The Z Chronicles

by Ellen Campbell

  Mihari Prime orbited an old sun, one in the last vestiges of its life cycle and it was a given that, if the Mihari Empire was to continue, it would need to search for another homeworld. They seeded planets in a particularly brutal and irreversible way, wiping out all other life with nuclear weapons, and returning eons later to reclaim the planet. Others they mined for resources and a few they just subjugated because they found the natives useful.

  That was how they had stumbled across the Chiitai Conglomeration and stolen the race’s greatest secret.

  * * *

  On Mihari Prime, a dust storm had blanketed the city for five long days, the air so thick you couldn’t see more than a footstep ahead. The Helot would die in droves, then more of them would have to go out and dump the bodies in the magma river that encircled the capital like a moat of fire.

  Death came, even here: the Slow Drowning. The dust mixing with the air and moisture in their lungs and killing them slowly. Sticky mud that would drown them even as they breathed, lungs gasping for air. Anyone forced to roam the streets was a walking victim to the sickness. Sometimes it took weeks to die, sometimes months or even years, but all Helot succumbed eventually. Such was their lot.

  The Emperor and the aristocracy had no such problems. Current incumbent to the Shadow God and aging Emperor of the Mihari, Arokae’s only concerns were focused on the survival of his Empire and for the sons who would come after him; the hosts for their god.

  Their sun was burning up and that meant they had, perhaps, a half millennia left before Mihari Prime became uninhabitable. The star would expand and burn their world to a crisp, but even before that happened, they would all be dead. The heat was already rising, too hot for even the Mihari, the dust storms becoming more violent, more frequent as the planet convulsed around them.

  Darak was the Emperor’s emissary and one of many warriors given leave and ships to search the stars for a new home. His task was grave and of the utmost importance, but it also proved that all was not well on Mihari Prime, despite the facade.

  He stood watching from the shadows of the Emperor’s court and it hit him: the Shadow God living inside their ancient emperor didn’t want to die, and Darak could understand that desire. He believed the Shadow God would survive the supernova, but over the aeons since it had found its way to Mihari Prime, it had grown used to corporeal hosts and physical forms, perhaps even comfortable with them. So this problem of the dying sun and what it was doing to its hosts was what Darak had been tasked to solve.

  Face covered to protect from the Slow Drowning, Darak left the Emperor’s audience chamber with his orders—to go as far out as it was possible, to seek out promising systems for a new homeworld. There were old star charts from the period of expansion long ago, worlds ready and waiting if they could only find them. Every Mihari, be they Helot or aristocrat, knew there were a myriad of places in the universe that could sustain life, if you knew where to look.

  But he had not expected to find the insects’ world or that they would fight back.

  After three years journeying, of diving into unknown space, they found the planet almost by accident. It had too much water, too much green for his liking, this jewel in the starry void of heaven that they stumbled on outside the rim of known space. There were minerals though, mountains of them that could be refined into fuel even if the world was too harsh for their liking. To the Mihari, this world was the equivalent of an icy tundra and certainly not suitable for habitation.

  They landed their craft outside the main city, making no attempt to hide. The city was made of sugar spun into buildings, delicate in appearance, but strong. Light filtered through coloured glass and tall structures, and creatures flittered from high gardens, the air almost vibrating with the noise.

  Darak found the whole thing repugnant, the light, the smell, the alien vista. Black creatures with exo-skeletons like armour began to land, standing between the Mihari and their precious city. The Mihari were outnumbered, but the creatures looked fragile enough. As their wings beat and their legs moved, sound transmitted and the translation matrix turned sound into words they could understand.

  “Who are you?”

  “We are the Mihari, servants of Emperor Arokae. We claim this world in the name of the Shadow God and our Empire!”

  “This is our land,” the aliens responded. “We have fought hard for our peace, and we will not yield to invaders!”

  Darak didn’t know of the Chiitai’s history, of how the War of Bloodied Fields had begun and ended. Had he, his strategy might have been different. Instead, blinded by lust for the resources, he raced into battle and the aliens decimated the Mihari until the remainder were forced back to their remaining ships.

  But not before Darak discovered their secret.

  While his troops were being slaughtered, he watched with a veteran’s eyes and quick mind. The black soldiers were the main fighting force, joined sometimes by a caste of what seemed to be strategists or more experienced commanders.

  But if their commanding officer was killed, these soldier-drones were useless, almost like the Helot of his own world, the ones the Emperor summoned to his palace so the Shadow God might devour their essence. The pesky alien insects were left blank-eyed and incapable of movement until another commander took the place of the one who had fallen.

  Darak saw a resource more valuable than even the planet, so he led a mission into the black hive, the one set apart from the city, and stole the matriarch, their Jiha Queen, and a half dozen incapacitated drones. Then they ran across the alien fields and the familiar stars, heading home with a prize that Darak was sure would ensure the Empire’s continuing strength for millennia.

  It took them nearly five generations to crack the genetic code linking the Black Queen with her warrior drones. But once they found the key, it was the moment the Mihari Empire truly became a force to be reckoned with. They took a single iceberg of a planet and turned its inhabitants into a perpetually-renewable army.

  The Sankai were one of their earliest discoveries, a race of identical mammals who reproduced via cloning and communicated purely on a non-verbal level. Their reliance on cloning made them the perfect choice for enslavement, especially as they had already achieved a high level of technology which saw them beginning to travel to the stars.

  Their world was an iceberg; their star of origin a speck on the horizon, but on this one occasion, the Mihari had endured their hatred of the cold in pursuit of a larger goal. Their combined forces swamped the tiny unprotected planet and took control of the cloning centres. Within a year the first Rulani—the name the few remaining Sankai-in-exile, the ones who ran and hid, gave to their successors—began to make noise across Mihari and Union space.

  * * *

  Sandis turned to his terminal where a black and white movie was playing, dialogue and sound piped through his wireless connection. The neural rig he used to understand alien languages was proving useful when it came to digesting Terran media. The humans might not have heard of the Mihari or the Chiitai but they knew the Rulani.

  Known on Terra as Greys—and their place cemented by a much-publicised crash in 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico—these creatures were in truth the Rulani, the Mihari-enslaved foot soldiers. Through sheer numbers, these mindless clones and soulless abominations turned the Mihari Empire from a civilisation on the edge of collapse into the most feared force in the Universe.

  Rumours preceded them but it was sometimes a generation between the first reports of abductions and the ships descending with Rulani pawns and Mihari overseers that overran their chosen targets. In the last half century alone, the Rulani had been responsible for subjugating fifty worlds.

  * * *

  The maturation chambers on an iceberg-asteroid on the edge of the Zeta Reticuli system were a sight, rows stretching as far as the eye could see and still further, a sea of artificial wombs that would birth generation after generation of clones.

  Once they had been the Sankai, scholars and scientists, advocat
es and artists, but since the forced occupation of the system all the chambers now decanted were soldiers. The Rulani were born loyal, decanted with a single purpose: to conquer and die for the Mihari Empire.

  On the edge of the forest of chambers, two overseers stood and surveyed the latest batch, their eyes settling on a single individual.

  “It’s defective.”

  Clone 873e, decanted a month previously, stood silently as one of the overseers looked it over. Functionally identical to its batch mates, the only difference was a marker tattoo, a barcode-like sequence that identified it. It was naked, unblinking, and the Mihari treated it as if it were a stupid animal, even as they tried to place the nature of its defect. Behind those black eyes, however, a mind was listening, comprehending their words even as they decided its fate.

  Behind the grey skin and eyes deeper and darker than a black hole was a mind stripped out by genetic manipulation. 873e was different—but no one could quite explain what it was that made it stand out amongst its hundred identical siblings, born on the same day from the same genetic sample.

  To recognise a soul, you must first possess one yourself. It had been generations since the Sankai’s own enslavement, and the Mihari guards had long ago surrendered their own to their Emperor. No one remembered what a soul was anymore.

  “It doesn’t look defective,” the other overseer said. “Physically it looks just fine. It’s obedient, it follows commands. Aside from that blip after decantation, it seems just like the rest of the batch.”

  “And the mental interface?”

  “It seems to have settled down. The neural readings are certainly more active than its brethren, but they're within normal parameters for a clone.”

  The superior nodded. “Keep an eye on it then. As long as it remains docile and obedient there's no problem. Where is it assigned?”

  “The next world on the list.”

  “What was the local name? Saruvoi?”

  “Yes, sir. Apparently the radiation killed off the mammals but it also pushed the reptiles to the top of the food chain; they have a basic level society.”

  “Well they won’t for much longer. This planet is top of our list for resettlement, it’s the most viable candidate.”

  “Sir? Is he…does that mean the Emperor is going there?”

  “That information is above our grade. Get that clone to where it’s supposed to be and let's move on. We've got a new batch due for decantation in two hours.”

  873e let itself be guided, or herded more like, to the waiting pods. It and thousands like it were about to be dropped on a hostile world as shock troops, trained to subjugate the native population and assert control within a few days.

  873e was disturbed by this knowledge, although it wasn’t aware of the name for the emotion it was experiencing. The blip the overseers had mentioned hadn’t really been a blip, but a suppressed panic attack that had almost broken its sanity. 873e was defective, but not in the way they assumed. 873e was self-aware.

  It had woken to self-awareness moments after decanting. The neural link between it and its siblings was silent; they were blank slates and it was not. It had been like standing in a cavern and shouting, only the sound of its mental voice echoing back. If any of the others heard, they didn't have the capacity to answer. It was alone in a sea of identical faces and blank minds.

  Stasis forced 873e to contemplate, its mind never quite switched off as the others were. Through the link, 873e had access to a million other minds and senses. It felt the cold of its home-world, saw a nebula spinning in deep space, watched a family cowering as they were taken so the Mihari might know their potential enemies better, understand the weaknesses to be exploited when they landed on that world's doorstep and decided to move in.

  It understood it was alone but as long as it kept silent, 873e would live. There was no one else like it, not amongst the Rulani or the Mihari. The latter might be sentient but they were still under the thumb of a higher power; 873e had free will and the knowledge that it could disobey at any time, even if that moment would be its last.

  So 873e kept silent.

  Saruvoi was a hot world, dusty and parched from residual nuclear radiation dropped so long ago than no one remembered why or who had been responsible. There was water, and from all other standpoints this planet was similar to Mihari Prime–but without the peril of a dying star.

  It would make a suitable home, once the natives learnt their place. That was where 873e and its brethren came in.

  When the invasion began, the Rulani moved in formation, quickly, killing what lay before them. 873e kept back, knowing what death was.

  “Search the dwellings!” the Mihari overseers ordered. “Find the stragglers, kill anyone who resists.”

  The city was ordered, built in the caldera of a dead volcano and offering protection from dust storms. The Rulani fanned out, moving like ants down streets, and 873e found itself forcing its way into a house, the door hastily barricaded.

  As it entered, words came to him, the tone making the inhabitant's threat obvious: “Come one step closer and I will kill you.”

  873e stopped.

  The native was protecting a female, her legs obviously defective as she used a staff to walk. They were trying to escape the house through a tunnel bored into the bedrock, likely an escape route out of the city. The male was a boy, anger and terror in his eyes, his scales the calm blue of childhood.

  These two weren't like the rest of their race. The natives of Saruvoi might be sentient but what 873e saw in his eyes was deeper, memory that went beyond existence. Worse, they saw the same in it, understanding that behind the blank expression there was a conscious mind screaming for release.

  873e stepped back and lowered its weapon. Then it focused and projected a thought, hoping the native would hear.

  “Go.”

  The boy cocked his head, then realised this wasn't a time for questions, rather it was a chance to run, and motioned his companion further into the bolthole. “Alia, quickly.”

  There was no time for questions. 873e watched them go as the male sealed the entrance behind them and it returned outside. Its superiors knew there had been people in the house and it realised retribution would come, swift and unforgiving. Had it been worth it?

  “There it is! You two, follow the two who escaped! Find that hobbled girl, she's what passes for royalty here, and we'll need her if the rest of the populace are to be tamed!”

  The overseers sounded angry and advanced on 873e, their spittle landing on its skin as the Mihari vented their rage with kicks and blows. 873e was grabbed; it dropped its weapon and made no attempt to fight back. There was no point. They forced it to its knees, then a weapon was pressed to its temple and fired. Its body slumped into the dust but, in the microsecond before its death, 873e realised that its batch number wasn't just a designation, it was more than that.

  It was a name.

  * * *

  The hologram of the Rulani, one of the engineered Mihari zombies, rotated on an invisible axis, spinning slowly a few inches above the library floor. Sandis sat looking at the creature, transfixed as he mulled over an afternoon’s worth of research.

  They were drones, shock troops, and yet once they’d been a vibrant society with their own customs and technology. Most people thought of the Rulani, not of the Sankai, their precursors, the ancient culture the Mihari had almost completely wiped out. Did they even exist anymore? Were they hiding on some distant moon, some forgotten asteroid waiting for the Empire to burn itself out?

  Rheia would know; there wasn’t much she didn’t. He wondered if anyone had asked her that. Disabling the emitter, Sandis collected his things and decided, as it wasn’t too late, to see if she was still in her office. He had a few more questions to ask that only she, he suspected, could answer. It was, after all, still Ask Anything Day, even if classes were done.

  A Word from Lesley Smith

  Zombies are one of the few things which terrify me (another thing is
Sadako from the Ring series). They’re voracious, they never tire, they don’t stop, they can’t be reasoned with and they’ll eat you. That said, they’ve been done to death in so many ways that finding a new angle is a delicious challenge.

  For the past couple of decades, I’ve been immersed in a very unique multiverse and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to explore a very alien concept of ‘traditional’ zombies.

  In my Ashteraiverse, I primarily set my stories on worlds belonging to the Union, a peaceful collective of planets not unlike the Federation (except that Earth is a new member, not a founder, and a lot of people do not want us to be a part of it). However they’re not the only force in this universe, two other empires share control of the galaxy and this story allowed me to focus on them for a change: the isolationist Chiitai Conglomeration and the malevolent, power-hungry Mihari Empire.

  I got interested in the idea of insects, of drones and how they work together as a unit to achieve things. This idea translated nicely into the concept of a mindless drone controlled by an outside source to achieve aims, some honest, even heartfelt and others much more nefarious. What if it starts with actual drones? In this case a Chiitai caste of foot soldiers much like worker bees and the knowledge stolen to be abused by another race, the Mihari.

  I’m a big fan of mythology and know a lot about the roots of supernatural creatures. I might live in a world of 28 Days Later and The Walking Dead but I grew up with the classic stories of men raised from the dead by nefarious means, mindless, to do the work of their masters. That idea stuck with me and lingered. What if the zombies aren’t just mindless but soulless as well and then, what if one drone in a billion was decanted from an artificial womb, miraculously self-aware and able to fight that control?