The Celaran Probe (Parker Interstellar Travels Book 7)

by Michael McCloskey

  “Exploration. Trying to find new allies for Earth. I think I should not divulge any details unless I have permission from my superiors.”

  Meaning Telisa, not Shiny.

  “How is Miss Cutter?”

  “Siobhan? She’s doing well. Earth owes her a great debt. She was instrumental in overthrowing the Trilisks.”

  The interviewer chuckled politely.

  “Well, I don’t know about that. You certainly defend her loyally. She’s been dubbed, ‘the most hated woman on Earth’, though she’s hardly ever on Earth, so I don’t know if that makes any sense. How does that make you feel?”

  “I... wasn’t aware. If anyone tries to harm her, it will be considered an attack on Ambassador Shiny, and the PIT team will react accordingly.”

  “You’re widely considered the most desirable male by the GTW advisors.”

  “GTW? I’m sorry, I’ve been on a mission and I fell a bit behind. Does that still stand for—”

  “Get Together Weekly, yes.”

  “I’m flattered, but I don’t seek new relationships of... that kind, right now. I’m focused on my work.”

  “Forgive me, may I ask just one more question along this line? The women of Earth desperately want to know, are you in an exclusive arrangement with Ms. Cutter?”

  Even as Caden hesitated he wondered if the hesitation was fatal. As soon as he realized he should answer quickly, he said firmly, “Yes.”

  “Ahhh, that’s too bad,” Jenny said and managed to sound sincere. “Would you be willing to be scanned and interviewed in depth for the creation of an accurate virtual profile? With demand as it is for personal Cadens in VRs, it would be very lucrative. There are already bids offered at over 1 million ESC.”

  “Very sorry, but not at this time,” Caden said firmly.

  “You must be on your way for your award ceremony at the Space Force surface headquarters. May I say I’m so glad to see you get the recognition you deserve, Mr. Lonrack!”

  “Thanks Jenny. I’m sorry I have to leave now, or I’ll be late.”

  “Thank you for the interview!” she called as Caden ducked into the cab and told the door to close after him.

  Caden sat in silence for a minute, wondering about his new status on Earth. He had enjoyed being popular in school because of notable performance in many virtual competitions, but he had never sought fame across such a wide audience.

  Do I need to hire a service to keep the crowds from me? Do I need to hide?

  The cab drove in front of a reflective building. Caden idly caught sight of himself driving by. With a start he realized a large Vovokan sphere escorted him, just one or two meters above the cab. It kept perfect alignment with him, so rigidly that his brain told him it was attached to the vehicle though he could see no connection.

  I guess Shiny’s got it covered. And I’ll head out on another mission soon anyway, then it won’t matter.

  The cab arrived at a security gate. It was the first level of defense of the Earthside Space Force headquarters in the northwest quadrant of Earth. The vehicle was scanned and allowed through. Caden’s link got updates on his progress.

  “The Space Force is honored to receive one of Earth’s heroes, Caden Lonrack.”

  The conveyance continued down a simple but well-kept road. He saw the tops of buildings moving by over thick ceramic barriers.

  The vehicle pulled up to a beautifully ornate gate. It did not look like Space Force standard fare.

  “We’re ready to receive you at the Honor Gate, Mr. Lonrack.”

  Honor Gate? Okay...

  His link received a High Numbers Observation Warning, letting him know he was under realtime scrutiny by video feed viewers in excess of one hundred thousand. Caden released a nervous sigh. The attention had been so much more welcome when he was winning the Blood Glades.

  Caden stepped carefully out of the vehicle and approached the gate.

  HNOW: 140,000.

  The gate opened. Caden walked forward. He saw a shadow and remembered the Vovokan sphere. He glanced upward. The sphere continued to rigidly move with him.

  Is that thing going to come in?

  Caden walked through the gate. His aerial bodyguard stopped in mid-air behind him. Ahead, four marines stood perfectly straight, PAWS strapped on their backs, guarding the Space Force checkpoint. Two laser domes were visible, overseeing the passage ahead.

  Caden walked on. Ahead of him, one of the marines stepped forward.

  “Welcome, Mr. Lonrack. Your escort is waiting just inside. If I may say so, it is an honor to meet you, Mr. Lonrack.”

  Caden felt odd. His old shame battled with this new attitude. Was the man sincere? Could he be sincere? Caden was happy that at least the man did not salute as some kind of additional honor; it would be ridiculous since Caden was not even an officer.

  As Caden passed the checkpoint, four men flanked him and walked with him into a low building. His HNOW dropped, then went away entirely, as outside observation feeds were denied line of sight. Caden resisted the urge to look back for the drones that must be providing the feeds.

  Caden and his escort all stepped onto a fast-moving conveyor that brought them into a building, then wound upwards to the second floor. They whisked through two corridors before stepping off next to a door. The platform before the door told Caden’s link he stood in front of Admiral Sager’s office.

  The escorts stepped to either side of the door. One of them must have told it to open for Caden. Caden saw an old fashioned office inside, complete with a desk and bookcases that held what looked like real books.

  Admiral Sager met Caden within. The escort did not follow him inside. The door closed behind him, leaving him alone with the Admiral. Caden noted again Sager’s unusual amount of hair. The man had thin, pale lips and close set eyes.

  Caden’s link received several messages. One informed him he had been named a recipient of the Secretary of the Space Force Award for Valor. The next message declared he had received a monetary award of 20,000 ESC. Two subsequent messages offered him entrance to New Annapolis. Caden stood frozen, stunned.

  “Mr. Lonrack. We would like to formally offer you a post in the Space Force. We’ve reviewed your preparatory training and your achievements. With a single year at New Annapolis to polish yourself, I feel sure you would be able to pass our tests and take your place as an officer. One on a fast track to the upper ranks, I might add.”

  “A single year? No one would respect an officer who—”

  “On the contrary, Mr. Lonrack. You already have the respect of the Space Force. No one would complain. They understand the debt we owe you.”

  “We brought Ambassador Shiny into the system,” Caden said. It felt strange to give the title to the Vovokan he had worked with. “The alien overlord who rules you all. We thought we brought him to save you, but instead we simply brought a new alien master to Earth.”

  “It turns out, casualties were very light. At the time of the Vovokan Revolution, as we call it, things were confused. We thought many had died. As it turns out, Ambassador Shiny minimized the death very effectively. A lot of hardware was damaged or destroyed, but he has since replaced that ten times over.”

  “And the deaths that did occur? No one blames me for those?”

  “When the magnitude of what had happened to Terra became clear, we realized it was a small price to pay. The Space Force would have acted, if it could have, to remove the Trilisks itself, even at twice the price in blood we paid. You’re a hero in everyone’s eyes.”

  Caden felt a tide of emotions rise. He swallowed hard and tried to ride it out. He had not expected such a powerful reaction.

  I guess I’ve gone from pariah to hero. I always wanted to be a Space Force hero, and it really happened, even though I never got to join up!

  Caden told himself it was normal. He had released all the shame and tension that his actions had brought him. Now he had been vindicated at last.

  I wonder if Siobhan had feelings like t
his when she killed that Trilisk who enslaved her family. She must have.

  “Thank you, sir. I need to consider your offer carefully.”

  “Of course. Take your time,” Admiral Sager said. The Admiral seemed to relax. Caden got the feeling the formalities were over.

  “Where have you been, son? What do you do on the PIT team?”

  Caden started to deflect the Admiral, then thought better of it.

  “I shouldn’t give away information, but I might be willing to trade...”

  “I think we could come to an arrangement,” the Admiral said amicably.

  “I’ve been searching alien worlds for a race of advanced beings we call the Celarans. Shiny has sent us looking for them, or at least, their technologies. And we’ve come across a potential enemy of mankind, the ones who destroyed Shiny’s homeworld.”

  “Ambassador Shiny has told us about that danger,” Sager said. “He has been working with us to prepare the Space Force to defend our worlds from them.”

  Caden’s eyebrows rose. “Does Shiny think we have a chance against them? Without Shiny’s battleships, I mean.”

  “He says we can have an impact. He assures us our new weapons systems can harm them. He says he will stand with us.”

  Caden hesitated.

  Will it come back to bite me if I throw doubt upon Shiny?

  “Shiny’s race does not understand loyalty,” Caden said. “Just know, we may have to face them alone.”

  Sager listened to Caden carefully. He did not try to defend Shiny.

  “What do you want to know about?” Sager asked.

  “How has an alien come to lead Earth and the Space Force? How can you be okay with that, especially after the Trilisks? Surely you secretly plan to resist him.”

  A little too blatant, Caden. How will he react to that?

  Sager smiled. “I’m willing to tell you the truth, but I don’t know why you would believe me. Remember, if we were plotting against the Ambassador, you’re a known ally of his, so I would be foolish to reveal anything to you.”

  Caden held up his hand. “Please start, then, with why the citizens of Earth seem to have accepted him.”

  “Well, he saved us from the Trilisks, to start.”

  “And then he took over from them.”

  “But he did it openly. And he has no orders for us. The Trilisks locked away the most influential citizens and controlled everything. They hurt our economies and cut into the citizens’ VR quotas to produce space fleets for fighting their enemies.”

  Caden nodded. “I see most of that. You just said though, he was telling you to build weapons against the Destroyers.”

  “He merely provides insights into their weaknesses. Did you know, Caden, that the Destroyers were the race that took out the Seeker?”

  Caden was taken aback. “No, I had no idea.”

  “Well, we’re glad to have his advice. And we have the resources we need to maintain our new fleet. So for now at least, we work with him.”

  Caden nodded. “I’m hoping we can find Celarans. There are a few clues that they’re friendly. Though we search for Shiny, we’ll represent Terrans if we encounter living Celarans.”

  “If you go looking for them, please do tell me what you find,” Sager said. “We’d like to send a formal diplomatic party if we can locate these Celarans.”

  “I promise I’ll do my best,” Caden said. “I have a web of loyalties to navigate, but I always want to do what’s best for Terrans everywhere.”

  “I have other work I have to get to,” Sager said. “Consider our offer. It’s genuine.”

  Sager offered Caden his hand. It was a rare gesture that made Caden feel honored. Caden shook it. Then the Admiral dismissed him. Caden’s mind reeled with recent events and he wanted to find someplace private to think things over.

  I need to talk to Siobhan and Telisa.

  Caden escaped the headquarters as quickly as he could. He got another HNOW, but it was dramatically smaller than before. The fickle public must have moved on.

  Once alone in a taxi vehicle, Caden exhaled. That had been heavy.

  “Siobhan?” he sent on a private channel.

  “Caden. I heard you made it,” her voice came back over the link.

  “Yes. They offered me entrance to New Annapolis. I deflected questions about it. I feel a lot of pressure.”

  “Don’t worry about what the Earthers want; it’s them who owe you, remember? Do what you want.”

  Caden nodded. “I used to want to be a Space Force officer more than anything else, but I’ve learned so much. I want to stay on the PIT team now.”

  Siobhan smiled. “So do I.”

  Chapter 15

  The circular portal dared Imanol to proceed. He felt a familiar weight of commitment.

  I’ve come this far, can I really turn back now?

  He took a single step forward.

  Of course you could turn back now, you idiot.

  Imanol thought about handing the sphere back to Telisa and telling her he did not find out if the Trilisk AI was here. It would be so much easier to avoid all of this and go back.

  He shook his head and walked through the black zone. He emerged on the other side in a black tunnel with smooth walls. Rather than providing a flat path to walk on, the entire passage was perfectly round. Imanol remembered it: the Trilisk catacombs. On this side of the blackfield, he saw two banks of small, reddish blocks attached to the gray metal of the disk that he had stepped through.

  Vovokan cybernetics.

  Imanol’s link brought up his map from the last time he had visited the tunnels. If he compared the tunnels he saw now to his old map, he figured he would be able to orient himself quickly. The stealth suit also had an inertial navigation system that would let him know his location. That could be matched up to the old map, where at least he knew the exact location of the entrance before he had entered the tunnels.

  He wondered for a moment if Shiny could have changed the layout. At first, he dismissed the idea; the Trilisk materials were so durable as to be almost permanent, even in the face of those determined to damage them. Then, he remembered the AIs. Surely Shiny could have prayed for the tunnels to reconfigure any way he wanted.

  Imanol walked down the black tunnel. As the glow from the Vovokan devices faded behind him, his eyes adjusted to a low level light with no apparent source. He started to check to see if he cast a shadow, then realized with the cloaking device active, he could not see his shadow anyway. He decided the light must emerge evenly from the entire surface of the tunnel.

  Shouldn’t the walls glow if they all emit light evenly? I can see but they don’t glow. He shrugged. Trilisks.

  The place seemed deserted, but he did not see any dust anywhere along the inside surface. He dropped to wipe the floor with a hand as he went. He did not feel anything except the smooth surface. That’s how the Trilisks made things: incredibly durable, self-cleaning, and perfect down to the last molecule. He decided he could not make any conclusion about how often the tunnel was being used.

  The tunnel branched once, so Imanol walked left, then it branched again. He found a match on his old map for the branchings.

  I think I know where I am. So, I guess there is really only one place to go.

  If he was right, the temple was in a different direction. Imanol altered course to find the temple. He walked calmly but quickly. By his old map, he had covered most of a long stretch of tunnel when he saw something ahead. His mind first resolved it as the end of the tunnel, then with a shock, he understood it was a sphere in the tunnel—headed straight for him. Despite his body’s reaction to a dump of adrenaline, he remained mentally calm. It could hardly be going any other direction in the tunnel, so it might not be targeting him at all. He dropped prone on the right side of the curved floor. He estimated there would be room for it to pass by without touching him.

  The sphere came closer. It looked large coming down the center of the space, though Imanol thought that perhaps two
such machines might just be able to squeeze by each other in the tunnels.

  Vovokan machines are hard to judge. If everything is a bloody sphere, how can you tell what the stupid thing does?

  Instinctual fear rose in Imanol. His forced calm started to crack. It was impossible to watch the silent, sinister sphere approach and not feel dread. He stared down at the floor ahead of him, mastering himself and staying perfectly still. If it was a war machine, he would be no match for its speed and power at this range.

  The sphere floated overhead and continued on its path. Imanol remained in that position for a minute after it left, allowing his heart to slow.

  Okay, it’s fine. I should have more faith in the stealth sphere. It got me through the blackfield checkpoint, it’ll get me through the rest of this.

  The old route proved accurate. He saw a light grow ahead into the entrance to a huge chamber. This time, instead of an ancient temple, Imanol saw a vast cavern, shaped with natural curves like a real cave, except larger than any Imanol had ever seen. At the center of the open space sat a perfectly square, white building which extended from floor to ceiling. Some of its walls were transparent, showing Imanol glimpses of simple white rooms within. He saw a patch of Vovokan circuitry in one. Another held a Trilisk column.

  So that’s it, then. No more temple. He modernized it. Vovokans are weird. Why not just use this whole space? He makes it look like a natural cave. Just for looks?

  Imanol felt relief. As irrational as it was, he felt relief that he would not have to walk through that place again. He approached the white building and found a large circular door where the sandy floor met the white walls. He imagined to be the right size for Shiny... or that Trilisk.

  He stopped in front of the door to look around. There were no footprints in the sand, but he knew the sand was recycled to carry away any garbage or waste. If no one moved through here but a select few, how could he get through the door undetected?

  I could wait here. Who knows how long? I have a few of Cilreth’s Vovokan hacks to try. She said they were like what a Vovokan child might throw together.

  Imanol told one of his attendant spheres to detach from him and move through the door. It emerged from his stealth zone, into full sight, to hover in front of the door. The portal opened.