by Sara King
The Legend of
ZERO:
Zero Recall
by
Sara King
Copyright © 2013 Sara King
All Rights Reserved
No part of this work may be photocopied, scanned, or otherwise reproduced without express written consent (begging) of the author. For permissions and other requests, email Sara King at [email protected].
(Don’t worry, she’s really cool.)
Published by
Parasite Publications
Cover Photography by
NASA and STSci
and the
Hubble Telescope
Disclaimer
(a.k.a. If You Don’t Realize This Is A Work Of Fiction, Please Go Find Something Else To Do)
So you’re about to read about alien war, life on other planets, and intergalactic politics. In case you’re still confused, yes, this book is a complete work of fiction. Nobody contained within these pages actually exists. If there are any similarities between the people or places of The Legend of ZERO and the people or places of Good Ol’ Planet Earth, you’ve just gotta trust me. It’s not real, people. Really. Yet.
Books in The Legend of ZERO Series:
Listed in Chronological Order
(because nothing else really makes sense):
Forging Zero
Zero Recall
Zero’s Return
Zero’s Legacy
Forgotten
Author’s Note
Zero Recall is different. If you read it right the first time, it should blow your mind. If you read it right the second time, it should blow your mind again. It should still be perfectly entertaining the third time through. It was an experiment in layers. Like a cake. (Or an onion.)
The Parasite Publications Glossary
(Because Somebody’s Gotta Tell You This Stuff!)
Character author – That rare beast who lets his or her characters tell the story. (And often run completely wild.)
Character fiction – Stories that center around the characters; their thoughts, their emotions, their actions, and their goals.
Character sci-fi – Stories about the future that focus on the characters, rather than explaining every new theory and technology with the (silly) assumption that we, as present-day 21st centurians, know enough to analyze and predict the far future with any accuracy whatsoever. I.e. character sci-fi is fun and entertaining, not your next college Physics textbook.
Parasite – The Everyday Joe (or Jane) who enjoys crawling inside a character’s head while reading a book; i.e. someone who enjoys character fiction.
Furg – Anyone who believes the best fiction makes your eyes glaze over…unless the glazing happens because you stayed up all night reading it and you can't keep your eyes open the next day. ;)
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1 – Forgotten
Chapter 2 – Zero Recall
Chapter 3 – Daviin ga Vora
Chapter 4 – Jer’ait Ze’laa
Chapter 5 – The Hungry Kitten
Chapter 6 – Joe’s Second
Chapter 7 – Joe, Meet Daviin
Chapter 8 – Daviin, Meet Joe
Chapter 9 – Of Bagans and Booze
Chapter 10 – A Stubborn Piji Shell
Chapter 11 – Daviin Learns to Lie
Chapter 12 – To Chip or Not to Chip
Chapter 13 – Syuri
Chapter 14 - Neskfaat
Chapter 15 – The First Prince
Chapter 16 – The Best Laid Plans…
Chapter 17 – The Jreet-Doctor
Chapter 18 – The Trouble with One’s Peers
Chapter 19 – More Important Than a Planet
Chapter 20 – Violent Alien Copulation Techniques
Chapter 21 – The Sentinel and the Assassin
Chapter 22 – Flea Kicks Ass
Chapter 23 – Can’t Take the Heat
Chapter 24 – Ask
Chapter 25 – A Lifetime of Loneliness
Chapter 26 – Piecing it Together
Chapter 27 – Headcom Wars
Chapter 28 – The Lieutenant
Chapter 29 – Mission Over
Chapter 30 – Claustrophobia
Chapter 31 – Wrapping up the Plan
Chapter 32 – Going Straight
Chapter 33 – Sam
Chapter 34 – Billions
Chapter 35 – Ka-par
Chapter 36 – With Great Power…
Chapter 37 – Maggie’s Secret
About the Author
Afterword
Meet Stuey
Sara Recommends
Other Parasite Novels
Glossary
Glossary – Baga Terms
Glossary – Dhasha Terms
Glossary – Huouyt Terms
Glossary – Jahul Terms
Glossary – Jreet Terms
Glossary – Ooreiki Terms
Glossary – Universal Terms
Glossary – Species
Glossary – Measurements
Glossary – Ranks
Dedication
For Stuey.
My Muse, my inspiration, my hope.
For Sarah.
She edits gud (Editor’s Note: good…or more correctly, ‘well’. Furg.).
For Buchanan.
Motivator through the hard times.
And for Chancey.
Who, in the space of a single afternoon, said, “You’re going to write a book, and it’s going to go like this…”
CHAPTER 1: Forgotten
Approximately three and a half billion thoughts raced through Forgotten’s mind at the moment the Congressional ships surrounded him, but foremost among them was that if things did not go exactly as planned, he was finally going to join the rest of his species in prison.
He was very close to sixty-three percent sure he didn’t want to join the rest of his species in prison, though that percentage had been on the decline for the last thirty nanoseconds. The loneliness had grown difficult for him to bear. The extreme solitude was depressing. The lack of conversation—however inane—was painful. He didn’t want to contemplate what would happen when his desire to maintain his freedom finally dipped beneath fifty percent.
Thus, watching the ships converge on him, Forgotten was actually looking forward to the company, vile as it would be.
The vessels sliding out of the void around him had been modified to appear old and partially decrepit, but the uniform perfection of their dilapidation gave their true natures away. Even poor merchants took pride in their ships. If they couldn’t afford a new heat shield or decent com equipment, they found other ways to pamper their ships—a lovingly-painted mascot, the addition of teeth, a flourished name, an unknown logo.
Instead, the ships pulling up from the blackness around him were perfect in their poverty. They had no shiny features, no new paint, no teeth.
Once Forgotten identified them for what they were, it was simple enough to peer through the disguises and analyze the armada Congress had sent against him. And it was certainly an armada. Manned by Huouyt and Ueshi, if their reaction times upon noticing his ship were any indication. He was somewhat impressed he had ranked so high on their list of Dangerous Criminals, considering how painstakingly quiet he had been all these turns. He did everything he could not to attract attention. Not to create waves.
Yet, Forgotten was lonely. And, he’d decided, it was time.
Therefore, he held course as sixteen battleships, five carriers, thirty-five cruisers, and a command flagship slipped into place around him. They were static metal and polymers instead of the sleek black, spherical Geuji-conceived nanotechnology favored by the Space Force. His enemies were hoping to catch him unawares,
though their choice to abandon Congressional technology for the rougher, less versatile static materials greatly increased his chances of eluding them, should he try to escape.
Instead, Forgotten left his systems at idle and waited for them to surround him. He could have evaded them with only an infinitesimal chance of getting caught by stray fire in the chase that would follow, but, as time went on and his body grew, he was bored. And the Huouyt, psychopathic creatures that they were, were interesting.
As the strange ships slid into place around him, Forgotten idly calculated his chances of being sent to Levren to be with his people increasing with each passing nanosecond. The chance that his pursuers would simply kill him, out here in the cold of the Void, surrounded by Congressional Space Force, was increasing as well. If they did, he found a certain poetry in the fact that it would be as it always was—the Geuji were used and forgotten, their deeds taken for granted, then lost to history. Stuffed inside some cold, dark cell in silence for eternity as the world passed around them.
Still, he let them come. While Forgotten was by no means brave, he had reached the point he would do anything to break the solitude.
“Silence, this is the Jahul trading caravan Green Fist. What is your purpose on this trade route?”
The dispatch came from the flagship, though Forgotten doubted the true power lay on board the frontrunner. It, like everything else about the armada’s appearance, was a decoy.
He scanned the other ships as he listened, finally locating the likeliest command center at the left rear of the group, a fighter that would have been inconspicuous had it not been for the single additional lump on its belly. The shape and size of the lump suggested a coded, long-distance communications node, the brand of which was only used by the power-players of Koliinaat, which meant Representative Rri’jan was along for the ride. As expected.
Forgotten stretched himself, enjoying as much stimuli as he could, in case the encounter took an unforeseen turn and they wrenched him from his ship and imprisoned him with the rest of the Geuji. If he failed, it would be the last time he would see, hear, or feel anything…possibly for the rest of his existence.
Because, as Forgotten had learned long ago, one and a half million turns after Congress had betrayed and imprisoned the Geuji, their existence was a myth. A breath of wind that brushed scattered minds here and there throughout the eons, only to disappear again.
Forgotten. His people were forgotten.
Only one creature in the universe still cared about the Geuji, and Forgotten had spent enough time thinking about them for the rest of the galaxy combined.
A Huouyt’s musical voice hailed him. “This is the Jahul merchant caravan Green Fist out of Whuo. Identify yourself.”
Forgotten cleared his mind of everything but the task at hand. He could go back to worrying about his people later, once he had dealt with the Huouyt. He didn’t like the Huouyt. They, aside from the Geuji, were the smartest creatures in Congress.
They were also psychopathic killers who did not play well with others, and Forgotten’s desire to live had not quite dipped below the fifty percent mark just yet.
“This caravan is armed, Silence,” the Huouyt replied, when Forgotten took an extra moment to reply. “Please identify yourself.” The pitch and crispness of the Huouyt’s voice indicated a seventy-eight turn old Northern Gha’Salaoian from Sh’ai. It took only a moment to recognize which one. Da’najo, one of the sixty-eight billion Huouyt in his memory. This particular Huouyt had thoroughly failed his tests as captain and had paid off one of the administrators to switch his results with the stellar marks of a poor, common-blooded classmate. Evading Da’najo would be easy. It was the lower-class Ueshi pilots that made up the rest of the armada that would be challenging, should the upcoming meeting go unexpectedly wrong.
Forgotten watched the Congressional fighters get into position around him and, for one of the few times in his life, found himself wondering what the hell he’d been thinking. Conversation was one thing, but the probabilities were rapidly ticking further into the unacceptable range with each moment he waited to flee.
He, Forgotten realized with a pang of alarm, was beginning to get reckless.
It’s the loneliness, he thought, as every mental pathway he had was suddenly overloaded with that bewildering, earth-shattering revelation. Geuji were never meant to be alone.
Indeed, on their home planet, they had spanned entire continents, sharing and discoursing and comparing notes as they analyzed the skies together.
Disturbed, Forgotten selected a Huouyt voice from his ship’s database and said in Sh’ai-accented, Northern Gha’Salaoian Huouyt, “Shall I give you the AR controls or do you intend to board?”
The Huouyt captain hesitated. In crisp Congie he said, “This territory is known for its space pirates. Our escort believes you might be hostile. It would put everyone at ease if you would identify yourself before we pass.”
From the mid-sized fighter in the back left of the formation, a Morinthian, Va’ga-trained Huouyt said, “He did identify himself, fool.”
A mix of satisfaction and fear appeared in Forgotten’s mind. He’d been right—and if he failed, he was going to die. Rri’jan Ze’laa did not leave a job unfinished. It was why he had replaced Representative Na’leen in the Huouyt Regency seat.
“I’ve been given quite an escort,” Forgotten said in Morinthian, Va’ga-accented Huouyt. “A Va’ga-trained assassin. A hundred and forty-two turns old. The head of the Ze’laa, a title taken from your elder brother after his…problem…saw him sterilized and slated for execution. You prefer to drink water bottled from northern Astori streams and you have a personal phobia of flesh-eating bacteria and Trith. What did I do for Aliphei to send you to visit?”
“Your antics do not unnerve me, Geuji.” Rri’jan’s voice was cold, lacking the characteristic musical quality of Huouyt speech. It was a trait that all Va’gan graduates maintained—flat, lifeless speech, giving nothing away, ever. At least to everyone but a Geuji.
“I never suspected they would, my friend,” Forgotten replied. “I was simply being polite. After all, you are a murderer by birth and training. The fifth most powerful family in Congress. How could I ever intimidate you?”
This got under Rri’jan’s skin. “The Ze’laa is the most powerful family in Congress, as we have clearly shown. We have the resources and manpower to capture even you, Forgotten.”
Capture, Forgotten thought wryly. Truly, they do not understand what they are dealing with. Not even the Huouyt, his closest intellectual rivals in all of Congress, truly understood. Which, he supposed, made his survival in the upcoming game easier.
“You are fifth,” Forgotten replied, on the common frequency. “Mekkval, Gervin, Keddrik, and Fabara could each have accomplished as much, and they would not have had to empty out their coffers to do it. This little escapade probably took an entire seventh of your familial worth, did it not? What is Aliphei paying you? I will triple it, plus cover the expenses you took to make your warships appear so believably unrealistic, and it won’t even skim the surface of my funds.” Then he hesitated. “But wait. That would make me the most powerful ‘family’ in Congress, no? Which would make you…sixth. And that’s only if you don’t split the Ooreiki and Jahul into their royal lineages. And at least four Dhasha princes exceed the Ze’laa’s base wealth. Bagkhal is a good example. You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but he owns three planets. Personally.”
Rri’jan’s voice was as lifeless as ever, but Forgotten detected the anger buried underneath. “Prepare for boarding, Geuji.”
Forgotten initiated the sequence without complaint, knowing the next seconds were crucial. Noncompliance would result in a cold, dead Geuji floating around in abandoned space. Too much reluctance would make Rri’jan overconfident and prone to do stupid, violent things. Complying immediately would simply scare the hell out of him.
As expected, the other ship hesitated as Forgotten instantly completed his ship’s mat
ing routine. There was a very long pause in which the opposite ship remained undocked, hovering in space, just out of reach.
“Anytime you’re ready, Representative,” Forgotten said. “I recently replenished my supply of Sutharian microbes. Play nice, and we should get along fine.”
The pause grew to several tics, and Forgotten monitored the dispute that instantly began to rage inside the other ship. The Representative finally had to pull rank to get his underlings to submit to Forgotten’s lock. Somewhere in the scathing arguments that followed, Rri’jan’s captain finally found the courage to complete the mating sequence. Forgotten waited, watching the airlock from his ship’s camera system.
Rri’jan was a gifted Va’gan assassin before he took the Regency seat. He had the capability of producing nine hundred and thirteen different drugs and deadly chemicals with his body, which he could then inject with a multitude of body shifts—spines, excretions, biological syringes, gaseous emanations—that the Huouyt were known for. And, because Forgotten had pushed him, Rri’jan was likely to forego his original intent in approaching him and simply attempt to kill Forgotten in the most painful way possible, to salvage his dubious honor.
Of course, if Rri’jan did anything at all that Forgotten did not approve of, he would flush both of their ships with a load of microbes that would eat away a Huouyt’s breja and put its owner in the worst pain he’d ever felt before he died.
Tit for tat.
Tics passed. More argument within the Huouyt ship. Forgotten used the time to access Rri’jan’s secured link to Koliinaat and confirm the current political atmosphere towards using an ekhta. It was as he had predicted. While the Jreet and the Dhasha maintained Tribunal seats, the Jahul had recently been given four new, lucrative metals-planets by the Planetary Claims Board, and they—an entire species of empaths—currently held the most sway in Congress. Further, the Jreet would vote to physically fight, considering technology of any sort to be a coward’s weapon, and the Dhasha considered themselves invincible on principle. Forgotten sent a few subtle messages to strengthen these positions as he waited.
