Earth Song: Twilight Serenade

by Mark Wandrey

  The distant chuckle from her mother was honest. “I'm no different than when we parted company a few months ago. Maybe a little fatter…”

  “How is my baby brother/sister?”

  “Still cooking.”

  “I'm sorry?”

  Minu laughed again. “He or she is fine. Just saw the doc a last week. He said I'm a kilo lighter than I should be.”

  “Then we should have dinner at your cabin.”

  “That's a great idea dear. Why don't you meet me there in three hours?”

  “Perfect. That will give me time to drop off Kal'at.”

  “That is appreciated,” the Rasa scientist said over the radio.

  “See you soon.”

  Lilith wrote a series of command subroutines and stored them in the Kaatan’s semi-autonomous controls. She could command the ship from almost anywhere in the galaxy instantaneously through the quantum communicator, if absolutely necessary. It was much better to be onboard if anything serious happened. She was confident that between her ship’s sensors and the new array on Remus, she'd have the better part of an hour’s warning should a ship decelerate into the system, plenty of time to return. No starship would risk passing through a star system at superluminal speed. Even a powerful ship of the line like the Kaatan would be hard pressed to survive an impact at more than the speed of light.

  The housekeeping work finished, she informed Kal'at she was ready and floated out of the CIC and down the corridors with gentle hand/arm motions that the computer converted into slight nudges from the ships force fields. At only 175 meters from needle bow through bulbous central section to cylindrical stern, the Kaatans were not a large ship, but they packed massive firepower and adequate space for a large crew if necessary. The ships boat hangar carried four needle shaped shuttles for her to use as needed.

  Just outside the hanar, her ground side transport awaited, a huge spider shaped bot with a null-gravity bubble projected on its back. Using the bot she could spend extended times on a planet with quite high gravity.

  Though she'd worked with her body to get it stronger, being born and raised in zero gravity had left her without the physique Bellatrix raised humans took for granted. Her bone density was only forty percent of normal humans her age. An accidental fall could break limbs.

  “Ready to go?” Kal'at hissed, a pair of crab bots passing them, all weighted down with baggage, samples, instruments, and all manner of other equipment. Scientists of all species were the same, they never traveled light.

  “I am. Do you look forward to returning to Romulus?”

  “It is not the planet of my birth, but it is now home. I look forward to seeing how the maturation of our young proceeds!”

  Lilith nodded and gestured, following her reptilian friend into the bay where one of the shuttles was already on the deck. They`d spent months together as the only occupants of the starship. Lilith was somewhat surprised to realize she would miss the Rasa.

  A score of the blue crystalline bots the Kaatan used scuttled around the shuttle, detaching power and consumable cables and verifying the crafts readiness. The ship was automated to such a degree that she only needed to order it made ready, and the ship did the rest.

  The Rasa crab bots worked side by side with the blue crystalline ones of the Kaatan to finish loading the shuttle only a minute after they'd arrived. She gestured and her transporter came to life, trundling gracefully on eight insectoid legs to board the shuttle. It found an empty space in the rear cabin, folded in upon itself, and went into stand-by mode as Lilith and Kal'at continued to the cockpit.

  Even before she'd left the hold, Lilith triggered the flight sequence to life. The cargo door irised closed, the gravitic drives spun up, and the craft lifted off the deck. As the cockpit door slid open at their approach, the exterior door of the Kaatan was already sliding open and the shuttle passing out into space.

  “Why do you bother using the cockpit?” Kal'at asked as he wedged his tail behind into the seat which was not quite designed for him. “You could pilot the craft from anywhere on board...”

  “Truth be told, I could fly it from anywhere in the galaxy.” Kal'at turned an eye turret toward her. In many other beings that would have been a boast. He knew a lot more of her capabilities now, after months together. There was no false bravado in her statement.

  “Then the question is even more relevant.”

  Lilith gave a rather typical human shrug and smiled slightly. “My father made me promise. Should something happen to the automated systems, the manual controls are located here.”

  “Is that a possibility?”

  “Not even a remote one.”

  “Then why give your word?”

  Outside they'd cleared the Kaatan and were angling away. The big green cloud covered face of Romulus swung into view and centered, then began to get larger before she answered. “Minu says it is human custom to obey your parent’s wishes.” Kal'at seemed unconvinced, but did not pursue the topic.

  With the powerful gravitic drive of the shuttle, they were burning down into the atmosphere of Romulus in only minutes. The ship cancelled out all sensations of motion as it rode out the upper atmosphere turbulence and dropped below the perpetual cloud deck. Endless deep green seas stretched out below them.

  “Your people have begun construction of a third platform?” Lilith asked as the shuttle dropped down to just above the waves.

  “That is correct,” he agreed, “new contracts for food have been very lucrative, and the platforms are constructed largely from scrap we buy through your Chosen and transported up here by contractors in Phoenix shuttles.”

  Lilith was aware of the arrangements. Though the conversation made little practical sense as it exchanged no unique information, it was from another lesson from her mom that she continued. Small talk.

  Lilith paid attention to the talk with a small part of her brain as the rest reveled in the simple joy of flying a perfectly designed craft in the atmosphere. The Lost might be gone for untold eons, but their engineering was gloriously eternal.

  Travelling at five times the speed of sound, the prime habitat platform went from the distant horizon to looming in only seconds. Lilith applied gravitic control to break, bank, and climb all with the kind of flawless precision only a pilot with her brain partly controlled by computers could manage. They dropped below supersonic barely a hundred meters before rocketing past the platform. She got a spectacular view of the facility with its hundreds of humans, Rasa, and some Traaga all busily working. Many looked up in shock at the sudden appearance of the shuttle, some waving when the recognized the sleek needle shape.

  The shuttle banked into a fantastic skew turn at more than two hundred gravities, tail slipping in to precisely line up with one of the platform’s many landing pads. Lilith backed her in and down, setting onto the platform as light as a feather.

  “Your father was as wonderful of a pilot as you are,” Kal'at pronounced with a nod from the copilot seat. To his credit his claws hadn't even tightened on the hand rests during the hair raising approach. He had complete faith in her abilities.

  “He still is,” she said and floated aft.

  “Of course.”

  Lilith wasn't being illogical. Now that she was home she had every intention of meeting with her mother, and then finding her father, or those that had killed him. A little smile curled the edges of her mouth. That was something she was looking forward to. Where there was no satisfaction, there was at least revenge.

  Minu had just taken the fish from the small infrared oven when she heard the distant multiple cracks of a vessel tearing through Bellatrix's atmosphere at hypersonic velocity. She smiled as she carried the hot dish to the table and then checked on the mushroom casserole. She enjoyed making a meal completely from local foods occasionally. It didn't always work out, but this time it did. The mushrooms were plentiful in the fall by her island and the fish were biting as well.

  She removed a bottle of wine from the wine fridge and wa
s reading the label when she felt a little shiver run up her spine and the cabin vibrated ever so slightly. Her ears could just hear the whine of the shuttle’s gravitic impellers as Lilith set it down on the ceramic concrete pad between the cabin and the old observatory that had belonged to her ancestor, Mindy Harper. A few moments later the door opened and in came her daughter.

  Minu put the bottle down and went to her. The transporter bot stopped just inside the door and lowered to the ground. Lilith lithely floated to the floor and carefully released the gravimetric field. A sound somewhere between a sigh and groan escaped her lips as the pull of the planet’s core took hold of her. Minu cocked a head and she nodded, the two women coming together in an embrace.

  “It's so good to see you, dear,” Minu whispered in her ear and kissed her cheek.

  Lilith hesitated a half second before returning the kiss with only a slight pause of uncertainty. Physical displays of affections were something she still struggled with, even as a 24 year old woman (though she was technically born a 12 year old). “I'm sorry your dad is not here to welcome you home.”

  Lilith nodded and felt emotions creeping into her consciousness and moved to intercept them. Instead she directed her feelings to something more useful. “We must discuss finding him.”

  “That might not be practical.”

  Lilith was about to disagree and explain that there was no were in the galaxy that their enemies could hide from her when she really noticed her mother, or more importantly, her belly. “You have gotten fat!”

  Minu gagged and covered her mouth, stifling a choked off laugh. Her daughter, always a shining example of propriety.

  “No, daughter, that is your little brother or sister.”

  Minu had so seldom seen her daughter at a loss for words, she dearly wished she'd had a camera to hand. Lilith's jaw dropped down and she gaped, a hand reaching out to Minu's swelling stomach was just as hastily pulled back as if the young woman was somehow afraid the pregnancy was catching. “It's okay,” she said and smiled. Lilith finished the motion and with supreme gentleness laid a hand on her mother's growing stomach. As if on cue, the baby inside kicked right under her hand.

  “Oh!” Lilith squeaked and pulled her hand back.

  “Little one knows his sister is there.”

  “Really?” she asked under her breath. “That is normal behavior for a fetus?”

  “Sometimes, yes.” Lilith put her hand back and received the same treatment. Her eyes sparkled with joy and amazement like Minu had never seen.

  “How much longer?”

  “A few months.”

  She looked at her mother again and shook her head. “I believe you will explode before it is birthed.”

  Minu chuckled and moved to the table. “I feel that way some mornings. Are you hungry? I could eat a kloth!”

  Minu felt she'd out done herself with dinner and Lilith ate with only partial attention. After giving her debriefing on the flight back and how the sensor arrays were operational on Remus (leaving out the batteries), she bombarded her mother with questions about how Aaron had been lost until Minu finally interrupted her.

  “Look, I know you want to go all Lone Ranger and kick some alien ass to find your father-”

  “I do not know who this Lone Ranger is, but if he is one of your rangers he is welcome to come along.”

  Minu stopped for a second, considered how long it would take to explain the Lone Ranger, then aborted the attempt. “Anyway, we have more important things to do right now.”

  The two settled down to dinner where Minu continued her narrative over the fish main course. “We have thousands of children that were brain damaged by the Nocturne virus. Ted's been working with Dr. Bane, the planet’s foremost cybernetics expert, and Dr. Tasker who's in charge of the Codex Trust. They have an idea but need your help.”

  “Okay, what can I do?”

  “We need to access the Kaatan's medical intelligence for help designing a cybernetic implant capable of bringing those kids back.”

  “I don't know if that is possible,” Lilith cautioned.

  Minu gestured at her daughter with a fork full of fish. “You're living proof it's possible, the real question is if it is practical. So many children, we have to try something. Legal has been working for weeks to establish a contract to offer the parents of the children. It's scant hope, but better than nothing.”

  “You shouldn't have released the Mok-Tok,” Lilith grumbled. “Maybe pulling a few of its limbs off would have influenced it to help us.”

  “Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Threatening to expose him to it was enough to get its help in neutralizing the virus and producing a vaccine. They muffed it, as it was, the bug was intended to kill us all. As it is, only a handful died, but thousands were maimed.” Lilith made a face. “Don't worry dear, mother keeps a list of all the bad people.” She speared another hunk of the rich native lake fish, an easy to catch species that resembled earth’s sharks without being carnivorous. She was a firm believer in a reckoning. “For now let's concentrate on helping those kids.”

  “As you wish, mother.”

  “Next, about your ship’s low consumables, and how we can go about replenishing them…” Lilith leaned closer to listen.

  Night birds and terrestrial insects sang outside with the occasional barking of howlers to create a cacophony unique to Bellatrix five centuries post mankind’s colonization. They’d brought their own flora and fauna to this world and in the years since she'd first started coming here insects and birds were becoming increasingly the dominant animals. Both non-Bellatrix native species. Native howlers and scrubbers more and more rare.

  Inside Lilith slept quietly in one of the cabins two guest rooms. Her ground side transporter was folded up tightly under the bed creating an area of about one quarter gravity, enough to keep her firmly under the sheets while also light enough that she could breathe easily and sleep comfortably. Minu worried about her. Lilith would never be able to handle full gravity for more than brief times.

  Minu's hand went to her growing stomach without thought and she felt tears running down her cheeks. There were few moments when she indulged her emotions these days, but this was one of them.

  “I'm running low on friends,” she cried to the night. Pip had been flawed and a huge pain in the ass most of the time, but he was a faithful friend who, in the end, gave his life to save her. And now Aaron. She didn't want to admit he was dead, but how could she do otherwise? The Tanam would have used him to their advantage if he had lived. He was of no use to them as a corpse. The cats were all about advantage. And now she was going to send her only surviving family into harm's way.

  In the early hours of morning Lilith carefully climbed from bed and activated her special bot. It silently moved over and the anti-gravity projectors lifted her off the floor and into the air. She sighed quietly as the crushing gravity disappeared.

  The blue crystalline bot walked her out into the living room. In the other bedroom Minu slept. The sensors in the bot located her and Lilith initiated a monitor subroutine to ensure she stayed asleep. Then Lilith went back to her task.

  The ancient desk that once belonged to Minu family matriarch, Mindy Harper. On it was two computers, base units of the much smaller tablets the humans favored. One was a special access unit for the Chosen network. The other was linked to the planetary network.

  Checking one more time to be certain her mother was still in deep REM sleep, Lilith slid open the desk and reached out to one of the computers. It was the planetary access she wanted. A thin tendril of blue crystal thinner than a hair grew up her leg, along her torso, down her arm, and extended from her finger until it contacted the computer.

  It grew over the computer, and into it. The machine gave a single muted beep of distress before her hard wired hack penetrated its primitive brain directly and opened to Lilith’s many times more powerful cybernetically modified mind.

  The woman didn’t bother with fineness, she took it all. Using Minu�
��s high level access she began copying every bit of data available through the computer. Terabytes moved in moments though the Concordian built data network, stored in a small offline computer back in Lilith’s room. Almost as an afterthought she took her mother’s personal files as well.

  She was back in her room less than ten minutes after getting out of bed. The computer she’d broken into was restored to normal operation and all signs of her penetration wiped clean. Lilith was confident no one on the planet could detect how the attack had happened.

  She spent a moment to upload the data to her ship far above at an even faster data rate. Once she’d confirmed the data was stored in a special file she returned to bed and went back to sleep. In the other end of the house her mother slumbered with no hint anything unusual had happened.

  Chapter 3

  Octember 27th, 534 AE

  Chosen Council Chamber, Stevens Pass, Bellatrix

  If there was anything Minu disliked more than being the one in charge, it was dealing with people whom she needed the approval of before she could do things required by being in charge. Her life since becoming a Chosen was one conundrum after another, and this was one of the worst.

  “Thank you all for coming,” she said to the assembled group. In the council chambers were all of the two star Chosen councilors.

  Dram Aluvala, second in command of the Chosen and scouts branch. Cherise Macubale, logistics branch. Gregg Larson, Rangers branch. Jasmine Osgood, science branch. Newly promoted Kenneth Benedict, training branch. And lastly was the aging but still formidable Bjorn Ganose, former head of the science branch and still two star Chosen. With Minu at the council head, there were seven voting members. A young five star wearing the yellow of logistics sat to one side running the recording apparatus.

  “Okay,” Minu spoke and addressed her council, “I'm reopening something from a while back before I was the First. What I'm talking about is our freedom.” She could tell by their reactions that this was going to be a mixed bunch. “Jacob started out the talks from the negative point that leaving the Tog’s protection was dangerous. But you can all see that we've outgrown any protection they could offer us.