Ember's Echo (The Nimbus Collection Book 2)

by D. C. Clemens

  “Please leave your weapons inside the dropship’s supply units. They will be returned to you in the proper time. An escort will take you to our medical facility and our physicians will assist in your recovery.”

  “Thank you, admiral. If I can, I would like to update Parliament of our situation as soon as possible. I also strongly indorse leaving this system.”

  “Your second request is not possible,” he said as composedly as an old professor’s lecture. “I’m not comfortable leaving a system where an unknown threat lies so close to advok space. If we trusted the Coalition to send an armada to secure the area I would gladly leave this to the humans. As it is, their history of neglect at our border forces my hand. Your first appeal will be handled by us. I apologize for the inconvenience, as a fellow soldier I understand that no warrior enjoys their control to be taken away, but this is how it must be. Please bear with us.”

  Vasilissa slammed shut the lid of a storage unit. She knew any verbal argument would both go unheard and conceivably make their treatment of us little better than the prisoners we essentially became. The doctor, who was allowed to hear the conversation, was startled by the terse eruption from the normally self-possessed eldrick, likely not realizing what the answer by the admiral wholly entailed. I decided to keep her mind ignorant for a while longer. It was a widely known, and widely annoying, custom of the advok to be at their most polite when they were actually treating people with indifference. From the tapered portside windows, we could see our dropship converging with the hanger of a carrier-class vessel. The opposite side windows gave us a glimpse of an imposing mile long dreadnought several klicks away, presumably belonging to the admiral. An almost indistinguishable cruiser was farther out, on a trajectory to begin orbiting Ember.

  With the metallic clang of the closing hanger doors still lingering in the air, the admiral said, “My men will take you to the infirmary, which has been set to an applicable atmosphere for both of your species.”

  The advok were oxygen-based breathers, but the trace amount of gases they also needed would make most other species dizzy and nauseous within a few minutes. I heard it was much like getting drunk, something I badly desired to be at that moment. The door of the transport smoothly slid open to reveal three armed and heavily armored advok waiting for us. They looked daunting, but none were actually aiming their weapons at us and only the smallest of them seemed to be on their guard at all. It was my first time seeing an advok in person. To me, they were the most alien looking of the major sentient species. They had four sturdy legs sprawling outward from under their bulky frame, two on the left and two on the right. Their knees were almost always bent at ninety degree angles. In the infrequent event they fully hoisted their lower limbs, they could stand a couple of feet taller than the average human. These two sets of legs buttressed an upper body that continued the theme of pairs. The advok didn’t have a true front or back side. Each side possessed two arms, three eyes stacked in the middle of the head, a vertical slit used for inhaling on either side of the eyes, and a leech-like mouth. Both mouths were veiled by a curtain of elephant-like trunks, which were in charge of exhaling and putting food in their mouths. Male advok had a fleshy frill running down the center of their heads.

  These three males chaperoned us into a hall walled with a thick, crystal-clear plastic that presented the inner workings of the ship. They then made us turn a right at the first chance and bade us enter a decontamination room labeled “Non-advok Infirmary” in their sprawling language. The escort did not follow us in. A gust of enriched oxygen blew out from the vents lining the upper edges of the large, bare room, matching the atmosphere we were to head into. An automated voice then instructed us to remove our armor, which I was eager to do, but the concerned guise Dr. Oleson gave me when I removed my helmet told me I must have troubled her with my woeful appearance. Neither of us said anything about it. The door to the infirmary opened and we rambled into the prototypical white compartment the majority of medical proceedings transpired in. We were attended by five advok decked in traditional, bright orange robes that loosely encompassed their entire bodies. Only in their faces could I tell they were wearing modern, tight-fitting apparel to shield them from exposure to us and the altered atmosphere. Four soldiers wearing yellow light-armor suits were guarding the entrances on either side of the chamber. The doctors scanned us, drew blood, injected some stimulants, cleaned up our wounds, and provided clean clothing, which we changed into behind our individual screened divisions. They handled their business like the professionals they were, but were not cold or robotic, seemingly mindful of the misfortunes we had gone through.

  They were, of course, most interested in me. I saw the head physician, introducing himself as Son-Gernat-Son, take my blood sample and insert it into an analysis device nestled in a counter. I couldn’t see the screen that broadcasted the results, but the advok in charge did quietly mutter “Fascinating,” which no patient could take as a good thing. The rest of the time they spoke strictly through their cerebral links when not speaking directly to us. Vasilissa and Dr. Oleson were shepherded into another area of the ship a few minutes before I was allowed to follow them. I noticed that they were given rebreather masks to wear.

  In those minutes on my own, Son-Gernat-Son acquainted me of my status, saying in his rendered voice, “Your physiology has become quite active, but seems stable. What exactly has caused the change, well, that remains a mystery. The microtech you say came from this unfamiliar enemy, and the likely transferor of the biological alteration, is more problematic, however. Our initial observations on your blood sample shows that many of the foreign microbots have attached themselves to the originals, including those in your cerebral tech, and all without any resistance from your defenses. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Quite remarkable.”

  “Lucky me,” I said dryly.

  “Well, yes, in any case, our trials do show that they still act on your biological behalf, eliminating any diseases and viruses they detect. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can yet do to remove or eradicate this unacquainted technology without doing many more tests, or without risking harm to yourself.”

  “I thought as much. Does this mean you’ll have to isolate me?”

  “You’ll have to be kept watch over, but so will the rest of your group, so there’s no reason to sequester you from them. The admiral has ordered for you to be treated as guests, not prisoners. Please follow the guard to your chambers. I’ll try to update you on both the internal and external conditions of your situation when I can, as I’m sure I’ll be put in charge of your state.”

  I slipped on the rebreather mask that was handed to me before taking the short walk into another hallway, with this one having a homelier appearance than the first, having non-transparent walls of a sky blue color. I was led into a door on the left and entered a space clearly intended as a living space for bipedal beings. Several red couches and cushioned seats were splayed across the large room. They all faced the wall opposite the entrance, which was actually a jutted observation deck, though the area was currently concealed behind a defensive curtain of metal. Two doors were situated on either side of the room, Vasilissa later telling me that they led into bedrooms. The atmosphere here was adjusted to match the non-advok med bay, allowing me to remove the rebreather. Dr. Oleson was laying on a lounge chair and might have been asleep, though her face was too buried in the plushy fabric for me to see if she was truly in slumber. Vasilissa was standing in the middle of the room and speaking with a draken, taking me an extra glance from me to recognize him as Helt. They were in the middle of illuminating each other of their respective struggles.

  Apparently, the Wanderer made an emergency jump to take it as close as possible to the nearest known jump-buoy, which happened to be in advok controlled space. As we already knew, the Wanderer did not jump in time to escape untouched. The backup engine was destroyed and only the emergency power worked, forcing the ship to jump short of the buoy’s range. After a copiou
s volume of work, Helt and Hardy were eventually successful in rerouting power to get the primary jump-engine to make a small jump. He jumped, sent the distress signal, was picked up by the same fleet we were now in, and regulated to this lounge area. Once we briefed him on our own account, which felt much longer than any verbose statement could convey, there was little else to do but wait and see what our savior-captors had in store for us.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A series of blinking yellow lights accompanied by a low, prolonged siren awoke Vasilissa and Dr. Oleson from their repose a few hours later. The carrier’s alarm system had triggered. Helt came out of his room to join us, but for the next five minutes the alarm was the only clue that something was happening, our room being excluded from overhearing military directives. Once most of those five minutes were spent, the siren and lights were turned off. Son-Gernat-Son promenaded into the room two hours later, wearing his own version of a rebreather that went over mouth and tentacles. He drew some more blood from me before answering any inquires.

  When he was done, he proceeded to say, “This counts as a break for me. Our remaining ships have been swamped with the wounded since the suicide attacks by unidentified vessels, which matched the description you provided us. The admiral’s ship was among the casualties, though he survived in his escape pod. I’m told those ships were impossible to detect until they reached the array of our short-range scanners. Six of our ships were destroyed and six more suffered at least moderate damage. Nonetheless, if they wished to deter us, they were mistaken. Our losses will go avenged. Reinforcements are already on their way.”

  “This is Coalition territory,” said Vasilissa. “You can’t keep an armada here without involvement from Parliament.”

  “Half our fleet was decimated in less than five minutes by suicide attacks. This tells me our advisory’s tactics is not of a military style, and yet, they have the technology to give us this much hardship. In the end, it comes down to our superiors believing attaining this technology is worth the trouble.”

  “Their suicidal attacks suggest they will go to great lengths to keep their technology a secret,” I inputted. “Only more people will die here.”

  “Perhaps. As a doctor, I’m appalled by needless death, but as a citizen of Ispen, I think procuring advanced technology will strengthen us as a whole, no matter the cost in the short term. Regardless, I believe the last attack to be a final gasp. If the running theory is that the civilization on the world you dubbed “Ember” met its end by these enigmatic foes, then why have they remained on this derelict world for so long? Why haven’t they left?”

  “It’s likely they can’t,” I answered, “or maybe they were waiting for something like this.”

  “I would go with the former,” said Son-Gernat-Son. “I think they were protecting something.”

  I slowly stood up from my seat when I perceived a smidge of enthusiasm in his voice, a difficult thing for an advok to convey in a verbal translation. “What did you find?”

  “We had set up an assortment of satellites around the planet before the attack ensued. After the attack we used them to trace some of the projectile-ship’s trajectories and were able to discover where some of them originated from. Drones were dispatched and this is what they found at the deepest point of Ember’s ocean.”

  We turned to look up at the newly projecting holoscreen the advok waved one of his hands to highlight. The image was mucked with fine powder and salt particles, but using the stark lights of the shuttle-sized drones, we could plainly see an oblong structure of massive proportion. What was even more striking than the size was its strange, almost supernatural color, as even the segments of the object the lights were illuminating were blacker than the adjoining colorless deep of the sea. One of its ends was severely crumpled, though it was difficult to imagine a force powerful enough to cause the distortion.

  “Almost two miles long,” continued our news supplier, “and even at the range they’re at, the drone’s sensors react as if nothing of significance is there. I suspect that this is the cradle the death-bringers have hailed from. I’ll get reprimanded a bit for showing you this, but I thought you might want to see it given your recent history.”

  An upsetting insight turned my blood into a gas. I said, “We’re not going to be allowed to leave, are we? Even when our support arrives.”

  “I apologize, but if your version of what happened here becomes known, we’ll have a more difficult time dealing with your Parliament. A cover story shouldn’t be too problematic to produce out of all this mayhem.”

  Helt looked ready to charge his way out, but something prevented him from fulfilling the act. I doubt it was the prospect of certain death after escaping it by the slimmest of margins that stopped him, but knowing that there would have been consequences for the rest of us, whether we would have participated in the hostility or not. I was sure I would have joined him if he had gone through with it.

  Noting the fury in our eyes, but not changing from his monotone, Son-Great-Son said, “Again, I apologize for the circumstances, especially coming out of a horrendous experience, but the technology of Ember has bigger implications for the future of this galaxy. Don’t worry too much, I will make sure you are treated well while in our guardianship, as long as you remain compliant, of course.” Our warden left us to ruminate over all he had imparted.

  “They can’t do this!” said a distraught Dr. Oleson. “I have to get back to my family, my children! They have to know I’m alive!”

  The doctor slumped on the nearest couch and began to cry. Vasilissa sat next to her and bound her arm around the doctor’s shoulders, making an effort to comfort her.

  “It would have been better to die as warriors,” snarled Helt, angry he had nothing to vent his pent up rage on.

  “That option can still present itself later,” said Vasilissa through our thought-comm.

  Helt grunted and stamped back into his room.

  My mind drifted to the thoughts of my own family and friends. What story would they hear about my supposed demise? How would they react? Then I remembered the dream I had before leaving for the mission. The echo. I suppose I already knew how she would react.