by Barry Kirwan
Thank you, Dimitri.
The LED on her wrist flashed a dim red; her oxygen supply would fail soon. She ignored it. With one hand stretched out in front of her, the other touching the wall, she walked forward in darkness, in search of the Tla Beth ship. Jen didn’t know if she would be able to access it or use it, assuming she even reached it before her air ran out, but as Dimitri used to say to his students, one leap at a time.
Pierre had never seen Ukrull so concentrated. His tail was perfectly still, his muscular shoulders hunched over the controls, eyes closed as he mind-plexed a distress call via the Hohash. Pierre held onto his seat, the Ice Pick shaking violently as they tried to outrun Qorall’s black hole. The grinding noise from the engines told him they weren’t going to make it.
Pierre glanced at the display, the dark, insatiable mouth of the vortex, the deadliest natural phenomenon in the galaxy, continuously sucking them towards it, as if it only ever breathed in. As an astrophysicist back on Earth he’d studied black holes, and had always found their awesome power fascinating. But soon it would crush them, absorbing them into its singularity. No being, no matter what Level, had ever come back from one.
This black hole sat amidst a translucent dark green swathe of space, like a negative image of a moon reflecting in a lake. This was Qorall’s liquid space – not truly a liquid, but not empty space either – a feature imported from his own distant galaxy, which even the Kalarash hadn’t yet fathomed. Every few minutes gravitic shock waves emanated from the black hole, colliding both with the Ice Pick and the planet, before they swept back towards the singularity. Each wave buffeted them, then yanked them backwards.
Whatever Qorall had done to normal space, it prevented the opening of Transpatial conduits, so the Ice Pick could not simply jump out of the system. Pierre nudged a control and switched displays to see the planet. It was cracking up, fissures opening on the dead Machine world’s formerly smooth surface. The planet no longer had a molten core, so at least there were no volcanic eruptions. Pierre presumed Qorall didn’t want to get too close to it, knowing what was there, not wanting to awaken it. Staring at the slowly lengthening trenches, Pierre wondered if Jen and Dimitri were still alive on this tomb planet. He juggled the probabilities and uncertainties in his head. Whichever way he analysed the available data, their prospects didn’t look good.
But there was one curious thing: towering dust tornadoes were flashing up from the planet’s surface, rising kilometres above the surface. He had no idea why this should be happening, since there was no atmosphere. It could be due to the black hole, but he didn’t think so; they looked too uniformly spaced. But a sound like metal tearing apart reminded him of other priorities.
“No use,” Ukrull grunted. “Abandon ship.”
At first Pierre thought he must have misheard, then he remembered the Ice Pick could teleport the two of them across a short range; in all their travels they’d never once used it, as it required so much of the ship’s energy, but that hardly mattered now. Ukrull stood up on his hind legs, his bony head brushing the ceiling, and began donning a self-sealing suit. Pierre stepped onto the suit-forming platform, the black gel crawling over his feet and up his legs, like cool wet leather, until it reached his neck. Ukrull tossed him a helmet and back-pack. While his helmet auto-sealed, Pierre watched Ukrull interfacing with the Hohash, gripping its rail-like outer edges with both fore-claws. Ukrull slipped on his own helmet, with an elongated visor to accommodate his snout, and turned to Pierre.
“Ready?”
Pierre didn’t know exactly what to expect, but he nodded. Besides, the noise from the ship suggested strips of the hull were shearing off; it was time to leave.
The ship around Pierre appeared to dissolve, and for a moment his mind seemed to catch, as if someone had pressed ‘pause’ in his head. For a tantalising fraction of time everything was a uniform grey, featureless and silent, and he wondered where he was. Then he found himself standing on the planet’s surface, next to Ukrull, watching a tiny dot streak across the dark green sky towards the black hole. Pierre’s helmet visor magnified, tracking the Ice Pick’s trail. For the first time he saw something else, a black disc on the edge of the event horizon – Qorall’s ship. The image continued to magnify and Pierre became aware of the spherical shape of the ship, the size of a large asteroid.
“Watch,” Ukrull said.
Pierre didn’t know how this level of magnification was possible, unless... ah, the Hohash – it was in space, transmitting to their visors. He followed the Ice Pick as it attempted to ram Qorall’s ship. Suddenly the closest wave to the black hole grew in size, a ghostly green tsunami. It closed around the Ice Pick like a vice, then crushed it until the ancient craft was nothing but debris.
Ukrull let out a long hiss, his booted foot stomping against the ground.
Pierre didn’t know what to say; Ukrull had forged a deep attachment to his ship over thousands of years; it had been a gift from someone special, though Ukrull had never said who.
“What about the Hohash?” Pierre asked.
“Is okay. Not affected by gravity.”
That was something Ukrull consistently refused to explain, but Pierre decided now was not the time. Besides, they had new priorities. Perhaps this was all simply a stay of execution. The planet did not have long before it would be torn apart, them along with it. Or else the Machines might find them in order to replicate – Ukrull had explained about the organic catalyst requirement only after Jen and Dimitri had gone down to the planet’s surface.
Pierre scanned the broken horizon for dust tornadoes, but saw none. But as he looked upwards again, he was sure he could see less stars than should be visible. Stars were winking out, Qorall’s green, liquid space being slowly occluded by a spreading black curtain. Within a few minutes there were no stars, although a dull grey light emanated from somewhere. The Machine must have awakened, and erected a shield. No sooner had Pierre thought it, than a section overhead glowed green briefly, then returned to black. Other green splodges peppered the shield, but none of Qorall’s attacks broke through.
“Not shield,” Ukrull said. “Shell. Protect new-borns.”
Pierre realised that they were both safe and trapped at the same time.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
Ukrull snorted. “Run from those,” he said, flicking a gloved fore-claw to Pierre’s left.
Pierre stared into the darkness and detected giant beetle-like objects scurrying towards them, fast. He turned back to Ukrull, who was already bounding away in the opposite direction.
Pierre didn’t need to be told twice.
It felt odd to walk unseen amongst others, especially to Ash. He had been blind for a whole year before Kalaran had given him his Mannekhi all-black eyes. Ash recalled how it had felt knowing others could see him while he saw nothing. Initially, before learning to use his other senses, the over-riding feeling had been one of helplessness, of utter dependence. Now he felt the reverse, the raw power of the disguised assassin, the camouflaged predator surrounded by prey. It was narcotic. Ash forced himself to concentrate on his mission: to find the entrance to the shaft leading to the sixty human captives held underground.
Trained long ago to move without making a sound, Ash slipped between Alicians as they went about their business. Even in the noon sunlight the citizens of Savange were oblivious to him. He was cloaked so effectively that there was neither shadow nor shimmer of air as he made his way through twisting streets that wound up a gentle slope towards a cluster of gleaming glass and metal towers, and Savange’s central spire.
Alician men and women – he’d seen no children – strode through sun-drenched streets, the ground a pale terracotta muffling their brisk pace. He was surprised to see a wide range of skin colours and features; North and South American, European, African, Chinese, and even one wizened, Indistani-looking man. That stopped him; so few of his own nation had survived the Alician-Q’Roth purge that had left Earth a barren, airless lump of ro
ck. His breathing grew heavy. They had tried to exterminate humanity, yet here in this citadel they had preserved a wider gene pool than the human refugees Ash had left behind on Esperia.
Yet this appeared to be a truly merged society; he could see it in their posture. All held themselves upright, confident to the point of arrogance. And they were agile: he paused to watch a group of twenty or so performing some form of slow martial art in a gravel courtyard; long, slow, sweeping movements and deep crouching postures, all of the Alicians, young and old, in perfect synchrony. Their tan clothing – no skirts, all men and women sporting skin-tight pants – did not hide these genetically-advanced humans’ powerful yet graceful gait, as if they were all gymnasts.
Ash noticed something else: few of them spoke as they passed one another, looking each other in the eye for a split second before walking on with firm purpose. Yet there was no tension in the air. They appeared to trust each other, with no need or desire to indulge in idle banter. Alicians weren’t conflicted – as humanity was and probably always would be – they embodied unified purpose, and so would be harder to take down. Ash shivered; the air was cooler and damper than on dry, semi-desert Esperia, and the field keeping him cloaked chilled him, something he’d been warned about. He remembered his mission and walked on.
Suddenly there was a commotion off to his right. A couple with a child were mobbed in a friendly manner by other Alicians whose demeanour shifted gear, becoming softer, almost sentimental, especially the women, as they crowded around this utter rarity, an Alician infant. Ash knew this was the reason the sixty humans had been captured, to serve as a genetic catalyst to fix the faulty Alician genome, so they could reproduce again. He listened to the soothing, cooing noises, and for a moment there seemed to be a bond between this species and Ash’s own. Then he remembered his two daughters and wife lost in the Q’Roth invasion of Earth, perpetrated by these same Alicians who had lain low, plotting humanity’s demise for centuries. He turned his back on the near-human scene and continued onwards.
As he made his way up curved streets towards the centre, the style of buildings around him altered. He left behind the functional two-storey terraced houses, and strode between tall towers, many with high, open terraces without railings, speaking simultaneously of a gentle climate and a people who did not age appreciably, and knew neither infirmity nor suicidal tendencies. He wondered what went on in those buildings, what industry they housed, but he had no time. Gazing upwards through a gap in the maze of increasingly tall buildings, he spied the distant orbital tether, at least twenty kilometres away, its sleek outline hazy as it stretched up into the sky like a silver arrow, glinting in the afternoon sun. He knew that Micah had Shiva’s weapons locked onto its base, in case a distraction was needed.
Seeing Alician society up close, rather than simply considering them as a distant enemy, made him wonder about his mission. He’d seen many species on his travels, almost none of them humanoid. Qorall’s army and fleets were overcoming entire species on a weekly basis as they raked across the galaxy, and it seemed hopelessly tribal for two so closely-linked species – human and Alician – to be warring at such a time. He wished there were an alternative; but he knew that Ramires, for one, would love to Nova-bomb the entire planet once the captives were recovered. Even if Micah had ruled it out, that decision was borne mainly from a moral code than any compassion for the Alicians. Ash stopped walking. He had never thought of it before, but now he wondered if humans and Alicians could fight alongside each other, against Qorall, if it became necessary. It seemed a ridiculous idea, yet the question held him; something Kalaran had said once, long ago. Not for the first time Ash felt that humans and Alicians, and a number of other species, were all pieces on Kalaran’s chessboard, and that Kalaran would use them as he wished.
He heard something: the sound of someone stopping suddenly, sandals braking to a stop on the pavement. Ash began paying more attention to his surroundings. At that very moment, despite being effectively invisible, Ash’s instincts told him he was being followed. He didn’t see how it was possible, since the cloak was Level Nine tech and Alicians only had access to Level Six, but the prickling hairs on the back of his neck insisted. Without turning around or altering his speed, he set off again and branched down a shaded alley in between two squat blocks, and sure enough quickened footsteps followed. At least it was only one. The scene around him looked normal, relaxed even, as people went about their business. But he suspected that if he were unmasked, they would tear him apart and ask questions later via brain autopsy.
Rounding a corner, Ash froze as he saw a three-metre-tall Q’Roth warrior barring his way, blue-black serrated thorns decorating its three pairs of legs. The footsteps behind sped up, but Ash stayed where he was. The Q’Roth did not seem to be aware of him, but Ash couldn’t be sure. Its waxy eye slits gave no indication of what it was looking at, and it was so still it could almost have been a statue. Ash didn’t feel like squeezing past the warrior, who could kill him with a single slash of its claws. But the footsteps were just around the corner.
Ash made up his mind, and quickly stepped through an archway into a passage barely wider than a man’s breadth, and a good thirty metres to the other end. He glanced at the ceiling; about a foot below, on either side was a small ledge that could serve as a handhold. It had been a long time since he had wall-climbed, but he had been training intensely with Ramires throughout the voyage from Esperia; he was fitter now than he had been for years. Added to that, Vashta had injected him with an energetic booster based on an ancient Ossyrian soldier recipe – adapted to humans – that temporarily augmented his physical prowess and healing faculties, and dulled his pain receptors. It was time to put it to the test.
He took a breath and pushed against both walls with his palms and soles, and scaled his way upwards, manoeuvring his back flush against the ceiling, feet and hands balanced precariously on the narrow ledges. He was face-down, his arm and leg muscles straining to keep him from falling. Breathing out slowly, he took a deep breath, and held it.
An urgent voice on the street spoke Q’Roth. Then a fair-haired Alician male walked into the passage a metre beneath Ash, squinting in the dim light, a pistol drawn. He shouted “Stand clear!”, then fired, its laser pulse crackling the air, a faint metallic burning smell from the gun’s barrel reaching Ash’s nostrils. Nothing happened. The man walked a few paces forward and stopped.
Ash’s muscles held, but tremors began in his biceps and thighs, and the strain to keep them firm made him clench his jaw. The urge to suck in a breath clawed at his lungs. Ash suppressed it, remembered his apnoea training, and let a small amount of air expire silently from his nose. The Q’Roth warrior joined the man, with a clumping sound of its hoof-like feet, right underneath Ash, the top of its head a mere hand’s breadth under Ash’s chin. A bead of sweat ran from Ash’s right temple to the centre of his forehead. He resisted the urge to swallow.
The Alician walked a few paces further, turned and said something to the warrior, then sprinted to the far end, disappearing out into the next street. The Q’Roth warrior didn’t budge. Shaking began in Ash’s biceps, and the bead of sweat threatened to fall, so he lifted his head slightly, whereupon the drop slid to the bridge of his nose. The warrior shifted, turned around, and made to leave, just as the drop left Ash’s nose and fell towards the floor. As it did so, Ash recalled three things: first, what it was like to be blind; he would have heard such a drop hit the tiled floor. Second, that a Q’Roth warrior’s hearing was superior to that of a human; and third, that the warrior’s reactions would be quicker than his own. Ash simultaneously let go with his hands and kicked off hard with his legs, frog-like, away from the warrior. He felt wind on his feet as the warrior spun back around and slashed upwards into the ceiling, making the brickwork explode as if hit by a shell. Ash rolled as he hit the floor then sprang up and sprinted away from the warrior, gasping in air. The warrior didn’t give chase, and for a moment Ash thought he would escape, until
the light at the end of the passage was cut off by another Q’Roth warrior barring the way. Ash slid to a halt, panting.
The warrior in front began walking towards him on its lowest pair of legs, the other two pairs slashing up and down, chopping through the air from floor to ceiling. There was no way past. It came as no surprise when he heard an identical air-whipping, thrashing noise behind him. Think, Ash said to himself. Think fast!
Ramires joined the small group of Alicians near the passage. He’d been watching from afar, ready to intervene, but the Alician male had made his move on Ash too quickly. If he’d had his staff with its nano-blades he could have taken down the Q’Roth, but then he’d be discovered, and the mission would be finished.
Though he had been walking amongst the Alicians, and even acting like them, his insides were aflame. His adopted son Gabriel and so many others had been killed by Sister Esma’s third attempt to wipe out humanity, and now his wife Sandy was amongst the sixty captives somewhere beneath his feet. He’d been proud when he’d heard how she’d volunteered to go with the Alicians to save more fragile people from being taken. Their marriage hadn’t always been smooth, and he knew he loved her more than she loved him, but she’d been loyal all these years, and the perfect mother to Gabriel. It was her safety, and hers alone, that kept him focused.
He didn’t expect the others to understand, not even Micah who had lost so much since Earth’s fall – including losing Sandy to him. For the others, the Alicians had appeared twenty years ago. But Ramires was the last of the Sentinels, whose war against this genetic abomination had endured nine centuries. Micah had said their mission parameters were to take the captives and leave. Ramires had done something rare, something he was ashamed of; he had lied, agreeing with Micah. Once the captives were safe, Ramires would target this planet with the Nova bomb on board Shiva – he already had the access codes.