The Celaran Solution (Parker Interstellar Travels Book 9)

by Michael McCloskey

  “This structure was grown. It looks like some sort of temple,” Siobhan continued.

  “Interesting you should mention that. Wasn’t Earth’s AI located in an underground temple?” Caden asked.

  Siobhan invited Lee to their channel.

  “Lee? Did you know of this place before the Destroyer attack?”

  “A place as ancient as the vines,” Lee sent back. “Primitive Celarans came here and forced the vines. It was strange, but it was their way.”

  “Did they worship someone or something there?” Siobhan asked.

  “Their ways were strange and are forgotten like yesterday’s starlight. We do not build vine structures this way any longer.”

  “Totally forgotten? It’s important. Was there a religious sect?” Siobhan persisted.

  “They thought the planet was alive,” Lee said. “Not the vines, but their roots. Or the crust of the planet itself. That is all I know.”

  “Thanks, Lee,” Caden said. Lee dropped from the channel quickly.

  “Is she always like that? Seems like she thinks it’s a waste of time,” Arakaki said.

  “Celarans are very playful and seem to live in the moment,” Caden said. “But yes, she clearly doesn’t care about those who used to live there.”

  Arakaki’s video recording of the scout suddenly dropped out.

  Something got the attendant at that point.

  “Do each of these feeds end the same way?” Arakaki asked.

  “Yes. We don’t have any idea how they get kicked out,” Siobhan said.

  “There’s not even any death rattle info,” Arakaki said.

  “Well, yes, they didn’t die. They were teleported out. We haven’t seen what does it,” Caden said.

  Okay, this could be my shortest mission yet. That I can remember.

  Arakaki finished examining all the information they had gathered. There was not much to go on, just the video from attendants that had been moved, orbital scans, and the weird power readings. She accessed more files available to the team about the Trilisk complex that Magnus and Telisa had encountered on Thespera 2. It looked like the Trilisk outposts were usually underground, contained the columns she had seen, and often found in round tunnel complexes that could not be scanned.

  No wonder Magnus and Telisa are so close. Their relationship was forged in fire.

  Arakaki realized her stomach was growling. She headed for the mess of the Vovokan Iridar, then, on a lark, she headed through the connector over to the Terran starship. She went to the alternate mess that was not home to the flying aliens.

  Magnus sat at a table eating noodles with pieces of synthetic protein on the side of his plate. He had not yet spotted Arakaki from the other side of the room. She slowed and moved softly. It felt good to sneak.

  Arakaki considered Magnus solely as a male example of the species for a moment. His heavy frame was apparent even in the Veer suit. She found him attractive and capable. Of all the PIT team, Magnus most resembled her long-dead ex. But like Caden, her other choice, this male had been drawn into an exclusive relationship with another.

  What’s that saying? All the best ones are taken.

  Magnus looked over quickly, presumably just noticing her.

  “Did you hear me?” she asked.

  “Caught sight of you in a feed,” Magnus said, pointing at one of the attendants that orbited him. Arakaki had yet to take any of the Vovokan spheres for herself, though she used them in the VR training.

  “You’re watching through them all the time now,” Arakaki said approvingly.

  “It’s second nature. Sometimes I dream of what they see. Are you ready to go check out that Trilisk site?”

  “Yes. How about your objective?” asked Arakaki.

  “Lee can report on the other site. It’s a kind of post-apocalyptic Celaran town,” Magnus said. He added Lee to the channel. Arakaki felt a little put off. She had felt like talking with him alone.

  Is he just trying to be helpful or did he do that to avoid a private chat?

  Lee eagerly jumped in at her chance.

  “I would be as happy to do so as I am to hang from a juicy vine,” she said over the channel.

  The alien shared a pointer to a repository of information drawn from their scouting. Arakaki accessed it and saw a Celaran community built on three hills covered in vines. The dwellings sheltering among the vines were so dense that it looked like three complex castles overgrown with Terran vines.

  “The local vines as they twist and grow had been mutated as an attraction for travelers,” Lee explained. “As the star rotates over the ages, a local tradition kept them this way. These vines are more primitive, less engineered, than those that dominated our planet. Their sap has a unique taste. They were preserved as an oddity.”

  “And that’s exactly what saved them from the Quarus designed poison,” Arakaki guessed.

  “As correct as feeding from the vine. And where there is sap, flyers aggregate. This community of survivors has only a few thousand individuals, yet this is one of the larger places left. Those who make their lives on these vines have collected a lot of technology from the remains of our civilization. They’re definitely not simple minded like the high flyers.”

  Then why aren’t there Celarans feeding at the temple site? Something keeps them away.

  “So the hope is, this group may be sophisticated enough to be in communication with Cynan’s faction,” Magnus said.

  “If the Destroyers come back here, this will be a juicy target,” Arakaki noted. “Sorry, Lee, I did not mean juicy in the way you would use that word, I think.”

  “I think I see the twist of your vine,” Lee said.

  “We’re heading out tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll be able to find what we need soon. Besides, the Quarus may not return here. This planet could no longer be a threat, even if the Celarans were bloodthirsty,” Magnus said.

  “And the oceans?” Arakaki asked. “Could the Quarus be hiding there?”

  “They might be, but the oceans of Celara Palnod are very shallow compared to Earth and the other planets we visited. Telisa thinks the Quarus don’t want this world.”

  “Purple pasted bastards,” Arakaki said aloud, off the channel. “We should be bringing the war to them.”

  Magnus smiled. “I think that’s exactly what Telisa intends to do. She just wants to find a few more friends first.”

  Chapter 10

  The two teams were an hour away from starting their respective missions when Telisa9 came to visit Telisa on board the Terran Iridar. Magnus, Lee, and Cynan were also on board, since the Terran commando vessel would be dropping near the Celaran colony to search for clues. Siobhan and Caden had departed to the other vessel which would go to the mysterious vine temple.

  They met in her quarters. Telisa9 looked somber.

  “Any last details?” Telisa asked even though she knew it had to be more than that. Most things could have been handled over a link connection. Her fellow copy wanted to talk about something important.

  “I have to tell you something about your Magnus,” Telisa9 said.

  Only the Five know... she sleeps with him and now... what?

  Telisa9 must have seen the look of pseudo-dread on her doppelganger’s face.

  “As you know, Shiny selects Trilisk host bodies for the leaders of his teams,” Telisa9 began.

  “Yes. At least the ones that aren’t going to investigate Trilisk ruins, I’m guessing.”

  “Well, he did more than that. Have you noticed how Magnus has changed? He used to guide you more.”

  “He was my mentor. But I have more experience now, thanks to him.”

  “Has he argued with you? Challenged any decisions?” asked Telisa9.

  “We... discuss things all the time.”

  “But does he ever really push back hard when he disagrees?”

  “What? You’re suggesting my Magnus has been... meekified? I think it’s just that he knows I’m the leader now. He respects me.”
r />   “Of course he respects you. I’m not implying otherwise. But his chemistry has been subtly changed to... more fully accept you as the leader.”

  “Shiny told you that?”

  “Not directly. But I’ve picked up clues. And now—”

  “And now that you slept with him you discovered that this one’s different?” Her voice wavered more than she wanted.

  This is insane. I’m getting irritated with my copy.

  “He’s different than my Magnus was. It’s subtle. Maybe you haven’t noticed because of all the pressure, everything that’s been going on with your team. I can see it because I went straight from mine to yours.”

  That last part came out sounding guilty.

  “So once again Shiny proves to be more insidious than I expected,” Telisa said grimly. She had to force herself to continue: “Thanks for telling me.”

  Telisa9 nodded. “Good luck.”

  “You too.”

  Telisa9 left. Telisa thought about her copy’s observations.

  The other Telisa is also less aggressive than I am. Her spirit is broken. Perhaps Shiny dialed her down, too, since her Magnus was the team leader. Maybe she could not say that herself—if she sees it.

  Telisa wondered if there was a team out there with a Cilreth as the leader, or even a Caden. Did Shiny experiment with them all? How could he come to any conclusions when every team faced different challenges? It seemed like he would have to experiment for a thousand years to see any patterns emerge from the chaos of such varied missions.

  Maybe he has virtual simulations running on his vast computational systems, trying us all out in different combinations. He might choose a leader for a team based on the mission parameters.

  Shiny was not the only one building teams. Telisa herself had made the call on who to assign to each sub-team for the two tasks before them, but more decisions remained to be made. There was Marcant, Maxsym, Achaius, Adair, and their Vovokan battle spheres to be considered.

  The battle spheres had very limited stealth abilities. They could change color and move silently, but that was about it. They could not become invisible as the team could, so they should not be with the teams. Normally Telisa would assign the battle spheres to protect the ships and be done with it.

  We have two ships now. Losing one would be bad, but no longer disastrous. Losing both is less likely.

  “The Vovokan battle spheres will trail us, one for each team,” Telisa announced on the team channel. “They can’t go in with us, but they’ll provide a safety umbrella if we have to retreat. Marcant and Maxsym should stay with the ships.”

  She received a handful of nonverbal acknowledgments. She ordered a sphere over to the Vovokan ship and checked everyone’s location. Once the sphere had crossed over, and everyone was properly divided between the ships, she broke the tunnel connection.

  “Good luck everyone,” she transmitted and told her Iridar to take them to the chosen drop point.

  ***

  Telisa found the Celaran town on the tactical and oriented herself. She stood meters from the ramp outside the Iridar with Magnus, Lee, and Cynan. All four of them sent one of their attendants ahead.

  “Okay, this will be easy to find,” she commented. “They live among only healthy vines around here.”

  The group had a long walk and fly ahead of them. In order to avoid detection, they had landed several kilometers from the Celaran town.

  “Cloak,” Telisa said simply. She activated her own cloaking sphere. Magnus winked out of sight a moment later to be replaced by his echoform. Lee and Cynan followed suit.

  “Can you hear me?” Magnus asked on the channel. Everyone sent an acknowledgment.

  The team moved out. As Telisa walked, she tried to anticipate what could go wrong with the mission. Though Telisa had considered allowing Lee to be seen by these Celarans so she could talk with them, that decision had not yet been made. She hoped they could learn what they needed to know without exposing their presence.

  The scouting attendants flew low over the mounds of dying vines, looking for Destroyers. None had been spotted anywhere nearby, but that remained one of her greatest worries. The team had gone out with combined arms this time, at least. Lee and Cynan had laser rods and Magnus carried his projectile rifle as well as his knife and breaker claw. Telisa had replaced her usual laser pistol with a projectile pistol, though her own breaker claw remained her primary weapon in case they faced robotic foes.

  Telisa looked back. She could barely make out the Vovokan battle sphere behind them. Its surface mimicked the rotting vegetation behind it. As it moved in front of a patch of sickly red vines, its surface reddened to match the vines it obstructed from her point of view.

  She would probably not be able to spot it at any distance without her enhanced host body vision. Would a Celaran notice it? Celarans processed more visual information than Terrans, but their bodies were not equipped with eyes that could focus on distant targets. They had evolved in dense vine jungles where line of sight never extended far.

  “There aren’t any Destroyers around here,” Magnus said. “Why do you think they haven’t found this place?”

  “There may not be enough left alive,” Telisa said.

  “Or...”

  Hrm, what does he want me to guess?

  “Defenses? Traps?”

  “Yes. I wonder about it.”

  “Be careful and look for traps,” Telisa said to Lee and Cynan. “We’re wondering if the inhabitants of this place have a way to—”

  Before she could finish her sentence, an object in the video feed of one of the attendants cut her short. It looked like a giant metal flower resting under a layer of plant debris. The attendant had stopped to investigate it.

  “Is that some wreckage?” Telisa asked, tagging it for the others.

  “The attendant says it has an active power source,” Magnus said.

  “It’s a tool underleaf,” Cynan told them. “Your understanding of Celarans is more advanced than I would have suspected.”

  I think it’s time their language gained a word for ‘weapon’.

  “Oh, he’s just paranoid,” Telisa needled. She knew Magnus would smile, though she could not see it.

  “I think the traps would only activate if the shadows under the vine leaves were cast by a Destroyer,” Lee said.

  “I agree, though I wouldn’t want to fly over that leaf anyway,” Cynan said.

  The suspected device was not under a leaf, at least not a living one, so Telisa assumed Cynan had used a turn of phrase rather than made a literal statement. She guessed it was an idiom related to flying over a leaf with a predator hiding underneath.

  Marcant’s models have learned a lot, but they probably aren’t perfect just yet.

  “Yes, give this tool’s signature to the attendants so they can find a clear path,” Telisa ordered. “I agree, none of us should test those things, especially Cynan since he would be the closest thing to a Destroyer in this group. No offense, Cynan, but you’re also a floating machine.”

  “Lacking only the ovoid shape, bright light, and violent wind,” Cynan said.

  Innocent observations or amused sarcasm? But he said it first: don’t risk it.

  “I thought maybe Telisa and I would be in the most danger, since we’re unknowns,” Magnus said. “But I interpreted what Lee said as meaning a Celaran trap would whitelist Destroyers for activation rather than blacklisting friendlies.”

  “Yes, that is most likely the popular vine,” Cynan said. “We understand each other.”

  Terrans would err on the side of making a weapon too deadly. Celarans think of it as putting responsible safeguards on a potentially dangerous tool.

  Telisa had the scout attendants sweep the route ahead a second time. They found more of the devices in various states of camouflage. Her link planned another route, bypassing the dangers and she shared it on the tactical.

  “Continue,” she directed. She strode ahead to take point. If other types
of traps lay ahead, she wanted to be the one to trigger them since she had the best chance of surviving.

  The attendants started to spot Celarans as the team walked the last kilometer to one of the three hills that formed the town. The healthy vines that wrapped the settlement were thinner than the ones Telisa knew. She saw longer, teardrop-shaped leaves with light green bodies and purple-tinted tips.

  Telisa looked at one of the Celarans from a feed. It was skinnier than Lee. It wore a harness like the other Celarans she had met, and carried two rods.

  “They must have some power source, or they would have discarded the rods, right?” she asked.

  “The starlight overhead,” Lee said. “What more is necessary?”

  “Well at least they have that,” Telisa said. “They don’t have to live in total squalor.”

  I feel bad saying that. Their lives are much worse than a short while ago.

  Her lead attendant passed by a Celaran hanging from a vine as thick as a Terran leg. Its dangling end flipped side to side lazily. The attendant went on.

  Telisa came up on the alien. She realized the Celaran was voraciously sucking sap from the vine. She had never seen Lee eat from anything but food packets. For some reason the sight before her felt much more visceral; it was like watching a huge colorful mosquito suck blood from a giant.

  Suddenly another Celaran whipped its body across the first one, pulling its proboscis from the vine. They flew away erratically with one chasing the other.

  “Did you see that? That Celaran just knocked the other one off the vine,” Telisa said privately to Magnus.

  “They probably have to feed more aggressively now,” Magnus said. “Food is scarce.”

  They walked by without being detected. She chose a large building ahead and marked it for the others to see. They would investigate it first. She led the way over to the construct. Its pocked surface did not look like ceramic or metal. She did not know what it might be, but guessed it might be derived from natural or artificial plant fibers.

  Just outside the old building, two Celarans had landed beside a pile of rods and other unidentifiable equipment that rose a meter above the ground. Telisa held her breath.