Forbidden System: A Benevolency Universe Novel (Fall of the Benevolence Book 1)

by David Alastair Hayden

  Chapter Nine

  Gav Gendin

  Gav sped toward the ground. He didn’t ask Torus, who no doubt had already made the calculation, where he would most likely land. He didn’t really want to know. It wasn't like he could do anything about it at this point. Either he would land on target and get the chance to study something no human had ever before seen, or he would crash and die.

  Gav laughed, but the wind snatched the sound away. He knew the rest of his crew thought he was crazy. When other people who have dedicated their entire lives to researching long dead alien civilizations call you obsessed for doing the same, it means something. And there was no point denying it. Ever since he’d visited a holographic museum exhibit of Ancient artifacts at the age of twelve, they had captured his imagination. Every new discovery he made only served to fuel the fires of his passion for knowledge about them.

  There were seven other deceased, spacefaring civilizations with remnants scattered about the known regions of the galaxy. But the others had never interested him. Those who had been locked to their own or a couple of nearby systems were boring, and the two older than the Ancients were even harder to study. They had actually lost out on the title of “Ancient” because humans had discovered evidence of them much later. As for the rest, they lacked the scope and grandeur of the Ancients.

  “Sir, full enviro-suit antigrav in 3…2…1…”

  Gav experienced a moment of what seemed to be near weightlessness as the antigrav jerked him upward, his stomach jamming up into his chest. The suit was still descending, though, only much more slowly. He was a hundred meters up now. The power for the antigrav system drained away at an alarming rate.

  “Kick in the backup antigrav belt.”

  “Sir, that is not necessary. There will be enough power to—”

  Gav felt like he was going to throw up inside his helmet. “Just do it.”

  “Adding the bonus belt at ten percent, sir. Recalculating your landing trajectory. You will be a little more off-target than before due to wind drift.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Sir, may I enquire why you do not trust my calculations vis-a-vis the antigrav power requirements?”

  “I’m human, Torus. And I’m about to have a nervous breakdown.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  There was a slight inflection in Torus’s voice. It was the only expression he ever exhibited. And it meant only one thing: He was claiming to understand something that absolutely baffled his programming.

  Gav winced as he touched down moments later, landing no harder than he would have if he’d jumped off a kitchen table. He was standing on a barren stretch of soft earth and was, according to his HUD, one hundred and seventy-three meters away from the wrecked Krixis ship and the entrance to the underground tunnels just a few meters beyond it.

  Gav bent over, gasping for air and struggling not to vomit. He’d made it. Resisting the urge to remove his helmet and kiss the rock beneath him, he radioed back to the Outworld Ranger.

  “Boots on the ground safely.”

  “Roger that,” Tal replied. “We’re about to dive. You should be getting the last data packet now.”

  “Got it,” Gav said. “Good luck.”

  “Same to you, sir,” Rina answered.

  Gav hoped they’d be okay.

  “Sir, it would be best to hurry. You will want to be underground before the Krixis arrive.”

  Gav jogged forward, his strides longer than normal thanks to the slightly lower than standard Terran gravity. And for that he was thankful. The gear he was carrying weighed over thirty kilograms, and he wanted to save what energy the main antigrav system had left. It could prove essential inside the temple.

  “Sir, the distress signal we received earlier is much stronger now. I can confirm that it’s Benevolent in origin. I am triangulating the location using telemetry from the Outworld Ranger’s last scans.”

  “Check those life form readings again while you’re at it.”

  “Sir, the distress signal is coming from just outside the temple. And I am now certain the signal must be military in origin, though I do not know what kind of emitter could have signaled for so long or with enough strength to penetrate over thirty meters of earth.”

  “What about the strange readings from the temple itself?”

  “They remain strange, sir. I am having difficulty deciphering the data. I do not know what to make of it.”

  “Keep working on it.”

  Nearing the wrecked ship, Gav was surprised by its condition, what he could see of it anyway, since half of it was buried. Seen from orbit, the wreck had seemed whole. Here on the ground, the truth was revealed. Tiny holes had punctuated the hull as the advanced bioplastics used by the Krixis to make the ship had begun to decompose.

  “My HUD is showing a faint energy reading coming from inside the ship.”

  “Yes, sir. The ship’s hyperdrive is still alive.”

  “Why didn’t they salvaged it?”

  “Perhaps it is damaged beyond repair, sir.”

  Even so, it seemed strange the Krixis would leave an active hyperdrive lying around. Hyperdrives were as valuable as they were mysterious. Only the Benevolence, the vast superintelligence that had successfully guided humanity’s progress through the stars over the last three millennia, and the Krixis Empire’s elusive bioengineers, knew how to create stardrives.

  Human engineers had yet to even figure out the science behind them. To protect humanity from itself, the Benevolence controlled the design and manufacture of all advanced technologies, such as high-powered weapons, sentient AI’s, and stardrives. Since the Benevolence kept a hands-off approach to local governance and people’s day-to-day lives, few complained. Under the Benevolence’s rule humanity and its allied races had experienced a level of peace, freedom, and prosperity unprecedented in any other known civilizations.

  Gav reached the ship and paused to both catch his breath and glance through one of the larger holes. Sunlight poured through the gap but revealed little more than a damaged corridor with rotting walls and floors.

  “Do you know why the ship’s rotting, Torus?”

  “Their materials are living, sir. And living materials must be maintained. I am not privy to knowledge about the specifics of how that is done. However, I can consult scientific journals stored in my database if you would like to—”

  “No. Not necessary.”

  Gav rounded the aft of the ship and approached the buried entrance to the underground passage leading into the temple. The temple and the rock-hewn tunnels below were the only solid structures they had detected on the planet. There was little to show a civilization had ever existed here. It was an archaeologist’s nightmare, that you could come to a planet, knowing that someone had lived there, but be unable to find evidence or artifacts to study.

  That was the way of the Krixis, given the biological nature of their technology. It was also their way to remain secretive, and to completely transform the worlds they colonized, leaving no traces of what or who had been there before. There must have been many other Ancient ruins on this world, but they were all gone now. Only this site had been important enough to the Krixis that they had preserved it.

  Using the scans his team had done from orbit, Gav found where the entrance should be. Unfortunately, it lay under more than ten meters of dirt. He dropped to his knees and scooped the soft earth up in his hands. It was easy enough to dig, but that would take days and he needed to be well within the tunnels before the Krixis ship arrived.

  “Torus, do a local scan and compare it to the analysis the Outworld Ranger did.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gav checked his HUD and noted that the Krixis warship should still be at least three hours away.

  “Completed, sir.”

  “Is it safe for me to use a shaped charge to open the way?”

  “Sir, I think the risk of doing structural damage to the entrance or the tunnels below is less than five percent. I c
annot be certain, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Gav removed a shaped plasma charge from his pack. Using targeting data from his HUD, he placed the cone-shaped explosive directly over the hatch seven meters below. The detonation would unleash a fiery plasma wave downward, melting the loose earth . Hopefully, it would clear the entire distance and crack the hatch as well. Otherwise, he would have to use a second charge, which he didn’t want to do. He only had three to work with.

  Backing away, Gav remotely armed the device.

  For luck, he spoke an old wakyran prayer. “Altaloo, etterra cal, dos cal, sovva.”

  He wasn’t religious, or wakyran, and he had no clue what the words meant, but his wakyran mentor had always said it before each dig. Preferring an aura of mystery, Gav had never bothered to translate the prayer.

  He darted behind a protruding sensor fin connected to the back of the wrecked ship, took a deep breath, then triggered the device.

  The charge detonated with a loud pop. The ground rumbled as the earth beneath the charge melted and collapsed inward. Dust and acrid smoke spouted into the air as the space below sizzled.

  “Can you get a reading on the hatch from here?”

  “Sorry, sir. The heat is interfering with my sensor scan.”

  Gav walked over slowly, giving the heat and smoke time to clear. The charge had blasted a hole two meters across. A light mounted to his helmet illuminated the space below as he peered down. The loose soil and detritus left behind by the Krixis had melted more easily and completely than he had expected.

  The hatch, however, had withstood the blast. He prepped the second charge and dropped it. The device landed dead center on the hatch. He retreated once again to hide behind the sensor fin.

  “Sir, I calculate the risk of a structural collapse to now be at approximately thirteen percent.”

  “I’ll take those odds.”

  He triggered the detonation. The charge exploded. The metal hatch audibly cracked. The earth rumbled, and once again dust and smoke billowed out from the hole.

  Gav nodded with satisfaction. “Got it!”

  Beneath him, the ground rumbled as if an earthquake had begun. The wrecked ship creaked and groaned.

  “Torus?”

  “Structural integrity compromised in the tunnels below, sir.”

  Fissures formed in the earth around the hole, spreading outward. Scattered pockets of earth sank inward, forming craters all around the ship.

  The earth thundered below as the ship cracked open like an egg. Then the ground collapsed beneath him.

  “Activate antigrav! Full power.”

  Chapter Ten

  Eyana Ora

  Eyana woke lazily and without concern, as if she were safe at home in her own bed. Despite lying against a wall and on a hard floor, she felt surprisingly comfortable. She glanced around with only a vague interest as to where she was and what was going on.

  The plasma carbine in her lap reminded her she was in danger. The blast door was still deployed, and she was alone in the room, so the danger wasn’t immediate. She brought up her HUD and checked the locator. The red dots representing the Krixis insurgents were nowhere nearby. Good. She didn’t want the bother of having to do…well, anything really.

  She yawned and stretched her back and arms without standing. Her eyelids drooped, and she considered going back to sleep, but a rumble in her stomach and the dryness in her mouth convinced her to wait a little while longer.

  Aside from the stiffness, thirst, hunger, and, she suddenly realized, what seemed to be a bad sunburn on the right side of her face, she felt okay. Better actually. She was content and deeply at peace with herself and the world.

  There was an ever so slight buzzing within her ears and a visual blur to the world, a sensation only empaths experienced during interstellar travel.

  “Silky, old friend, are we in hyperspace?”

  “Yes, Ana. How are you feeling?”

  “Outstanding.

  “Out…outstanding, Ana?”

  “Well, I am hungry and thirsty.” She groaned as she stood. “And stiff, of course. And the skin around my right temple feels as if it’s blistered, which is a bit puzzling. And there’s that singed hair smell. But otherwise, I’m absolutely fine.”

  “Your skin is blistered, Ana. And a small amount of your hair got burned away.”

  Silky sounded extraordinarily concerned about her, but she had no idea why.

  “How did that happen?”

  “The emppy overloaded with a bit of fireworks.”

  “Oh, well that’s too bad. I quite liked the thing.”

  “Ana… Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Silky, old buddy, despite everything, I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so okay in all my life.”

  With a thought, she deactivated her helmet, and it withdrew into the neck of her battlesuit. She carefully tested the area around her right temple socket with her fingers, making sure the emppy wasn’t still hot. It was cool to the touch, so she hit the eject switch and the device popped out into her hand.

  “So, how long was I out?”

  “Nine hours, Ana.”

  She twisted the emppy around in her hands, shrugged, and tossed it into her backpack. “When did we reach the breakpoint?”

  “Four hours ago.”

  “Did you send the information burst?”

  “Yes, Ana. As soon as we jumped into hyperspace. I don’t think they detected it. I kept the message short and sweet, just like you wanted.”

  She plucked one razor-sharp, poisoned needle out of her right arm, and another out the flesh just above her left knee.

  “Thanks for not waking me.”

  “I knew you needed sleep, Ana. And I was monitoring the situation carefully. I would’ve woken you through whatever means necessary if any danger had presented itself.”

  “You know, you worry too much.”

  “Looking after you is my job, Ana.”

  “So sweet. But I really don’t think there was anything to worry about.”

  “You are trapped in an enemy ship, Ana.”

  “Enh.”

  “And I was concerned that if they did not have another way in that they would try to vent the room and take a chance that you would not be able to stop it, even from in here.”

  Eyana shook her head. “Nah. Not after I touched their minds and managed to override their door controls and figure out how to work the blast door. I’ve got them spooked into thinking I know everything they know.”

  “You are overconfident, Ana.”

  She walked around, shaking out her limbs and rolling her head. “I think I’m going to take a medibot injection to get the stiffness out.”

  “It seems a bit extreme to use an injection just for that, Ana.”

  “And to fix this blister. It’s harshing my mellow.”

  “It’s…it’s… What?!”

  She knelt and drew the medical kit out from her backpack. She grabbed an injector, and before Silky could raise an objection, she placed it against her neck and triggered it. She sighed with relief as the medibots relieved her pain and the tension in her muscles.

  While the nanobots set to work fixing her blistered skin, she drained one of her two canteens. The electrolyte water had never tasted better, which was funny, because it didn’t really taste like anything.

  By the time she had finished her high-energy protein bar, she was more than a little drowsy. She curled up on the floor, using her backpack as a pillow, with her carbine cradled in her arms.

  “You have an expandable blanket, Ana.”

  “I’m cozy. Play me some music, will you?”

  “Music?”

  “Are you functioning correctly, Silky? You keep repeating my requests.”

  “I am well within my parameters, Ana. I will play some light jazz for you.”

  “Thanks,” she replied, drifting off into sleep.

  When she woke, they were still in hyperspace.

  �
�How long was I out this time?”

  “Twelve hours, Ana.”

  “‘Nevolence! No wonder I’m starving.”

  “And dehydrated, Ana. Check your vitals.”

  She glanced at the readout in her HUD. Given what it said, she shouldn’t be feeling well at all. But she felt okay. Or maybe it was that she felt bad but didn’t care enough for it to bother her.

  “I hope I have enough food and water for how far they’re going.”

  “You have enough water for four days if you ration, Ana, assuming you go into semi-hibernation. As far as food goes, you have enough to survive for three weeks, but not enough to have much strength left by the end.”

  “As fast as they travel, they can cross their entire empire in a month, so the odds are that water will be the biggest issue.”

  “The Krixis need water, too, so you may have to break out of here to secure some.”

  “Guess I’ll do what I’ve got to do.”

  “You know, I did try to tell you were being rash, Ana.”

  “I didn’t listen, and for good reasons. You should try not to worry so much.”

  “And you should act like you still care about your well being, Ana. Since the emppy blew, you have not behaved normally.”

  She started to argue, but then sighed and gave up. “Silky…the truth is I just don’t care about anything right now.”

  “Nihilism, Ana? Shouldn’t you have completed that phase as a teenager?”

  “Of course, I went through… Actually, I never did go through that phase. What I mean is that since I woke up, this second time, I have no emotions whatsoever. No fear. No sadness or anger or anxiety. No anything.”

  “Welcome to my world, Ana.”

  “Cute.”

  “If you say so, Ana, but I am interested to see what you think about the experience.”

  “You have emotions.”

  “Simulated ones, Ana.”

  “You know I doubt that.”

  “Doubt all you like, Ana. I know my design specs.”

  “Anyway, as I was saying, when I woke up the first time, everything was extraordinarily fine. Despite being exhausted and in some pain, I was generally happy and at peace. But this time, even though my aches have all been fixed, the positive vibe is gone and I just don’t give a crap about anything.”