The Mountains of Czird, two days west of Derktha
The Otherworlder laughed, a soft barking sound that was not so dissimilar from what Groddi had heard from some of the more reserved members of his species, yet it somehow embodied a cold bitterness. Amongst his own kind that could mean a number of things, and as the Otherworlder seemed threatening in neither appearance nor posture he guessed it meant the same thing: it realised that its position was hopeless.
Although how could it not? With men positioned all around it, swords lowered but still drawn, and no weapon of its own… well, it didn’t need to speak their language to figure out that things looked bad.
“We should organise transport for it,” Elder Borivud suggested. “It seems small and ill-equipped for survival upon the surface world.”
“It is an Otherworlder,” Elder Tak snapped back. “A mystical being such as this is not going to fall over from something as trifling as cold weather! It can walk with the rest of us, Borivud!”
Groddi listened to the Elders bicker about what should be done with the creature, but he kept his eyes on it and its eyes. It was popularly said that the eye was the portal to the mind, and he agreed with the sentiment; learning to read eyes had been tricky but entirely worth it, and had made him one of the best swordsmen in Vauz.
Right now he was learning to read the Otherworlder. While much of its face was hairless, its scalp was covered with a soft red fuzz, and above its blue eyes there were two thin strips of the same red. One of them was raised, the other flat, and the creature was staring at Elder Tak. Did it understand him, or did it simply dislike his tone? Either way, Groddi suspected the creature had a solid understanding of what kind of man Elder Tak was, and maybe that meant it was properly intelligent.
Elder Kavor, the Astrologer for the High Lord, seemed generally uninterested in the means of transporting the Otherworlder and much more interested in the Otherworlder itself. Disregarding any potential danger, he slowly made his way closer to the creature until he now stood ready with some sort of measuring device.
“Don’t worry,” he said gently, “I’m simply going to measure your physiology.”
The Otherworlder said something back in its strange, melodic tongue, but there was enough sharpness to it that the meaning was unmistakable. Kavor presented the measuring device for inspection, but again received the tones of dismissal he’d experienced a moment ago.
“The Otherworlder is… uncooperative,” Kavor lamented, withdrawing for the time being. “You would think I was trying to shave it!”
“Perhaps it can simply recognise what a lamentably unlikeable person you are, Kavor?” Tak suggested, turning away from his argument with Borivud. His lip was curled in an obvious sneer. “Stand aside and let a real diplomat establish a relationship.”
He strode over to the Otherworlder with obvious determination, and put a solid hand on its shoulder. “It’s just a matter of confidence,” he announced. “You have to establish dom- aargh!”
Groddi sighed and tried to pick out exactly what had happened. The Elder had put his hand on the Otherworlder’s shoulder, that had been obvious, and now the Otherworlder was holding the Elder’s arm at an angle that did not look particularly pleasant. He reluctantly raised his sword and drew the Otherworlder’s attention. “Please release the Elder or I will be forced to assist him.”
Much to his surprise, and everybody else’s, the tactic actually worked; the creature looked him up and down, with particular focus on the sword, and let go of its grip on the Elder.
Tak, for his part, stumbled away muttering about strength and aggression, and how it should be properly restrained for its journey and when it met the High Lord. From the looks of the Otherworlder it understood perfectly, because it bared its teeth at him in naked hostility. If it had a weapon, no doubt it would be raised by now, but all that was raised was the centremost finger on its right hand, now pointed in Tak’s general direction.
“I think it understands everything we’re saying,” Groddi announced for the benefit of everybody too stupid to have worked it out yet. “I think you’ve just pissed it off, Elder Tak.”
The Otherworlder looked at him curiously, and a lip curled in what he hoped was a smile. It said something, soft and lyrical, that sounded halfway approving, and seemed to relax somewhat.
“I have been tasked with returning you to the High Lord,” he informed it, hoping it could grasp enough of his language to properly understand. “Will you come peacefully?”
A moment of silence, and a glance towards his sword, and then the Otherworlder pointed towards Tak and said something that sounded very unpleasant.
“You will not be bound,” he said, guessing that it hadn’t been willing to just go along with things, which was more intelligent than most people if he thought about it. “You have my word on that.”
“You have no authority to make such a decision,” Tak snapped from the sidelines. “I demand that the Otherworlder be properly bound-“
“Silence!” Kavor interrupted. “I am satisfied you have spent enough words to sufficiently make your point! Shall we vote on the matter, Borivud?”
“Vote?” Tak asked. “Common sense should-“
“I vote against restraining the Chosen One,” Borivud interrupted. “May I vote for gagging Elder Tak?”
“Regrettably not,” Kavor replied over Tak’s incoherent sputtering. “Motion is carried, the Chosen One may walk amongst us freely if it so wishes.”
“Swords away,” Groddi ordered, before Tak could do anything else remarkably stupid. He was going to have to watch that man during the return journey, and he was glad for the fact that it was no further than a day and a half of travel. “We will get underway immediately, I will not waste time getting back to the safety of the tunnels.”
“No argument from me,” Borivud remarked as he began the return to their encampment. “The sooner we get back the happier I’ll be.”
The others departed, and Groddi let them go so that he found himself remaining with Kavor and the Otherworlder, who seemed to at least regard him with some measure of interest.
“Seems it likes you, Young Lord,” Kavor mused. “At least that is my suspicion. Perhaps, if it does understand, we could make attempts to achieve bilateral communication?”
The Otherworlder raised its shoulders and dropped them again, and said something that sounded agreeable enough.
“Excellent,” Kavor replied, rather optimistically, “then perhaps we should start with the basics? My name is Elder Kavor, and this is the Young Lord Groddi… what is your name?”
The Otherworlder smiled. “Jen.”
+++++
Vaulting Star Patrol Cruiser, Uninhabited System
Space was big. Really big. Big enough, at any rate, to hide a conquered Gaoian Patrol Cruiser until they figured out what they were going to do with it next. Chir hadn’t exactly been planning that far ahead when he’d ‘liberated’ the vessel from its former commander, and now he was simply making it up as he went along. The fact that this put him in the same chaotic situation that Adrian seemed to perpetually dwell in was not lost on him, and he was trying to figure out how to avoid falling into that same bizarre rut.
“Alright, let’s talk,” he said, addressing his ‘crew’ for the first time since they’d reached the relative safety of the nearest nebula. Not in the dust of the nebula itself, of course – that would be far too dangerous to discharge from the hull – but orbit of a rather uninspiring red dwarf that had cleared its local space of harmful space dust.
“Did you want to talk about the ship we’ve got, and what we’re going to do with it, or how pissed off the other Gaoians are going to be with you?” Keffa asked pointedly. Nobody argued, they’d all been thinking it.
So had Chir.
“I’d hoped for both,” he replied, opting for honesty. “The way I see it, the ship is nearly unmanageable by the handful of us-“
Grznk interrupted him. “Unmanageable? Wasn’t your ancient ship a great deal larger than this?”
Chir frowned back at the Corti doctor; he didn’t appreciate being interrupted, but the doctor raised a point worth answering. “It was, and you’ll recall we kept to a few areas and never gained complete control over the vessel.”
“I’d reckon we have enough people to keep it running,” Keffa considered. “I don’t know about you, Commander, but I can take care of the engineering as long as nothing drastic happens.”
“I’m a Doctor,” Grznk added. “I doctor.”
Layla hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose I can handle some of the tasks regarding computer systems, although I’ve no experience in doing anything challenging with them. I am no Askit.”
“And Darragh can be janitor,” Keffa volunteered brightly.
“Feck off,” Darragh shot back. “I’ve got all sorts of interesting skills.”
“Like cleaning,” Keffa returned.
Chir sighed. “The ship has automated cleaning systems, it does not require Darragh to clean it.”
“Fired already, Darragh…” Keffa noted, following it by some kind of ‘tutting’ sound.
Darragh glared at her darkly. “That’s not what he meant. Don’t worry, though, I’ll be doing manly work while you make sure the engines don’t explode.”
Chir had hoped that the two humans would be getting along by now, especially as they’d been forced into doing so aboard Keffa’s own ship, then aboard the escape ship, and now aboard the Vaulting Star. His hopes had not been realised. “That is enough of that!” he snapped. “I will decide what Darragh is to do, but it is most likely to be assisting me on the command deck. Layla and myself do not possess enough eyes to monitor everything.”
Darragh raised an eyebrow at Keffa. “See?”
She ignored him. “And where will we go? Are we going to continue with the piracy? Or do you have something else in mind?”
“You should be delivering me to Gao,” Layla said, somewhat disapprovingly. “The idea of giving birth aboard a warship and without any other female Gaoians… it does not make me happy, Chir.”
“I doubt I’ll be welcome, by the government at least, but I will honour my word, Layla,” Chir replied. “Once we have done so, I will seek volunteers to join my clan.”
“Are you going to shoot them in the dick if they don’t join, then?” Darragh asked. “Because that is not cool, Chir.”
“I don’t know what temperature has to do with shooting genitals, Darragh,” Chir replied, “but I will do whatever gets the job done. I expect that there will be those who are keen for a life of adventure and fighting, however.”
“And who will we be fighting?” Keffa asked, her left eyebrow raising ever so slightly.
“Those who have made an enemy of us, Keffa,” Chir replied. “We’re going to be fighting the Hierarchy.”
“Oh,” said Darragh, frowning. “Good.”
+++++
Cisco, East of Alpine Region
Jen was not entirely sure what the hell was going on, but as near as she could guess the Space-Yetis were some kind of primitive civilisation and considered her to be some kind of supernatural being. Hopefully that didn’t end with being eaten, because the solidity of Elder Tak’s arm told her that these guys were not like the weaklings that populated the galaxy. Space-Yetis were Deathworlders, cunning and predatorial, solid and strong.
Stronger than humans she’d guessed from the size of the swords, but nowhere near as fast or agile. Their hands seemed somewhat clumsy compared to those of many races, and that suggested a need for bulkier equipment; it made her wonder what became of a race who shared the advantages of strength and resilience without the speed and grace… although as she’d apparently agreed to let them take her to their leader it looked like she’d soon be finding out.
They were bigger than most humans as well, with a stride about half as far again as her own, but that could be explained by the slightly lower-than-Earth gravity on the planet. Neither height nor strength had helped Tak against the handhold she’d learned in the Self-Defense for Women class back in Belfast, although there’d been no followup strike to the old bastard’s goolies like she might have done to a human male – not knowing their fortitude, she hadn’t wanted to risk exploding them all over her foot.
Most of them kept a good distance from her during the trip, with only Kavor and Groddi actually sticking close, and the former maintained his efforts at trying to establish some sort of dialogue. At the very least they’d learned each others’ names, and their mutual dislike for that mouldy stuff, which was apparently such a delicacy amongst their people that Jen had no doubt she’d have been forced to eat it at some point had she not made clear her distaste for putting it anywhere near her mouth or any other part of her anatomy. Hopefully one of them would pass that information on.
One thing that did not change was their attempts to learn more about her, something which she encouraged but did her best to provide only vague answers to. When asked of the Otherworlder realm she belonged to, she cast a hand across the sky, although this seemed to give Kavor permission to regale her with countless religious stories and to end each one with a question of whether it actually happened or not.
Oh well, at least it passed the time, and by the time they finally reached their destination – some underground city called Derktha – she felt the mess of mythology had been reasonably informative as to the state of things. There was little doubt in her mind that the Dark One they spoke of in hushed tones was nothing more than whatever bastard shot her down and set those robots on her, and there was nothing godly about that.
The city itself was poorly lit by some kind of electrical lighting, which was a surprise, given their otherwise medieval technology levels, and what Kavor very generously pointed out as ‘intricate designs’; Jen might have more accurately described them as ‘chunky gothic’, with all elements exaggerated or simplified. She nodded agreeably as they excitedly pointed things out, however; there was no need to actually be offensive.
That was why she was respectful when confronted by a space-yeti sitting on a throne and wearing the most fabulously coloured outfit achievable. A polite smile was in order, not sniggering laughter, and not for the first time she found herself glad to be amongst aliens where nobody could identify her suppressed amusement.
“High Lord!” Groddi greeted, putting a balled fist to each opposing shoulder in what Jen suspected was equivalent to a bow. Good to know.
“Young Lord Groddi,” the High Lord said, speaking as though he’d seen people describe movies of how royalty was supposed to behave and just gone with it. His eyes remained fixed on Jen in clear wonder, however, and so did those of every other member of the court. “You have brought us something… remarkable.”
“High Lord,” Groddi repeated, “I present to you… the Chosen One.”
This claim elicited an incredulous murmuring, and even the High Lord seemed obviously sceptical. “This is the Chosen One? Young Lord Groddi, this is no warrior! It looks more like some bizarre pet!”
Tak scoffed noisily along with the rest of the court. Nobody believed Jen was anything like the warrior of myth, which made them somewhat more intelligent than Jen was starting to believe.
“I would know, however,” the High Lord continued, “what this strange creature is, for although I doubt it to be your vaunted Chosen One there is no doubt it is an oddity.”
“It’s name is ‘Jen’,” Groddi proclaimed. “And it is an Otherworlder of the sky realm!”
“And you have learned this… how, exactly?” the High Lord asked, eyeing Jen once more.
“Jen has indicated that this is so,” Kavor replied, taking lead again. “It understands us, although it seems unable to actually speak our language. Its own language is most melodic and is almost soothing to hear.”
“Is that so?” the High Lord asked, and turned his full attention back to Jen. He wore the kind of expression Jen had learned Space-Yetis had when they were trying to smirk. “A demonstration, Otherworlder Jen?”
Jen was happy to oblige, adopting her most cheerful tones. “Of course, your Highness, and might I say those clothes make you look absolutely fabulous?”
The High Lord seemed impressed. “As pleasant as you claimed,” he admitted. “But what can this ‘Jen’ help us with?”
“Well I thought I might have a go at getting my ship back, and solve your wee ‘Dark One’ problem in the process,” she said. “How does that grab you?”
They looked at each other with incomprehension apparent on all their faces. “I think,” said Groddi, “we’re going to have to learn Jen’s language.”
“And then what?” the High Lord asked.
Groddi made his version of a shrug. “And then we act based on what it tells us.”
Jen supposed there was no way around that, even if it may take weeks to establish any kind of communication worth a damn. Still, it was better than trying to perform charades for people who had no concept of Earth’s popular culture or references, and even if neither of them ended up being able to speak the others’ language it would be beneficial if they could each understand each other in their respective tongues. And then they’d be able to have a decent conversation.
She was really going to have to figure out what she’d need to say.
+++++
Spot, enroute to Affrag
Adrian Saunders had put Cimbrean behind him almost as soon as he had completed his basic training of Powell’s most technically minded men. Mainly he had focused on ‘how to avoid blowing the fucking thing up’, but he’d thrown in some information on how to navigate and shoot and other related things that might be helpful. Powell hadn’t seen fit to inform him what they were going to do with the ships, but Adrian hadn’t really cared enough to press for the information.
He was more interested in reconnecting with Askit back at Affrag, and getting another chance to experience a proper barbecue. Askit would probably avoid it, he didn’t really go in for red meat or Deathworlds, but he had his own matters to attend to. Adrian, however, couldn’t wait for the chance to finally stretch his legs on a planet with the right kind of gravity and animals that didn’t break if you touched them a little to hard.
Like those fucking rats he’d seen aboard the Irbzrk factory station… Dizzy rats? Basically exploded if you so much as prodded them. What kind of universe built an animal with the resilience of a water balloon?
“What is it with you and this planet?” Trix asked when he’d first plotted the course. “Do you have some sort of death wish? You’re only impressive outside of Deathworlds, remember?”
Adrian had sighed in reply. “There’s a challenge there… right now I’ve got Spot running how I want her and haven’t got anything to put my hands on. Askit is busy getting the… what’s he called it?”
“The Superior Firepower,” Trix reminded him.
Adrian winced, it was a terrible name. “He’s getting that under his full control, learning all he can about Hierarchy systems and the like. And you’ve got that Zero-fuck’s brain to probe. A Deathworld like Affrag… well, I’ve got history there, and it gives me stuff to do.”
“We should be finding me a thing to rebuild my body,” Trix said. “You agreed to it, remember?”
“I remember,” Adrian reassured her, “but you’re the ones getting all the intel here. You tell me when you’ve got a lead on what you need, and we’ll go smash the shit out of things until we get what we want.”
“That still doesn’t explain Affrag,” Trix persisted. “You could just as easily make port somewhere and find something to do.”
“There is something I want to do, Adrian said. “There’s another reason we’re going to Affrag, and why I only figured we’d try it after you’d managed to get the sensor suite working like a fucking pro.”
“The V’Straki colony?” Trix guessed. “But that was so long ago, there won’t be anything left.”
“Probably not,” Adrian agreed. “But it’s worth a look, and even if we don’t find a fucking thing we’ll still have kept me busy for a while.”
Trix wasn’t sold on the idea yet. “You can’t expect to search the whole planet. It’s like searching for a pinfo in a takara!”
“Yeah, a needle in a haystack,” Adrian replied, “or it would be if I didn’t know where to look.”
“You have coordinates?” Trix asked. “There will have been tectonic movements… continents will have drifted.’
“There was a map on the Zhadersil,” Adrian said. “When you’d all… left… well, I learned some things about the planet and the colony and everything. I just have to close my eyes to see it, and while continents may shift the coasts will usually stay much the same.”
Trix initially conveyed her feelings on this response via a disbelieving silence. “You’re going to search by memory?” she asked, when silence no longer seemed enough.
Adrian nodded. “I guess I am.”
“Well,” she said, “you did say you wanted a challenge.”
They dropped out of warp space moments after that, slipping into cloak the moment they arrived and sent out a hail on a band specific to the Superior Firepower. Askit responded almost immediately, his small grey face stretching out across the enormous main screen. “Did you enjoy your time off?”
“It wasn’t time off, those guys are fucking retarded even with my help,” Adrian replied. It had taken a ridiculous amount of time to educate the soldiers on how to look after the ships, and far more effort than he had wanted to spend. “I think I’ve got them so they won’t fucking kill themselves, though. How are things on your end?”
Askit frowned. “There’s a lot of data to sort through, but I’m getting it. The encryption in some areas is superior and is actually giving me difficulty, which is not something that I experience very often. Nonetheless, I suspect you will have sufficient time to do… whatever it is you intend to do on that Deathworld.”
“I’m searching for the ruins of the lost colony of the V’Straki,” Adrian replied, repeating what the Corti already knew. “It shouldn’t take me very long to determine if there’s anything worth taking away from it.”
Frowning further, Askit eventually sighed. “Very well, try not to die down there. I will remain up here and monitor the situation to ensure no stray Hunters come to look at the place you humiliated them. Not that I think they will, but who can say? Maybe Hunters enjoy observing the sites of their greatest failures. If nothing else it must be unique. How long is the initial scan likely to take?”
“Not sure,” Adrian said, already looking at the map of the planet and matching it to the globe in the databanks of the Zhadersil. He quickly found the similarities, and outlined the area he wanted Trix to start scanning. “I found the area already, at least, so maybe if we’re lucky we’ll find something-“
“Found something,” Trix interrupted, sounding completely shocked by the achievement. “Subterranean, very deep… I can only find it because there’s an old access shaft that’s letting the signal through, and even then I’m only getting the faintest of signals… Why would anybody want to build that far below ground?”
“They were hiding, Trix,” Adrian replied, drumming his fingers in excitement. “So maybe that’s part of it. For anything else, there’s only one way to find out.”
“If you’re planning to throw yourself into an enormous hole,” Askit said, “make sure you have the right kind of protection.”
Adrian nodded, slightly insulted at how dumb the Corti must think he was. “I’ll sort out rope or something-“
He was interrupted by the Corti shaking his head. “No, I was thinking you’d just use the broken Abrogator. It flies, after all, and you’ll be able to install Trycrur in there. I’d feel more comfortable if you had something that could fly you in and out, and could be a voice of sanity in the stony underworld.”
“So we’re going into an ancient underground deathtrap and I’m going to be wearing a broken robot?” Trix asked. “I don’t like this plan.”
“It’s better than the plan where Adrian falls to his death and we all find other things to do with our lives,” Askit told her sharply, “and in your case I use the term very loosely. Do you imagine that I have the ability to obtain what is required for restoring you to flesh?”
“Alright,” Trix grumbled, “we’ll do it. Send over your coordinates and have the stupid robot ready for transfer when we come up alongside.”
“Well,” Adrian mused, having contented himself with letting somebody else lose an argument with Askit for a change, “I can’t say I’ve ever been spelunking before, but there’s always a first time for everything. Should be interesting.”
+++++
Record 573-Black-10
+Recovered from C11-Orange-712-Yellow-6+
Oiri’s face appeared on camera, close up as though she was the one holding it, which seemed the most likely scenario. Her eyes were red, appearing to have been irritated, and something about her expression denoted intense sorrow.
“Uh…” she began, her voice trembling. She took a moment to compose herself before she continued. “So… Kinon… my brother is dead. Just now… he went to sleep and-“
She looked away from the camera, taking a few deep, trembling breaths before looking back with more determination. “He didn’t wake up. At least it was peaceful… I guess that’s all you can ask for these days.”
The camera paused on her bewildered face for a moment as her eyes grew distant before she suddenly snapped back and focused back on the camera. “So… I should tell you, dear viewers, that we’ve been stuck in hiding for the past three days. There’s definitely something out there, and I’m not sure it’s people… scratch that, I’m sure it’s not. I’m… afraid.”
She suddenly looked away, peering off-camera in response to something, and maintaining her watch until she was sure all was well. Then she turned fearful eyes back to the camera. “I thought I heard something…” she whispered, “a whirring of some kind. I think it’s gone now…”
There was a whirring noise, louder this time, and Oiri looked up in alarm that transitioned to horror. She lifted a hand to cover her mouth. “No… oh no…”
She looked at the camera one last time, stumbled backwards and fled.
Except for the whirring that followed her there was silence, and the picture was still and quiet until the battery ran dry.
End Recording
+++++
C8-14-Pink-Triangle-Cross-7838
It was hard to think of a shittier place to end up than this miserable excuse of a Class Eight, but of course, in spite of whatever preferences he might have had on the subject, the life pod had selected it for the place to carry him safely. Zripob stepped forth into what passed for wilderness on this thin-aired chunk of space rock and sneered at what he could see through the ever-present mist that hung in the air. No clouds here, not on a world like this, and no blue skies or trees. What it did have was vapour and fungi, the latter rising no higher than his waist and the former no higher than his chest – perhaps this was his punishment for opting out of further adventures with the void-damned human?
“Well, Six-Skulls,” he said to himself, “what can you do in a place where the air is thin and the trappings of civilisation are non-existent?”
As habitable worlds went, this one must have barely made the list, and as such there was a whole list of things to do, everything from mushroom picking to hugging himself for warmth, to struggling for breath after every effort. There was only one that interested him, however.
“Why, Zripob,” he replied, “you should call for some help, of course!”
If only it was as easy as all that. True, he was certainly doomed if he was to remain here, but there was so much to go wrong if he tried sending out a distress signal. For starters there was the fact that this was a Hierarchy life pod, and therefore might do all sorts of unpleasant things if he tried sending out a distress call to someone else. Then there was Adrian Saunders, who probably would enjoy seeing him dead, but maybe wouldn’t spend the time looking for him unless he knew exactly where he might be found. And finally there were the Hunters. Probably not in this region of space, but you couldn’t be sure, and Zripob didn’t think he could take down a whole incursion of those bastards by himself.
Still, there was the chance that some helpful folks might actually be the first ones to arrive, and that it wouldn’t result in anybody having to die. Besides, if he didn’t try it he could look forward to a life of struggling to breathe and find creative recipes for fungus. The very idea of that kind of diet was enough to force his hand; even being butchered by Hunters would be preferable to that kind of fate.
“Food first,” he decided, glancing at the glowing indicator that told him the signal was pulsing out into the black cosmos above him. “Then sleep. Then repeat until somebody comes to save me or kill me. It’s good to have a plan.”
And that was what the plan boiled down to: survive long enough for help to arrive. Not the best of plans, but better than ‘starve to death’ or ‘suffocate’ or ‘pulse himself’. All he had to do was let the beacon do its thing, and to wait for an answer.
As it turned out he did not have to wait long; he wasn’t even done eating when the ship appeared in high orbit of Planet Disappointment and started spamming his location with scanner sweeps. His own scanners responded in kind, revealing a warship about a third of the size of the Hodgepodge and built for in-atmosphere manoeuvres. It was big enough to fit forty with plenty of spare room, or twice as many if you didn’t mind getting a bit cramped, and it didn’t have a configuration that Zripob recognised as being either Dominion or Alliance, and much to his relief not Hunter either.
It took a good long while before the computer finally came up with a match, even with all of the scan results it was receiving. The flashing colours of the alert notification did not give Zripob the kind of joy he’d been hoping for.
“Sixty-percent match to ‘Scourge’ technology?” he said, looking at the readout. “What’s a ‘Scourge’?”
The computer didn’t answer him directly, but from the information that followed it didn’t look good; Zripob didn’t expect that anything described by the Hierarchy as ‘extremely dangerous’ and to be ‘purged’ was anything he wanted to mess with, but that it was well past the time when he had the chance to do something different. The alien ship had already breached atmosphere and was streaking towards him.
There wasn’t enough time to run, and there wasn’t anywhere for him to run to, so all Zripob could to was to watch and wait while the obsidian-black vessel smashed the nearby ground flat with powerful kinetic blasts and landed with every gun facing the small life pod.
Then the soldiers began to emerge, exiting through two exits either side of the vessel and forming up into four tidy groups. Zripob could pick a well-trained force when he saw them, and whoever these guys were, Scourge or not, they’d clearly been given the kind of training that you only found in the really elite forces.
They were a mix of species, at least he guessed that to be the case from the varied mechanised outfits, and if they were running around in those sorts of things it meant they had solid financial backing.
“Alright then,” Zripob said, setting aside his gun and blade. “No point in fighting.”
There was in fact only one option open to him, and he stepped outside to take it. His arms were raised, his body plainly unarmed, and his every manner giving all signs of surrender.
It wasn’t noble, but neither was being gunned down in a stolen alien life pod. “I surrender!” he shouted. “I am ready to become your prisoner!”
They kept coming, their guns still raised, moving warily around him without answer while some checked the life pod for any deception and others made sure he didn’t try anything.
Zripob said nothing, knowing that they’d see he was acting in good faith. He just had to hope that they actually took prisoners. “Any time now…”
+++++
Afrin Subterranean Colony
The pod opened, and Xayn breathed in. The air was stale and metallic, indicating that the air recyclers weren’t operating at full functionality, but since he could still breathe he figured it could always be worse. That anything was still running was a testament to the skill of his people, although from the looks of things it was being stretched to the very extreme of their wildest expectations.
Still, if he was awake then something had failed. Again. And it would be something that a simple maintenance bot couldn’t fix. Last time he’d been brought out of stasis he’d been tasked with the repair of the main reactor, and had ended up shutting down two thirds of it and three quarters of the colony.
That hadn’t been a happy day; he’d always known that he was it, the last of his kind, but shutting down the colony just seemed as though he’d finally accepted that fact. Before returning to stasis he’d spent a good amount of time wondering whether he should take the easy way out, just like Kaspis and Hudo had done, but no matter how long he’d stared at his Zheron gun, Xayn had never been able to bring himself to turn it against himself.
And so he was the last, and he’d do his duty and keep the colony running until it wasn’t possible anymore, and then he’d just see how long he could last before the world above brought him the final sleep.
“Shit,” he hissed, exercising his long dormant body. “Not good if I am already thinking this way… Computer, what’s the problem?”
“Intruders detected, primary entrance,” the computer supplied helpfully. “One organic, one artificial. Unknown origin.”
Xayn felt a flicker of excitement. Intruders… if they were hostile, there was the chance that he’d finally be able to go out with guns blazing. That was how Xagh had done it, he’d cooked a fleet of Igraen drones and half the damned planet besides, but that had been a long time ago now.
“Computer, how many years since the colony fell?” he asked as he donned his tactical suit and checked his Zheron gun. Like him it had all been stored in stasis, so there’d been no decay and no need for the tech-drones to repair it, and it should therefore work just like the day he’d inherited it. Which meant it would work like shit, but if they were Igraen or their ilk it should still be enough to see them off.
“Approximating time…” the computer responded. “Estimated sixty-five million years, homeworld calendar.”
Xayn switched the Zheron gun on and listened to it hiss gently in its hands. It was an older model, the sort the boys aboard the Zhadersil had brought with them when they’d landed, and had probably belonged to someone heroic once upon a time.
Now it belonged to Xayn. “Well,” he said, finding he couldn’t really comprehend the passage of so many years, “I’d say it’s probably time to show these kin-breeders what a V’Straki combat-technician can do.”
He flicked off the lights and switched on his infra-red. “Computer, tell me where the intruders are.”
“Locational sensor has failed,” the computer reported. “Sensors indicate main door breach.”
“Heh,” Xayn chuckled. “Knock, knock.”
+++++
Mountain lair of the Dark One
The galaxy had changed, to the point that it was almost unrecognisable, and the databanks of the captured ship – named the Governess of all things – raised more questions than they did answers. Chief amongst them was the question of what had happened to the Galactic Senate. All records of governance that resided in the vessel’s computer systems referred to something called the ‘Interspecies Dominion’, or another political entity named the ‘Celzi Alliance’. In neither case did One-Thirty recognise the name, and the owner of the vessel hadn’t had the deep interest in galactic history that might have warranted keeping any useful data on the subject.
That didn’t mean that there were no answers, however, it simply meant that she didn’t like them. Take the recent Threat, the ‘Hunters’, for example: yet more Discarded swarming the stars, causing issues for everybody by exceeding their desired course. From the media reports in the memory buffer it looked as though they were swarming anywhere that held the particular species known as ‘humans’ in some kind of genocidal rage, although as far as One-Thirty was concerned that was still a far better kind of menace than the Scourge had been.
And they were a better kind of menace than the humans.
She could scarcely believe the incompetence that must have allowed a Deathworld species to gain a foothold in the galaxy, and one that had arisen in no other place than the homeworld of their ancient enemies, the V’Straki. The galaxy was aware of a Deathworld species achieving sentience, and that would lead to questions with unfortunate answers, and those answers would lead the galaxy straight to the Hierarchy. It was nothing short of a disaster.
Roughly equal on her scale of disasters was the fact that the very creature that had owned the vessel she had stolen had been a human. The discovery caused One-Thirty to breathe in sharply, and to quickly re-check the files relating to what humans were actually capable of. Unfortunately the human had not seen fit to carry an extensive library of the details of its own species, and One-Thirty was forced to come away with the vague understanding that they were incredibly dangerous.
Four of the drones had been lost in pursuit of the creature, of course, and a secondary sweep had shown their remains buried under the debris of a landslide. The very landscape itself had come down on them, smashing them under rock and ice, and it seemed inconceivable for any creature to have survived that sort of thing. She had done a quick sweep of the area, checking to ensure that the creature did not survive, and had found nothing to indicate that it might be otherwise.
But now she wondered…
It was worth consulting with Central. She needed to speak with her superiors, whoever they might now be, and relay the information she had been accumulating for the aeons she had been marooned on this awful little rock. They had not purged the local deathworld species as thoroughly as they had intended, and now the ‘Agwaren’ had come to cover the globe once again. One-Thirty’s resources had been stretched just making sure that any who dared the surface for too long were thoroughly slaughtered, but this had not prevented them from surviving. The planet needed to be purged once again, this time thoroughly and if the human had managed to survive it needed to be done soon.
There was no more time to spare in idle research, not now that she knew all of this and finally had the means to convey it back to her people, and certainly not now that she had a chance to speak once more with her own kind. Even the most stoic of Hierarchy agents could grow lonely for the company of her own kind, and it was with some eagerness that she connected to the galaxy through the communications systems of the alien ship and slipped into digital space.
Connecting… connected.
Connected as *+0130+** … Warning – Unmatched Designation detected: Designation 130 does not belong to UCODE 61-BlueSquare-9-WhiteTriangle-4857-BlueCircle-239656.*
Initiating Identity scan… scanning…. scanning… historic match found. Please wait, a senior Designate will be with you shortly…
+0068+ has requested a private chat.
Joining private chat with +0068+…
+0068+: Greetings ‘130’… or perhaps I should say ‘imposter’?
+0130+: I am not an imposter. However, as I have been stranded on a Deathworld for aeons without rescue, I don’t doubt my Designation has been allocated after my apparently presumed death.
+0068+: Verification is required. Submit planetary reference of last known operation.
+0130+: Dominion reference shows it as C11-Orange-712-Yellow-6. Senate reference was C11-OrangeCircle-712-YellowSquare-6. Some simplification was necessary along the way, it seems, but I have important information to share with the Single Digits.
+0068+: …Verified. They are, however, too busy and too important for a Triple Digit.
+0130+: Too busy to learn of a resurgence of a previously cleansed deathworld species? Their attention must be entirely consumed by the humans… I have one of those as well, it seems…
+0130+: …
+0130+: … respond?
+0009+ has joined…
+0009+: I have been apprised. Explain.
+++++