Tempest: Book Two of the Terran Cycle

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  His body went limp under Kalian.

  Esabelle screamed again, this time from the highest platform. Sparks fired into the air wherever they fought, ejecting whole monitors and severing cables between the floors. Malekk was thrown around like a ragdoll in the telekinetic clutches of Esabelle’s hands.

  Malekk didn’t utter a single syllable of pain.

  Garrett felt himself floating upwards through a sea of ink, shaking free the shackles of his master. The tentacles of the cube’s control were slipping free from his subconscious body. Was this death? Real death? The last encounter with Kalian had blanketed the world in white before severing his senses altogether. Garrett could feel the cube’s mind scurrying around, panicked, barking orders at the army of nanocelium that ravaged his body. The nanites were clustering around his neck, working to knit the skin back together and fix the bones inside.

  This parasite would never die, never release him.

  Garrett’s eyes became suddenly irritated, leaving him with the need to rub them and soothe the dull ache that ran into his temples. The nanocelium were recreating his eyes and reconnecting his nervous system simultaneously. The darkness faded around the edges of his virtual world, taking the image of his floating body with it. He was now looking through his own eyes, fully in control of his actions. The parasite had been so engrossed in healing his body that its reins over Garrett had loosened.

  Garrett looked at his fingers and concentrated, willing them to move, testing the limits of his new control. His head moved, seemingly of its own accord, as the nanocelium reattached his head to the rest of his body.

  The parasite screamed in frustration at the back of his mind. It clawed at his thoughts in an attempt to take back control. Garrett sat up, relishing the power to do so, and inspected his surroundings. He couldn’t feel the metal under his hands and legs, the nerves in his skin unable to connect to his brain via the spinal column that was still being worked on. Kalian was a few feet away, moments from jumping into action to help Esabelle against Malekk. The bridge had been decimated almost beyond use, with sparks flying out of various broken terminals and cables hanging between the tiers. Small electrical fires had broken out on every floor, filling the area with smoke. Seeing the Terran clash was no small spectacle, Garrett predicted that the entire station would crumble under their power soon.

  His right hand clenched into a fist of its own accord. The cube was taking back control already. Garrett willed the hand to open again while he pushed himself onto all fours, desperate to find Kalian before it was too late.

  No one else would die by his hands.

  Kalian was waiting for the break in the fight where he could launch into Malekk and take him off balance. The twisted Terran would be no match for them together. On the tier above, Esabelle attacked Malekk with every fighting style Kalian had ever seen, striking all of the nerve clusters in quick succession. Malekk took every hit that made it past his defences, showing no signs of defeat. The nanocelium that coated his body proved to be just as strong as their exo-suits, rebuilding every impact created by the organic plasma Esabelle threw at him.

  The gap he had been waiting for appeared for just a second after a telekinetic blast separated the two combatants. Kalian jumped the twenty feet through the jagged hole in the ceiling, coming to land gracefully behind Malekk. The telekinetic field around his hand kept the heat of the plasma at bay, until it grew to the size of a fist, and he projected at Malekk’s back. Kalian’s face dropped when the ball dissipated across an invisible field spread over Malekk’s body. The possessed Terran turned on him with a wicked smile curling into his pale cheek.

  “Have you come to die first, Mr Gaines?”

  Before Kalian could take a step, Malekk leaned forward, bringing his leg out behind him with more force than a Raalak. The flat of Malekk’s foot caught him square in the chest, slamming Kalian into the far wall and taking out another support frame on the way. Busted monitors sparked around Kalian’s body, now firmly indented into the wall like a nail hit by a hammer. The exo-suit scraped against the shredded edges as Kalian came to land on one knee with a comforting hand over his chest. His mind/body connection informed him of two broken ribs and a collapsed lung. His vision started to blur as his breathing became almost impossible. At least this time he had made sure to switch off his pain receptors.

  “Focus, Kalian!” ALF shouted into his head. “Remember your training. You need to heal while you fight. Ignore the pain, forget the needs of the body and focus on Malekk.”

  Like a machine creating a subroutine to perform low-level tasks, Kalian set his body to the job of fixing his ribs and inflating his lung. He pushed up from the floor and hurtled towards Malekk, who continued to face Esabelle, and used a blast of telekinesis to almost fly into the twisted Terran. The framework around the middle tier burst apart, as if a balloon had been popped in the wake of the telekinetic backlash.

  Malekk remained standing, defiant amidst the wreckage around him. Kalian had been flung back out into the bridge space while Esabelle hung limply over a bent railing. Kalian managed to keep enough of a shield around his body to ensure the damage was kept to a minimum as he skidded over the control podium below.

  “These powers are wasted on your kind,” Malekk announced from above. The Terran walked over to Esabelle’s helpless form and roughly pulled her off the railing.

  Kalian stood up immediately, only to be greeted by the hunched body of Garrett, limping up the podium steps. It halted Kalian for a moment, taking his attention off the danger Esabelle was in.

  “Kalian...” Garrett’s voice was just as broken as his body. “Not much time...” The Professor actually looked to be in pain, putting Kalian on edge.

  “Garrett?” Was this the real Garrett Jones or a trick? The look in his eyes was more human than before, pleading almost.

  “They have a weakness...” Garrett fell to his knees and grunted in pain. “We are their weakness. Corrupt-” His pained expression became a snarl in the blink of an eye.

  The surprise attack took Kalian off his feet again, sending them both reeling into the command console. They struggled across the floor of the podium, hitting each other with every opening.

  Esabelle used the railing to pull herself up, blinking the blood that dripped into her eyes. Her concentration wandered, as a result of the new head injury, causing her pain-receptors to come screaming back to life. Malekk had broken several bones across her body that she hadn’t successfully healed yet. His attacks were incessant and calculated, like a machine. The Terran body gave the parasite preternatural speed that, when combined with the nanocelium, created a killing machine.

  The bridge appeared to wobble when Esabelle finally stood upright. She blinked hard to force her vision to return, desperate to make certain Kalian was still alive. The concussive explosion Malekk had unleashed was beyond anything Esabelle imagined he could know how to use. The infected Terran was using their abilities as if he had been trained for thousands of years, and yet the parasite had only been recently introduced.

  The sound of talking below caught her attention and Esabelle had to focus to turn her body without fainting. Kalian was standing on the command podium, talking to Garrett. The scene confused her for a second while her memory tried to piece together recent events. Her head injury was more severe than she initially thought; Garrett was the enemy now, as well as Malekk. Esabelle felt out of time with parts of her memory missing. How had they got onto the Starforge? Where was Roland?

  Malekk came to stand before her.

  “It looks as if you took quite the knock.” His black eyes hovered over the gash on her head. “I give you credit for still standing, though.” Malekk casually walked around her, unafraid. “Imagine the trouble your race could have caused, hmm? Billions of you instead of just the two, well, soon to be one.” Malekk looked down on Kalian. “And then none.”

  “We will beat you...” Esabelle redirected her attention to healing her brain and skull, leaving her other in
juries for the time being.

  “Beat us?” Malekk laughed. “We’ve been coming for your kind since before the Terran even had a name. We know how you think, we know how you move and we know how you die.”

  “You talk a lot for a robot.” Esabelle dropped to one knee as her leg gave out under Malekk’s telekinetic nudge.

  He stood over her. “You see the nanocelium and presume to know what we are. We are so much more complex than any machine, even more than your biological one. You are a cancer, infecting the universe with your every breath. You are toxic. Think of me as a white blood cell, eradicating that cancer before it infects the whole.”

  Esabelle looked up at him then, Malekk’s words taking a new meaning. “Is that it? Is that why you’ve hunted us across the cosmos for so long? The Terran, humanity... we’re some kind of weakness?”

  Malekk burst into action, picking Esabelle up by the throat and holding her a foot off the floor. She fought back by kicking and punching with everything she had, ignoring the agony of each broken bone and torn muscle. Malekk took the blows stoically, unflinching under the barrage. The edges of her vision began to blur and go dark, focusing on Malekk’s stony expression. The infected Terran pumped his fist into Esabelle’s stomach and dropped her onto all fours, choking and spluttering. The exo-suit did nothing to soften the blow.

  Malekk had practically pummelled her to death. Esabelle could feel the inevitable coming. She was too weak and inexperienced to fight a machine with complete control and understanding of Terran abilities. Her time in the Gommarian’s virtual world hadn’t prepared her for this kind of fight. Malekk couldn’t be distracted or worn down; his energy appeared unlimited. Esabelle turned and looked down at Kalian through the matted strands in her hair. He was fighting Garrett again now, sending balls of organic plasma at the erratic professor.

  “Kalian...” Esabelle whispered.

  Esabelle had spent two hundred thousand years battling these creatures on a virtual playing field, keeping them from infecting her mind, protecting the crew. Her father had been lost, slave to the cube before she had any chance of helping him. For two hundred millennia she had kept them from finding Earth, giving the Terran lineage as much time as possible to grow strong. Esabelle could see now that everything she had ever done was to get Kalian to this point. To train him, for her part, while he grew into the man humanity needed, the man the galaxy needed. The realisation that she would not be around to continue his training was devastating.

  But she knew one who could in her absence...

  Kalian struck Garrett in a dozen places with preternatural speed, each blow having little to no effect. Garrett took every hit and always came back, more feral each time.

  ALF cut in. “Stop using your hands and feet and start using your head!”

  The professor jumped onto Kalian’s waist, bringing them both to the floor.

  “Mr Gaines!” Malekk called out his name from the upper tier behind him.

  Kalian kept Garrett’s gnashing jaws at bay long enough to turn his head and see Malekk holding Esabelle by the throat. She looked half-dead on her knees with Malekk standing behind her, his right hand firmly gripping her neck. Blood was dripping down her face from gashes cut into her forehead where it matted her dark hair. Esabelle was broken.

  “All that time in the Gommarian learning about her abilities...” Malekk partially lifted her off the floor, causing her to choke under the pressure of his grip. “It amounts to nothing against us.”

  Kalian could see it coming and fought against Garrett’s pressing body. Esabelle opened her bruised and swollen eyes just enough to meet Kalian’s, revelation in both of their expressions.

  Find Sef...

  Malekk whipped his free hand around Esabelle’s face and cracked her neck.

  “NO!” Kalian barely registered her last words as he screamed at the sight of her lifeless body, being instantly disregarded.

  Fury exploded within Kalian, an emotion he had yet to experience with his Terran abilities. A telekinetic, electromagnetic and telepathic wave erupted from his body with destructive intent. Garrett’s hands shot to his temples, his face twisted in agony, before his whole body was ejected from the command podium, along with all the monitors and half the floor. Malekk was momentarily cast back from the edge of the railing, his hands similarly gripping his head in pain.

  Sparks erupted out of the exposed cables under the flooring as if a volcano was pouring out lava. New electrical fires blazed from the destroyed terminals surrounding Kalian in chaos and heat. Supporting pillars and internal framework groaned under the telekinetic stress that exploded from Kalian. A spider’s web of cracks was growing over the three storey view-port, letting in slithers of light from the star.

  “I am going to kill you.” Kalian clenched his fists. “And then I’m going to hunt down the rest of your kind and kill all of them too.” It wasn’t the scariest threat he could have made, but he knew that was exactly what he was going to do.

  Malekk gave him a coy smile and dropped off the lip of the middle tier. Above him, Esabelle’s body lay limp, her arm hanging over the edge. There was no sign of any injuries on Malekk’s body; even his visible flesh remained untouched.

  ALF spoke into his head, “You’re going to have to use everything to beat him, not just your physical body.”

  A ferocious snarl was all that preceded Garrett’s leap over the fire, his arms outstretched towards Kalian. In his mind, Kalian gripped both of the professor’s arms and legs mid-air. He made no physical movement or even looked at Garrett, as all of his limbs were torn from the professor’s body. The limbless body slammed into an invisible shield around Kalian and dropped to the floor. Kalian flicked his wrist and sent the professor’s remains into the cracked view-port, damaging it further.

  ALF remained silent.

  “Now your lap dog’s been put down,” Kalian strode towards Malekk, “let’s see what you can do.”

  Space and time were ripped open for the millisecond it took the Gommarian to emerge from sub-space. ALF’s clone viewed the ship’s surroundings through a combination of scanners and long range cameras, all feeding back a perfect image of the Starforge. It orbited the star at a mere three hundred thousand kilometres. ALF checked the status of the Gommarian’s hull and was confident that it could withstand the proximity.

  A deep scan that penetrated the Starforge’s hull informed ALF of the evacuation that was taking place as well as the four occupants on the bridge. The clone registered no emotion with the understanding that Esabelle was dead, along with Professor Jones. Thinking exactly as ALF would, the cloned A.I. prioritised Kalian Gaines and ensured his survival. His secondary goal was to make certain that the forge was obliterated before it could be used against the humans.

  More nanocelium was detected in the hangar bay, taking the shape of the Rackham. That would be Kalian’s only way of escape, ruling out the destruction of the bay. The Starrilliums would create a chain reaction that would tear the station apart before Kalian could reach the Rackham. Hitting the bridge directly would kill him for sure, ruling that approach out as well. The logical target was the thrusters that kept the Starforge in its orbit around the sun. Being a designer of such constructs, ALF’s clone knew exactly where to hit.

  The Gommarian’s internal structure shifted dramatically when the clone commanded the nanocelium to bring all the armaments to bear. Once the thrusters were taken out, Kalian would be forced to abandon the station, and then the clone would decimate the rest of the Starforge with ease.

  An alert was raised in the wake of the latest scan. The Starrilliums were being activated. The station was either preparing for sub-space travel, opening a portal or...

  The clone wasted no more time and launched the missiles at the power conduit in the lower quadrant of the crescent. New calculations proved the Gommarian to be in serious peril with this new development. The Starforge had to be taken out now or it never would.

  The missiles streaked across the vas
tness of space as giant lightning bolts of purple and blue fired up inside the crescent. The clone had encoded the nanocelium missiles with specific instructions to keep out of the beam circumference, which would burst from the station imminently. That concentrated beam would convert the ship into slag in seconds.

  Long range scans of the sun confirmed the station’s intent. A portal had been opened inside the star, ready to funnel and eject the raw power like a laser from a gun. Another alert was raised when the Sentinel emerged from sub-space, half a light year away. Luckily they would be out of the Starforge’s line of sight, and safe from the beam.

  The Gommarian had no time to manoeuvre, however.

  The blinding light shot from the centre of the Starforge and covered the distance at the speed of light. Incapable of comprehending death, the clone felt nothing in the seconds it took the beam to cut through the Gommarian, obliterating every particle and nanocelium, reducing them to atoms.

  The cube-shaped bridge was in disarray. Both upper tiers on one side had completely caved in, raining scrap metal over the floor. The pitted tier was on fire and the chief source of the smoke slowly filling the giant room. The constant sparks that erupted everywhere were drowned out by the god-like battle that raged throughout.

  Kalian pinned Malekk to the wall with telekinesis, pushing his body so hard it dented the panels. With one hand keeping Malekk in place, Kalian used the other to create a brilliant flare of organic plasma and shoved it into the Terran’s face. The infected flesh was burnt away, melting Malekk’s left eye and ear. Kalian let the plasma burn like the rage that filled his mind, fuelling his power. Kalian was forced to constantly heal his eyes that suffered under the deadly glare, a light that would permanently blind anyone else.