Ragnarok: Colonization, intrigue and betrayal.

by Andrew Claymore

  The pair circled down into a much larger facility. In the center were five large capsules, which looked a bit like the training pods used in the empire and republic.

  Four of them held nothing but dust, their lights and screens blinking fitfully or not illuminated at all. The fifth held a large humanoid, suspended in an orange haze of energy.

  Tendrils of orange danced across her body which, Vikram noticed with some alarm and no small amount of interest, was entirely nude.

  She was roughly twice his height but otherwise normally – he looked away – proportioned.

  “I think she’s waking,” Gabriella said quietly. “She’s settling onto the platform.”

  Vikram looked back. The orange haze was fading and the person was definitely coming to rest on the hard metallic platform of the pod.

  The room they were in seemed to change. It had felt as though it had a personality of its own, he noticed as that personality seemed to fade.

  The person in front of them was breathing.

  He moved closer to Gabriella, still holding her hand, until his shoulder touched her armored shoulder. Another squeeze.

  The tall woman opened her eyes, looking with mild confusion at the arched beams and conduits above her. Suddenly her eyes widened. She turned her head, looking at the two young visitors.

  She pushed herself up, swinging her legs over the edge of the pod as if she’d only awakened from a short nap. She tilted her head, a trembling smile on her face.

  She said something but it was indecipherable. It was the voice of someone who’d waited a long time, hardly daring to hope, but that was all Vikram could get from it.

  He glanced at Gabriella. “Do you know what she’s saying?”

  “No,” she answered, still facing the woman, “but I think we…”

  They both stumbled against each other, suddenly dizzy. Fortunately, her armor – his armor, really – had kept her standing and he’d been braced against her.

  “That’s better,” the tall woman said, sliding off the edge of the pod to stand in front of them.

  “You came.” She smiled, tears welling up over her lower eyelids. “It wasn’t all for nothing.”

  “Who are you?” Gabriella asked. “What is this place?”

  “This is an outpost. Our people…” She was looking in their direction but no longer looking at them. “We spanned galaxies, strode among the stars like gods. We lived for as long as we wished…

  She paused, shaking her head slowly. “The one unavoidable rule of life is balance,” she said sadly. “Our life of power and ease was slowly eroding who we were.”

  She gestured to herself.

  Vikram’s eyes followed but he quickly looked back up to her eyes. I wish my complexion was a little darker, he thought. She’s bound to see me blushing.

  “This body looks nothing like the one I was born in. It was designed to meet several specifications but the chief among them was compatibility with fold-sleep.”

  She looked behind her at the empty pods. “Did you meet others of my kind?”

  “No,” Vikram said. “You were the only one in here.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Then I’m the only one to survive this long. I’m saved by the very thing that nearly destroyed us…”

  “I’m afraid I still don’t understand,” Gabriella said. “Why are you here?”

  “This body has a better chance of surviving fold-sleep,” the woman said, “because it was designed for that. To create so much specialized coding requires a lot of space in the genome.”

  “You replaced genes that weren’t in use,” Vikram said.

  “We did,” she confirmed. “Few children were born anyway, so why not make genomes that were exactly what we required? We stored our genetic history at Bhavnagim, one of our main star-holds.

  “As long as the data was safeguarded there, it couldn’t be used by enemies to engineer offensive bio-weapons. Our ability to use the original genomes would also be ensured.”

  “Something went wrong?” Gabriella asked.

  The woman nodded. “A doomsday cult claimed that the data would be destroyed and we’d be left with insufficient genetic viability to carry on as a species.”

  “But, if you were warned…” Vikram said, incredulous, “you could have done something.”

  “Like any species, we had our pride,” she said with a sad smile. “And pride doesn’t get along well with weaknesses. Our people didn’t want to see how vulnerable we’d become.

  “Also,” she added darkly, “doomsday cults don’t like to be proven wrong. It’s bad for recruitment. They destroyed the data themselves, bringing their own prophecy to fruition.”

  Gabriella glanced at Vikram. “Bhavnagim,” she said, “you said it was a ‘star-hold’…”

  The woman presented her palm in a rotating upwards motion, seeming to convey agreement. “You’ve been there,” she said. “I could see that when I was giving you my language.”

  Vikram let out a half-chuckle. How am I just now realizing that I don’t know which language we’re using right now?

  “You know it as Babilim,” the woman said.

  Gabriella nodded. “The structure of this place does resemble it. You said earlier…” She swallowed and started again. “You said, ‘nearly destroyed us’.

  “We’ve been using that station for a while, though I admit we’ve barely seen a tiny fraction. We haven’t seen any of your people. No one has in hundreds of thousands of years. They may be… gone…”

  Kusha – they knew it was Kusha – walked past them to reach the middle of the room. A three-dimensional interface appeared.

  Her arms remained at her sides. Without speaking, she began accessing the system. Vikram moved around to see from the side.

  It looked like she was using her eyes to focus on elements and activate them.

  She brought up a cartography interface. Vikram recognized the Ragnarok system before she zoomed out to show the whole galaxy. There were several highlighted locations and a few lines leading away from the edges of the Milky Way.

  “A very small number of us remain and all of them are in stasis. There were three others who awakened as I have, when descendants found them.”

  Vikram’s skin tingled. She said descendants. Did that mean Humans came from these people as well? He opened his mouth.

  “Did you say descendants?” Gabriella asked, coming to stand by Vikram. “Are you saying we’re related somehow?”

  “We were finished. We should have seen that we were designing our own end but it was too late for us.” She turned from the display to look at them.

  “We created the most diverse group of bodies possible, given the genes in circulation. We cloned the group for use on hundreds of worlds, each body inhabited by a volunteer.

  “The chances of any one group becoming genetically viable over time was minimal but by seeding multiple worlds…” She glanced over her shoulder at the display.

  “Some have thrived. You are one of the few successes. Most of those who lie in fold-sleep, waiting for our descendants, will never be wakened.

  The holo behind her became a grassy plain, zooming in on a group of people. They were dressed in modern-looking clothing and stood among a cluster of small storage containers.

  “Your ancestors apparently thrived,” Kusha said. “As their supplies waned and their equipment broke down, they had to learn to survive. Their descendants would have heard the stories of the god-like powers of those who came before.”

  The Titans? Vikram wondered, looking up at the ancient woman. Were they remembered as the Titans?

  “You survived and you came here to build a new home on a new world.” Kusha said. “You have passed the test by becoming a viable, multiplanet species.”

  Vikram frowned. If we had no colony…

  “We’ve got Billions of people on Earth,” Gabriella said. “Are you saying you’d have ignored all that diversity if we hadn’t come here to settle on Ragnarok?”

&nbs
p; “Yes,” Kusha answered, sounding surprised this wasn’t already understood. “I said ‘viable’ species.”

  Gabriella shared a look with Vikram, shrugging in resignation. “OK, where do we go from here? What was the plan for after we’d come to you?”

  “You seem very casual about this!” Kusha sounded a little put out.

  “I mean no offense, Kusha, but I’d be lying if I said this is the strangest thing to happen to me this month.” Gabriella spread her hands. “I’m just a little wrung out, that’s all, but this is right up there – top three, at least.”

  Kusha stared down at her for an uncomfortably long time. Her shoulders twitched upward a little, then did it again. Suddenly she broke out laughing, holding a hand to her belly.

  “Oh, ancestors,” she wheezed. “I haven’t had a good laugh in a very long time. She swept a hand in front of her and the room was gone.

  Vikram might have jumped in alarm but there was nothing beneath his feet. They were floating in a large room, raw currents of energy flowing in a complex network along distant walls.

  She raised a hand and pulled a tendril of glowing blue from the empty space around her and sent threads toward the two Humans. Vikram cringed as the line reached his forehead but there was no noticeable sensation.

  Until there was…

  In a blinding flash, he was gone. There was no Vikram, only an awareness that vaguely remembered the name.

  Kusha… Gabriella...other concentrations of identity that rang familiar. They orbited a dense cloud of awareness, deep, complex and ever-changing.

  They dipped into it like a ship skipping in and out of a planetary gravity well.

  Concepts and ideas flowed, unfettered and unrecorded by the blunt tool of language. The simplicity of knowledge was a thing of ephemeral beauty.

  It washed through them and then they were back in the room with the large naked alien. Vikram didn’t even notice her state of undress anymore.

  He felt the tracks on his cheeks. He looked at Gabriella and saw her own tears.

  “It’s fading,” she whispered. “Oh God, there’s so much we don’t know!”

  “That is the first step,” Kusha said gently. “You need time to fully absorb what you’ve witnessed. I’ll be here when you’re ready to carry on.”

  “But what…” Vikram stopped mid-sentence. They were back on the metallic surface, surrounded by the jungle.

  “Did all of that just happen in our heads while we were standing up here?” Gabriella asked him.

  He looked at her, seeing her now as someone he’d shared a profoundly confusing experience with. “I honestly don’t know.”

  Ad Meliora

  You’re Saved!

  The Tulwar, Ragnarok

  “Restoring normal geometry,” the helmsman announced. “We’re well within the arrival envelope,” he added with a hint of pride.

  “Very good,” Captain Max, ‘HotBox’ Johnson acknowledged. “Ops, where’s that freighter?”

  “They came out just where they’re supposed to, Captain. They’re closing in now, confirming their status on tight-beam.”

  “Keep ’em close. I want that ship playing suppository till we know what’s going on down-well.”

  “Cooling, Captain?” the engineering officer suggested.

  “Secure the path drive and engage the cryo-exchange.” Max had spent several days thinking about this as they raced to Ragnarok.

  The odds of them arriving just in the nick of time to turn a battle were infinitesimal. Better chance of finding a congressman with a heart.

  The chances of finding enemies still in orbit or conducting operations on the ground were much higher. That meant stealth would be a more valuable asset than speed.

  They’d arrived in the outer edge of a gas giant and there was a lot of cold to be harvested. Fully charged cryo-banks would let them get close to Ragnarok without being spotted.

  The carbon nanotubules on the hull let light bounce down between them where they were harvested for data. The hull was, effectively, a giant telescope lens.

  But all that energy had to end up somewhere. Corvettes on stealth mode built up heat quickly. If standing in the Sahara was hot, standing in space with no attenuating atmosphere and a completely light-absorbing coating was mind-numbingly hot.

  “Full charge on the cryo,” Engineering announced.

  “Disengage the cryo-exchange,” Max ordered. “Helm. Lift us out. Let’s get a look.”

  The Tulwar eased her way out of the clouds, hull side on to the planet to maximize the data she could collect.

  Max leaned forward in his chair. The planet in his holo began changing from a wireframe model to a colored representation as the incoming light was processed.

  “There’s been a fight, alright,” the ops officer said. “The space over Unity is littered with wreckage.”

  “The ground around it as well,” Max replied. “Looks like several ships went down and not under control either.” He enlarged the planet and stabbed a finger. “That’s got to be a cruiser. Too big to be the Kuphar.”

  He sat back. “Anything in the rest of the system?”

  “Some wreckage out here.” Ops lit up a debris-field further out. “Looks like it was mostly civilian freighters, though.”

  Max had entertained the idea of dropping in toward Ragnarok with the freighter hiding behind their hull. Seeing evidence of a fight along a lateral axis to his planned approach made that plan seem far more risky.

  If any enemies were still out there, hiding among the wrecked freighters, the Shamash would be easily spotted.

  Luna ain’t paying me to sit around and wonder about stuff, he thought. “Signal the Shamash. She’s to stay here, out of sight, while we drop in for a closer look.”

  “Helm,” he ordered over the background noise of the comms officer passing orders to the freighter, “take us down-system to Ragnarok, bow on to the local star. Three quarters max pitch.”

  “Aye, sir,” the helmsman confirmed. “Down-sys to Ragnarok, bow on to star, three quarters max pitch.”

  Without the Shamash to hide behind them, they could present a smaller cross-section to the local star. That would reduce the load on the cryo-banks by… He checked the ‘dashboard’ on his holo. Seventeen percent.

  It would give him a lot more time to stay stealthy before he’d have to start venting heat, which most Quailu ships searched for as a standard operating procedure.

  This was a lot more adventure than he’d bargained for when Luna had talked him into leaving his early retirement. This was nothing like the bump and grind between the countries of Earth.

  He’d tried to beat his sword into a plowshare but he was shit at farming. Luna had offered him his own ship and, now, here he was, trying to defend folks who actually knew how to farm.

  Unless they’re all dead, he thought darkly. Folks out here seem to just do whatever the hell they think they can get away with.

  “Orbitals are a mess,” Ops warned, “but there’s no drive signatures of any kind in evidence. If there’s anybody out there, they’re better than us at hiding.”

  “Very well, Grocholski,” Max acknowledged. “You have the conn. I’m going down to the surface with the troops.”

  He left the bridge and headed for the shuttle bay. The team was already there, checking their weapons and equipment, probably not for the first time. A young former Marine major looked up with surprise and, most likely, a little annoyance at seeing his captain arrive with an assault weapon in his hands.

  “This is still your show, Goodwin. I’m just gonna fly cover.” He waved at one of the three fighters crouched at the back of the bay.

  “Just flying cover…,” Goodwin repeated flatly.

  Max grinned. “If you give the all-clear and it turns into a diplomatic situation, I’ll step in and handle the handshakes.”

  The background engine-whine lowered a few tones.

  “Fair enough, sir,” Goodwin said grudgingly. “Might be nice to have a
ir support while we sort out what’s happening down there.”

  Max grinned. He was sharp enough to know when an expert was telling him to keep out of his way.

  “Sounds like we’re spooling down the engines for approach.” He turned for his fighter. “I’ll see you out there, Major.”

  Now that the Tulwar had slowed to approach speed, it was only sensible to launch the lander from the ship and fly the rest of the way separately. If a sneaky missile attack were attempted against the corvette, there would be little sense in Goodwin’s troops being aboard, not when they had a perfectly good lander available.

  There was no missile attack but there were forces sneaking around in orbit. Not five minutes after Max followed the Marines out of the ship, a warbling tone told him he’d flown straight into a trap.

  He strained his leg and abdominal muscles, breathing rapidly as he threw his fighter into a nearly impossible turn. The Anti G Strain Maneuver was so ingrained in him that he didn’t even realize he was doing it for no reason. Some pilots had managed to kick the habit but he’d had little time in these new fighters.

  He acquired a target and slid his finger to the trigger before realizing he’d found his target by spotting the occluded stars. He eased up the pressure on the trigger just as the challenge blared in his ears.

  Humans. They were patrolling out here, which he took to be a good sign.

  They sorted out identities and the Tulwar entered orbit while Max and his Marines were escorted down to a landing zone that was near Unity but not so near that he could have broken away from the escort and done much damage.

  He climbed down from the fighter to find a sizable armed presence from the garrison waiting for him. Goodwin’s lander had been turned back when the colonists discovered it carried armed troops.

  “What the hell is going on here?” he demanded of the garrison officer in charge. “We’re Humans, just like you!” He looked up as the lander ascended, still carrying its Marines and followed closely by two fighters.

  “I must ask you for patience, Captain,” the officer said with polite firmness.

  Patience was not just being requested here. Max could tell he’d be missing some teeth soon, if he didn’t play by their rules. “We’re Humans,” he reiterated, “who came here in a Human corvette.”