Dark Space: Avilon (42 page)
Read Dark Space: Avilon Online
Authors: Jasper T. Scott
Tags: #Children's Books, #Literature & Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Alien Invasion, #Cyberpunk, #First Contact, #Galactic Empire, #Military, #Space Fleet, #Space Opera, #Children's eBooks, #Metaphysical & Visionary, #Science Fiction
Visions of endless hordes of Sythians swarming into orbit around Avilon danced through Picara’s head. Defeating Omnius didn’t seem to matter anymore. When compared to the survival of the human race, freedom seemed like a pointless luxury.
* * *
After a rocky night’s sleep and spending the morning seeing the Gors and their newborn crechelings to their transports, Destra stood on the bridge of the
Tempest,
watching as Admiral Hale readied the ship for its jump to Noctune. She marveled at the idea that they could jump directly from one galaxy to another. Avilonian technology was clearly far more advanced than anyone had ever thought possible.
“Engineering!” the admiral called out. “Are our shields raised?”
“In the blue, sir, 100% charged and ready.”
“Good. We don’t want anything to surprise us on the other end. Helm, do we have our jump back pre-calculated?”
“Yes, sir. As long as we remain at the exit coordinates, we will be able to jump back here without delay.”
“Good. Then we’re ready. Start the countdown!”
An audible countdown started from sixty seconds, and Destra squeezed Atta’s hand.
“We’re about to see the Gor’s home world,” she said.
“I know,” Atta replied. She shivered and said, “It’s going to be cold, though.”
Destra smiled. “Don’t worry, we aren’t going to the surface.”
Admiral Hale came up beside them. “Are the Gors all aboard their transports?”
Destra nodded. “I still think we should send a ground team with them.”
“No means no, Ma’am,” the admiral said, referring to their previous discussion. Last night she’d gone to tell the admiral all about the Gors’ plight. He’d listened patiently to her, and then she had requested permission to join them on Noctune in their search for survivors.
“There’s a difference between helping someone because you feel you owe it to them and helping them out of genuine empathy,” she reminded him. “The Gors are facing extinction. If they don’t find another female, their species probably won’t survive. They could use our technology to help them find any survivors. Let me go with them. At the first sign of danger, you can pull me out.”
“I want to go, too!” Atta put in.
Both Destra and Admiral Hale glanced her way, then back to each other. The admiral shook his head. “We don’t know if you’ll encounter Sythians down there, or for that matter if we’ll run into them in orbit. We may not have time to extract you before we’re forced to jump away. So the answer is still
no
.”
“
No
to sending me, or
no
to sending any ground team at all?”
“No period, Ma’am, and that’s final.”
The countdown reached ten seconds and they all turned to look out the forward viewports.
As soon as the countdown reached zero, the world around them washed away in a blinding sea of brightness. It reappeared just as suddenly, with a new pattern of stars spread out beyond the viewports. These ones were somehow dimmer and farther apart than what they were used to seeing in Dark Space. The Getties Cluster was known for being colder and darker than the Adventa Galaxy—yet another reason why the Sythians might have wanted to expand from their over-crowded galaxy.
The grass is always greener somewhere else,
Destra thought.
“Report!” the admiral called out.
“Sensors clear!”
“All systems green! Jump successful.”
“Excellent. Launch the transports,” he said. “As soon as we confirm they’ve landed, we’ll jump away.”
“Yes, sir.”
Destra noticed a small, bright orb in the distance. “Is that it?” she asked, pointing to the icy-blue speck.
“That’s it,” the admiral confirmed. “It’s a good thing the Imperium’s star charts had the coordinates, or we never would have been able to take the Gors here. I can’t believe they don’t even know where their own home world is,” he said, shaking his head.
“The Sythians probably thought if they didn’t know the way home, they’d be less likely to try to get back there.”
“Probably,” the admiral agreed, turning and walking over to the captain’s table. Destra and Atta joined him, watching as the Gors’ transports launched, carrying the last of their species home. The admiral panned their view over to Noctune and zoomed in on it. The surface was mottled white and blue with thick glaciers. The skies were clear and frigid, devoid of any clouds.
“There doesn’t appear to be any sign of an orbital assault,” the admiral mused.
Destra nodded. “Maybe the Gors have tunneled so far under the ice that an assault wouldn’t be very effective.”
“So our battle-shy Sythians landed on Noctune and killed all of the Gors themselves?”
“They must have.”
“Even knowing that the Gors would cloak and hide, and stalk them in the dark? How many Sythians do you think they killed like that? Thousands?
Millions?
”
Destra began to see where the admiral was going with that. “You think the Sythians wouldn’t risk that kind of bloodshed. Not if they were the ones who stood to die.”
“Exactly. That’s not their style. So either they lied about exterminating the Gors, or . . .” He shook his head.
“Or what? You said it yourself. There’s no sign of an orbital bombardment. The ice is pristine. It would have boiled off and precipitated back to the surface.”
“Perhaps it did, and that’s why the ice is so pristine. Sensors! Get me a full volume scan of the planet. Image the result and project it on the main holo display. I want to see just how deep the Gors’ tunnels go.
They both watched the main forward viewport, waiting for it to display the results of their scan. A moment later the planet appeared, and the layers of ice became a translucent blue. The planet’s rocky surface appeared below that in a more solid gray. Trapped in the ice and woven throughout were jagged, oblong chunks of rock. Admiral Hale frowned, studying something Destra couldn’t see, projected on the inside of the glowing contacts he wore.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Sir . . .” someone said, sounding alarmed.
“I see it,” the admiral replied.
“See
what?
” Atta tugged on her sleeve. “Not now, Atta.”
The admiral continued staring off into the distance, his eyes flicking back and forth behind his contacts.
“Mom . . .” Atta tugged her sleeve again, pointing up to the scan of the planet.
“What? What is it?” Destra replied.
“Is that the Gors’ city?”
“The Gors don’t have a . . .” Destra trailed off, suddenly realizing what she was looking at. Those weren’t chunks of rock trapped in the ice.
They were skyscrapers.
Chapter 33
B
retton eyed the scan of Noctune as it slowly rotated before their eyes. The planet’s thick layers of ice and glaciers had been peeled away by the
Tempest’s
scanners, revealing not rocky terrain as he had expected, but a vast and ancient empire, the ruins of which lay buried deep beneath the ice.
Beside him, Destra Heston gasped and shook her head. “The Gors are a primitive civilization. Where did those cities come from?”
“I’m just guessing,” Bretton replied, “but I’d say those glaciers are millions of years old, and Noctune used to be a much warmer planet than it is today.”
“So where did the water come from? I can imagine oceans freezing, but kilometers of ice suddenly burying the surface?”
The ship’s chief engineer replied, “The water must have been in the atmosphere, Ma’am. Based on the position of the ruins, the amount of ice, and the current lack of moisture in the air, we have to assume that the Admiral is right. Noctune used to be much warmer, perhaps even a little too warm, and the humidity had to have been near a hundred percent. Squeeze all the water out of that much air, and suddenly you have a world covered in thick sheets of ice.”
“Kilometers of it?”
Bretton traced his finger over the rotating scan of the planet. “There are high mountain ranges surrounding those cities. This used to be a very rocky planet—something like Roka Four in the Imperium. As the climate changed and the air cooled, water precipitated out and flowed into the valleys, forming the glaciers we see now. The highest peaks are only covered with a thin layer of ice. Some of them are probably even exposed.”
The ship’s engineer chimed in once more, “Based on the type of ruins, the climate change was either very rapid, or the inhabitants died while their cities remained standing. Otherwise they would have built better shelters from the cold. You’d see domed habitats designed to focus sunlight and trap heat, not freestanding skyscrapers with plenty of space around them.”
“A global catastrophe,” Destra replied, nodding. “Do you think they were humans?”
Bretton considered that, putting it together with what he’d learned about the Sythians from the human traitor, Donali. “Yes. In fact . . . if I had to guess, I’d say the Sythians aren’t the only ones that evolved from humans. The Gors probably did, too.”
“Except that their race is primitive and barbaric, while the Sythians are advanced.”
“True,” the admiral agreed. “I wonder what secrets from our history lie locked away beneath the ice. . . . This place is an archaeologist’s dream.”
“Still sure you don’t want to send a team to the surface?” Destra asked, raising her eyebrows.
“I want to go, too!” Atta reminded them.
Bretton regarded them both with a frown. “It would be very risky. Volunteers only. We may have to jump out with no warning and leave them behind.”
“I volunteer,” Destra said.
“So do I,” the admiral replied, smiling.
“You’re the Admiral. You should stay here. We can set up a live holo feed to the surface so you can see what we see.”
He held her gaze for a long moment and then sighed. “You’re right, of course, but the child should stay, too.”
Destra shook her head. “Not a chance.”
“She’ll be safer aboard the
Tempest,
Ma’am.”
“I already had to leave one child because it was supposed to be
safer
. I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.”
“Yay!” Atta said.
Admiral Hale regarded her with a frown. “Very well. Get down to the hangar. I’m sending Sergeant Cavanaugh’s squad with you. He told me the Black Rictans were the first ones to explore Noctune. Now that experience is going to be of significant use to us.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”
The admiral arched an eyebrow at her. “Why not?”
“Because Sergeant Cavanaugh is hostile toward the Gors. He still remembers them as our conquerers. He could start a war down there.”
“I’ve had him guarding the Gors’ aboard this ship long enough to know he doesn’t have a twitchy trigger finger. He won’t attack them unless ordered to.”
“Just because he hasn’t done anything yet doesn’t mean—”
“This is my operation, Ma’am. If you don’t like how I’m running it, you can stay out of it.”
Destra sighed. “Very well.”
“I’ll alert the Gor transports that our team is joining them on the surface. You’ll explore
with
the Gors, that way if you do run into any survivors, at least they’ll know you’re friends and it won’t turn into a bloodbath.”
Destra nodded. “I’m sure the Gors will be happy to have us along.”
* * *
The transport rattled and shook around them. Destra stood with Atta, strapped in along one wall, surrounded by six Black Rictans. Cavanaugh and his squad were encased in the shiny black armor of Zephyr light assault mechs. Destra wore an insulated black vac suit, stolen from the
Tempest’s
old Nova pilots’ lockers. Atta wore her custom-sized bright yellow vac suit
.
The atmosphere on Noctune was breathable, but too cold to comfortably inhale, so it had to be filtered and heated by climate controls inside their suits. The temperature was forty below freezing, and that was during the planet’s dim, daylight hours. The night side sat at a cozy seventy-five below.
Destra watched on the opposite side of the transport as Sergeant Cavanaugh checked his weapons. His features glowed blue in the light of the displays inside the Zephyr’s helmet. All of the Black Rictans were armed with two primary weapons—one ripper rifle, and one cutting beam to help them dig through the ice. In addition to that, they had drills to carve tunnels, and plenty of explosives to blast their way down.
Admiral Hale had identified one place in particular where he and his engineers had determined the ruins were in the best condition and not too far below the surface.
The Gors had been rerouted to that location, and now all of them were going to land together on the ice field, some fifty feet above the ruins.
Cavanaugh finished checking his weapons, and he looked up. “Listen up,” he said, his external helmet speakers crackling to life. “Our Zephyrs can’t detect cloaked skull faces, so we’re at their mercy. By now you’ve all met our exalted diplomat and translator. She is our first and only line of defense while we’re down there, so keep your fingers far away from your triggers, and hopefully we’ll all live through this. Councilor Heston, is there anything you’d like to add to that?”
Destra smiled, feeling suddenly more hopeful about this expedition. “The sergeant is right. If I had my way, we wouldn’t even be armed, but the admiral feels that since the Gors are a race of warriors, they will respect us more for having brought our weapons with us.”
The transport shuddered and began bucking under them. Destra paused, waiting for the turbulence to pass.
“Soon we’ll be landing on the surface. Our purpose on Noctune is different from that of the Gors. The admiral wants us to excavate a path down to the ruins as quickly and safely as possible. The Gors, on the other hand, are looking for survivors. They have agreed to leave one of their warriors with us as a liaison, and I have agreed to go with them and use our technology to help them in their search.”
A few of the Black Rictans traded glances with one another. Destra noticed and asked, “Is there a problem, soldiers?”
“You’re the only one with a translator, ma’am. We need you with us in case we run into any skullies.”
“First of all, they’re not
skullies
or
skull faces,
they’re
Gors
, and it’s beginning to look like we’re related to them, so you should start thinking of them as
us
. Second of all, the Gors can understand us. They’re telepaths. And third, my daughter is going to stay with you on the surface, since she appears to be able to understand the Gors without the need for a translator.”
“She speaks skull—I mean . . . Gor?”
“She can hear their thoughts without the need for actual words. The Gors tell me this is something unique to our children, because their minds are still open and receptive. I don’t know if that’s the actual reason, but whatever the case, you will have a translator with you.”
“A
kid
translator,” one of them sneered. “You’re leaving us in the hands of a six-year-old! What if she thinks it’s funny to see the Gors rip us apart?”
“I’m
seven
,” Atta declared.
“Same difference, kiddie.”
“My daughter is not a psychopath,” Destra growled.
“Enough back talk, Rictans!” Cavanaugh said. “As far as you’re concerned she’s the queen and you’re all her designated boot-lickers. Our job is to dig, Councilor Heston’s and her daughter’s is to keep the peace with the Gors. We’ll be in constant comms contact with the councilor, so if there are any incidents that our little miss can’t handle, we can always patch her mother through. Since the Gors seem to respect mother figures, it might stop them from eating us if we do the same.”
The next thing that all of them heard was the pilot’s voice crackling through the troop bay. “We’re four klicks out from our designated landing area, approximately five minutes until landing. Sensors have detected a strong crosswind near the surface, so be prepared for turbulence on the way down.”
Turbulence was an understatement. The transport shuddered and shook around them as if it were about to fly apart. At times the deck leapt straight up with dizzying speed. At others it dropped out beneath their feet, and they felt like they were free-falling toward the surface. Destra expected her daughter to start crying, but somehow she remained stolid and silent the whole way down.
Destra watched out the dark porthole-sized viewports in the side of the transport. Someone turned down the lights inside the troop bay, and the view beyond those portholes snapped into focus. Destra saw a vast, icy plain appear, shining purplish blue in the weak daylight of Noctune’s distant sun. Snowflakes swirled in the transport’s landing lights.
They settled down with a barely-perceptible jolt and then the troop bay came alive with the sounds of Zephyrs unbuckling from the walls, and mechanized feet
clanking
around inside the narrow space. Destra waited until the mechs had finished blundering around before she unbuckled herself and Atta.
Then came the groan of hydraulics and the boarding ramp began to lower at the back of the transport. No sooner had the ramp dropped than Cavanaugh’s squad moved out, marching out in perfect synchrony. Destra took her daughter by the hand, and cautiously followed them. They stopped and stood at the top of the ramp, gazing down on the alien surface of Noctune. The wind whistled by the opening, and snowflakes came swirling in, dancing around their feet.
Destra started down the ramp and immediately felt herself growing heavier. No longer shielded by the artificial gravity field aboard the transport, she felt the full force of Noctune’s 1.25 standard G’s.
Walking out onto the ice, Destra’s boots crunched in the snow. The cold began creeping in despite the insulated layers of her flight suit. Her heater started up, running current through heating elements woven through the inner lining of the suit.
It was hours after sunrise where they had landed, but it looked like the very tail end of twilight. Destra looked up and saw stars shining through the clear, purple-black sky. Looking out to the horizon, she saw a dim blue-white sun. Destra struggled to imagine what Noctune had been like back when there’d been humans living here in densely-populated cities. Had it been this dark?
Turning in a quick circle, Destra looked around for the Black Rictans.
She was disappointed to find them standing in a defensive formation, their backs to the transport, their guns raised and tracking the icy wasteland for targets.
An icy wind blew, scraping up thin shavings of ice and snow and tossing them against Destra’s faceplate with surprising force. She staggered, and little Atta almost fell over.