by Neal Jones
The damn thing was opening up.
Hidden gears were smoothly turning, computer screens were coming alive with diagnostic readouts, latches were unsnapping, and umbilical cords/wires/tubing were disengaging. Like a computerized coffin from the imagination of H.G. Wells, the cryotube's lid was lifted upwards by the thick, central line of wiring/tubing that connected it to the room's ceiling, and the lifeform within sat up, blinking in the harsh glare of the room's lighting.
It was naked, its skin glistening with a thin layer of the bio-liquid that had housed it for a thousand years. After a few moments of close observation, it was clear to Burke that this alien was more gender neutral than actual female, at least if its torso was any indication. Its chest was flat, shaped more like that of an adolescent male than a fully matured female. Yet its face was somewhat feminine, with soft lines and curves, the skin utterly smooth and flawless. Its wide, expressive eyes were a deep emerald, and they looked at Burke, Decev, Keyt and Poppernan with confusion, curiosity and detached bewilderment.
It reached behind it, to the place on its scalp where the conglomerate of wiring/tubing had connected its head to the inside of the cryotube. The bald dome was free of those connections now, yet the hidden ports remained open, as microscopic as pores in the skin. The alien closed its eyes for a second, shutting those mechanized ports, and then gave a ghost of a smile, satisfied that everything was as it should be. Or almost. It looked down and realized its nakedness, and it looked at Burke.
"May I please have some clothing?"
It took a minute for the CMO's translation bio-probes to properly dissect the language and reformulate it in English. "Yes. Yes, I can ... do that." She motioned to Poppernan, and he left the room. "It'll be a few minutes." The doctor accepted her medkit from Keyt and looked down at Decev.
"I am sorry for your companion. I did not intend for my waking up to damage her as it did. I hope that the damage is not irreparable."
"So do I," Burke murmured. There wasn't any bleeding in Mariah's brain, nor any sign of damage to any of its tissue, except for the telepathic nerve cells. There was a slight swelling of the tissue in that area, and a full bioscan revealed high levels of adrenaline in the blood stream. Decev would probably be fine, and the CMO injected something into her that would reduce the swelling in the nerve cells. The science officer would have one hell of a headache when she woke up, but sleep was the best thing for her right now.
With Decev taken care of, the doctor stood and faced the alien. Burke conducted a bioscan, glancing back and forth between the readouts on her screen and the alien. The silence was awkward and uncomfortable, so she said, "My name is Joanna Burke. I'm the chief medical officer for the EarthCorps starship Dauntless. We're not your enemy, we're not here to hurt you."
"Yes," Ilkara said in a matter-of-fact tone. "I believe you. I sense your sincerity, as well as your fear and trepidation. I assure you that you have no reason to fear me. I am not your enemy either, but I am a little confused."
"Yes, I can imagine," Burke replied dryly. "You've been in there a long time." She flicked her gaze at the cryotube.
"It's not that. It's the fact that your species is the one who has awakened me. Your physical appearance identifies you as human, a native species of the planet Earth. Either I am not far enough forward in the time stream, or there has been a massive disruption in the variable elements of this particular cycle."
Joanna Burke was a seasoned woman who'd been around the block more than once in her life. She was smart, confident, sometimes sassy, sometimes wise, and never at a loss for words. Yet she could only stare at Ilkara, mouth slightly agape, as she tried to digest the paragraph which had just been uttered.
"My name is Ilkara. I apologize for not revealing that earlier. I can see that you are as confused by all of this as I am. I suppose I shall take that as a good sign."
It was at this point that Poppernan returned with a medical tunic and pants, the kind that were issued to patients when checking into the hospital. Burke was so focused on Ilkara that the petty officer had to tap her shoulder to get her attention. "Doctor."
"What?" Joanna turned, blinking. "Oh. Right." She grabbed the clothes and handed them to the alien. "I'll be right over there if you need any assistance." She pointed to the far side of the room, near the entrance.
"Thank you."
Burke and the two engineers walked away, keeping their backs to Ilkara. The CMO tapped her commlink. "Burke to Dauntless."
"Bixler." She was the comm officer for the night watch.
"Patch me through to Captain McKenna. This is a priority one."
"Yes, ma'am."
It was several moments before McKenna's bleary voice emerged from the commlink. "Go ahead, doctor."
"Captain, you need to get down here immediately. We've succeeded in waking up the lifeform."
There was a few seconds of silence, and when McKenna replied, her voice was clear and crisp. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
Burke terminated the link and glanced at the pair of engineers. "Stand outside that door. No one except the captain comes in here. Understood?"
They nodded and made a hasty exit. Burke returned her attention to the Erayan, who was now standing beside the cryotube, drying its face and scalp with the sleeve of its tunic.
( 4 )
Third Lovar D'raal sighed with fatigue and frustration as he shut off his computer terminal and leaned back in his chair. His office was not luxurious by any standards, but it was more spacious than most high ranking military soldiers received, and, lately, it had become his home away from home. Right now, however, he longed for the comfort and solitude of his country estate on Shyorma, one of the outer colonies of the Emperium. The launch date for the invasion force was only a few hours away, and the last minute details that required the commanding officer's attention were almost too numerous to count. First Lovar Prakra had docked an hour ago, and he was taking his sweet time in getting to the command deck. D'raal suspected that he was doing as Senator Nejra had done, stopping at engineering first - or some other major part of the operations hub - and then making the command deck his final destination.
Which suited the third lovar just fine. Prakra was overbearing, demanding and ruthless when it came to his uniform and his loyalty to it. He was a perfectionist who expected those beneath him to hold themselves to the same exacting standard that he held himself to, and he was known to strip officers of their rank and responsibility at a moment's notice if they happened to anger him in just the right way. However, to those who did succeed in meeting Prakra's demands, he didn't hesitate to praise and honor publicly. This inspired a fierce loyalty and determination in most soldiers serving under the First Lovar, and D'raal was one of them. He admired Prakra for the ruthless devotion that he gave to his uniform and his empire, and the third lovar strived to set the same example for those under his own command. Thus far, despite the many setbacks that this project had suffered, D'raal had managed to deliver to the senate a fleet worthy of the Emperium's name and power.
But that didn't make this last minute inspection any easier. Prakra wouldn't be pleased by the latest memo that had just dropped into D'raal's comm file. It was from First Krin Nalban, commanding officer of the southern quarter, and he was reporting on several "unexplained glitches and power surges" that were wreaking havoc with his squadrons' tactical and sensory systems. Unless the technical problems could be tracked down and fixed, that entire battalion would have to be scrapped, and the invasion force would be moving forward with only one-thousand-eight-hundred-and-two ships.
No, D'raal thought sourly, Prakra will not be pleased.
As if telepathically aware of D'raal's thoughts, the third lovar's comm officer chose that moment to interrupt the silence. "Sir, First Lovar Prakra is en route to the command deck."
D'raal tapped the key on his terminal pad. "Thank you, Iras. I'll be right out." He stood, brushed a hand over the front of his uniform to smooth out any wrinkles, and then walke
d out of his office.
The command deck was buzzing with the murmured, frantic activity of three dozen officers. Thraun was standing to one side of the primary ops console, casually looking over the shoulder of the tactical officer who was downloading a series of diagnostic reports. As much as D'raal despised the presence of the Talik'Jhor operative and his persistent "casual observations", he knew better than to voice those irritations aloud. Instead, he joined the civilian representative and adopted an air of cheerful anticipation.
"Morning sun, Thraun. You look as if you've had a full night's sleep."
Thraun was, as usual, expressionless in his tone and reply. "Yes, third lovar, I did get my customary rest. I never have trouble falling asleep. You, however, appear to have spent a restless night. I trust everything is still moving forward according to plan?"
"Of course," D'raal replied jovially. "If it weren't, you would be the first to know." First Lovar Prakra stepped out of the PTL at that moment, sparing D'raal the tedium of further conversation with Representative Thraun. "Excuse me, Sul." He didn't bother waiting for Thraun's dismissive nod before walking across the expansive deck to meet Prakra halfway. The third lovar saluted, waited for his superior to return it, and then said, "Morning sun, first lovar. Honor unto death."
"Victory is life." Prakra's tone and words were clipped and crisp, his gaze darting about the command deck to sweep in every detail. When he refocused his attention on D'raal, he held out his hand. The third lovar surrendered the compad that contained all the latest communiqués, operational reports, and fleet movements. He'd added his own notes to each item, and he swallowed as he waited patiently for the first lovar to peruse all fifty-two pages.
A short, sharp cry from the tactical officer interrupted the controlled, chaotic, murmuring buzz of the command deck and both lovars glanced in Second Krin T'anev's direction. "Third lovar - I mean, first lovar - there's ... you have to come see ... the fleet ... it's -"
Prakra's patience had a shorter fuse than either D'raal's or Thraun's. "Enough, second krin!" The bark was as sharp and sudden as T'anev's initial cry of alarm, and he coughed back any further attempts to explain the multiple readouts that were suddenly cascading across his console's primary screen. "Transfer your readouts to the forward viewing screen!"
T'anev obeyed, and the eyes of every officer on the command deck shifted from their various screens and duties to see what in the universe had prompted such an exclamation from the normally stoic second krin.
D'raal stifled his own gasp of alarm at the display which filled the floor-to-ceiling viewing screen at the fore of the command deck. He felt his knees starting to buckle, and he forced them to lock in place. But there was nothing he could do about the abrupt lack of color in his face, and some part of his brain insisted that what he was seeing couldn't possibly be real. It was trick, an illusion, a computer error, but even as his mind uttered the thought he knew he was wrong and only fooling himself. The sensor data scrolling across the bottom of the screen verified that this was indeed occurring in real time.
Hundreds of starships from all over the fleet were exploding, shattering, splintering into balls of flame and ebony debris as their reactor cores breached. It was like watching the supernovas of thousands of suns all at once, and the chain reaction was working its way from the outer edge to the inner core of the shipyard. Another corner of D'raal's brain whispered to him that the operations hub was seated at the core of the fleet yards, but he was still grappling with the reality of what he was witnessing on the forward viewing screen that it took several long seconds for him to finally turn and bark an order to Third Krin Engop.
But Prakra was one step ahead of his subordinate. "How in the name of the War God's Sword is this happening?" His voice resonated with the thunder of an ion storm, and every officer on the deck scrambled to pull up any data from their stations that might make any sort of sense.
But it was already too late, and D'raal had just enough time to feel a sudden, irrational sense of immense relief flood through him, for he would no longer have to worry about operational reports, surprise inspections, and/or deadly sabotage from rebel movements. No more paperwork, no more annoying questions from Thraun, no more groveling at Prakra's feet or those of the Imperial Senate.
Nothing but eternal rest in the Fields of Glory. The arms of his late wife were stretched out to greet him as he crossed the River of Enld. The command deck shuddered violently, lurching upwards like splintering ground suffering the violence of an earthquake. Consoles exploded, conduits ruptured, and the last thing that D'raal saw was a spinning piece of shrapnel embedding itself in Prakra's skull. He felt the thick, wet splattering of blood from another source to his right, and he heard the screams and prayers of the dying.
Then the universe went blessedly, eternally dark.
( 5 )
Ildirale Valayne dozed, dreaming of a place and time that had long been lost to her. She had been so young when she became a maiden in the court of Lord Emperor Emkai, and those days seemed at least two lifetimes ago. There was no trace of that beautiful, innocent girl in the form and face of the old woman who sat at her dying husband's bedside. The politics of monarchy and marriage had exacted their toll, forcing the youthful maiden to grow up much faster than she should have. It was only by the fortune of the Goddess of Life that she had borne Emkai a son, and while that was a blessed event for her, Ildirale had never forgiven herself for failing to instill in him a morality that would have protected him from the influence of his father and the senate.
Erengaar had been Ildirale and Emkai's only child, something that the lord emperor had made sure of only days after the boy was born. Ildirale hadn't learned of Doctor Rimshar's deception until many years later, and she still hated him bitterly for slipping the medicine into her evening tea. But once she had joined her hand to Emkai's, there was no turning back, especially after bearing him a son. That was where his previous two wives had failed, and he promised the lady empress that he would never forsake her as long as he lived. That innocent girl had believed him, had believed that she would have a life of fortune and true happiness since she had succeeded where the other two had not, but only the woman who now sat beside the dying lord emperor could see how foolish and naïve she had once been. Emkai had had many mistresses after Erengaar was born, and Ildirale had been powerless when it came to raising her son. He was taught by private tutors of the court, cared for by servants, and raised by Emkai. Ildirale was nothing more than a means by which the bloodline would continue, and she had fulfilled her role as any good daughter of the Emperium should.
Now there was nothing left but to watch her husband die and her son take his place on a corrupt and decaying throne. What made it all even worse was that Ildirale was despised by almost everyone in the court. Vatra, especially, had used her influence to isolate Ildirale, whispering about her behind her back, using the poison of her tongue to keep the lady empress separated from everyone around her. And she hadn't had the strength to fight back. In many ways, Ildirale was still that frightened, young maiden who had, by accident, caught the eye of the lord emperor.
Emkai stirred, coughing, and Ildirale snapped to consciousness, reaching for the basin of water on the nightstand. She wrung out the rag and gently mopped his face before laying the cool cloth across his forehead. His fever was only getting worse, and every breath was a battle. The war was almost over, yet Emkai refused to surrender, and Ildirale couldn't decide if it was stupidity or arrogance - or the fact that his mind had been as ravaged by the disease as his body - that kept him from accepting the inevitable. She sighed as she glanced at the holo-clock that hovered above its base next to the basin on the nightstand. It was time to end all of this.
Ildirale stood and crossed to her bureau where she unlocked the top drawer. She rummaged behind the neatly folded piles of blouses and sashes and pulled out a small vial. A servant had delivered a silver tray a few minutes earlier, and the lady empress walked to the table and poured two cups
of tea. The liquid had cooled just enough to make it easy to swallow, but not so much that the bitter taste of the maala root extract would be noticeable. She emptied the vial and stirred both cups vigorously before returning to her chair beside the bed.
It took some effort to get Emkai into a sitting position. He coughed some more, and he struggled, but he was delirious. He had long ago forgotten where he was, and he accepted the cup that was placed at his lips. His parched throat welcomed the tea, and when he was finished Ildirale drank her own serving. She helped her husband lay back down and then laid next to him, resting her head upon his shoulder.
"Go to sleep," she murmured, caressing his pale cheek. "We shall enter the Fields of Glory together, and they shall sing hymns of praise and welcoming."
Emkai's last breath was a wheezing gasp, and his eyes never closed. Ildirale reached up to shut them and then closed her own. Her last thought was of Erengaar and Larewyn at their union ceremony earlier that evening. Larewyn had looked so scared, so helpless, but she put up a brave front. Ildirale had wanted to tell her that it would all pass, that she would soon grow into her role, but it simply wasn't true. The cycle always repeated itself, and one day Larewyn would be where Ildirale was now, and she would curse the Gods in her last, bitter hour, as she lay beside her dying husband.
The thought was enough to leave a ghost of a smile on the lady empress' pale lips. And then she exhaled her last breath, and her hand clamped tighter about the frail, bony fingers of her husband's.
( 6 )
Lieutenant Navarr sighed with immense relief as she caressed her cheek. She had her own face back, her own skin, her own hair. Doctor Rosenberg was conducting one final bioscan to make sure there were no further aftereffects of the allergic reaction that had plagued the security officer during her entire return trip to Exxar-One.
