Out of Legends, Part 03
Title: Out of Legends
Author: Soledad
For disclaimer, rating, etc., see the secondary index page
Author's Note:
A few lines of Harper's monologue are a rewritten version of what was said in "Exit Strategies" - similar, but slightly different ones.
Chapter Three - FIRST CONTACT
Performing a thorough scan for slip points on the border of a previously uncharted galaxy had taken days, even for a sentient ship as advanced as the Andromeda Ascendant. In the meanwhile, the two Perseids and the Sapphire Than had been busily calculating the possible locations of nearly eight-thousand-year-old, Commonwealth-issue mines that were supposed to booby-trap aforementioned borders. Tyr and Freya had followed their daily routine, Beka had been fighting the aftermath of her involuntary Flash addiction, Harper had freaked out every time Rev Bem got closer to him than arm’s length, Captain Hunt was brooding, and Trance… well, she was Trance.
In other ways, everything was pretty much the same old routine, save the not-so-insignificant fact that they were lost between galaxies, with no slip point in sight and very little hope to get home. Ever. And that Harper was living out the last weeks of his young life with a death sentence hanging above his head - a fact nobody seemed all too worried about.
“I can understand them, I really can,” Harper told his nearly empty bottle of New Bayern Weissbräu, down in a conduit near engineering, where he was trying to down his worries in top-quality booze. “They’ve got their own problems, what with being lost and stuff. And Her Purpleness is probably feeling bad for not being able to heal me the same way she’d healed Tyr. Too bad, but it wasn’t her fault. Tyr’s nearly bought the farm himself, and I’m just a scrawny little kludge. I’d never live through that amount of poison and radiation she’d used on Tyr.”
He took another sip from the beer and kept musing.
“Hey, at least she and Rommie exempted me from the clean-up afterwards. I don’t think I could have gone down to the engine room right then - or anywhere else where I had been attacked. It stunk like Magog and I was feeling a little Magog-o-phobic right then. Hell, I’ve felt like that ever since… since I got infested. Even with the Rev, although he’s an okay guys as Magog go… and he’s practically family now.”
He made a bitter snort, drank another sip of beer from the bottle, then laid it aside and picked up a scanner that he’d lifted from the medical deck in an unobserved moment. He aimed it at his stomach to see his… passengers, as he’d come to call the larvae. It sounded less threatening, less… real that way.
“How’s going, fellas?” he asked in a casual manner, trying to separate the thirteen little time bombs ticking inside his body, hiding almost invisibly there and there, a cluster of them slumbering a little further over, another one down and a couple of separate ones even further, all wrapped around organs between his breastbone and his pelvic bone.
“Are ya comfy in there?” he asked sarcastically, reaching out with his free hand for the beer bottle. “Getting enough beer, hmm?” What about ya, turd-brain?” he asked the creature that was nestled alone, closest to his liver. “No? Well, how about some more?”
He drank some more and shook his head, remembering the excruciating pain whenever the larvae showed any indication to wake up… which they’d have done quite some time ago if not for the Rev’s serum.
“You’re never satisfied, are ya?” he mused, sloshing the rest of the beer around in the bottle. “Ya freakin’, thievin’, thankless little parasites are just never happy. I give you a home, food, conversation - and what give you me in return? Grief. Pain that feels like hot friggin’ knives in my intestines - and cold shivers and hot shivers and all that.”
He finished the bottle and turned to put it back the case with his secret stash - only to notice that all the other bottles in the case were empty, too.
“Oh, damn,” he said in a tone that was more actually sad than angry. “You worms have managed to drink all my New Bayern Weissbräu, right? Now what the heck have I got to live for? A big fat nothin', and that’s a fact.”
He pushed away the scanner, not caring that the sensitive tool had a rather hard landing on the floor and pulled his gun, aiming it at his stomach.
“I think it’s time to take care for you, once and forever,” he told the dormant larvae. “Now, let’s do it quickly and painlessly. You, Stinky, Turd-brain, and all the others, line up against the stomach wall! It will only take a moment, I promise you… not like the thing you’ve in planning for me, if I may remind you.”
He took a second to turn off the safety on the gun, but before he could actually pull the trigger, the large, dark hand of Tyr Anasazi grabbed his smaller, pale one and turned away with slow, irresistible force.
“That was not part of our agreement, boy,” the Nietzschean said with hair-raising calmness.
“Go ‘way!” Harper growled, very angry that he’d been interrupted, in the very moment when he’d finally brought up the courage to deal with his hopeless situation the only possible way.
“I do not think so,” the Nietzschean replied. “According to our agreement, this is my job, should the time come when it has to be done. It is not here yet.”
“Oh, give me a freakin' break!” Harper practically exploded. “Now or in a week, or in two weeks, what difference does it make? I’m dead meat walking anyway. Have you ever seen someone being ripped open by hatching Magog?”
Tyr shook his head mutely, but he’d peeled Harper’s fingers off the gun already.
“Well, I have,” Harper continued. “Granted, we usually arrived when it was already over, although the blood and gunk and ribs all over the place weren’t a pretty sight, either. Or, if we’d come in time, we simply put the victims down to spare them living through that - like my uncle was forced to do with his own sons. But once, just once, I had the bad luck to arrive when the show was just starting… oh God, that terrible wet, tearing sound… I can still hear it in my nightmares. I’ve dreamed about that every night since I got infested. And that’s why I don't wanna live another day with these freakin' monsters inside of me. If I have to die anyway, I want a nice, clean death, you know… not one like that.”
“You won’t,” Tyr promised solemnly. “I gave you my word, and I shall not arrive late. I never do. But you should not give up just yet. There still can be a way out of this situation for you.”
Harper made a sound that was the strange combination of a snort, a sob and a laugh.
“Thanks, Big Guy, but there's no cure for this, and you know it,” he said simply. “I got an irrevocable appointment with a painful, horrible, violent death, and no one can fix me. No one. It’s truly reassuring, though, that you and your big gun will be there for me in time.”
“It should be,” Tyr grinned. “I am known as a very reliable assassin… well, I used to be one anyway. But enough dark brooding for one day. Come with me to the bridge now. The chinheads and the blue bug have finished mapping the minefield, and it seems that the ship has actually found a slip point.”
“Really?” Harper’s insatiable curiosity made him forget his hopeless situation for a moment. “That I have to see! I guess Captain Terrific wanna pilot the Andromeda himself again, hmmm?”
“That had been his intention indeed,” Tyr replied. “But the Diamond Than had objections, and she was very… vocal and long-winded about them, so that in the end our esteemed captain gave in and allowed the red bug to take over.”
“Thank the Divine!” Harper began to jog in order to keep up with the Nietzschean’s long stride. “Ruby than are usually excellent pilots, and Starlight is even better than most. We might survive this trip in slipstream, after all.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When they reached the command deck, nearly the whole crew had already gathered there (not that that would be such a large number, though). Only the four Amber Than workers (nicknamed by Harper as Brownie #1 through Brownie #4) remained on the machine deck. Nonetheless, the Than were represented all over the command deck. Radiance of Wisdom manned the main science station, the Ruby Than was sitting in the slipstream chair, and one of the Emerald Than had taken Tyr’s usual place at the weapons controls.
Dylan Hunt, sitting in the command chair as usual, gave Tyr and Harper a sarcastic smile.
“I see you’ve found out missing engineer, Mr. Anasazi. Can we hope to continue our journey now?”
“Sure, boss, I’m ready,” Harper hurried to his usual station. Tyr left his side and joined his wife who was waiting in the background with Trance, Beka and the Diamond Than - a shimmering vision of iridescent blue-white.
“Very well, then,” Dylan said. “Enter slipstream at your discretion, Starlight!”
“Aye-aye, Captain!” the Ruby Than, who found great delight in such outdated things, saluted smartly and accelerated into the slip portal. A flare of white-blue light filled the main screen, followed by the tangled, knotted strings that gave one the unsettling impression of travelling through the circulatory system of some huge, untamed creature.
Strapped into the pilot’s chair, Glittering Starlight rocked and swivelled with her seat as she guided the huge warship through the dizzying twists and sparks of slipstream. She’d done it uncounted times - she was an experienced pilot, after all - but each slipstream journey was a unique challenge for the navigator. One could never be sure of the outcome.
Especially when following an uncharted route where they couldn’t even guess where they would come out. So the Ruby Than focused very hard, her antennae stiff with concentration, her compound eyes fixed on the screen ahead of her. Only living beings could effectively navigate slipstream, and since actual faster-than-light propulsion was still something in the realm of the purely theoretical, only the slipstream routes made a transit between galaxies possible.
A few gut-wrenching moments later, they finished slipstream transit into some sort of planetary system. It looked like a hundred others that they’d seen during their journeys - and yet it was unlike they’d ever encountered. It was in a different galaxy, one that had been forbidden to enter during the whole existence of the Commonwealth.
As usual, Trance was the first to voice her excitement. Well, it was more than simple voicing, to tell the truth. She was actually jumping up and down, her tail sweeping the floor.
“Is it not fantastic, people?” she squealed. “We’re in a system - in a whole galaxy - where no Commonwealth citizen has been before!”
“Oh, a few of them have,” Harper commented gravely. “But they all came back as desiccated mummies, right?”
Dylan Hunt rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Mr. Harper, could you try to hold back your extreme superstition? This ‘space vampire’ thing is getting ridiculous!”
Harper shrugged. “Hey, I’m not worrying for myself. I’m on borrowed time already. You know, I might even prefer being sucked dry to the blood-and-gunk feast the kids are gonna celebrate once they’ve grown resistant to the serum. But you, guys, you’re gonna have a serious problem.”
The others exchanged exasperated looks but didn’t answer.
“Wisdom,” Hunt turned to the Sapphire Than, “can you tell me if one of these planets is inhabited?”
The Sapphire Than wiggled with her antennae - a gesture that could mean a great many things by her species. This time, it represented a shrug.
“If Harper can recalibrate the short-range sensors to pick up lifesigns… of course, they would pick up animal life as well.”
“Better than nothing,” Hunt decided. “How long would you need for that, Mr. Harper?”
“Oh, I’ll have it done in minutes,” Harper declared, working on the right console already. “The Harper is good.”
The others grinned, having heard that phrase many times already, but Harper paid them no attention. Turning the sensors into a giant life-sign detector wasn’t something that would represent a true challenge for his abilities, but he didn’t want to make any mistakes.
“Well, boss,” he said after twenty minutes or so, “you can give it a try now. We won’t get very good visuals from this distance, but at least we should be able to see if anybody’s home at all.”
“Good work, Mr. Harper,” Hunt looked at the Sapphire Than. “Wisdom, would you do the honours?”
“Certainly, Captain Hunt,” Radiance of Wisdom was already at work, analyzing the incoming data while making the typical cackling sounds of her native tongue. “Hmmm… definitely not a natural structure… but practically no industrial activity… strange by the city of that size… Could we have found a pre-industrial civilization?”
“Or the reminder of some post-apocalyptic horror,” Rev Bem commented with genuine sadness in his scratchy voice.
“I don’t think so,” the Sapphire Than replied. “I don’t read any residual radiation that would be there, even centuries after an all-out war. Neither are there any demolished ships or other sorts of wreck in orbit. The structures on the planet surface - I’d say buildings - seem to be undamaged, although they don’t even come close to the size of the typical skyscrapers of inhabited post-Commonwealth planets.”
“But no primitive huts, either, right?” Hunt asked.
Radiance of Wisdom signalled negation with her antennae. Nobody really knew how she managed to do it, but the gesture was unmistakable.
“No, Captain,” she answered patiently; those are definitely larger structures… and solidly built ones. Huts, as you call them, wouldn’t register on our sensors from this distance.”
“Can you read lifesigns, too?” Hunt asked.
“Vaguely,” the Sapphire Than said. “Remember, Captain, these sensors weren’t supposed to work as lifesign detectors. But even so, the structured settlement below should have a much denser population than what I’m able to estimate based on even these vague lifesigns. As if the inhabitants had abandoned large parts of it. I must emphasize, though, that these readings are not entirely reliable.”
“But if they aren’t completely wrong, then something horrible must have happened to the people who lived there,” Trance said, obviously very upset. “Could it have been some sort of epidemic?”
“That, or they are a dying people, and their numbers are diminishing,” Radiance of Wisdom replied. “It’s known to have happened before in our galaxies, too.”
“Or they’ve been attacked and decimated by a superior enemy,” Tyr added cynically.
Beka shook her head. “In that case the structures weren’t intact,” she pointed out.
“They were, if the conquerors wanted the original inhabitants out of the city, so that they could move in afterwards unchallenged,” the Nietzschean said.
“Chemical or biological warfare?” Hunt guessed.
Tyr shrugged. “Another thing known to have happened in our galaxies, too,” he said. “There are always idiots who believe that soil, water and air would easily recover from poisoning… until it is late. If it was an attempt of conquest, it was not a very successful one - or else the city would be full of the conquerors.”
“True enough,” Hunt admitted. “If we can trust these readings, that is.”
“Hey!” Harper exclaimed, clearly insulted. “They are as correct as anyone could expect from instruments doing what they were never supposed to do!”
“Which is the reason why we need to go down and evaluate the situation for ourselves,” Hunt said. “If there really still are people living in that city - if, in fact, it is a city at all - a meeting with them might be useful.”
“Unlikely,” Tyr shook his head. “If they had any kind of advanced technology, the sensors would have found traces of it.”
“They might not have the technical know-how to help us to find a way out of here,” Hunt admitted, “but they might have food and other resources we need. Or they could tell us where we can find help. We simply can’t let this chance slip through our fingers - we may not find another one for a long time yet.”
“I, too, find a reconnaissance mission necessary,” Tyr said, “but I suggest breathing masks… and lots of weapons.”
“Geez, what a surprise!” Harper commented sarcastically.
Tyr shot him a warning look. “Just necessary precaution, boy. I fully intend to return unharmed.”
“I agree with Tyr,” Hunt declared. “We’ll go down with a small but well-protected and well-armed group.”
“I’m naturally immune against most gifts and germs,” Rev Bem offered. “And I can breathe in atmospheres poisonous for most warm-blooded species.”
“Yeah, but you’d freak out the fellas down there, if they are even vaguely human-like,” Harper protested. “No offence, Rev, we all know you’ve got a heart of butter, but let’s be honest here, you’re not the most trust-inducing sight.”
The Magog inclined his head humbly. “I fear that is very true.”
“I shall go,” Tyr said. “If the inhabitants are humanoid, I am a close enough match; and unless they are giants, I can intimidate them if necessary. Plus, my nanobots can deal with a lot of things human metabolism cannot.”
“But what if they’re not humanoid?” Beka asked.
“I could take the green bugs with me, if Born to Starfire is willing to lend them to me,” Tyr answered. “They’re tough, well-trained and resilient - and still not so frightening to look at as the Magog.”
The Diamond Than signalled her agreement, and the Emerald Than warriors seemed eager enough to go, so Tyr’s plan got the captain’s blessing.
“We still need someone who could make an educated guess about their technical level,” Hunt said then.
“I’ll do that with a simple glance,” Harper declared, excited about the possibility to see new things and to be on an actual planet again; excited enough to forget about the potential presence of space vampires. But Tyr shook his head.
“Not before we can confirm that the planet is biologically safe, boy. You immune system is too weak for such unnecessary risks. You don’t want your… residents to become active, do you?”
Harper shook his head mutely, his thin face acquiring that pinched expression again. Tyr felt uncharacteristically sorry for him - usually, he didn’t care for the feelings of kludges - but Harper simply couldn’t take any risks in his current state. He was too important for the Andromeda.
“One of the Perseids could come with us,” the Nietzschean proposed. “Maybe the locals will be more inclined to trust cheerful people.” Personally, he could start on a homicidal spree when subjected too much of that cheerfulness, but not everybody had Nietzschean standards.
“Good idea,” Hunt agreed. “Rekeeb, would you like to join them?”
The younger Perseid hesitated for a moment, torn between caution and curiosity, but Höhne promptly agreed to volunteer him, so that he couldn’t back off anymore.
“Good, then it’s settled,” Hunt said. “Arm yourselves, and take the Maru. Rommie will go with you. That way you can stay in contact with us all the time.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Tyr wasn’t truly surprised to find Beka already in the pilot’s chair when he entered the Eureka Maru, with one Perseid and three Emerald Than in trail. The captain of the old rustbin might still struggle with the aftermath of her addiction, but she would never let anyone else pilot the Maru, unless it was absolutely necessary. There was one thing that did surprise Tyr, though.
“Dylan let you come with us?” he asked doubtfully.
She gave him a look that would have made a Nietzschean Matriarch proud. “I haven’t asked,” she replied icily.
Not for the first time, Tyr regretted that she was, from a Nietzschean’s point of view, genetically damaged, due to the less than perfect shielding of the Maru. She’d have made an excellent junior wife for any Nietzschean Alpha. She had a lot to offer: beauty, strength, courage, and a ruthless survival instinct, not to mention fierce loyalty to those she considered family… not necessarily based on blood. Tyr and Freya had discussed the possibility. But they had to admit that Tyr couldn’t start rebuilding his Pride by wasting his genetic material on a damaged kludge woman. Not even if he highly valued said kludge woman otherwise.
“Let’s go,” he said to distract himself; regret was a wasted emotion, and they had more urgent things to do at the moment.
The others took the various stations, with Rekeeb standing in for Harper and Rommie at the sensor controls, and all reported in ready. Beka switched on the comm.
“Andromeda, this is the Eureka Maru asking permission to depart,” she said.
“Permission granted,” Dylan Hunt’s voice answered. “Have a good flight - we’ll discuss the circumstances of your joining this mission when you’ve returned.”
Beka laughed and launched the Maru. He knew that Hunt would prefer to keep her on the medical deck, under constant surveillance, but that would have killed her within the week. She still did have flashbacks, true, but when it came to flying, her instincts took over - she was still better at the controls than anyone else, with the possible exception of the Ruby Than.
Their short flight was blessedly uneventful, so they looked at the viewscreen curiously as soon as the Maru had entered the lower atmosphere and the short-range sensors were able to provide a more detailed view. The city they were approaching was fairly large, but the buildings seemed rather old-fashioned.
“It looks like Earth in he late nineteenth or early twentieth century,” Rommie, who was in permanent contact with the databases of her ship-self, commented. “Technologically that would mean a rather low level. We can’t hope to get much help from them.”
“Assuming there still is anyone,” the Emerald Than standing next to her at the sensor controls added. “The place seems largely abandoned.”
“Largely - but not entirely, right?” Tyr asked.
“There’s a concentration of lifesigns in the northwestern area of the city, near to its centre,” the Emerald Than marked the area on the display with red, “but they are a little… diffuse. I don’t know what the reason for that could be; they should read more clearly from this distance. Perhaps the area is shielded.”
“Any other lifesigns?”
“There are small groups scattered all over the city,” the Than studied the screen with her multi-facetted eyes, her antennae twitching nervously, “but this place could take in twice as many as there are… or even more. I suggest to send down an atmospheric probe before we land, to check for airborne viruses and bacteria - and for poisonous substances.”
Tyr found that a sound advice and followed it promptly. But the probe came back with an atmospheric sample that lacked any harmful germs or substances - save the ones produced by a low-tech industry, and even those were practically harmless.
“That’s strange,” Tyr murmured, ordering the Emerald Than to continue with sweeping scans. “I cannot see any serious damage to the buildings, so a battle of name-worthy magnitude is out of question. So, what have these people done, committed mass suicide?”
“That, or Harper’s space vampires have paid them a visit,” Rekeeb giggled. Tyr rolled his eyes.
“Space vampires - or, in fact, any other kind of vampires - do not exist, save from Harper’s overactive imagination,” he said impatiently.
“Are you sure?” one of the Emerald Than asked. “Just because you haven’t seen them so far, it doesn’t mean that they are a mere legend.”
“Nobody has ever met space vampires,” Tyr said in exasperation.
“The crew of those Commonwealth ships that returned with desiccated mummies aboard perhaps have,” the Than replied dryly.
“In any case, we’ll better be careful,” Beka said quickly, before Tyr and the green bug could have worked themselves up to a real argument. “Midnight, find me a nice, empty area, close to the centre but not in the middle of the locals, so that I can park the Maru in peace.”
Staring at her screen for a moment, the argumentative Emerald Than, whose name happened to be Sword of Midnight, provided the necessary coordinates and called up the detailed analysis from the atmospheric probe. In the meantime, Beka initiated the landing sequence.
“As I said, no poisonous gasses in the atmosphere,” she said, after the Maru had landed and the analysis had been completed. “Some carbon dioxide pollution, probably from the use of fossil fuel, but way below dangerous levels. I can’t find any known viruses or bacteria… or any unknown ones that would be potentially dangerous. Not for Than, that is. I suggest biofilter masks for humanoids, though. There could be germs that are harmless for the locals but lethal for someone with no natural immunity.”
“A sound suggestion,” Tyr agreed and handed one of the transparent masks to Beka, while pressing the other one onto his own face. Rekeeb took a third one without being ordered to do so. There still remained a bit of danger, as it wasn’t entirely impossible to absorb harmful germs or substances through one’s skin, but he was confident that his nanobots would be able to deal with that marginal risk.
“Midnight, you come with us,” he then said. “The two other green bugs stay here and guard the ship, in case the locals turn out hostile and we have to leave quickly. Rommie, have you managed to map our route so far?”
“Of course,” the avatar replied in an insulted tone, surprisingly convincing for an android.
“Good,” Tyr said. “Add Midnight’s readings to the data and plot us a route to the city centre, where the population density is the highest.”
For several seconds, Rommie’s eyes went blank; a sure sign that she was consulting her ship-self.
“Route finished,” she then said.
“Excellent,” Tyr replied. “Take the point. I shall give you cover. Beka, Rekeeb, stay in the middle. Midnight, take the rear. All of you, keep your eyes open. Let us go!”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Deep in the underground bunker of the government complex, a young military aide entered the office of the planet’s only surviving chancellor.
“Sir,” he reported, saluting crisply, “the reports of the observatory have been acknowledged. There is a ship in high geosynchronous orbit above us - a really large one.”
The chancellor, a greying, bearded man with tired eyes, aged beyond his true age, looked up in defeat.
“Wraith?” he asked in a tone that revealed that he was expecting a positive answer. But the young aide shrugged uncertainly.
“Telemetry cannot tell, sir. It’s too large for a cruiser; if it is indeed a hive ship, then it’s nothing that has been beheld before.”
“Has it sent out any smaller units?” the chancellor asked.
“Only one,” the aide replied, handing him a somewhat blurry photograph of a vessel that looked like some clumsily put-together rustbin. “They’ve just landed in the Jalar district a minute ago.”
“It doesn’t look like a Wraith ship,” the chancellor commented, examining the picture with mild curiosity.
“No,” the aide agreed. “Neither do Wraith land when they’re on a culling spree.”
“Has anyone left the ship so far?” the old man asked. The aide shook his head.
“Not according to the latest report, sir. However, they have sent out some sort of probe that took a few sweeps over the district. Perhaps they’re a reconnaissance unit, trying to find out where we are hiding.”
The chancellor stared at the picture doubtfully.
“This doesn’t seem Wraith design to me, Turval,” he said. “And we’ve been able to see so far doesn’t seem typical Wraith behaviour, either.”
“But no one is capable of space flight aside from the Wraith,” the young aide pointed out reasonably.
“No one that we know of,” the chancellor corrected. “Or perhaps these people came from somewhere else. From a far-away place. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
They both fell silent for quite some time, recalling the unpleasant outcome of what had looked first like a promising alliance with a technically advanced people. An alliance that had fallen victim to the lack of understanding on their allies’ side.
The chancellor didn’t blame them, not really. They had been new to this galaxy. They couldn’t possibly understand the whole depth and extent of the Wraith threat. They would, one day, when they’d spent enough time under that shadow. But by then, it would be probably too late for them.
“Couldn’t we call them?” the aide asked. “Just to see if they know anything about the arrival of another space-faring race?”
The chancellor shook his head, slowly, regretfully.
“Their Gate wouldn’t accept us,” he answered. “About that, they were abundantly clear before they left us. They have some kind of shield on their Gate to protect them from unwanted visitors. Our people would never come through. We cannot risk unnecessary deaths. There are few enough of us left as it is.”
“What are we going to do then?” the aide asked.
“Dispatch a militia unit to the Jalar district,” the chancellor ordered. “They would watch if anyone leaves that ship; and if they do, who or what they are. If they are Wraith, have them killed. If not, have them escorted here. Invite them politely. Use force, if necessary. We can’t take any risks.”
“Understood, sir,” the aide saluted again and hurried off to carry out his orders.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Armed with gauss guns (the Than) and with force lances (Tyr, Beka and Rommie), as well as equipped with the breathing masks (again, Tyr and Beka), the Andromeda’s scout troop left the Eureka Maru to find a way to the place where - presumably - they could find the inhabitants of the planet. Their footsteps seemed too loud, echoing on the broad, stone-paved streets of the city that could have come out of an old Earth history novel. According to Rommie, the buildings matched the architecture of Middle-Europe in the early twentieth century, namely the one widely spread in the Habsburg monarchy.
“I never knew you had such an obscure interest for irrelevant historic details,” Beka teased the avatar. “You’re worse than Harper!”
“I have not,” Rommie answered matter-of-factly. “My previous captain had. He was a Perseid, as you know, and Perseids have always had an avid interest in Earth history. When I was looking for cross-cultural references, this came up from his old personal database.”
“Well, it might prove helpful in dealing with the locals,” Rekeeb commented through the comm cheerfully. Beka suppressed a sudden, violent urge to throttle him. She wasn’t a violent person - not without a good reason anyway - but there was only so much Perseid chipperness any sane being could take.
Which raised serious doubts concerning both Dylan and Harper’s sanity, who actually liked the chinheads.
“That’s unlikely,” Tyr said in a clipped tone; he whole-heartedly shared Beka’s feelings towards Perseids. “We are in a different galaxy, three thousand years in the past. Now be quiet and move! I cannot hear a thing through the noise you are making.”
Beka pulled a sour face but even she had to admit that Tyr had been right. If they wanted to use the advantage provided by his acute Nietzschean hearing, they needed to shut up.
So shut up they did and followed Rommie, who, for her part, was following a virtual map that only existed in her artificial brain. They walked along abandoned streets; among empty houses that were undamaged, with closed doors and shuttered windows, and sometimes even with old-fashioned curtains on the windows that were not shuttered, but they didn’t find the slightest sign of life. In fact, it seemed as if nobody had ever lived here; as if they were walking through a ghost city, built as part of some gigantic joke - or to serve as some sort of deceit.
They randomly entered the one or other house to find some trail of the former inhabitants but the results were less than satisfying. All they found were pieces of old-fashioned furniture, dishes and even clothes, hanging nicely sorted in the wardrobes. Everything was perfectly ordered, without any damage save the traces of daily wear and tear… and everything was covered with a layer of dust, undisturbed for many days; perhaps for weeks or months.
“This is ridiculous,” Beka exclaimed after the sixth or seventh eerily abandoned house they had thoroughly searched. “They couldn’t have all died, could they?” The thought seemed to disturb her greatly.
“There is another question I find… unsettling,” Tyr said. “If they have all died - where are the corpses, then? So far, we have not found a single one.”
“Why, we’ve buried them, of course,” an unknown voice replied - not in Vedran that they had been using among them but in a language only Harper spoke aboard the Andromeda regularly: English. Tyr, who had a natural affinity for languages, understood it, and Rommie had if filed away in her databases, but Beka, Rekeeb and the Than just looked blankly.
An apparently well-trained unit of six men stepped forth from the shadows of the next houses’ gate, both in front of and behind the scout troop. They wore some kind of uniform: long, heavy coats and a peculiar, flat cap that looked like a plate - and they were armed with projectile weapons that, while looking primitive, could still do a lot of damage to the human flesh. Or to the Than exoskeleton.
One of them - most likely their commanding officer - stepped forth. He was a burly, middle-aged man with a full beard and an impressively twisted moustache, and he had two rows of medals on his broad chest.
“Welcome to Hoff, strangers,” he said in the same, peculiarly accented English as before. “We hope you come in peace. But whatever your intentions may be, Chancellor Druhin wishes to speak with you.
Surprisingly enough, he didn’t demand their weapons. Either he underestimated their firepower (not to mention their skills in hand-to-hand combat), or he tried to be hospitable. In any case, he was offering exactly what they wanted, so Tyr saw no reason not to cooperate - for the time being.
“It will be our pleasure,” he answered in English, strange through it was to use such an outdated language, and signalled the others to follow their hosts.
Chapter 04 - Truths, Nightmares & Superstitions
Author: Soledad
For disclaimer, rating, etc., see the secondary index page
Author's Note:
A few lines of Harper's monologue are a rewritten version of what was said in "Exit Strategies" - similar, but slightly different ones.
Chapter Three - FIRST CONTACT
Performing a thorough scan for slip points on the border of a previously uncharted galaxy had taken days, even for a sentient ship as advanced as the Andromeda Ascendant. In the meanwhile, the two Perseids and the Sapphire Than had been busily calculating the possible locations of nearly eight-thousand-year-old, Commonwealth-issue mines that were supposed to booby-trap aforementioned borders. Tyr and Freya had followed their daily routine, Beka had been fighting the aftermath of her involuntary Flash addiction, Harper had freaked out every time Rev Bem got closer to him than arm’s length, Captain Hunt was brooding, and Trance… well, she was Trance.
In other ways, everything was pretty much the same old routine, save the not-so-insignificant fact that they were lost between galaxies, with no slip point in sight and very little hope to get home. Ever. And that Harper was living out the last weeks of his young life with a death sentence hanging above his head - a fact nobody seemed all too worried about.
“I can understand them, I really can,” Harper told his nearly empty bottle of New Bayern Weissbräu, down in a conduit near engineering, where he was trying to down his worries in top-quality booze. “They’ve got their own problems, what with being lost and stuff. And Her Purpleness is probably feeling bad for not being able to heal me the same way she’d healed Tyr. Too bad, but it wasn’t her fault. Tyr’s nearly bought the farm himself, and I’m just a scrawny little kludge. I’d never live through that amount of poison and radiation she’d used on Tyr.”
He took another sip from the beer and kept musing.
“Hey, at least she and Rommie exempted me from the clean-up afterwards. I don’t think I could have gone down to the engine room right then - or anywhere else where I had been attacked. It stunk like Magog and I was feeling a little Magog-o-phobic right then. Hell, I’ve felt like that ever since… since I got infested. Even with the Rev, although he’s an okay guys as Magog go… and he’s practically family now.”
He made a bitter snort, drank another sip of beer from the bottle, then laid it aside and picked up a scanner that he’d lifted from the medical deck in an unobserved moment. He aimed it at his stomach to see his… passengers, as he’d come to call the larvae. It sounded less threatening, less… real that way.
“How’s going, fellas?” he asked in a casual manner, trying to separate the thirteen little time bombs ticking inside his body, hiding almost invisibly there and there, a cluster of them slumbering a little further over, another one down and a couple of separate ones even further, all wrapped around organs between his breastbone and his pelvic bone.
“Are ya comfy in there?” he asked sarcastically, reaching out with his free hand for the beer bottle. “Getting enough beer, hmm?” What about ya, turd-brain?” he asked the creature that was nestled alone, closest to his liver. “No? Well, how about some more?”
He drank some more and shook his head, remembering the excruciating pain whenever the larvae showed any indication to wake up… which they’d have done quite some time ago if not for the Rev’s serum.
“You’re never satisfied, are ya?” he mused, sloshing the rest of the beer around in the bottle. “Ya freakin’, thievin’, thankless little parasites are just never happy. I give you a home, food, conversation - and what give you me in return? Grief. Pain that feels like hot friggin’ knives in my intestines - and cold shivers and hot shivers and all that.”
He finished the bottle and turned to put it back the case with his secret stash - only to notice that all the other bottles in the case were empty, too.
“Oh, damn,” he said in a tone that was more actually sad than angry. “You worms have managed to drink all my New Bayern Weissbräu, right? Now what the heck have I got to live for? A big fat nothin', and that’s a fact.”
He pushed away the scanner, not caring that the sensitive tool had a rather hard landing on the floor and pulled his gun, aiming it at his stomach.
“I think it’s time to take care for you, once and forever,” he told the dormant larvae. “Now, let’s do it quickly and painlessly. You, Stinky, Turd-brain, and all the others, line up against the stomach wall! It will only take a moment, I promise you… not like the thing you’ve in planning for me, if I may remind you.”
He took a second to turn off the safety on the gun, but before he could actually pull the trigger, the large, dark hand of Tyr Anasazi grabbed his smaller, pale one and turned away with slow, irresistible force.
“That was not part of our agreement, boy,” the Nietzschean said with hair-raising calmness.
“Go ‘way!” Harper growled, very angry that he’d been interrupted, in the very moment when he’d finally brought up the courage to deal with his hopeless situation the only possible way.
“I do not think so,” the Nietzschean replied. “According to our agreement, this is my job, should the time come when it has to be done. It is not here yet.”
“Oh, give me a freakin' break!” Harper practically exploded. “Now or in a week, or in two weeks, what difference does it make? I’m dead meat walking anyway. Have you ever seen someone being ripped open by hatching Magog?”
Tyr shook his head mutely, but he’d peeled Harper’s fingers off the gun already.
“Well, I have,” Harper continued. “Granted, we usually arrived when it was already over, although the blood and gunk and ribs all over the place weren’t a pretty sight, either. Or, if we’d come in time, we simply put the victims down to spare them living through that - like my uncle was forced to do with his own sons. But once, just once, I had the bad luck to arrive when the show was just starting… oh God, that terrible wet, tearing sound… I can still hear it in my nightmares. I’ve dreamed about that every night since I got infested. And that’s why I don't wanna live another day with these freakin' monsters inside of me. If I have to die anyway, I want a nice, clean death, you know… not one like that.”
“You won’t,” Tyr promised solemnly. “I gave you my word, and I shall not arrive late. I never do. But you should not give up just yet. There still can be a way out of this situation for you.”
Harper made a sound that was the strange combination of a snort, a sob and a laugh.
“Thanks, Big Guy, but there's no cure for this, and you know it,” he said simply. “I got an irrevocable appointment with a painful, horrible, violent death, and no one can fix me. No one. It’s truly reassuring, though, that you and your big gun will be there for me in time.”
“It should be,” Tyr grinned. “I am known as a very reliable assassin… well, I used to be one anyway. But enough dark brooding for one day. Come with me to the bridge now. The chinheads and the blue bug have finished mapping the minefield, and it seems that the ship has actually found a slip point.”
“Really?” Harper’s insatiable curiosity made him forget his hopeless situation for a moment. “That I have to see! I guess Captain Terrific wanna pilot the Andromeda himself again, hmmm?”
“That had been his intention indeed,” Tyr replied. “But the Diamond Than had objections, and she was very… vocal and long-winded about them, so that in the end our esteemed captain gave in and allowed the red bug to take over.”
“Thank the Divine!” Harper began to jog in order to keep up with the Nietzschean’s long stride. “Ruby than are usually excellent pilots, and Starlight is even better than most. We might survive this trip in slipstream, after all.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When they reached the command deck, nearly the whole crew had already gathered there (not that that would be such a large number, though). Only the four Amber Than workers (nicknamed by Harper as Brownie #1 through Brownie #4) remained on the machine deck. Nonetheless, the Than were represented all over the command deck. Radiance of Wisdom manned the main science station, the Ruby Than was sitting in the slipstream chair, and one of the Emerald Than had taken Tyr’s usual place at the weapons controls.
Dylan Hunt, sitting in the command chair as usual, gave Tyr and Harper a sarcastic smile.
“I see you’ve found out missing engineer, Mr. Anasazi. Can we hope to continue our journey now?”
“Sure, boss, I’m ready,” Harper hurried to his usual station. Tyr left his side and joined his wife who was waiting in the background with Trance, Beka and the Diamond Than - a shimmering vision of iridescent blue-white.
“Very well, then,” Dylan said. “Enter slipstream at your discretion, Starlight!”
“Aye-aye, Captain!” the Ruby Than, who found great delight in such outdated things, saluted smartly and accelerated into the slip portal. A flare of white-blue light filled the main screen, followed by the tangled, knotted strings that gave one the unsettling impression of travelling through the circulatory system of some huge, untamed creature.
Strapped into the pilot’s chair, Glittering Starlight rocked and swivelled with her seat as she guided the huge warship through the dizzying twists and sparks of slipstream. She’d done it uncounted times - she was an experienced pilot, after all - but each slipstream journey was a unique challenge for the navigator. One could never be sure of the outcome.
Especially when following an uncharted route where they couldn’t even guess where they would come out. So the Ruby Than focused very hard, her antennae stiff with concentration, her compound eyes fixed on the screen ahead of her. Only living beings could effectively navigate slipstream, and since actual faster-than-light propulsion was still something in the realm of the purely theoretical, only the slipstream routes made a transit between galaxies possible.
A few gut-wrenching moments later, they finished slipstream transit into some sort of planetary system. It looked like a hundred others that they’d seen during their journeys - and yet it was unlike they’d ever encountered. It was in a different galaxy, one that had been forbidden to enter during the whole existence of the Commonwealth.
As usual, Trance was the first to voice her excitement. Well, it was more than simple voicing, to tell the truth. She was actually jumping up and down, her tail sweeping the floor.
“Is it not fantastic, people?” she squealed. “We’re in a system - in a whole galaxy - where no Commonwealth citizen has been before!”
“Oh, a few of them have,” Harper commented gravely. “But they all came back as desiccated mummies, right?”
Dylan Hunt rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Mr. Harper, could you try to hold back your extreme superstition? This ‘space vampire’ thing is getting ridiculous!”
Harper shrugged. “Hey, I’m not worrying for myself. I’m on borrowed time already. You know, I might even prefer being sucked dry to the blood-and-gunk feast the kids are gonna celebrate once they’ve grown resistant to the serum. But you, guys, you’re gonna have a serious problem.”
The others exchanged exasperated looks but didn’t answer.
“Wisdom,” Hunt turned to the Sapphire Than, “can you tell me if one of these planets is inhabited?”
The Sapphire Than wiggled with her antennae - a gesture that could mean a great many things by her species. This time, it represented a shrug.
“If Harper can recalibrate the short-range sensors to pick up lifesigns… of course, they would pick up animal life as well.”
“Better than nothing,” Hunt decided. “How long would you need for that, Mr. Harper?”
“Oh, I’ll have it done in minutes,” Harper declared, working on the right console already. “The Harper is good.”
The others grinned, having heard that phrase many times already, but Harper paid them no attention. Turning the sensors into a giant life-sign detector wasn’t something that would represent a true challenge for his abilities, but he didn’t want to make any mistakes.
“Well, boss,” he said after twenty minutes or so, “you can give it a try now. We won’t get very good visuals from this distance, but at least we should be able to see if anybody’s home at all.”
“Good work, Mr. Harper,” Hunt looked at the Sapphire Than. “Wisdom, would you do the honours?”
“Certainly, Captain Hunt,” Radiance of Wisdom was already at work, analyzing the incoming data while making the typical cackling sounds of her native tongue. “Hmmm… definitely not a natural structure… but practically no industrial activity… strange by the city of that size… Could we have found a pre-industrial civilization?”
“Or the reminder of some post-apocalyptic horror,” Rev Bem commented with genuine sadness in his scratchy voice.
“I don’t think so,” the Sapphire Than replied. “I don’t read any residual radiation that would be there, even centuries after an all-out war. Neither are there any demolished ships or other sorts of wreck in orbit. The structures on the planet surface - I’d say buildings - seem to be undamaged, although they don’t even come close to the size of the typical skyscrapers of inhabited post-Commonwealth planets.”
“But no primitive huts, either, right?” Hunt asked.
Radiance of Wisdom signalled negation with her antennae. Nobody really knew how she managed to do it, but the gesture was unmistakable.
“No, Captain,” she answered patiently; those are definitely larger structures… and solidly built ones. Huts, as you call them, wouldn’t register on our sensors from this distance.”
“Can you read lifesigns, too?” Hunt asked.
“Vaguely,” the Sapphire Than said. “Remember, Captain, these sensors weren’t supposed to work as lifesign detectors. But even so, the structured settlement below should have a much denser population than what I’m able to estimate based on even these vague lifesigns. As if the inhabitants had abandoned large parts of it. I must emphasize, though, that these readings are not entirely reliable.”
“But if they aren’t completely wrong, then something horrible must have happened to the people who lived there,” Trance said, obviously very upset. “Could it have been some sort of epidemic?”
“That, or they are a dying people, and their numbers are diminishing,” Radiance of Wisdom replied. “It’s known to have happened before in our galaxies, too.”
“Or they’ve been attacked and decimated by a superior enemy,” Tyr added cynically.
Beka shook her head. “In that case the structures weren’t intact,” she pointed out.
“They were, if the conquerors wanted the original inhabitants out of the city, so that they could move in afterwards unchallenged,” the Nietzschean said.
“Chemical or biological warfare?” Hunt guessed.
Tyr shrugged. “Another thing known to have happened in our galaxies, too,” he said. “There are always idiots who believe that soil, water and air would easily recover from poisoning… until it is late. If it was an attempt of conquest, it was not a very successful one - or else the city would be full of the conquerors.”
“True enough,” Hunt admitted. “If we can trust these readings, that is.”
“Hey!” Harper exclaimed, clearly insulted. “They are as correct as anyone could expect from instruments doing what they were never supposed to do!”
“Which is the reason why we need to go down and evaluate the situation for ourselves,” Hunt said. “If there really still are people living in that city - if, in fact, it is a city at all - a meeting with them might be useful.”
“Unlikely,” Tyr shook his head. “If they had any kind of advanced technology, the sensors would have found traces of it.”
“They might not have the technical know-how to help us to find a way out of here,” Hunt admitted, “but they might have food and other resources we need. Or they could tell us where we can find help. We simply can’t let this chance slip through our fingers - we may not find another one for a long time yet.”
“I, too, find a reconnaissance mission necessary,” Tyr said, “but I suggest breathing masks… and lots of weapons.”
“Geez, what a surprise!” Harper commented sarcastically.
Tyr shot him a warning look. “Just necessary precaution, boy. I fully intend to return unharmed.”
“I agree with Tyr,” Hunt declared. “We’ll go down with a small but well-protected and well-armed group.”
“I’m naturally immune against most gifts and germs,” Rev Bem offered. “And I can breathe in atmospheres poisonous for most warm-blooded species.”
“Yeah, but you’d freak out the fellas down there, if they are even vaguely human-like,” Harper protested. “No offence, Rev, we all know you’ve got a heart of butter, but let’s be honest here, you’re not the most trust-inducing sight.”
The Magog inclined his head humbly. “I fear that is very true.”
“I shall go,” Tyr said. “If the inhabitants are humanoid, I am a close enough match; and unless they are giants, I can intimidate them if necessary. Plus, my nanobots can deal with a lot of things human metabolism cannot.”
“But what if they’re not humanoid?” Beka asked.
“I could take the green bugs with me, if Born to Starfire is willing to lend them to me,” Tyr answered. “They’re tough, well-trained and resilient - and still not so frightening to look at as the Magog.”
The Diamond Than signalled her agreement, and the Emerald Than warriors seemed eager enough to go, so Tyr’s plan got the captain’s blessing.
“We still need someone who could make an educated guess about their technical level,” Hunt said then.
“I’ll do that with a simple glance,” Harper declared, excited about the possibility to see new things and to be on an actual planet again; excited enough to forget about the potential presence of space vampires. But Tyr shook his head.
“Not before we can confirm that the planet is biologically safe, boy. You immune system is too weak for such unnecessary risks. You don’t want your… residents to become active, do you?”
Harper shook his head mutely, his thin face acquiring that pinched expression again. Tyr felt uncharacteristically sorry for him - usually, he didn’t care for the feelings of kludges - but Harper simply couldn’t take any risks in his current state. He was too important for the Andromeda.
“One of the Perseids could come with us,” the Nietzschean proposed. “Maybe the locals will be more inclined to trust cheerful people.” Personally, he could start on a homicidal spree when subjected too much of that cheerfulness, but not everybody had Nietzschean standards.
“Good idea,” Hunt agreed. “Rekeeb, would you like to join them?”
The younger Perseid hesitated for a moment, torn between caution and curiosity, but Höhne promptly agreed to volunteer him, so that he couldn’t back off anymore.
“Good, then it’s settled,” Hunt said. “Arm yourselves, and take the Maru. Rommie will go with you. That way you can stay in contact with us all the time.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Tyr wasn’t truly surprised to find Beka already in the pilot’s chair when he entered the Eureka Maru, with one Perseid and three Emerald Than in trail. The captain of the old rustbin might still struggle with the aftermath of her addiction, but she would never let anyone else pilot the Maru, unless it was absolutely necessary. There was one thing that did surprise Tyr, though.
“Dylan let you come with us?” he asked doubtfully.
She gave him a look that would have made a Nietzschean Matriarch proud. “I haven’t asked,” she replied icily.
Not for the first time, Tyr regretted that she was, from a Nietzschean’s point of view, genetically damaged, due to the less than perfect shielding of the Maru. She’d have made an excellent junior wife for any Nietzschean Alpha. She had a lot to offer: beauty, strength, courage, and a ruthless survival instinct, not to mention fierce loyalty to those she considered family… not necessarily based on blood. Tyr and Freya had discussed the possibility. But they had to admit that Tyr couldn’t start rebuilding his Pride by wasting his genetic material on a damaged kludge woman. Not even if he highly valued said kludge woman otherwise.
“Let’s go,” he said to distract himself; regret was a wasted emotion, and they had more urgent things to do at the moment.
The others took the various stations, with Rekeeb standing in for Harper and Rommie at the sensor controls, and all reported in ready. Beka switched on the comm.
“Andromeda, this is the Eureka Maru asking permission to depart,” she said.
“Permission granted,” Dylan Hunt’s voice answered. “Have a good flight - we’ll discuss the circumstances of your joining this mission when you’ve returned.”
Beka laughed and launched the Maru. He knew that Hunt would prefer to keep her on the medical deck, under constant surveillance, but that would have killed her within the week. She still did have flashbacks, true, but when it came to flying, her instincts took over - she was still better at the controls than anyone else, with the possible exception of the Ruby Than.
Their short flight was blessedly uneventful, so they looked at the viewscreen curiously as soon as the Maru had entered the lower atmosphere and the short-range sensors were able to provide a more detailed view. The city they were approaching was fairly large, but the buildings seemed rather old-fashioned.
“It looks like Earth in he late nineteenth or early twentieth century,” Rommie, who was in permanent contact with the databases of her ship-self, commented. “Technologically that would mean a rather low level. We can’t hope to get much help from them.”
“Assuming there still is anyone,” the Emerald Than standing next to her at the sensor controls added. “The place seems largely abandoned.”
“Largely - but not entirely, right?” Tyr asked.
“There’s a concentration of lifesigns in the northwestern area of the city, near to its centre,” the Emerald Than marked the area on the display with red, “but they are a little… diffuse. I don’t know what the reason for that could be; they should read more clearly from this distance. Perhaps the area is shielded.”
“Any other lifesigns?”
“There are small groups scattered all over the city,” the Than studied the screen with her multi-facetted eyes, her antennae twitching nervously, “but this place could take in twice as many as there are… or even more. I suggest to send down an atmospheric probe before we land, to check for airborne viruses and bacteria - and for poisonous substances.”
Tyr found that a sound advice and followed it promptly. But the probe came back with an atmospheric sample that lacked any harmful germs or substances - save the ones produced by a low-tech industry, and even those were practically harmless.
“That’s strange,” Tyr murmured, ordering the Emerald Than to continue with sweeping scans. “I cannot see any serious damage to the buildings, so a battle of name-worthy magnitude is out of question. So, what have these people done, committed mass suicide?”
“That, or Harper’s space vampires have paid them a visit,” Rekeeb giggled. Tyr rolled his eyes.
“Space vampires - or, in fact, any other kind of vampires - do not exist, save from Harper’s overactive imagination,” he said impatiently.
“Are you sure?” one of the Emerald Than asked. “Just because you haven’t seen them so far, it doesn’t mean that they are a mere legend.”
“Nobody has ever met space vampires,” Tyr said in exasperation.
“The crew of those Commonwealth ships that returned with desiccated mummies aboard perhaps have,” the Than replied dryly.
“In any case, we’ll better be careful,” Beka said quickly, before Tyr and the green bug could have worked themselves up to a real argument. “Midnight, find me a nice, empty area, close to the centre but not in the middle of the locals, so that I can park the Maru in peace.”
Staring at her screen for a moment, the argumentative Emerald Than, whose name happened to be Sword of Midnight, provided the necessary coordinates and called up the detailed analysis from the atmospheric probe. In the meantime, Beka initiated the landing sequence.
“As I said, no poisonous gasses in the atmosphere,” she said, after the Maru had landed and the analysis had been completed. “Some carbon dioxide pollution, probably from the use of fossil fuel, but way below dangerous levels. I can’t find any known viruses or bacteria… or any unknown ones that would be potentially dangerous. Not for Than, that is. I suggest biofilter masks for humanoids, though. There could be germs that are harmless for the locals but lethal for someone with no natural immunity.”
“A sound suggestion,” Tyr agreed and handed one of the transparent masks to Beka, while pressing the other one onto his own face. Rekeeb took a third one without being ordered to do so. There still remained a bit of danger, as it wasn’t entirely impossible to absorb harmful germs or substances through one’s skin, but he was confident that his nanobots would be able to deal with that marginal risk.
“Midnight, you come with us,” he then said. “The two other green bugs stay here and guard the ship, in case the locals turn out hostile and we have to leave quickly. Rommie, have you managed to map our route so far?”
“Of course,” the avatar replied in an insulted tone, surprisingly convincing for an android.
“Good,” Tyr said. “Add Midnight’s readings to the data and plot us a route to the city centre, where the population density is the highest.”
For several seconds, Rommie’s eyes went blank; a sure sign that she was consulting her ship-self.
“Route finished,” she then said.
“Excellent,” Tyr replied. “Take the point. I shall give you cover. Beka, Rekeeb, stay in the middle. Midnight, take the rear. All of you, keep your eyes open. Let us go!”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Deep in the underground bunker of the government complex, a young military aide entered the office of the planet’s only surviving chancellor.
“Sir,” he reported, saluting crisply, “the reports of the observatory have been acknowledged. There is a ship in high geosynchronous orbit above us - a really large one.”
The chancellor, a greying, bearded man with tired eyes, aged beyond his true age, looked up in defeat.
“Wraith?” he asked in a tone that revealed that he was expecting a positive answer. But the young aide shrugged uncertainly.
“Telemetry cannot tell, sir. It’s too large for a cruiser; if it is indeed a hive ship, then it’s nothing that has been beheld before.”
“Has it sent out any smaller units?” the chancellor asked.
“Only one,” the aide replied, handing him a somewhat blurry photograph of a vessel that looked like some clumsily put-together rustbin. “They’ve just landed in the Jalar district a minute ago.”
“It doesn’t look like a Wraith ship,” the chancellor commented, examining the picture with mild curiosity.
“No,” the aide agreed. “Neither do Wraith land when they’re on a culling spree.”
“Has anyone left the ship so far?” the old man asked. The aide shook his head.
“Not according to the latest report, sir. However, they have sent out some sort of probe that took a few sweeps over the district. Perhaps they’re a reconnaissance unit, trying to find out where we are hiding.”
The chancellor stared at the picture doubtfully.
“This doesn’t seem Wraith design to me, Turval,” he said. “And we’ve been able to see so far doesn’t seem typical Wraith behaviour, either.”
“But no one is capable of space flight aside from the Wraith,” the young aide pointed out reasonably.
“No one that we know of,” the chancellor corrected. “Or perhaps these people came from somewhere else. From a far-away place. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
They both fell silent for quite some time, recalling the unpleasant outcome of what had looked first like a promising alliance with a technically advanced people. An alliance that had fallen victim to the lack of understanding on their allies’ side.
The chancellor didn’t blame them, not really. They had been new to this galaxy. They couldn’t possibly understand the whole depth and extent of the Wraith threat. They would, one day, when they’d spent enough time under that shadow. But by then, it would be probably too late for them.
“Couldn’t we call them?” the aide asked. “Just to see if they know anything about the arrival of another space-faring race?”
The chancellor shook his head, slowly, regretfully.
“Their Gate wouldn’t accept us,” he answered. “About that, they were abundantly clear before they left us. They have some kind of shield on their Gate to protect them from unwanted visitors. Our people would never come through. We cannot risk unnecessary deaths. There are few enough of us left as it is.”
“What are we going to do then?” the aide asked.
“Dispatch a militia unit to the Jalar district,” the chancellor ordered. “They would watch if anyone leaves that ship; and if they do, who or what they are. If they are Wraith, have them killed. If not, have them escorted here. Invite them politely. Use force, if necessary. We can’t take any risks.”
“Understood, sir,” the aide saluted again and hurried off to carry out his orders.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Armed with gauss guns (the Than) and with force lances (Tyr, Beka and Rommie), as well as equipped with the breathing masks (again, Tyr and Beka), the Andromeda’s scout troop left the Eureka Maru to find a way to the place where - presumably - they could find the inhabitants of the planet. Their footsteps seemed too loud, echoing on the broad, stone-paved streets of the city that could have come out of an old Earth history novel. According to Rommie, the buildings matched the architecture of Middle-Europe in the early twentieth century, namely the one widely spread in the Habsburg monarchy.
“I never knew you had such an obscure interest for irrelevant historic details,” Beka teased the avatar. “You’re worse than Harper!”
“I have not,” Rommie answered matter-of-factly. “My previous captain had. He was a Perseid, as you know, and Perseids have always had an avid interest in Earth history. When I was looking for cross-cultural references, this came up from his old personal database.”
“Well, it might prove helpful in dealing with the locals,” Rekeeb commented through the comm cheerfully. Beka suppressed a sudden, violent urge to throttle him. She wasn’t a violent person - not without a good reason anyway - but there was only so much Perseid chipperness any sane being could take.
Which raised serious doubts concerning both Dylan and Harper’s sanity, who actually liked the chinheads.
“That’s unlikely,” Tyr said in a clipped tone; he whole-heartedly shared Beka’s feelings towards Perseids. “We are in a different galaxy, three thousand years in the past. Now be quiet and move! I cannot hear a thing through the noise you are making.”
Beka pulled a sour face but even she had to admit that Tyr had been right. If they wanted to use the advantage provided by his acute Nietzschean hearing, they needed to shut up.
So shut up they did and followed Rommie, who, for her part, was following a virtual map that only existed in her artificial brain. They walked along abandoned streets; among empty houses that were undamaged, with closed doors and shuttered windows, and sometimes even with old-fashioned curtains on the windows that were not shuttered, but they didn’t find the slightest sign of life. In fact, it seemed as if nobody had ever lived here; as if they were walking through a ghost city, built as part of some gigantic joke - or to serve as some sort of deceit.
They randomly entered the one or other house to find some trail of the former inhabitants but the results were less than satisfying. All they found were pieces of old-fashioned furniture, dishes and even clothes, hanging nicely sorted in the wardrobes. Everything was perfectly ordered, without any damage save the traces of daily wear and tear… and everything was covered with a layer of dust, undisturbed for many days; perhaps for weeks or months.
“This is ridiculous,” Beka exclaimed after the sixth or seventh eerily abandoned house they had thoroughly searched. “They couldn’t have all died, could they?” The thought seemed to disturb her greatly.
“There is another question I find… unsettling,” Tyr said. “If they have all died - where are the corpses, then? So far, we have not found a single one.”
“Why, we’ve buried them, of course,” an unknown voice replied - not in Vedran that they had been using among them but in a language only Harper spoke aboard the Andromeda regularly: English. Tyr, who had a natural affinity for languages, understood it, and Rommie had if filed away in her databases, but Beka, Rekeeb and the Than just looked blankly.
An apparently well-trained unit of six men stepped forth from the shadows of the next houses’ gate, both in front of and behind the scout troop. They wore some kind of uniform: long, heavy coats and a peculiar, flat cap that looked like a plate - and they were armed with projectile weapons that, while looking primitive, could still do a lot of damage to the human flesh. Or to the Than exoskeleton.
One of them - most likely their commanding officer - stepped forth. He was a burly, middle-aged man with a full beard and an impressively twisted moustache, and he had two rows of medals on his broad chest.
“Welcome to Hoff, strangers,” he said in the same, peculiarly accented English as before. “We hope you come in peace. But whatever your intentions may be, Chancellor Druhin wishes to speak with you.
Surprisingly enough, he didn’t demand their weapons. Either he underestimated their firepower (not to mention their skills in hand-to-hand combat), or he tried to be hospitable. In any case, he was offering exactly what they wanted, so Tyr saw no reason not to cooperate - for the time being.
“It will be our pleasure,” he answered in English, strange through it was to use such an outdated language, and signalled the others to follow their hosts.
Chapter 04 - Truths, Nightmares & Superstitions