by H. T. Kofruk
Terry awkwardly shook it feeling unfamiliar performing such an action with his left hand. “Thank you” he said.
The woman continued to the other members of the team before finally smiling a toothy, gum-filled smile. Terry thought she looked slightly apish when she did so. “I’m so silly” she said. “I forgot that most of you are right-handed, unlike us. Such trivial yet so profound differences in our two almost-identical species.”
“What are you?” asked Anton bluntly.
The woman didn’t seem offended by the direct interrogation. “Let’s just say that our species were once bitter rivals. We were saved by the Forebears.”
“I knew it” said Heera. “You’re Neanderthals.”
The woman nodded. “We prefer to call ourselves Hanupruntin. My name is Vahsoo, and you’ve already met my son, Grinya.” The man nodded ever so slightly.
Terry looked at the faces of his companions and saw shock and eager curiosity. A few planets of the Yinhexi were home to more than one species of intelligent beings. Some cases were due to splitting of a single genetic branch to become two very different species that had not intermingled due to geography. Other, rarer cases showed two completely different evolutionary paths that ended in two very distinct species with similar intellectual and physical abilities. Indeed, in all of these cases, the two intelligent peoples of had never seen each other before Rendens had landed on their planet.
But what would it have been like if Earth had also been home to two different intelligent species or sub-species? Fossil records showed that two or more parallel branches of humanity had often walked the earth but that had been in the ether of infancy of the ‘accidental ape’. What if prehistory had ended and civilization begun on Earth with two species? Would one of them have been destined to extinction anyway? None of the four homo-sapiens on this strange planet could believe they were staring at their long-lost cousins.
“Before you ask any questions” said Vahsoo as if reading their bewildered expressions, “keep in mind that you can only leave our planet in four days at the earliest. We have very little control over our planetary shield but its strength fluctuates. Our calculations show that in four days, the shield will be weak enough to open a portal hole.”
“Do you know how to stop the Nikruk?” said Terry.
Vahsoo smiled. “You’re very direct, Mister Southend. Yes, I know. She was the creation of the Forebears who kept a sort of ‘kill switch’, if you like, though I detest that expression.”
Terry saw Grinya leaving. “Where’s he going?”
“No need to be rude and suspicious” said Grinya. “I’m going to get some food and water for you.”
“Please, sit” said Vahsoo who showed the example. The floor was covered with a soft, mossy plant that almost felt like a thick carpet. “Grinya was the one who convinced me to help you and allow you on our world. The other members of the Five are still very much against the idea and they will kill you if they find you.”
“How many of you are there?” said Heera. “And who are the Forebears?”
“I’ll answer the second question first. The Forebears are…were a race of aliens who came to this world many tens of thousands of years ago. They travelled here from the galaxy you call Andromeda. Their civilization once encompassed the whole of their galaxy, a mighty empire that ruled over ten thousand planets.”
“Why did they come here?” said Sara who remained standing.
“Let me show you” said Vahsoo.
Their surroundings changed drastically as if they had been teleported to another world. The four Rendens stared at each other and then at the spot where Vahsoo had been sitting cross-legged. Red sand replaced the dark moss and the sky was a swirling grey hurricane though they appeared to be sheltered from the wind.
“This is DaHorm, the home planet of the Forebears almost fifty thousand years ago” said the voice of the invisible Vahsoo, unaffected by the turbulent weather. “It was not always like this. This planet was as green, lush and beautiful as Earth. The Forebears abandoned their home after millennia of war.”
The red and grey of the sand and sky was sucked into a small point in front of them and the world turned as black as the darkest night. From the darkness emerged tiny dots of light that created a cloud and then a spiral structure much like the Yinhexi that surrounded them. The star chart zoomed into a smaller area where the stars were particularly dense. “This was called the Kingdom of DaLinin, one of the most powerful realms of the mighty empire that the ancestors of the Forebears created.”
Hundreds of thousands of stars, each one a different size and colour, shone brightly. Some of the larger gas giants were also visible. Terry stared at a bright yellow star in front of him. “Power bred jealousy. Domination bred insurgency. War became inevitable” continued Vahsoo. Terry blinked as the star in front of him suddenly disappeared then another one a few feet away. “Andromeda still shines brightly in our sky. But within a few hundred years, almost a thousand suns were snuffed out of existence as a means of war. Barbarism followed as the mighty empire broke down and most of the intelligent beings of Andromeda perished within merely decades.”
The image zoomed in even more to a single planet that was covered by a vast sea with a single super continent. A green light enveloped it and it disappeared. “DenFumta was the last planet that housed the ancestors of the Forebears though only a few thousand survived. Despairing their fate and lamenting their loss, the Forebears came to the Yinhexi by transporting their last world.”
“They transported their whole planet to another galaxy? How did they overcome dark energy that’s so prominent…” said Heera, only to be cut off.
“I can’t give you any hint of their technology but can tell you that comparing yours to theirs would be like comparing a troop of chimpanzees to yourselves” snapped Vahsoo, not appreciating the interference to her ‘show’. “Their first instinct was to recolonize new planets. They started in their immediate vicinity, sending probes to nearby stars. On some of the new worlds, they planted their terraforming devices.”
The image of a perfect sphere hurtling between stars, gas clouds and asteroids was projected. The surface of the sphere was shiny and reflective like a ball made of a single mirror. A hole appeared on one side, creating small ripples as if the surface was made of liquid mercury. A smaller, earthen object ejected from the hole and headed for a barren exoplanet.
“But divisions between the Forebears started to appear as their population multiplied. Were they about to create the same mistakes as they had in Andromeda? Did they, a foreign race in the Yinhexi, have any right to colonize a planet? A few hundred years after their arrival to the new galaxy, civil war erupted again. The winners had the view that they had no right to colonize any more, and that they would remain a silent witness to the developments of their new home galaxy.
“As a result of the war, their population had dwindled so low that they no longer had the genetic diversity to carry on a species. They needed a scion, a new watcher of the Yinhexi who would study and chronicle the rise of new civilizations but without ever interfering.”
“So they chose you” said Terry.
The image vanished and the old Neanderthal woman sat in front of them. “They took pity on us” said Grinya who was standing behind them with an armful of fruit. “Your ancestors almost wiped us out and only a few thousand remained in a place you call Iberia. They modified us and gave us the ability to pronounce complex words, one of the advantages homo-sapiens had over our ancestors.”
“And the seed that your probe planted on the planet. That became the Mother of the Nikruk?” said Heera.
“After the war, an effort to destroy all the terraforming devices had nearly succeeded. We only discovered the last one after the Forebears finally died out and we found ourselves imprisoned on this planet” said Grinya.
Terry exhaled as if having problems digesting. “So Mother is nothing more than a terraforming device?”
“It was nothi
ng more than a terraforming device, a super-computer life-form that would do everything necessary not only to survive, but also transform the host planet to make it a viable cradle of life.”
“How did it become...a god?” said Terry.
Grinya smiled. “Becoming a god became the best way to survive. It evolved to survive, it created its own mobile offspring to ensure its own survival.”
Everyone sat silently. How would Bin’ja take this? Where was he? He was about to ask when Heera stood up.
“So how does the kill-switch work?”
Chapter 28: The Odds
‘I never really understood where my talent for killing came from. Whenever a dangerous situation arises, it seems almost like time slows down just enough for me to get the better of any adversary. From smuggler to fleet admiral in five years? Probably the most unlikely rags to riches story ever.’ – Bongani, personal memoir, year unknown.
Seventy-two. That was the number of warships available for what Bongani hoped would be the decisive battle for Earth. It was also the greatest gathering of Renden vessels since the end of the Intra-Renden War, as it was now known. He found the name ironic; every major war had been between fellow Rendens up until the invasion of the Nikruk. A scout vessel had put the number of Nikruk vessels at well over a hundred. Where they had placed their production facilities was still a mystery.
Qin had told them of the Nikruk breeding facility on Kongxing hundreds of feet below the surface of the planet. Scout ships had also been sent there but reports suggested that it had been abandoned at least two years ago.
Their final hope had been the Nikruk home planet pinpointed by Bin’ja and cross-checked with coordinates given by Qin. The mere fact that the name and whereabouts of the planet had been such a closely guarded secret of the Imperial Family and the Shadow organisation suggested that the development of the Nikruk army and its use in a total war against the other empires had been a decision taken very early. What had Emperor Han Ching-diu been thinking?
From what Qin and Bin’ja had told him, destroying the Great Tree could well be useless; if seeds had been planted on other planets, all of the trees would form the entity called Mother. Destroying one of them would have absolutely no impact. Knowing the strategic acumen of the Nikruk deity, there were probably dozens of seeds planted in random locations throughout the Yinhexi.
Bongani had no idea what would be the action plan if they did win back Earth from the clutches of the alien army. Nikruk production capacity obviously vastly outstripped that of all the Rendens put together. Building factories both on Earth and in deep space, reconverting the giant Afrikan trade ships to factories, training new recruits for the armed forces, all of it would take years, more likely decades. For all he knew the Nikruk army and fleet of warships could be brought back to full force in a much shorter time-span. If only he knew where their new breeding facilities and production plants were located…
He knew it was too late for that. No one knew exactly how many Rendens were still alive on Earth. Before the acquisition of Death Beam technology by the Nikruk, survivors appeared to be doing remarkably well, even managing to send encrypted messages to United Terra. Most of that had stopped. Had they prepared too long for the reinvasion? Should they have asked for help from their former alien colonies? Should he have forced them to assist their colonial masters?
Terry would have said that if they were going to do that, it was better that they disappear as a race altogether. Too many intelligent aliens had died and suffered under Renden imperialism.
“Fleet One ready, admiral” said Commander Walker, a red-haired man even bigger than he. Bongani nodded his head. “Wormhole countdown will begin shortly.”
The familiar green light was followed by a green and black vortex in time-space. Ten seconds later, he saw the blue planet of Earth for the first time in years. It was late June, early winter in his home town of East London on the southern tip of Afrika. He wondered for a split second whether his father who he hadn’t seen for the past decade had survived the Nikruk invasion. Had his two younger sisters?
“A hundred and twelve enemy ships visible” said Walker after verifying the number with the ship computer. “There may be more beyond the horizon.”
Bongani nodded. “Keep formation tight. These are amateurs in naval combat and for god’s sake don’t let any of them board our ships.”
He saw that no additional wormhole stations had been built. That meant they still didn’t have the technological know-how or the production ability to build them. Almost simultaneously, over a hundred ships started to move. The computer plotted the trajectory of each ship and its position in one, five and ten minutes time.
“They’re going for a net formation” said Walker.
“And more are emerging from the horizon. They must know that this is our whole fleet and no other ships will emerge from behind. Cylindrical formation with all motherships protected inside.”
The seventy two United Terra ships started to shift positions so that the sixty-five ships would create a cylindrical log inside which seven motherships would issue commands. This was a risky tactic that would limit the considerable firepower of the motherships while exposing the others to enemy fire. The valuable, wormhole-creating motherships were to be protected at all costs until they reached the wormhole stations where they would unleash everything had.
Bongani hoped that the whole formation could be held together even at high-speed in order to minimize the loss of ships from the enemy onslaught. The holograph started to light up as enemy missile shafts opened up and spat out their payload.
“Move towards the wormhole station” he ordered.
From their position, only two wormhole stations were in the line of sight, the further Atlantic Alliance station which he presumed would no longer be operational, and the Afrikan Republic station that hung above Nigeria. The log formation moved swiftly towards the target.
“Enemy missiles incoming, three hundred and fifty-nine” said Walker, repeating the count displayed by the ship’s computer.
Bongani doubted that the enemy would waste nuclear missiles at this distance but their inexperience in naval combat could prove him wrong.
“Evasive actions. Deploy shock shields” he ordered
An encrypted tight-beam Web-Com link connected the computers of all the ships in the fleet. A single ‘fleet pilot’ could, in theory, control all the ships and retain a tight formation, much like how a single fighter pilot could control several drones. In conventional naval battles, that made the individual movements of ships too predictable and an experienced enemy could easily pick them out. Several solutions had been developed to remedy this weakness, including splitting the control of the ship between the fleet commander and individual ship pilots. But nobody could work out to what extent each person should have control over each ship. And since the risk was too great to actually use the tactic in a real situation, it remained in the long list of the theorised but unused. Until today.
The Admiral Mothership’s main pilot was guiding the entire fleet with her tight-beam Web-Com link. The main pilot of each of the other individual ships a certain amout of ship control in order to evade enemy fire. If the ship’s survival was put at stake, the pilot could break away from central control but Bongani’s firm order was to do so only in the direst of situations.
Shock shields intercepted ninety-eight per cent of enemy missiles and two destroyers only incurred minor damage.
“Thirty four more ships have emerged from beyond the horizon, sir” said the navigations officer.
“Do you see the design, sir?” whispered Walker.
Bongani nodded. More than a third of the Nikruk-controlled ships had a completely new design. While most of the rest were classically Chinese or Orthodox, the new ships resembled large, flat boulders covered with forward-pointing twigs. None of them had exactly the same design. “They’re not only able to produce ships, they’re even capable of designing new ones” said Bongani. “That�
�s just fucking great.”
“Keep the front of the formation pointed at the wormhole station” shouted Walker.
“Sir, more and more ships are emerging. They may have a wormhole station operating somewhere above the Americas” said the navigations officer. Bongani could see that the total number of enemy ships had swollen to more than two hundred.
Fann was strapped tightly in his command seat. The ship’s main pilot was in the neural cockpit, ready to convert Fann’s orders to action. Two other cruisers of the same design were also waiting for the green light.
“Our fleet has started engaging the enemy” said the voice of General Jia Yin from U.T. headquarters on the Jibaru wormhole station. “We’re outnumbered three-to-one.”
“Christ!” exclaimed a member of his crew.
Fann said nothing but was shocked at the uneven odds. None of them had imagined that the Nikruk fleet could have expanded so rapidly. The worst case scenario had been two point five to one.
“Substantial damage to our fleet” said General Yin a few minutes later. “Six ships down their thirteen. The wormhole station is still intact.”
“We need to go” said Fann.
“You will go when I say” snapped Yin.
He sighed heavily. She still resented him for threatening to destroy the wormhole station a couple months ago. Who could blame her? The worst thing was that he felt that he could have carried out that threat at the time. His blood was boiling. He was afraid and anxious to get into the action at the same time.
“There seems to be a few of the enemy ships equipped with Death Beam technology” said Yin after another few minutes had passed. “Our fleet has broken formation. Two ships have been hit with death beam and their crews are unresponsive.
“When are you going to open the god damn wormhole?” he sneered. “You know they need us.”
Yin said nothing. In a few seconds, however, a ball of green light started to form against the deep black of space.
“The wormhole will open above the southern Atlantic Ocean. Sunlight will make you less visible. The battle is being fought mainly above southern Afrika. You and your crew will have to create as much chaos as possible. We’ve lost more than a dozen ships now.”