by Worth, Dan
‘Twenty seconds!’ reported Singh, panic creeping into his voice. ‘Admiral, the Nahabe gunsphere is closing rapidly on our position.’
‘Come on...’ growled McManus. ‘Hurry it up, you coffin wearing freaks...’
Still the carrier tried to catch the Shaper device, in a vain attempt to target it.
‘Ten seconds!’ cried Singh. ‘Shaper destroyer class vessels emerging from hyperspace, two hundred kilometres to starboard. They are powering weapons!’
Chen saw the iceberg forms of the Shaper ships as they began to swim into view in normal space. They were cold and terrible. Energy began to crackle along their bows. Then her zoomed in view through her HUD was suddenly eclipsed by the battered moonlet of the Shadow in the Void, its wounds still bleeding atmosphere and debris. Beams stabbed out from that enigmatic vessel, annihilating the elusive drive inhibitor device. Not a second too soon.
‘Missile warning, six warheads!’ Singh exclaimed.
‘Jump!’ yelled Chen.
The Churchill and the Shadow in the Void vanished into hyperspace. Their exit was marked a split second later by a searing explosion as six warheads detonated at the exact spot where the two warships had hung a moment ago.
Chen sat back in her chair, and suddenly realised that she was drenched in sweat. That had been far too close. McManus exhaled at length, as though he had been holding his breath.
‘I thought that was it,’ he said. ‘I take back what I said about the Nahabe. We’d all have been wearing coffins if it wasn’t for them hauling our arses out of the fire. Bloody brave, those chaps. I’d tell you to remind me to buy that Lord Protector a drink, except that they don’t indulge.’ He added darkly. ‘Assuming they made it, of course.’
‘Well done everyone,’ said Chen to the bridge in general. ‘You did me proud, as always. Commander, in my office. Mr Singh, you have the bridge.’
Chen sank heavily into her chair and, resting her elbows on the top of her desk, massaged tired eyes that had been staring almost unblinking at combat information the entire time that they had been in the Matsu system.
‘I fucked up. We should never have jumped into that asteroid belt. The crew of the Dulles paid the price for that. Stupid fucking rookie mistake,’ said Chen bitterly.
‘If we made a mistake, it was to trust the Nahabes’ readings too much,’ said McManus. ‘They showed that field as clear. Jumping in to hide your exact position in the sensor clutter of the rocks was a sound tactic based on the information that we had. You were trying to make this look like a cautious rescue mission, like you were trying to find somewhere to lurk and observe. Doing something like that is a standard tactic, based on standard sensor technology, until now.’
‘Yes, well maybe I shouldn’t resort to standard tactics in these situations, should I? We walked right into a trap. The Shapers must have been expecting someone to try to hide in the belt, so they seeded those rocks with automated missile systems that would home in on anything in range.’
‘Makes sense. Perhaps they were simpler non AI systems that didn’t need to be in constant contact with the Shaper hive-mind, hence why we didn’t pick them up until the last minute.’
‘Possibly. I’ll have Singh go over the sensor logs.’
At that moment the comm. chimed. It was Singh, calling them from the bridge.
‘Ah, speak of the devil,’ said McManus.
‘Admiral, this is Singh. I almost forgot. You wanted to know where those transports loaded with antimatter were headed?’
‘Yes. Yes, I did Mr Singh, go on.’
‘They jumped out during the battle, but our sensors managed to track the human vessels for quite some distance before we jumped also. I’ve extrapolated their course.’
‘And?’
‘Unless it’s a ruse, they’re headed straight for the Achernar system.’
Chapter 25
Katherine had completely lost all sense of time. They had spent what seemed like days in the bowels of the dead world, amid the catacombs of a race now almost vanished from the galaxy, but she had lost track of exactly how long. Down here there was no day or night, just the steady glow of artificial lighting and the shadows in the long forgotten chambers. The creature they had found alive ensconced in the strange machinery had turned out to be the only survivor. The other pods in the chamber, even those still found to be active, had held only the mute remains of the others who had resigned themselves to suspended animation in the hope that one day they would be rescued. They had done so only to consign themselves to death. No-one had answered their calls for help, for no-one else had come to this world until now, and the machinery had eventually failed them one by one throughout the millennia. Only the one entrusted to guide the heart of the machine that kept them alive and broadcast their plight from their underground refuge had survived. He was, it seemed, the last of his kind, and he had said no more since they had first found him, slipping back into a sleep from which he could not be roused. The Arkari scientists had spent the time since his discovery attempting to find a way to wake him or to treat the effects of his extreme age. So far they had met with little success. They had not dared remove him from the complex alien machinery as it appeared to be the only thing keeping him alive. As far as Katherine was concerned, she couldn’t get over just how similar the alien looked to humans. It was stockier, with a certain heaviness of the features and a possessed a head that was largely hairless and hands with too few fingers, but the general appearance was remarkably similar. The ghostly projection that had led them to him had not been seen since. Presumably the effort had proved too much and the creature had slipped into a coma-like state
Katherine, Rekkid, Steelscale and the other archaeologists had buried themselves in the thousands of documents being translated at great speed by the drones of the Shining Glory, or roamed the tunnels beneath the earth in search of further clues about their builders. So far, their efforts had enabled them to at least assemble a basic history of the people who had once inhabited the worlds in this star system.
The people who had once lived here had called themselves the Akkal. Roughly translated it meant “the one people”. They had originated from the other once habitable planet in the system, the one now reduced to blasted chunks of rubble, which they had named Kel a word which roughly translated as “Birth”. Many of the documents that they had uncovered spoke of the beauty of this vanished world: its ancient cities, its lush forests and bountiful seas. Evidently it had been something of a paradise planet. Although some of the accounts tended towards the sentimental, it was undoubtedly a verdant, fertile world and the cradle of the Akkal civilisation which had succeeded in creating a peacefully unified global state after centuries of inter-nation strife.
Evidently, about twelve thousand years ago, the Akkal had ventured into space, having speculated for centuries about what they might find on the neighbouring blue-green planet, easily visible in their skies to the naked eye, that they had named Arul-Kar - the Sea Star. The first brave adventurers had found another world teeming with life, a little colder than their own tropical paradise, but otherwise perfectly suited to the Akkal. The Akkal speculated that perhaps one world’s life had seeded the other at some point in the distant past. Indeed, the genetic make-up of life forms on both worlds hinted at a possible common origin. Settlements soon sprang up across the face of Arul Kar and the Akkal made considerable progress in developing their spacecraft technologies to meet the growing demand for interplanetary travel and commerce and soon trips between the two worlds became routine. The resulting economic boom had led to a golden age for the Akkal people that had lasted for almost two millennia before catastrophe struck.
It was not clear exactly what happened. There were gaps in the records, which almost appeared intentional. What was clear was that the bi-planetary civilisation of the Akkal was torn apart along religious lines. There were various references to campaigns, battles, fleet actions and troop deployments and descriptions of the inhabitants of the p
lanet Kel as unbelievers, pagans, heretics and worse. There were also accounts of mob violence, religious mania and the persecution of those who refused to acknowledge what was referred to as ‘The New Truth’ or ‘The Sacred Way’. There were even some references to the mass internment of unbelievers and executions of prisoners and deserters on masse, but details were sketchy and, it seemed, purposely destroyed or hidden. Similar crimes were however luridly reported when committed by those on the home-world who had stuck to the old beliefs. It seemed that both sides had been whipped into a murderous frenzy driven by religious zealotry, and both planets had been tipped into the abyss of total war. Democracy of any kind was abandoned by both sides, which had now become authoritarian regimes led by the military and the leaders of their respective religions. It was a war that had lasted for decades, without either side gaining the upper hand until the economies of both planets were utterly wrecked from war damage and the sheer effort of maintaining the conflict.
What had happened next that had destroyed both worlds in different ways was unknown. The records examined so far simply didn’t say. Presumably it had happened so suddenly that there had been no time to record it, though the construction of the very facility within which the archaeologists now found themselves indicated that something similar had at least been anticipated. Had these two worlds eventually destroyed one another, or had some outside agency of immense and terrible power wreaked havoc upon them in the midst of their strife, and if so, for what purpose?
Katherine flicked through the images on her datapad. The Shining Glory’s drones had been painstakingly scanning the thousands of books and other documents from the subterranean library, most of which were far too fragile to be touched by human or Arkari hands and were only handled by the delicate energy fields emitted by the mechanoids whilst they worked on the ancient tomes. The one that she was now looking at had contained a series of art prints. The colours had remained remarkably vivid, and as she flicked through she browsed through images of strangely alien, pastoral landscapes from once lush planets, renderings of cities long flattened by bombs or worse, and portrait after portrait of individuals ten millennia dead. It was all terribly sad. She was looking at snapshots from a civilisation that was now little more than dust, ruins and piles of bones amidst the rubble. She wondered darkly whether some alien race might chance upon human worlds in the distant future and find the same thing. Ten thousand years was a long time in civilisational terms, but nothing more than an eye-blink in the life of the universe. She couldn’t help but be distracted by how human many of the people in the pictures looked.
The next scanned volume in the list was one of religious art. Katherine flipped through images of pious worshippers, saints exhorting the faithful and holy warriors smiting the unbelievers, clad in fancifully ornate armour and carrying what looked like ridiculously oversized weaponry. After flipping past a few, she noticed something similar about each of the images. Each contained a depiction of a brilliant light in the sky, emitting from a slender, glowing ring. It was similar to the image that they had seen in the temples that they had unearthed so far as well as elsewhere in the underground complex. Doubtless it carried great religious significance, perhaps symbolising their god, or enlightenment. She browsed further for a few moments and then stopped. The image before her showed something new. It was, again, an image of a ring emitting a blaze of light, and before it hung a glittering, golden spacecraft. The ship must have been gracefully sleek looking once, but in the image the shark-like fins along its fuselage were twisted or snapped off entirely and great scars were depicted in its gorgeous hull. The entire aft section appeared to be missing entirely and was instead encased in what, to her untrained eye, looked like a large chemical rocket assembly.
Alarm bells started to ring inside her head. Aside from the chemical rockets at its stern, that spacecraft looked far too advanced to be constructed by the people who had once inhabited the planet she was on. It wasn’t a Shaper craft, that much was clear, but it did bear a passing resemblance to images of Progenitor warships that they had managed to glean from their previous work. Had the people who had once lived here somehow stumbled upon Progenitor technology lying abandoned in their system or another? What did the ring signify? Was it simply a religious symbol, or did it represent something other, a space borne habitat perhaps, or a device of some kind? She was reminded of the rings that had been found floating in the photospheres of the twin suns of the Fulan system that had powered the vast engines within the planet. Was this why Eonara had brought the Glory here, in order that they might uncover more Progenitor secrets? Or had the artist simply made the whole thing up? Moreover, what was it doing in a book of religious art? The Progenitor AI still remained frustratingly uncommunicative, despite the efforts of Mentith’s people to resolve the issue.
She looked at the accompanying text that the drones had translated. It simply said: ‘The opening of the Sacred Way’, followed by details about the artist – as if the picture itself were largely self explanatory, as if anyone looking at it would instantly know what it was. She suddenly had a very bad feeling indeed about the picture.
Katherine heard footsteps echoing down the hallway outside the chamber she had converted into a workspace. Rekkid poked his head around the entrance.
‘How are you getting on? Find any clues as to what we’re doing here yet?’ he asked, before walking over to Katherine and sitting carefully on the fold-out chair next to her.
‘Have a look at this,’ Katherine replied and passed Rekkid her datapad. He pondered it for a moment and looked thoughtful.
‘You know Arrakid’s team found something similar – an original painting of such a craft. I think they just dismissed it as a piece of fantasy art but... I don’t know. If this ship existed it can’t possibly have been constructed by the people who lived here, can it? It looks far too advanced.’
‘My thoughts exactly. Wouldn’t you say it bears more than a passing resemblance to a Progenitor vessel?’
‘Yes I would. But what’s it doing in a book of religious art?’
‘Well, there’s the old saying about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic. Maybe they found the wreck of an ancient alien craft and concluded that it must be of divine origin?’
Rekkid shook his head. ‘I’m not convinced that that’s the case, to be honest. These people already had an advanced technological civilisation spread across two planets in this system. Space travel was a relatively routine occurrence, although it seems that they lacked any means to travel interstellar distances. I doubt that such a society would react in such a way to advanced technology, regardless of who created it.’
‘But somehow it’s bound up with their religious beliefs.’
Katherine flicked through more pages on her datapad. It didn’t take her long to find another similar image of the ship approaching a ring, blazing with light, and then another, and another.
‘This image is repeated everywhere,’ she said. ‘In these pictures, all over this complex and the temples above ground. It’s even depicted in the skies in the backgrounds of some of the other religious paintings. Whatever it is, it had great meaning for these people. All religious symbols represent something - they aren’t just abstract or arbitrary, and it’s linked to this ship somehow.’
‘Do you think that’s why Eonara brought us here?’
‘Yes, it’s possible. I think somewhere in this system is a Progenitor device of some kind.’
‘Like the one we found inside Maranos?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Oh. Great. My, I’d really love to go through all that again.’
‘Eonara must have known about this. It must be the reason that she brought us here. If only we could ask her.’
‘I spoke to Mentith earlier today. He didn’t sound too optimistic, I’m afraid. The rest of the ship’s systems are just about up and running, but they don’t seem to be having much luck in repairing her AI core. The engineers are still sa
ying that it’s like she’s locked inside and can’t communicate with the outside world.’
‘Poor thing. I can’t imagine what that must do to a mind, artificial or not. Still, I wonder how that poor chap we found alive down here managed to stay sane for so long, locked up in this place for ten thousand years.’
‘Well, you might be able to ask him yourself,’ Rekkid replied. Noticing Katherine’s quizzical expression, he continued. ‘I came to find you to tell you that the medical teams have made some progress in reversing the effects of his extreme ageing. They’re going to make another attempt to revive him. We should both be there. We might be able to get some answers.’
The great circular chamber of machines was busy with activity. Amidst the ancient monolithic structures and the suspended animation pods filled with the corpses of their unfortunate occupants, Arkari technicians, medics and drones from the Shining Glory moved with quiet purpose. The sole Akkal survivor at the heart of the vast assembly was now surrounded with yet more machinery, as the gleaming technology of the Arkari probed and monitored his aged body within the now opened pod. Slender tendrils from various armatures that had been placed around him encased his withered form, which, to Katherine and Rekkid’s eyes, seemed a little less pallid and decrepit than when they had first found him deep in this subterranean chamber.
Okanno, the Glory’s Chief Medical Adept, and one of the ship’s snake-like drones approached them as they entered the chamber.
‘Ah, you’re just in time. Good,’ said Okanno, casting an eye over the information on the datapad he clutched in one slender hand. ‘We’ve raised the patient’s metabolism considerably over the last few periods. He should be regaining consciousness very soon.’