by Hooke, Isaac
HE WHO CROSSES DEATH
Star Warrior Quadrilogy Book 3
Isaac Hooke
Contents
BOOKS BY ISAAC HOOKE
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Tane Ganeth
White Essenceworks
Dark Essenceworks
Dark and White Essenceworks
Emerald Essenceworks
Skills
Afterword
About the Author
Acknowledgments
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BOOKS BY ISAAC HOOKE
Space Opera
Star Warrior Quadrilogy
Star Warrior
Bender of Worlds
He Who Crosses Death
Doom Wielder
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Hoplite
Zeus
Titan
Argonauts
Bug Hunt
You Are Prey
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Quantum Predation
Robot Dust Bunnies
City of Phants
Rade’s Fury
Mechs vs. Dinosaurs
A Captain's Crucible
Flagship
Test of Mettle
Cradle of War
Planet Killer
Worlds at War
Science Fiction
The Forever Gate Series
The Dream
A Second Chance
The Mirror Breaks
They Have Wakened Death
I Have Seen Forever
Rebirth
Walls of Steel
The Pendulum Swings
The Last Stand
Thrillers
The Ethan Galaal Series
Clandestine
A Cold Day in Mosul
Terminal Phase
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Copyright © 2018 by Isaac Hooke
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Cover design by Isaac Hooke
Cover image by Shookooboo
Preface
Several readers mentioned in reviews and private messages that they felt there were too many statistics in the last book. Others wanted to see more plot advancement.
I always listen to my readers, so in this one I’ve decided to tone down the RPG elements, and made sure to get a lot done, plot-wise. As usual, feel free to send me your feedback: keeping my fans happy is my top priority.
Hope you enjoy!
- Isaac
1
Tane gazed through the slightly foggy glass pane of his faceplate into the gaping maw that towered over him.
The skull those jaws belonged to was about the same size as a small shuttle. The proboscis region was elongated, and filled with the flat teeth that one might expect to find inside the mouth of an herbivore. A large hole at the top of the proboscis had likely served as the sinus cavity equivalent when the creature was alive, and the four large, recessed holes farther back were probably eye sockets. A ring of horns formed a curved crown above the eyes, while behind that crown a bony plate expanded outward in a fan-like structure. The overall hue of the bones was whitish yellow, hinting at an age that had to be ancient.
The bottom portion was immersed in the murky waters of a swamp. Tane stood at the edge of that mire, and turned his head to look out across the cloudy surface, his gaze following the series of bones that led away from the skull and formed what could best be described as a spinal column. Half-emerged in the cloudy liquid, the bones wended away from the skull, twisting this way and that, with each subsequent segment larger than the last until the size stabilized.
As neck gave way to what had once been the body, immense, curving bones the size of small footbridges protruded outward from each segment, forming a ribcage of sorts, except these particular ribs looped in two directions at once: half faced upward, the other half downward: it was almost as if two ribcages had been glued together, back to back.
The twin ribcages yielded to a square-shaped hip region, and beside it rested two more large, disconnected leg bones, partially submerged in the mire. There were large gashes and bite marks in the osseous surfaces of each, hinting at whatever monstrosity had killed the creature. Past the hips, the spinal column wound onward: the bone segments shrank rapidly there, forming a tail region that was quickly swallowed by the swamp.
The mire itself was surrounded by the tall trees of a thick jungle whose leaves were trifurcated in an alien manner, with a mixture of needles and blades to enable the greatest possible surface area. The ruins of ancient structures occasionally protruded from the foliage, hinting at the sprawling city Gia had detected from orbit via LIDAR. But for the most part the jungle had reclaimed it all.
One particular remnant of that alien city was visible at the moment: a spire made of a strange metal thrust from the swamp edge and into the purple sky. The metal was strange because, depending on the viewing angle, it seemed to disappear: when glimpsed from the front it appeared solid and real, but when regarded from the side via peripheral vision, it vanished entirely as if it were an optical illusion.
Upon that portion of the spire that faced the swamp was a stone trellis. Withered vines crawled upward all along its length. Those vines had a leathery quality, as if mummified.
Other than that spire, the environment was completely solid and in focus around Tane. This was his home universe, not the eye-blurring, emotion-damping Umbra. Which probably explained the tension he felt keenly.
The air was breathable, supposedly, but seeing as humans had never before explored this planet, Tane had decided it was probably best for the team to wear fully pressurized suits as a precautionary measure against contagions. After all, how many times had he played VR movies where the main characters were stupid enough not to wear protective suits while exploring a new planet simply because the atmosphere was “breathable.” Most of the time, by the end of the movie more than a few of those particular characters were dead—infected by some body-transmogrifying alien virus.
Yeah, that wasn’t for Tane.
“Well, that’s a pretty big mouth, it’s got that going for it,” Sinive said.
Sinive!
Stunned, Tane glanced at his HUD to see who had spoken those words over the comm.
It was Gia, not Sinive.
He took a few long breaths to calm his suddenly pounding heart.
They sound nothing alike, how co
uld I confuse her for Sinive?
He glanced to his right. The scepter robot Positron stood there, next to the stasis chamber carried on an anti-grav gurney Gia had printed up aboard the Mosaic. Beyond the glass portal near the top section of that cylindrical chamber he could see Sinive’s face. She wore a strangely peaceful expression, given how violently she had died.
He forced himself to look away.
I’ll find a way to save her. Somehow.
He stood about two meters away from the skull, and four from the swamp itself. Tane didn’t want to get too close to the edge of the mire: he was worried there might be unseen creatures swimming within. Jed had assured him that thanks to the echolocation capabilities of his battle armor, the Volur would be able to detect any monsters long before they got near. But Tane didn’t want to take any chances.
“Is it one of the archaeoceti?” Chase asked. The Mancer stood on the outskirts of the swamp to the left of Tane, past Lyra and Jed. He wore a spacesuit with a Restrainer on the helmet as per Tane’s instructions, which made the Mancer too weary to touch the Essence. Chase had only recently defected from the TSN, and Tane still wasn’t sure how much he could trust the man, even if the Mancer had fought at his side. Chase had helped him take down a few TSN robots and mechs, true, but Tane wondered if the man would be able to kill fellow Mancers if the team ever encountered them. Assuming Chase didn’t turn on Tane entirely if any such Mancers actually appeared. Needless to say, Jed and Lyra were keeping a close eye on him. As was Tane.
“No,” G’allanathamas said. The eight-legged alien was wearing his usual environmental suit, with a glass dome on the carapace revealing his sideways-oriented head. “These are not the archaeoceti. It is one of the grazers, a long dead species the archaeoceti shared a symbiotic relationship with. Beautiful, iridescent creatures when living, they were like your whale, in terms of size. Except instead of swimming within oceans, they roamed upon the plains and jungles of the archaeoceti colony worlds, residing within two universes at the same time: this one, and the Khaeota.”
Each word the dweller said seemed sourced from a different human speaker. It was the nature of the translation box he wore inside that suit.
“The Khaeota?” Tane asked.
“Another universe above this one,” G’allanthamas replied. “Or below it. Depending on your point of view.”
“How many parallel universes are there?” Tane pressed.
“Some among my kind believe there are an infinite number,” the dweller said. “In any case, it was through the grazers that the archaeoceti eventually evolved the ability to draw power from the Khaeota.”
“You see those vines wrapped around the spire?” Jed told Tane. His thick power armor glowed with the nimbus of Essence imbuement. He was wearing his piercings behind his faceplate: the labret below his lip, the ring above his eyebrow. “That’s your archaeoceti. Or what’s left of one of them, anyway.”
Tane returned his attention to the spire at the far side of the swamp, and the mummified vines crawling along the exterior.
“The vines climbing the stone trellis?” Chase said.
“Yes,” Jed said. “And that’s not stone. It’s fossilized wood.”
“So very old…” Chase said.
“This particular spot is, anyway,” Jed said.
“So wait, these aliens we’re looking for, they’re what, sentient plants?” Gia asked. She remained aboard the Mosaic in orbit, though she kept in contact thanks to the nearby shuttle and the extender it contained. The Red Grizzly, with Nebb on board, was also in orbit.
G’allanthamas was the one who answered. “Essentially yes. Or at least they used to be plants. A single archaeoceti could grow to the size of a city. Their bodies, or roots, extended for kilometers underground, with only a small fraction of themselves appearing on the surface to capture sunlight. Typically, small enclaves of four or five would inhabit the same vicinity, their tendrils and roots intertwining as they choked out all other plant life. They had strict rules to prevent overpopulation and the inherent destruction of native plant life that came with it, with growth limits in place on all planets they colonized. Which is why the jungle bounced back so readily on this planet after they were gone, presumably.”
“What, how could a mere plant develop the starships necessary to colonize worlds?” Tane said. “Unless they used other means of colonization... maybe spores or something.”
G’allanthamas wrapped his tentacles together in his species’ equivalent of a laugh. “No no. They didn’t use spores to colonize worlds, but ships. Understand, what you call vines were actually prehensile limbs that allowed them to interact with their environments to a limited degree. They formed symbiotic relationships with the grazers early on in their evolution—the large herbivores offered them protection, while the archaeoceti fed them their own vines.”
“How very appetizing,” Gia said. “Here, I’ll let you eat some of my body if you’ll protect me.”
“Plants on human planets have evolved similar beneficial relationships, mostly with insects,” Lyra said.
“Oh sure,” Gia said. “But still... these are sentient plants we’re talking about. Not just mindless trees.”
“Be that as it may, it worked out quite well for the both of them,” G’allanthamas said.
“Wait, prehensile limbs on a plant?” Tane said. “How does photosynthesis even produce enough energy to facilitate mobility? Or intelligence?”
“The Engineer in you rears its ugly head,” G’allanthamas commented. “Our scientists theorized the symbiosis between the archaeoceti and the grazers only deepened as the two co-evolved, with the two forming a mental link of sorts, so that the archaeoceti were soon able to Siphon from the Khaeota, and that was what gave them the energy for mobility and higher thought.”
“So you’re saying they were constantly Siphoning without exhaustion of any kind setting in?” Tane pressed.
“That’s the theory, anyway,” G’allanthamas said. “Though I’m sure they experienced some sort of exhaustion when they Siphoned more than what their nervous system equivalents were capable of. So as I was saying, they evolved a powerful psychic link with the grazers, so much so that the plants were eventually able to assume control of nearby grazers at will, letting the archaeoceti experience the universe from the viewpoints of the inter-dimensional beasts. It was then that archaeoceti society truly flourished, along with their technological progress. Inhabiting the bodies of the grazers also allowed the aliens to freely explore the Khaeota and the powers that universe contained. They developed most of their particular brand of Essenceworks after that, in what could best be viewed as the Golden Age of archaeoceti kind.”
“What happened to them?” Tane asked.
“Accessing the power of the Khaeota helped them to accelerate their evolution, and they evolved beyond their physical state and the needs such physicality entails,” G’allanthamas responded. “At least, that is what we dwellers believe. It is said they left behind this universe altogether. Probably because of our incessant warring against them. Dwellers enjoyed hunting them, you see, because they made such great sport.”
“They left this universe, and here we are, trying to track them down...” Tane said.
“Here we are,” G’allanthamas agreed. “In the place Tiberius called the Gateway to the archaeoceti.”
Tane turned toward Jed. “You’re sure the signal emanates from this particular location?”
“It is here,” Jed said.
Earlier, the Mosaic had detected a strange signal coming from the planet. Unfortunately, attenuation caused by the dense foliage prevented the vessel from pinpointing the exact position. It was somewhere within the region surrounding this swamp.
He was hoping that after they arrived they would be able to triangulate the source, or that there would be some obvious sign of it. No such luck.
They’d just have to search for it, then.
2
Tane swept his gaze across the swamp
one more time. He wondered if the gateway they sought was somewhere underneath the murky waters.
“I suggest we spread out?” Lyra said. “Two groups?” She was dressed in a spacesuit like Tane and Chase, and behind the faceplate he could see the Chrysalium circlet she wore low on her brow. Her eyes detracted from that otherwise perfect face: they were hard and piercing, arrogant and cruel, and good, all at once. There was also a final quality in them that he hadn’t been able to describe until now: they were haunted. When he looked in a mirror, he saw that same tortured gaze in his own eyes.
“Good idea,” Tane said, dismissing his dark thoughts. “We’ll circle the swamp from two different directions and meet up on the far side. If we don’t find anything, we’ll have to wade into the mire and start dredging the bottom next. Jed, Positron, you’re with me. Chase, join Lyra and Gall.”
Tane headed to the west. Jed assumed the point position, becoming invisible, while Positron followed on drag. Sinive’s stasis pod floated along behind the combat robot.