The Calypsis Project

by Brittany M. Willows

  Kenon nodded, glad to put this spat to rest.

  Knoble stubbornly folded his arms and turned away.

  Alana put her hands on her hips. “Lance?” she urged sharply, to which her stepfather let out a long, aggravated groan to make it obvious that he wasn’t at all content with the situation.

  “Sure, fine, ‘cause having two of the aliens I hate the most suddenly becoming my allies is wonderful. Just great,” he ranted, then pointed at Alana. “But don’t you get pissy with me if I accidentally shoot one of these bastards through the head!”

  Alana huffed. “Yeah. Right, so now that we’ve reached an understanding, we should move out.” She looked at the young Drahkori warrior. “Remember the cave I led you to last night? The Ship Commander and I came in through there. We can get out the same way.”

  “The Legacy of Night awaits our return,” Levian said. “I have already sent a beckoning call to the remnants of my crew. They will meet us at the rendezvous point in an hour.”

  “Lance,” the human female said. “Once we’ve cleared the tunnels, if you’re able to establish a secure connection through TEAMCOM, you should call Alpha and have them link up with us at the carrier. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  Chapter

  ———TWELVE———

  2133 Hours, December 02, 2438 (Earth Calendar) / Transportation network below Viro, planet Calypsis

  Lieutenant Knoble had never imagined he would be walking alongside Drocain warriors in peaceful cooperation. It felt wrong; like he had betrayed the UNPD—like he was turning his back on everything he’d ever believed in.

  But when they were forced to fight through waves of royal guardsmen on their way out of the tunnels, he couldn’t have been more thankful to have these two warriors by his side—for if it wasn’t for their support, he would never have made it out alive.

  Fortunately the battle had been cut short when a portion of the tunnel caved in, crushing a handful of enemy warriors and making it impossible for reinforcements to enter—however, that also jammed the exit and the four had had to find another way out. They’d managed to locate a side passage and used it to get around the blockage without running into anymore trouble.

  “Lieutenant Knoble to Alpha Team. Do you read me? Over,” Knoble radioed to his team as he, his stepdaughter, and the two Drocain warriors emerged from the cavern. Now he had to hope that his team would pick up the transmission.

  The Lieutenant’s headset crackled sooner than he’d expected, but at first all he heard was white noise. Then Corporal Bennett’s voice came over the COM: “Alpha One, this is –pha Three,” he said. “Signal’s screwed up, but I read you. Where’d you wander off to? Sergeant Major’s been tr . . . –to get a trace on you for some time now.”

  “Never mind that right now,” Knoble said. “What’s your location, Corporal?”

  “Hornet’s Nest. Nicholas ditched us, told us . . . –eep guard and wait patiently for you to come back. He’s gone and run off to prep his baby for battle.”

  “Damn. Then we don’t have much time left.”

  “. . . Sir?”

  “Is this line secure?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Alright, listen to me carefully: gather the team, get a lock on my tracker and come to me. I should be just about half a klick north of the base. You’ll know when you’ve reached the rendezvous point. And Bennett,” he said. “Do not, under any circumstances, let anyone know where you’re going. Just get your ass over here ASAP. Over and out.” Knoble closed the channel, activated his tracker, and then a shadow fell over him. He tipped his head back to see what massive thing loomed there.

  The Lieutenant stared up at the bow of the five thousand-meter long alien assault carrier hovering sixty feet above the marshland floor. Untouched by the warmth of the morning sun, heavy fog hung beneath the vessel, glittering blue in the light of the ship’s gravity lift.

  “How in the hell did you manage to get this piece of shit back in the air?” Knoble asked with a glance at the ship’s commander. “I saw the beating it took from the Rain of Fire, and that was before you went and crashed the damn thing.”

  “The ship was taken to Oreva Alkastoran. Most of the repairs have been completed, however they were interrupted when I seized the vessel from the station,” the Leh’kin replied. “Never should you underestimate the technology of the Empire, for that is what caused your kind to stumble and fall in the early years of the war.”

  Oreva Alkastoran . . . the Lieutenant thought.

  The Drocain High City was rarely seen by human eyes, because it was always on the move. One day it would be in one system, and the next it would be in another. Over the course of the past ten years, there had only been three sightings—the third by Fleet Admiral James Stanforth in 2431. The colossal space station was sitting in orbit over the planet Kora, which had been devastated three days earlier. Why it was there, nobody knew.

  Stanforth had been quick to mobilize his fleet, and he led more than five hundred thousand men to Kora the following day with the intentions of blowing Oreva Alkastoran to smithereens. But they hadn’t expected to face such a large defense force, and when they arrived, they were overwhelmed.

  Eight hundred ships against the Admiral’s ninety.

  Needless to say, Stanforth and his fleet were defeated. In less than an hour, the battle was over, and shortly thereafter, Oreva Alkastoran entered slipstream space.

  The High City hadn’t been seen since.

  “I will warn you humans now to keep your greedy hands away from the command console,” Levian hissed, to which the Lieutenant raised his middle finger, wondering if the alien even knew what the gesture meant.

  The four stepped into the gravity lift and entered the bridge of the Legacy of Night. They were suspended in the air momentarily as the portal spun to a close beneath them.

  Levian strode over to the console and sat down in the command chair, swept his hand over a holographic panel to summon up the ship’s navigation controls, then began tapping away vigorously on the keypad.

  Lieutenant Knoble headed to the fore as well and gazed up at the screens above the console. He couldn’t decipher a single word from the text scrolling across the screens.

  Currently the only humans who had the ability to interpret the complicated Drocain language were the BSI personnel over at Sector Two, who dedicated every minute of their work days to researching the Drocain Royal Empire.

  And of course, UNPD AIs could translate it. They could translate just about any language if they were allowed to study it for a few short hours.

  Knoble reached out to touch a blinking red tab that had appeared in the lower left corner of one of the screens. Before he could tap it, the Ship Commander’s armored hand shot up and grasped his wrist.

  “Do not touch anything, Lieutenant,” the warrior growled threateningly.

  “You know, I would have kicked that blue ass of yours to hell seven years ago if you hadn’t run off in the middle of the fight.” Knoble pulled his arm away and rubbed his aching wrist, which was marked with darkening red lines that formed the shape of the Leh’kin’s fingers. That would leave a nasty bruise.

  “Such a loss,” the Ship Commander said sarcastically, then ordered the Lieutenant to step away from the console as he tapped the blinking tab. The image on the forward viewscreen panned down to the area just beneath the carrier’s bow.

  Cautiously approaching the ship was Alpha Team. They had already brought their weapons to arm and were staring suspiciously at the vessel. At the back of the group, Knoble spotted a pair of soldiers that he recognized as members of Echo Team.

  “What the hell are those guys doing here?” Alana exclaimed when she saw them.

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” Knoble muttered disapprovingly, wondering if Corporal Bennett had somehow let something slip out.

  “The lift has been opened,” Levian announced. “Call your men aboard.”

  The Lieutenant accessed a cha
nnel through TEAMCOM. “Knoble to Alpha,” he said. “Stand down and step into the grav lift. And you keep those weapons pointed at your feet, or so help me, I will mess up those pretty faces of yours.”

  Second Lieutenant Stanford opened his mouth to respond but no sound came out. He exchanged a befuddled look with the rest of the team. Private Sevadi shrugged his shoulders at his teammate, and they walked forward into the lift.

  The portal spun open, six soldiers floated up into the bridge, and the second their boots touched the ground they raised their firearms, startled by the unexpected presence of Drocain warriors.

  “What did I just say?” Knoble walked up to his team, reached out and gripped the barrel of Lieutenant Stanford’s NG-M29 shotgun. Holding the gun pointed at the floor, he met his teammate’s gaze, then repeated the order. “Stand down, Alpha!” he snapped, adding to the pair of tagalongs, “You two as well.”

  Though hesitant, they did as they were told. Knoble understood why his men reacted the way they did—but orders were orders, and they knew they could trust him.

  “Listen up,” the Lieutenant commanded, to which the six straightened and stood at attention. “These warriors are not our enemies, and neither are the others who will soon be joining us. Is that clear?”

  They nodded uneasily. Knoble continued.

  “This alliance has been formed in response to the resurfacing of a rumor regarding the Calypsis Project—a conspiracy I’m sure a few of you must have heard of. Unfortunately for us, it’s not just a rumor. This thing is very real and probably very dangerous, and we need to do everything in our power to find out what it’s all about and who the hell’s running it.”

  “Where do we go from here, Lieutenant?” Private West asked.

  “That’s a good question,” Knoble said. “The first thing we’ve got to do is stop Captain Nicholas from dropping a damn bomb on top of Viro City. After that . . . after that, West, I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to make it up as we go along. That’s how all the big shots do it, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose it is, sir.”

  The Ship Commander folded his arms and turned his throne around to face the six soldiers. “We know very little at this time, but what we do know is still of some worth. I have recently discovered that the queen of the Drocain Empire is somehow involved with the project. She also claims to have found a way to rid the galaxy of all human life. What is more troubling is that she appears to have the entire royalty caste at her beck and call, and I do not doubt that a large number of humans may also have become mixed up in this,” he said, then added, “However, neither the Drocain Royal Empire nor the United Nations Planetary Defense have the technology or prowess to pull off this level of secrecy, and so I fear a new foe is about to reveal itself . . . I hope I am wrong.”

  “You have a theory, then?” West asked, but the blue warrior just narrowed his gaze and kept his mouth shut, refusing to answer her question.

  “I’m going to interject here, if nobody minds,” Alana spoke up, leaning her hip against the holo-table, and at a nod from Levian she continued. “On the way here, I started thinking. Kenon and I talked for a bit and we came up with a theory: what are the chances that this war has been a cover-up for the Calypsis Project all along? A diversion to keep nosy people away from the project so it could move forward without being disturbed?”

  “Sounds like you might be onto something there,” Corporal Bennett remarked. “But I’m a little confused as to how you came up with such an idea. Tell me more.”

  “I’d like to start with the Invasion of Tyrill, since that’s where all of this began,” Alana said, one hand on her chin and the other holding her elbow. “Tyrill was a Drocain mining world. When BSI went planetside with their UNPD escorts, it was only a matter of hours before they discovered the Drocain settlement on the far side of the planet. The warriors stationed there warned them—ordered them to leave at once. It should have been obvious that the only other option was to stay and die.”

  “My sister fought in that battle, Carmen,” Stanford put in gloomily, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “We all know how it went down; you don’t need to remind us.”

  “I’m not trying to give you a history lesson,” she told him flatly. “What I want to know is why did BSI refuse to pack up their gear and leave? We know that after the battle concluded, the bodies of two thousand men and women were found on the surface—every single soldier that accompanied BSI to Tyrill was accounted for.”

  “But the BSI personnel were missing,” Sevadi added in a hushed tone.

  “Exactly. There were no signs of them anywhere. They vanished and nobody knows why—at least no one outside of the BSI,” Alana said. “What if those Bureau clowns were in an alliance with the Drocain? It’s a wild theory, I know, but come on—we’re talking like, three weeks prior to the First Battle of Anahk!”

  “Wild is right,” Lieutenant Knoble agreed. “But you definitely do have a point.”

  “Okay,” Stanford muttered, unwilling to drop the debate. “Knoble, say she’s right. Let’s say BSI went to Tyrill to meet with their lizard allies. Why take two thousand soldiers along for the ride? They wouldn’t have needed protection, obviously, so why sacrifice that many people?”

  Chapter

  ———THIRTEEN———

  2159 Hours, December 02, 2438 (Earth Calendar) / Drocain Assault Carrier Legacy of Night, planet Calypsis

  Alana Carmen heaved a sigh as she watched the argument unfold between her stepfather and Lieutenant Stanford, then slipped away from the group to join the young warrior by the bridge doors. Leaning against the wall, she looked up at him out the corner of her eye and said, “They’re just going to tear that theory apart, aren’t they?”

  “Sadly,” the warrior murmured.

  “. . . So, I was wondering . . .” The Corporal lowered her voice. “This war has been going on for ten years and no one has ever encountered your species on the battlefield before. Why is that?”

  “It brings me great disappointment to admit it, but my kind no longer possess the technology we need to survive a war of this scale,” Kenon explained, and after a brief pause he added somberly, “However, there is more to it than that. Drahkori believe it is shameful to take part in wars waged outside of our homeworld. So, as with any other, we have ignored this war and carried on living as we have done for centuries.”

  “Then . . . why are you here?” Alana’s intentions were not to pry, but she was curious—more so now than before. She wanted to know why he was the only one to stray from tradition. What made him different?

  And there was still one other question lingering in her mind that had not yet been answered—what had stopped the warrior from pulling the trigger the other night when he’d had a clear shot at her?

  Kenon turned his focus away from Alana and his jaws parted slightly as if he were about to reply, then he shook his head slowly and let out a long breath. He either didn’t know how to respond, or he didn’t want to share his answer with her.

  He definitely was an oddball.

  “Let this dispute be put to an end at once,” the Ship Commander ordered sharply, regaining the attention of the humans. He lowered his throne to the ground and rose to his feet. “My warriors have arrived and boarded the ship. So now, humans,” he addressed the four soldiers of Alpha Team and the two from Echo. “You may remove yourselves from my sight and make your way down to the supply bay. Further instructions will be issued to you there.”

  The six holstered their weapons and departed without another word, but it was easy to see they were still uncomfortable about cooperating with Drocain warriors—and within the shell of a carrier under the control one of the UNPD’s most feared opponents, no less.

  “What’s the plan?” Lieutenant Knoble asked once Alpha had left. Now that he wasn’t caught up in a heated discussion with his teammate they could get back on track to dealing with the situation at hand.

  “We leave immediately.” Levian sat back do
wn in his throne and turned to the command console. “Your ship’s Captain seeks to destroy what is now an abandoned encampment. This, I assume, will also cause the mountains housing one of your cities to collapse. I wish to prevent such a tragic event from happening.”

  “You want to stop Nicholas? Why do you even care?” Knoble almost laughed, not willing to believe for a second that the warrior would want to avoid the human casualties.

  Typical, Alana thought, wishing her stepfather would be a little more open-minded. He was highly opinionated; if he’d made up his mind about something it was hard to convince him to see things differently.

  “The tides have changed,” the Ship Commander hissed.

  “Yeah?” Knoble grunted. “Well I was going to try and talk him out of this insane plan of his. You can’t do that, so what are you going to do—blow his ship out of the sky?”

  “Your Captain is a fool, but killing him is not the only option available to me. I will damage his frigate’s hull to such a degree that he will be forced to retreat.”

  Alana could see the fear on her stepfather’s face. He had to be concerned about the frigate and its crew—especially when the damage it had taken during its last engagement hadn’t been fully repaired yet—but he also knew that if Captain Nicholas wasn’t stopped they were going to lose Viro City. There were too many innocent lives on the line.

  Knoble gave a resigned sigh and didn’t say anything more on the subject.

  Hearing a mechanical purr, Alana looked up and was startled by the tangle of blue and orange tentacles above her.

  The rounded silver thing floated downward, watching the soldier with a single eye, and Alana remembered that she’d seen one of these robotic creatures before—three years ago during a reconnaissance mission aboard a derelict corvette. It was a Drocain artificial intelligence bot; fascinating to look at, and not at all hostile.

  “How did you get aboard my ship, Ayla?” Levian asked when it hovered over to his throne.