue energy sunk into the alien metal. Within a minute they had cut a rectangular section out of the ramp, which fell several feet onto a small set of steps.