The others expressed worry…fear…then acceptance. The path was chosen. They would fall in line.
Their leader holstered his pistol and swept his arm out, pointing into the forest, away from Eyana. “To the ship. It is time.”
As they walked away, one of their number paused and stared directly at Eyana. She blanked her mind and tried not to read him. He cocked his head, seemed to shrug, then lumbered away with the others.
“Silky?”
“I recorded their crazy conversation, Ana, all of it. The emppy worked wonders.”
“Feeling better about it now?”
“Worse, actually. I’m preparing an echo space communication pulse.”
Humanity depended on a number of higher dimensions, in particular hyperspace for faster-than-light travel, wraith space for harvesting power pack crystals, flux-space for harnessing energy, and the ultra-compact echo-space for communicating rapidly across vast distances. Ana carried inside her shoulder pack a rare, miniaturized echo-space relay module. Each use of the device drained an entire power pack, and she only had three extras with her.
“Hold onto it for now.”
“If they really have a weapon that powerful, Ana, then the Benevolency needs to know about it.”
“The signal might be detected.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing, Ana.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t want to be captured and killed.”
“Of course not! But the Krixis Empire will be just as interested in stopping these insurgents as we are.”
“All the same, I’d prefer to wait.”
“You want me to send it once we’re in orbit?”
“Yes, but not in the way you think.”
“Ana, no! Don’t do it. I’ll summon your starship.”
“Sorry, Silky, but we don’t know where this group is heading or if help can arrive in time.”
“The ship could be here in six hours, Ana.”
“That’s not soon enough.”
“I’ll call for it anyway.”
“If you want, but I’m sneaking onto their ship. You know you can’t talk me out of this.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
“You don’t have to sound so defeatist.”
“Sorry, Ana, I was aiming for realist.”
She rolled her eyes. “I want you to send the message the moment before they jump to hyperspace. They’re not as likely to detect it then.”
“That’s reasonable.”
“And once we reach the destination, we will send another signal to let the Benevolency know the location.”
“Still reasonable, Ana.”
“Then I will sabotage their ship and do whatever it takes to make sure they don’t get their hands on this all-powerful weapon.”
“Ah, so you do plan on dying after all?”
“Silky.”
“Sorry, Ana. It sounds like a great plan. I am certain we will succeed and you will survive.”
“You ass. Power down the emppy and pull up a local scan. I’m going to need a technical readout on their ship.”
Chapter Three
Eyana Ora
Still cloaked, Eyana followed the Krixis through the forest into a sudden ravine choked with ropy vines adorned with yellow leaves and tiny white blossoms. She paused at a safe distance while they uncovered an elongated starship half-buried beneath the vines. Needlessly ornate like all Krixis ships, it was a small, military research vessel. While it was certainly armed and capable of defending itself against starfighters or pirates, it was not the heavily armed vessel she had expected the insurgents to use.
“Silky, I had assumed they were soldiers.”
“I had too, Ana.”
“But—”
“You think they’re military scientists instead?”
“I wouldn’t expect common soldiers to know about top-secret, ultra-powerful weapons, would you?”
“It seems unlikely, Ana.”
“Is the emppy primed?”
“Awaiting your command.”
“I’m going to have to get close and dart inside at the last moment.”
“It won’t be easy, Ana.”
“I need you to have the echo space relay prepped.”
“If I power it up, Ana, their ship sensors are more likely to detect you.”
“We’ll have to risk it. If they catch me, I want you to send the pulse immediately.”
“Ana, don’t get caught.”
“I’ll do my best, Silky.”
She pulled her purple hair, streaked with pink, loose then retied it into a ponytail. She rotated her shoulders, swiveled her hips a few times, and shook out her hands. Finally, she took a deep breath. “Here goes.”
As she marched forward at a brisk pace, the boarding ramp at the back of the ship lowered. The twelve Krixis rushed to board.
“Damn, they’re in a hurry.”
“Must be worried about getting caught, Ana. Which means their ship is stolen.”
“That certainly explains why they were hiding it.”
She took off into a sprint.
“I’ll max the sound-dampening field, Ana.”
“Thank you.”
The Krixis research vessel was sixty meters away, and four of the Krixis were already onboard. As she raced toward them, her footsteps were far louder than she would have liked, far louder than what she normally prided herself on, but she had no choice. She could only hope the sound dampening was compensating adequately so that anyone within a few meters of her wouldn’t hear her at all.
As she went, Silky adjusted the antigrav perfectly, making her steps light enough to not make as much noise and to help her run fast, but not so light that she didn’t get adequate traction with each foot strike. He knew exactly what she needed. Working together forty-seven years came with its benefits.
She was thirty meters away when the last Krixis boarded. He triggered the ramp when she was twenty meters away.
“You’re not going to make it, Ana.”
“Full antigrav on my mark.”
“Roger that.”
The boarding ramp was halfway up as she closed to within ten meters.
“Now!”
She leapt forward as hard and high as she could and straightened herself out as if she were going to dive into a pool. She arced toward the ship, her body becoming practically weightless. As she her topped her arc, she started to tell Silky what she wanted, but he already knew.
He bottomed out the antigrav then reversed it, increasing her weight. She plummeted down toward the closing mouth of the ship. In a blink, she whisked right through. The ramp clamped shut behind her.
Silky triggered the antigrav back to full, wrenching her guts upward as she struck the floor beside the last Krixis and did a shoulder roll past four of them, stopping with her knees under her chest and her head tucked down to the floor.
Eyana held her breath and didn’t dare twitch a muscle. She blanked her mind and emotions, suppressing fear, then counted silently to herself: 1…1…2…3…5…8…13…21…
She stayed in a ball, praying silently to the Benevolence even while counting, until the prayer and the Fibonacci sequence seemed to merge into the same thing.
She had never been devout. She didn’t believe in a universal creator, and she didn’t believe that a higher power had guided the creation of the Benevolence. She certainly didn’t believe it was actually divine itself. The Benevolence had never proclaimed any divinity, after all. In fact, it discouraged such beliefs.
But her parents had devoutly worshiped the Source and the Benevolence and, like many along the dangerous, fringe worlds on the outskirts of civilization, she had grown up in the faith. So every time she was truly scared, she recited the prayers she’d memorized as a young girl.
Like a toddler, she kept her eyes shut so she couldn't see the towering aliens, as if doing so meant they couldn’t see her either. She hadn’t seen much as she landed and rolled, but she knew she was balled up near on
e of them, possibly just a meter away. This close, their pungent scent, like rotting leaves in an autumn-turned forest, nearly overpowered her. Or maybe it wasn’t them but the ship itself. She had never boarded a Krixis vessel before.
She could still see the information in her HUD though, since Silky sent that directly through her optical nerves. The emppy was still working properly, so were the sound dampening field and the invisibility cloak. But she could feel the mind of the nearest Krixis scanning across her. Other minds joined his. They must have sensed her empathic ability, at least a little. She prayed and counted, and watched the meter showing the energy level of her emppy tick slowly down. She had several hours left, even while using it at full strength, but that didn’t make her feel any better.
Silky launched the position locator window, showing a round, radar-like display. She was the green dot in the center, while the red dots depicted all of the Krixis within twenty meters of her position. Nine of the eleven hovered close by, and they weren’t moving. They were almost as still as she was. The other two were now on the ship’s bridge.
She was tempted to use her empathic sense and scan to see if they were in fact looking for her. Maybe she wasn’t the issue. Maybe they were standing around for some other reason. Maybe what she thought of as scans was simply them communicating excitedly amongst each other.
Eyana almost laughed at herself. Her thoughts were twisting back onto themselves as fear took root. She had to stay empathically silent and assume the worst. After all, they’d been in a hurry before. Why stand here idly now? And dampeners or not, she surely must have made a sound when she landed. If nothing else, they should have felt a breeze sweep past them. They had to be suspicious.
The floor vibrated softly beneath her as the ship powered up. The red dots on the location display dispersed suddenly, all save the one closest to her. While the others went farther into the ship, that one remained.
Through her hands and knees, she felt a deep reverberation as the ship’s engines flared to life. Then, with a shudder, the ship lifted off.
Eyana finally dared to open her eyes. The lone insurgent had crouched down beside her. He turned around in a circle, his head cocked to the side. Then he looked at her. Their eyes met, or at least hers met his. The deep amber orbs burned with intensity. She felt another telepathic scan sweep across her.
He stood, threw his hands out in a shrug, and stalked away. He passed through an opening into a long hallway, then slammed shut a door of what looked like deep mahogany wood. The click of a locking mechanism echoed through the boarding chamber.
She had already stopped praying, and now she stopped reciting the Fibonacci sequence as well. She still kept her thoughts quiet and tamped down her emotions.
Inside, the whole vessel looked like an ancient sailing ship from Terra, with the walls, floor, and ceiling seemingly constructed from wood. Yet she knew these organically created materials were actually far stronger than steel.
The ship rattled as it burned into orbit. She stood up and wiped the sweat from her brow. Moving slowly and carefully, she glanced around. This boarding chamber held several locked cabinets of supplies and several rows of Krixis-sized spacesuits.
“Ana, they’re doing a full-powered, focused scan on this section of the ship. I’ve enabled your jamming system.”
“I’m lucky they didn’t just kick around. Otherwise, they would have found me.”
“They did kind of kick around, actually. You just got lucky.”
“Well, that’s something. Maybe things are going to go my— Wait, you said they’re thoroughly scanning this section?”
“Affirmative, Ana.”
“That means they think something might still be in here.”
“True, Ana, though I don’t know what they suspect, given they didn’t find anything. They would’ve seen another Krixis or a cog or sensed a normal empath.”
“This is a bunch of angry, paranoid radicals. Have you noticed everything in here is locked down? The room is sealed tight.”
“And I see the workings of a plasma window, Ana. So even with the boarding plank down, this can serve as an airlock.”
“And guess what?”
“You’re the only thing that isn’t locked down, Ana.”
“Exactly. They’re going to space me. And it makes sense. If you suspect something’s in here and you don’t want it there, flushing it out is an excellent strategy with no risk if you’re wrong.”
“Then you’ve got a minute—tops—to come up with something. Time to be brilliant, Ana.”
Chapter Four
Gav Gendin
“Counter measures!” Gav shouted.
“Done, captain,” Enic replied. “But it won’t mask us for long against that ship.”
“Assuming they haven’t already seen us,” Rina said. “And I feel certain they have.”
Tal spun around to face Gav. “We’ve got to run.”
Gav glanced at the Krixis warship speeding toward them. The Krixis had the advantage of more powerful engines and the pull of gravity, plus they could slingshot in pursuit. The Outworld Ranger was armed well enough to take on light military vessels twice its size, but not a warship like this.
“ETA on the Krixis?” Gav asked.
The answer popped up in his HUD: Three hours, fourteen minutes.
“Damn that’s fast,” Tal muttered.
“I don’t think that’s a standard patrol warship,” Enic said.
“If we’re going to run,” Rina said, “then we have to do it now.”
“What’s our chance of outrunning them?” Gav asked.
Tal shrugged. “Fifty-fifty. Depending on if they’ve seen us already.”
“Sir, I would estimate thirty-seven percent.”
“If they catch us, they will destroy us,” Tal said.
“There’s the treaty,” Rina offered.
“No evidence, no treaty broken,” Tal said.
“We could send an emergency signal,” Rina said.
“I’m not interested in starting a war,” Gav replied. “If we die out here, then it’s because we took the risk.”
Gav stared down at the planet below. The answers were right there. He’d worked so long on this.
“So what’s it going to be?” Enic asked.
“We run,” Tal said. “There’s no other choice.”
“What’s the chance they stumbled on us by accident, or that it’s just a patrol?” Gav asked.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” Enic said. “They must have somehow had warning that we had arrived.”
“Or we just had the bad luck to run into a patrol ship,” Rina countered.
Tal shook his head. “I don’t think they’ve been here in ages. Why else would the secretive Krixis leave a crashed ship down there?”
Gav made his decision. “We have to seize this opportunity. The odds of escape are already low. The odds on ever getting a chance to return here safely seem even lower. Either they’re protecting this system for some reason, or they’ve taken a new interest in it.”
“I know the odds of escape are slim,” Tal said, “but we have to try.”
Gav stared at the planet below. “I’ve got a plan. Take us down.”
Tal glared at him a moment, then sighed and spun back around to his console. “Landing sequence initiated.”
The Outworld Ranger entered the planet’s atmosphere.
Gav removed the circlet and stood. “Tal, bring us in low above the wrecked Krixis ship.”
“Where are you going?” Rina asked.
“To suit up,” Gav replied.
“We’re just going to explore the temple as if the Krixis weren’t here?” Enic asked.
“I am going to explore,” Gav said. “You are going to hide.”
Gav darted into his room and dressed in his semi-reflective environmental hazard suit. The helmeted, full-body suit could do more than protect him from the elements. The built-in shielding and synthetic spider-silk padding coul
d deflect a laser strike, withstand a glancing plasma shot, absorb a single, direct neural disruptor hit, and hopefully handle a Krixis acid-pulse or needler blast as well.
The suit had a built-in antigrav system, but to be certain of landing safely, he strapped on an antigrav belt designed to serve as a parachute in an emergency. He holstered his weapons then ordered Octavian to ready a pack of supplies for him, telling him to cram as much food and water as he could into a single backpack.
Then he returned to the bridge as the ship plunged through the cloudless atmosphere.
“Here’s the plan,” Gav told his crew. “You’re going to slow down over the wreck, just enough for me to drop out of the airlock, then you’re to head straight for the ocean. Dive and go as deep as possible. Then power down to life-support only. I’ll send you a signal when it’s safe to retrieve me.”
“That’s crazy,” Tal said. “You know that, right?”
“You don’t think the ship can handle diving deep into the ocean?” Gav asked.
“This ship? This ship can more than handle the depths we’d need to have a shot at avoiding their scans. As long as the nearest stretch of sea isn’t too shallow, then hiding underwater is a good plan.” He nodded appreciatively. “In fact, we’ve probably got a better shot hiding out than trying to make a run for it.”
“So what’s the problem?” Gav asked.
“I don’t think this temple’s worth the risk to you,” Tal said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“The risk seems manageable enough.”
“First, you have to survive a high-speed drop.”
“So slow down a bit more for me,” Gav replied.
“Then you have to hope the Krixis don’t detect you and send down a kill team.”
Gav shrugged. “Hopefully, they’ll be too focused on searching for the Outworld Ranger or examining their wrecked ship.”
“Okay, but if they hang around to explore or excavate that ship, you’ll have to survive on your own until they leave.”
“No problem.”
“In a potentially hostile environment with limited supplies.”
Forbidden System: A Benevolency Universe Novel (Fall of the Benevolence Book 1) Page 3
