Universe Online - Enter the Game: Complete Edition (20 page)

“They're going to be used as fertilizing materials. Livestock waste and water isn't enough to replace soil on its own. The water has to have a high concentration of nutrients for the plants to grow properly.”

He nods and orders for the crates to be taken to where they're working on tanks with instructions on getting them analyzed and processed as fertilizer. Finally he turns back to me with a soft sigh that I barely catch.

“It’s far more than what I had imagined. These guys can finish getting this going. We need to talk, so follow me.”

It appears that I'm finally going to get the answers I've been lacking.

Following Andrix out of the bay is a moving experience, to say the least. People are running around, many of them yelling out or crying. By the doors, a group of dirty children, many of which lack mechanical suits and are sitting in wheelchairs while gossiping or playing by themselves. Some are even more thin and sickly looking than I am back in reality.

“We raise our children in a community creche. But we don't have enough suits to go around. There's only about two dozen kids between ages of 2 and 14. Our population has been in a sharp decline for centuries now.”

Andrix explains some things as we start going down the corridor and into the rest of the shelter. To say it is large is an understatement. There are barracks-like housing compartments, able to handle a thousand people apiece with full facilities. There's even a school, hospital, science labs, and a few workshops.

But Andrix actually leads me up several floors, which I only get to see glimpses of. Many people are running around in high spirits. We finally reach the highest level, which opens up to be the control room. There are people sitting at cobbled together computers and half-cracked monitors, typing away or communicating with their communication units. In the corner there's a small office with a door.

He leads me in, then shuts the door before offering one of the chairs across from him as he takes the big one. Off to one side is a console with a radio system I recognize from my time in the Tug.

“Here, this may take a while. And the subject matter is... well, the term would be 'taboo', but everyone here knows it.” He speaks with a sickly smile on his face, and I get a bad feeling.

Even I can connect the dots. I am not stupid, after all.

“The Drex... were us, right? The Drune Rex, I mean.”

I ask the hypothesis I'd come up with. Andrix doesn't even seem surprised that I figured it out.

“Yes. Although they haven't been 'human' for about two hundred years before the fighting took place. They aren't... Well, I better give you the whole story.”

He says, leaning back in his chair with his eyes on the ceiling, which is actually bare rock, instead of plating.

“We, the Drune Rex, settled here on this planet after the colony ship experienced difficulty with its prototype FTL drive. We became utterly lost, and had to set down on just about the first habitable planet we could find. We settled here, on a lush world perfect for agriculture and only light terraforming was required to make it livable for earth species.

“After we started settling, we found that the planet is roughly the same size of Old Earth, but with only a third of the mass. No one could figure why that was. Planetologists argued for decades that it should be impossible. All told, the planet's size should have been smaller than Mars, you know?

“And then an exploration team found a ruin. A massive alien complex buried under a mountain range. After we figured out how to access it, what we found shattered all the arguments about the planet. This entire planet was a construct. A test, of sort. Forced planetary formation in an already stable solar system. The race that did it... they were long gone. Their technology level exceeded the limitations of this dimension. We believe that they became an Ancient Race long before we found Drune.”

He stops and looks at me, and I nod my head. Ancient Races are part of the backstory of Universe Online. Spacefaring species that have progressed so far with technology or other means to shed themselves of their physical trappings. Most simply disappear, leaving behind their ruins and wonders. Some are still active, in small conclaves that rarely interact with the other races.

Beings of pure energy. Or electronic hive-mind clusters. Or simply finding a way to ascend to a higher (or lower) space dimension.

“But we found their research. And not only about the planet. Energy systems, data systems. Weapons and ship technology. So much information that it was mind boggling. It took years to translate even enough to understand what we were looking at. Then we found it. The holy grail.

“We found research on genetic manipulation and evolution. Every geneticist and biologist on the planet rushed to get their hands on the data. And why not? Properly done, it could cure almost every illness. But what they didn't realize at the time is that the research was incomplete. But by the time we'd figured that out, we had already adopted a broad base of genetic manipulation in our population. It was cheap and easy.

“The vast majority of us decided to enhance our mental capabilities. It was a small, precise process that had instant results as well as long-term effects. Over time our children would grow progressively smarter. It was godsend. Or so we thought.”

I nod again, and interrupt him by holding up my hand.

“But the side effect was the reduced physical capabilities, right? A reduction in the bone's ability to absorb calcium, if I had to guess.”

“Mostly correct. There were other effects, but we managed to track them down and eliminate the issues as we started to understand more and more of the research we'd originally found. But after five or six generations, we decided to quit using genetic manipulation at all. It caused too many issues over the long term. We were already smart enough, and thus didn't need it anymore until we could eliminate the risk. The vast majority of us agreed, so it was outlawed.

“But there was an offshoot who didn't want to stop. At first they hid underground, supplying black market research and genetic 'amps' to people who could pay. Eventually they tried to stage a coup of our governmental body of the time, but were repulsed and so they fled into space. We were able to track them to the far reach of the system; but they fortressed themselves up at the place called the Conclave.”

He stops this time and raises his hands to rub his temples. Yeah, it is that bleak. And it gets worse.

“They started calling themselves the Drex. They mined the outer solar system for resources. They refused to have anything to do with the rest of the Rex. Many wanted to stop them, and bring them back into the fold. But there were always other issues that came up first, and a military option wasn't viable. We had settled small colonies on the other planets in the solar system, and on several moons, and were actively mining the asteroid belt in the inner system.

“And then the attacks started. First, we thought it was standard pirating, which is an issue every race deals with. Captured ships would be taken, and the survivors were left out in space until they could be rescued. Then the ships would reappear after what seemed like a refit and would attack again. Over time it only got worse; and the ships became more weird. They started slaughtering the crews. We started patrolling and building security stations.

“It’s around that time that Archon Station started being built. It took more than seventy years to finish into the structure it has today. And the Trident. The Drex, having been cut off from the ruins and what we named the Archive couldn't keep up with us technologically. But they still attacked relentlessly. And then they invaded a security station bordering the outer system...”

He pauses again, trying to collect himself while I wait. I can just imagine it. I already know what was going to be said next.

“They had turned into monsters. It was the first time we had any first-hand experience with what they had become. Rampant genetic manipulation. Forced evolution. Armored creatures and horrors who could survive out in space with minimal technology and power. We managed to save the station’s main computer after the fighting ended, and saw what they had become. What they did.

“Work accelerated on the Archon Station. An entire battle fleet was assembled to guard the inner solar system. The Trident was made operational, and the first and only Imperial-class shielding array was built and was in the testing phase when all hell broke loose. The Drex attacked Archon Station directly with an armada they'd been hiding. Hundreds of captured ships that they'd remodeled.

“The fighting went on for days in space, and then a massive Drex ship appeared. It was some sort of massive carrier vessel as big as a small moon. They had abandoned the Drex Conclave to live solely in space. But whatever sort of weapon systems they had on that ship was enough to overwhelm the Archon's basic shielding arrays, and they started taking out the weapons and life support. It was obvious that they wanted to raid the station and convert it or destroy it.

“We forced the activation of the Imperial-class shields, which were the strongest shields we'd ever attempted to create. Complete spatial isolation. It folded space so greatly that external energy cannot penetrate it*. But the system had not been tested at full strength. We lost all communications and instantly knew something had gone wrong. We could see the station there, but it went dead within moments. Using the shield to save the station had killed every single person on it. We still don't know how or why.

“The Drex were furious. They switched targets to the planet almost as soon as they realized that they couldn't touch the station. They'd never attacked a planet or moon until then. The armada surrounded Drune and hit the planet with everything. Lasers, mass drivers, bombs. Missiles. Then the carrier-moon opened up with its main weapons. It caused extreme ionization in the atmosphere, and is what caused all the radiation. It was so powerful that it broke down everything it came into contact with into radioactive materials. Complete nuclear transmutation.”

I cringe. I'm not able to help myself. That must have been what cracked the planet's crust. I cannot imagine the horror of facing something like that, with almost no chance to survive on the planet's surface.

Andrix takes a breath and straightens up in his seat.

“They didn't even bother to check for survivors or the shelter sites. Nor did they show any interest in the surface at all. Not even the Archive, which survived. We lost more than 600 million people in a single day. After that, we were cut off almost completely. Only basic sensors and radio communications with the other Sites on the planet. At first we were able to reach the facilities still in space, but they rapidly got cut off one by one after the Drex left orbit. They probably destroyed all of them.

“And it’s been this way for more than five hundred years. We've been struggling to survive down here. Mining the limited crustal ore under the surface, away from the radiation. Manufacturing and growing our own food. We tried sending out unmanned craft into space to search for help, but we don't have the resources to build FTL technology. It’s estimated to take another thousand years for one of the crafts to reach the nearest star.

“And now, we've basically run out of time. Until you showed up out of the blue. If you hadn't survived on the station, or hadn't gotten your ship, we would have been dead in a week.”

Andrix has a wry smile on his face, but his eyes are still haunted and shallow. It’s the look of a man who's become desperate. Desperate enough to believe that a newcomer can help. Desperate enough to grab a faint hope.

I simply remain silent, thinking about it all. It makes a lot of sense, but I still shudder.

*DING*