He hammered at the beast's leg with what remained of his gun to no effect.
The Krag lifted its heavy blade.
Suddenly, it crashed side-ways into the smooth wall and dropped its blade. Wu had sprung onto its shoulders and plunged Taza’s knife into its neck. The Krag clawed at the Omnion with both hands and got a hold of him just as he was about to jump free. It pinned Wu by the throat and slowly pushed its long horn toward him. The shapeshifter pushed back, but inch by inch, the Krag overcame him.
Taza climbed back to his feet using the Krag’s sword.
He overrode his suit’s emergency power protocols and assigned every bit of juice he had left to the upper body servos. He lifted the serrated weapon and rammed it into the Krag’s back, under a joint in its plated armor. It stopped partway, and Taza drove it harder, sinking it several more inches. He struck the hilt with all his might and heard a mighty crack as the sword severed the Krag’s spine.
The alien fell to the ground, arms flailing, clutching for Taza even then, knocking him off his feet again.
Wu rubbed his neck as he retrieved the Krag’s phase rifle further down the pass.
On returning, he held the muzzle against the alien’s helmet.
Red plasma exploded from the gun and turned its head into a smoking husk.
Wu looked down at Taza, finger still on the phase rifle’s trigger.
The Omnion extended his free hand. “They’ll have alerted others. We need to get to higher ground.”
THE FABLED RUINS
The red sun started to dip behind the distant white hills when Taza and Wu approached the outskirts of the ruined city. They had repaired Taza’s right leg using parts salvaged from the dead Kragak’s suit and transferred enough power to see him through another few days. Taza had considered pointing out that one of the Aphni suits may have fitted Wu when the Omnion showed him how they had already started to decay and their armor right along with them. At least he had a decent weapon, and Taza had kept the Krag’s sword and plasma pistol given his own rifle was beyond use.
They climbed out of the pass and took rougher terrain the rest of the way to the plains. Progress was much slower, but there were plenty of places to hide among the rocks and nowhere for them to get trapped.
Taza started down the hill while taking in the sprawling ruins below like the crooked teeth of some fallen giant. Time and the surrounding sands had worn the buildings to a dull orange. Those still standing were broken shells, but most lay in rubble. Taza could tell that it must have once been a magnificent city. He imagined high towers reaching for the clouds, broad paved avenues lined with sculptures, and thoroughfares buzzing with activity.
“I give you the great city of Charlosa.” Wu rolled one arm flamboyantly like a ringmaster introducing a show.
“What the hell happened here?”
“The Tilk and Gavina fought a long and terrible war. Would you believe me if I told you that this city was once surrounded by verdant green grasslands?” Wu’s hands swept about. “They scorched the land, dried up the waters, and poisoned the air. They fought their true final war, and every last one of them perished.”
“Didn’t the Galactic Council do anything?”
“As far as we know, they stopped meddling in the affairs of other races after we were exiled and made them fight for space travel on their own or perish trying. The Tal’Ri think that leaving undeveloped planets to their own devices weeds out the weaker races. The Omion believed in fostering younger races, guiding them like children.”
“The same almost happened on Earth numerous times. Humanity feared that the planet would be destroyed.”
“And they had every right to,” Wu said.
Taza had often thought about it when he was still at school. The history books had called it the Cold War, and seeing how close his people had come to extinction before they even left their home-world sent shivers down his spine. If the cold war had turned hot, chances were he would never have existed.
“We better keep moving. There’s no telling if we’ve been followed, and we’ll be vulnerable until we get into the city proper.” Wu pointed to the denser area near the center of the ruins where a few taller walls still stood.
The city rose to meet them as the daylight slowly dimmed. Every inch in and in between the rotted structures was covered in a thick layer of orange sand. Here and there old beams, twisted rubble, and chorded metal poked through the sand.
“There are many places just like this one on the planet. Before long, the deserts will have taken over most of the world. A few patches of life have returned in places, but the sands will eventually choke those out, and the planet will become nothing more than a wasted ball. Even these ruins will melt into the sands one day.” Wu looked at a nearby pile of broken blocks. “Such a pity.”
Taza agreed. “How long ago was this war?”
“A few hundred years ago.”
Sand gave away under Taza’s feet, and he scrambled back as a gaping black hole opened like a monstrous maw where he had stood but a moment before. Wu tugged him back onto his feet.
“Careful where you walk. Even the ground under the city has withered to nothing and created sinkholes. Follow in my tracks.”
Taza hopped in behind Wu, eager not to be swallowed by the ground.
“Don’t touch anything either,” Wu said. “It wouldn’t take much to cause what little remains standing to come tumbling down on top of us.”
“Thanks for the warning.” Taza didn’t like the thought of the taller structures, in particular, coming down. “Did your people have to bury the ship so deep in a deadly city?”
“My people hid it where wandering eyes and searching hands would not easily find it.”
“Do you think the ship is the reason the Krags and Aphni came here?”
“It’s hard to tell, but that could be the case. Our ships have the best ghost drives in the galaxy, but this one has been here for a long time. If systems have failed, someone could have picked up its signature. Very unlikely, but not impossible.”
They walked through the city as the setting sun cast long shadows. Apart from the odd breeze, it was deathly silent. Taza had never been in a place that sentient beings had constructed that was so void of life. There were famous ruins dotted throughout the galaxy, but even those maintained some semblance of life, a piece of art, a sign of design. In Charlosa, everything was flat and crumbled and dead. The desert winds had stripped any sign of life from the walls and grounds alike.
They finally arrived at a large flat area, near the city center. Broken buildings rose around the square like rotting corpses. The last tendrils of sunshine punched through cracks in the ruins, casting an eerie fiery glow.
“A large rolling park filled with plants and wildlife once grew here,” Wu said. “Many in the city would come here, to get away from the noise and smoke.”
“It sounds like these guys had much in common with us humans.”
“That’s probably because they did.”
The thought made the hairs on Taza’s neck stand on end.
They skirted the edge of the square until they came to a part of the ground that had caved in.
“We have arrived.”
“How long has the ship been hiding here?”
“Just short of three centuries. The Omnion elders chose this location when the radiation levels had dropped low enough for a suit. By then the planet was pretty much forgotten and no longer appeared on most star charts.”
“Do you have ships hidden on many planets?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.” Wu cocked his eyebrows. “And even if I were, each agent is only made aware of some ships within the vicinity of his assignment. No one person outside of the circle of elders knows how many there really are. There could be dozens, or there could be hundreds, for all I know.”
“It sounds very secretive.”
“I’ve already said more than enough.” Wu rubbed his hands. “Let's get to work.”
; “Work?”
“We need to dig it out by hand.”
“There must be ten tons of rubble lying here, not to mention the sand.”
“Probably more. But there should be an opening about a meter down around here.” He pointed at the ground before them. “It shouldn’t take long.”
No matter how shallow it was, Taza was beyond exhausted and wanted nothing more than to rest. “If we had charges, we could blast our way through.”
“That would risk causing a major collapse. One wrong move and every building for miles could come down. Plus, there’s no telling what state the ship is in until we’ve seen it.”
“So we could have come all this way for nothing?”
“It’s unlikely, but let’s not lessen our chances.”
“Sure,” Taza said turning his armor up a few notches and leaning down to help Wu lift a small boulder.
***
Under the fading daylight, they moved rubble and sand from one place to another until Wu was standing in what could have passed for a shallow grave.
Taza couldn’t have been more relieved when the Omnion called for him to stop, for weariness had seeped into his bones, and his limbs felt heavy despite his suit’s assistance.
The planet’s days were almost twice as long as those on Sentinel Station, where days weren’t far off Earth’s timings. It usually took time before one adjusted to such changes, but Taza had barely been on the planet for more than a local day, and it was still playing tricks on his body-clock.
Wu, on the other hand, didn’t seem phased one bit. If anything he got stronger with every passing minute and never tired or slowed. Given that Wu was no taller than Taza while in his suit, the Omnion displayed incredible strength and endurance. Wu had moved more dirt and rubble than Taza had by far, and he wasn’t even wearing a suit.
They stopped briefly every now and then while Wu decided which rocks were best to move where. He explained that it was essential to get it right, lest they cause a collapse and risk damage to the ship. Taza was relieved for the breaks, though he would never admit it to the Omnion.
Night had come, and Taza had set up his suit lights when Wu hit something that sounded hollow.
“Looks like we found the hatch.”
Taza looked into the hole and the exposed gun-gray metal. “What hatch?”
“Patience, Agent Arkona.”
They brushed the sand and dust away revealing more metal. However, Taza still couldn’t see a hatch.
Wu crouched in the hole and waved his hands in elaborate patterns above the metal plate.
A loud hiss issued and the metal melted into itself to form a dark hole.
Taza had once heard a fellow agent claim that Tal’Ri technology behaved in such a way, but he never would have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. Then again, had anyone tried to convince him that shapeshifters were real only the day before, he wouldn’t have believed that either. Another loud hiss sounded as the ship below the surface inhaled.
“Come on,” Wu said, descending into the black hole.
Taza held his breath and followed.
THE OMNION SHIP
Taza followed Wu as they descended a set of steps into a dark space where his suit lights cast unusual overlapping shadows despite the flat wall panels.
Wu made another series of elaborate gestures, and a few moments later sharp lights flickered into life before dimming to a softer glow. They stood in a long corridor as far as Taza could see, possibly the vessel’s central atrium. If that walkway alone was anything to go by, the ship was much larger than it appeared from up above. It probably even stretched beyond the square and its surrounding ruins. Taza wondered how the Omnions had managed to get such a large vessel underground without disrupting more of the city.
He couldn’t see much from the low lights, but for a ship that had been buried for so long, it was in good shape. Grey panels ran the length of the floors, walls, and ceiling. They were interspersed with lights shining through the panels like they were translucent. Taza had trouble putting his finger on what kind of material the interior of the ship had been fashioned from.
“This way.” Wu led him through a network of walkways that confirmed his suspicions about the ship being much bigger than he initially thought.
“The lights seem dull,” Taza said. “How do you know the ship will still work after all these years?”
“I don’t. But the hull still being intact is a good sign.”
They went some distance before coming to a dead end with a wide door and a screen with a white orb attached to it that Taza guessed was a control panel.
Wu firmly planted his hands on the orb and symbols Taza didn’t recognize appeared on the display panel.
“She’s currently running on auxiliary power. It would appear the magnetic shielding holding the hull together under the collapse has drained the primary power cells. We need to get the reactor online to recharge her batteries before we’re crushed.”
“It would be an interesting way to go, at least. Crushed in a starship, under the ground.”
“Always the optimist, Agent Arkona.”
“Comes with the job.”
“Engineering is this way.”
Wu opened the door and Taza followed. He was so taken aback by the inside of the ship, and he suddenly realized he had let his guard down. He double-checked to make sure the safety was off his blaster. Wu had given Taza every reason to trust him, but he preferred to play things safe.
They navigated another series of corridors and eventually reached a set of formidable looking blast doors.
Wu operated the control panel, but nothing happened.
“It looks like we might need to take the manual route.”
Wu uncovered two panels on either side of the door, the metal again had no seams but parted as if it were a liquid.
“We’ll need to pump the hydraulics together.”
They each got a hold of and pumped a lever. Wu made it look easy, but Taza found his was stiff and required a fair amount of force before it would even budge.
Bit by bit, the blast doors inched open until the opening was wide enough for them to squeeze through. Instead of engineering, they revealed another metallic surface.
“Secondary blast doors,” Wu said, “in case the reactor shielding collapses.”
He waved his hand, and another doorway appeared. Taza’s eyes couldn’t work out how the metal behaved the way it did. It had to be a trick of light. Or maybe it was something more mechanical. Either way, it seemed paradoxical.
They passed through to engineering proper and dim lights lit the immediate area.
The setup was like nothing Taza had ever seen. If the reactor room alone was anything to go by, even his most considerable estimation of the ship’s size was way off. He decided against trying to work out its size since it just wasn’t possible without seeing the vessel in its entirety.
The chamber, or at least the part he could see, was like a vast empty bowl with giant crystalline structures lining the sloped walls. The sharp man-sized objects were scattered haphazardly in no particular order or pattern he could make out. Above the bowl was suspended a walkway and at the end of the walkway was a large metal sphere.
Taza followed Wu onto the walkway and looked over the edge. The sloped curves of the bowl stretched off into darkness. It was a long way down.
“It’s… big,” he said, unable to find the right words to describe what he saw.
“She’s a galactic-class starship. Takes over four hundred people to run her at full capacity, and that’s with most of her systems automated.”
“Why such a large vessel?”
“Our reasons are our own.”
They reached the sizeable spherical chamber at the end of the walkway, and Wu made another Omnion hand-gesture. Some kind of control unit appeared out of the wall, and Wu activated the interface. His fingers danced across the terminal’s surface.
Taza couldn’t make head nor tail
of the strange symbols that appeared floating in mid-air around the Omnion. Before his eyes had a chance to register their shapes, they disappeared and were replaced by a new set.
“Dammit!” Wu swore.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It isn’t,” the Omnion sighed. “The power is so low we only have one chance to ignite the reactor.”
“And if that fails?”
“We’ll have to get off the ship fast and kiss any hope of leaving this planet goodbye.” A tiredness Wu had never shown before fell over his face. “I’m surprised she’s still holding together, to be honest. We need another power source, or we need to make sure this works.”
“Don’t you keep any spare batteries knocking around?”
“What do you think has been holding the ship together?”
“I’d offer my suit’s core,” Taza said. “But it’s already running on fumes.”
“I appreciate the gesture. But even if it were full, a suit core wouldn’t be anywhere near enough. Our only option is to try the ignition with what we’ve got.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Yes.” Wu waved his hand, and another control panel with a flashing light appeared on the opposite side of the door. “Go to that terminal, and when I tell you to, press the flashing light.”
“Sure.”
“Only press it when I tell you to. No sooner, no later, or we’re in trouble.”
Taza nodded, and Wu went back to working on his terminal’s controls. The lights flickered, and a hum rolled through the room.
“Okay, get ready to press the light.”
Taza held his index finger above the control panel.
“Now!”
He pressed it, and nothing happened. The light continued flashing.
“What’s going on?” Taza said.
“I’m honestly not sure.”
Before Taza could speak, engineering’s lights flickered again and died.
“Should we go?”
“Not just yet.”
The ceiling above them creaked and whined.
“On second thought maybe we should—”
Beyond The Brink Page 3