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

by David Alastair Hayden

  Chapter Thirteen

  Eyana Ora

  Eyana stood in the midst of a vine-tangled forest lit only by trails of luminescent orange mists that ghosted between broad cypresses. A cat-sized, green orb hovered about ten meters away from her glowing softly. She glanced around and saw nothing else save for murky forest and endless shadows.

  She took two steps back, her boots squishing in muddy turf. The orb didn’t follow. Changing tack, she approached it slowly. It still didn’t react to her.

  “Silky?”

  No response. She hadn’t really expected one since her HUD was absent from sight. But she’d thought it best to first confirm that she was in a dream state or some sort of telepathic trance.

  Now that she had closed half the distance to it, she could see that the orb was webbed with pulsating veins of white and red. The object, whatever it was, emitted a soft, grinding, rhythmic thumping, halfway between a purr and a heartbeat.

  She paused, not yet daring to get any closer. Vision or not, the orb might be dangerous. Certainly this place, whatever it was, whatever it represented, radiated a certain primal menace. It was ancient, sacred, and wild. And undeniably Krixis.

  She quieted her mind and, attempting to project a sense of calm, mentally reached out toward the orb.

  The orb “spoke” to her, its voice as clear as Silky’s in her head, the language far more direct and simple than what she had gotten from the Krixis on the ship.

  “Human, who are you?”

  Several answers popped into Eyana’s mind, but they were all terrible and worthless. The truth would likely serve her better.

  “I am a spy for the Benevolency.”

  “Your honesty is appreciated.”

  “Who are you?” she asked, satisfied to be talking to a glowing orb instead of an actual Krixis.

  “Starship Captain…” there was a name there in what he’d said, she knew, but she couldn’t comprehend it “…in route to…” There was another name, and she couldn’t wrap her mind around it either.

  “So you are not the ship?”

  “Of course not.”

  “And you are on a ship heading to the planet I am on now?”

  “That is what I said, human. Are you suffering from injury?”

  “No, it’s just… I can’t grasp the names you gave me, so I wasn’t certain.”

  “Curious.”

  “You try,” she said. “I am Eyana Ora.”

  “Interesting. That made no sense to me either.”

  “It is no wonder our two species can’t get along. We can’t understand each other’s names even when we can talk to one another.”

  “I think we may be the first two to ever directly converse. You are clearly special.”

  Treaties between the Krixis Empire and the Benevolency were brokered using sign language, star maps, numbers and coordinates, lots and lots of numbers and coordinates.

  “I am a particularly gifted empath.” She wasn’t about to mention the emppy. “I accidentally formed a psychic bond with some of your people. That helped me connect with the ship.”

  “Yes, I can see how that might work. The ship contacted me, not knowing what to do. It wants to know why you are trying to take control of its functions. It was actually inclined to let you, for some reason, but it lacked the authority to do so.”

  “I am trying to stop a group of insurgents from gaining access to a super weapon. I detected their plot while spying on them during a random fact-finding mission.”

  “We know. We intercepted your message to the Benevolency.”

  “Ah, I see,” she said, trying to mask her surprise.

  Damn, that wasn’t supposed to be possible. At least, she’d never heard of it. And if that was a new technique the Krixis had developed, then they weren’t going to let her out of this alive, so long as they had any say in the matter.

  “The ship itself is not important,” Eyana said. “It’s just a means to an end. I am outnumbered and cornered. If I attempt to exit the ship, I will be gunned down. They can even track me now.”

  “They are using a locator device outside the ship?”

  “Yes. Does that mean something to you?”

  “It does,” he replied. “Have you learned what the weapon is or does?”

  “Everything I know was in my message, and I know that these insurgents believe in it strongly. All that I’ve learned since then is that you had people and ships in this system who were willing to protect this planet.”

  “We did not have enough guardians, clearly. The weapon is a power we would never use against your people, no matter the stakes. Its use is forbidden. Even coming to this planet is taboo. Only sacred guardians are normally allowed to enter the system. These rebels stole illegal, high-powered weapons and devised a clever ploy for infiltrating this system.”

  “Is there anything else here on the planet, besides me, that can stop them?”

  “There are more guardians in place within the tunnels leading to the temple.” He then said a word she didn’t understand, but it was clearly the name of these guardians. “But we believe they may have devised a way of bypassing them.”

  “You are coming to stop them, right?”

  “We will not likely make it there in time. The weapon must never be touched. There is no guarantee that it won’t affect us, and it may even be capable of destroying your people from here.”

  “It’s that dangerous?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then help me stop them. Give me control over this ship. I can use its weapons to kill the three insurgents who have me trapped. Then I can pursue the one who went into the tunnels.”

  “Controlling the ship will not be easy for you, even with the ship’s help. Understand, our ships cannot…are not allowed…to function independently the way your Benevolency ships frequently do.”

  “Well, I have to try.”

  “There may be a better way… I believe I could telepathically link to the ship through you. I could then kill the insurgents and further assess the situation before advising you on how to continue.”

  Eyana hesitated. “I’m not sure…”

  “You have my word that I will not make you do anything against your will,” the Krixis said. “I doubt that I could, anyway. I certainly cannot control one of my own people. I further promise not to intrude upon your private thoughts and memories.”

  She smiled wryly. The latter part she didn’t believe, because it was the sort of lie she might have told had their roles been reversed. Of course, he would try to poke through her mind for Benevolency secrets if he had the chance.

  “Could you do this with one of your own people?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you think it would work with me?”

  “Only because you have linked yourself to the ship. It has accepted you, oddly enough, as its captain.”

  She started to tell him no, that she would risk trying herself, but then paused again. She couldn’t afford to try on her own and fail. This had to work. Still, she needed to first test him.

  “And you say you are not allied with these insurgents?”

  A wave of anger washed over her.

  “I apologize. I had to know for certain.”

  “We war against you, human. Over territory, for control of the galaxy, maybe because we simply cannot understand one another. But you are not our true enemy. Our true enemy is the ones who will come from the darkness. It is to face them that we prepare ourselves. And this ancient weapon of great power is meant to battle the ones from the darkness alone, not you humans. It is a sacred weapon, a weapon used only as a last resort when the darkness threatens to overwhelm us all.”

  “Okay then, what do I do?”

  “Take hold of the orb. Then open your mind and allow me to work through you. My telepathic presence will travel from my ship’s heart to this ship’s heart and into you.”

  “How can you do this instantaneously?” she asked. “You are millions of kilometers out from here.”r />
  “That is a state secret.”

  “If you allowed your ships autonomy…”

  “You are wasting time because you are frightened. Grab the orb and open your mind.”

  Eyana stepped up to the orb and reached out. She paused with her fingertips almost brushing its surface. “Why must I grab it? This isn’t real.”

  “You have a strange notion of what is and isn’t real, human.”

  “I’m still in the chair, aren’t I?”

  “Yes…and no.”

  She shook her head. He was right, she was stalling again because she was afraid. The memory of the last time she’d touched a Krixis mind still made her shudder. But how she felt didn't matter. She couldn't let the insurgents touch that weapon and she couldn't stop them alone.

  Eyana focused on the memory of her sister that had lead her into Empathic Services and recited the Fibonacci sequence. Then she grabbed hold of the orb.

  She kept her mind focused, trying to block him from accessing anything buried within her. She had no idea if it was working. But she could feel the presence of the Krixis ship captain within her mind. It was similar to the experience she’d had on the ship with the emppy turned all the way up, and then some, only this time it was more positive, less combative. And it was a one-way street. She had no return access to him.

  She did have access to the ship. She could sense its mind. It was very much alive, and sentient. She was sure of both. But it was more alien than the Krixis.

  She was still on the Bridge of the ship. The murky forest disappeared, and she could now see everything clearly.

  She didn’t try to move, didn’t dare to. She was rooted in the chair, doing nothing, saying nothing. Yet commands passed through her, skipping off the surface of her conscious mind like stones across a pond…stones with little messages attached: liftoff ten meters, turn 180 degrees, target all available enemies, open fire.

  The research vessel’s cannons easily blasted away the three insurgents that had waited for her. The ship locked onto the fourth insurgent, but he had already gone down a shaft and into the tunnels leading to the underground temple.

  The ship closed in on the entrance and landed.

  “You can’t fire a missile or something at him?” she thought toward the enemy captain.

  “There is nothing more that can be done from here, not without risking damage to the tunnels themselves. It is up to you to eliminate him. Hurry.”

  “I’m okay with damaging the tunnels.”

  “Sacrilege. Now go!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gav Gendin

  Gav woke to darkness and pain. The wrecked ship groaned around him. Rocks shifted and resettled. Dirt spattered against him. Pain clawed into his left shoulder, threaded down his arm, and knifed up into his temple. A liquid warmth that could only be blood puddled under his cheek. He wasn’t actually moving, he was certain, but he could feel himself spinning round and round, and if it didn’t stop soon, he was going to vomit…or pass out again.

  He didn’t seem to be buried under any rubble, at least he couldn’t feel any pressing against him. He shifted ever so slightly to be certain, then stretched both legs and his right arm: nothing broken, nothing sprained, just bruises. He didn’t dare move his left arm, pinned underneath his body, or sit up. He had to keep his head still.

  Gav took deep breaths, trying to block out the pain and focus on his environment and the situation. How long had he been unconscious? There was no way to know. His HUD was out. The space around him was dark with only a faint sliver of light filtering from above. It wasn’t enough to reveal anything, except swirls of still-settling dust.

  The light on his helmet was out too. Hopefully, that meant the light itself was broken. Otherwise, the power pack for his enviro-suit had been damaged, which would make it mostly useless.

  “Torus?”

  No response.

  He spent a few more minutes taking deep, steady breaths and listening…listening to the settling of the decaying ship, the loose earth above, and the cracked stone walls of the tunnels. Then he tried to discern anything he could about his surroundings using that tiny sliver of light.

  Where was he now? He thought he might actually be inside the wrecked Krixis ship, though he wasn’t certain and had no idea how that might have happened. All he could remember was tumbling down with the wreck, the antigrav kicking in as he went. How deep could the ship have fallen? Surely not thirty meters down into the tunnel. Unless…unless the forward half of the ship had already been part of the way there before the collapse. He couldn’t recall from the scans how big it was or how much of it was buried.

  The pain hadn’t faded, and his head wasn’t any clearer. The emergency medibot capsules, one at the base of his spine and two others on the back of his neck, should have triggered. In the event of injury, the nanobots would travel through his bloodstream, taking their cues from his nervous system, to make repairs in the most critically damaged areas. They could counter a heart attack, calm a seizure, slow bleeding, or stop a stroke. They could ease pain and clear the mind with stimulants. Of course, medibots could only do so much. The emergency capsules especially, since each contained only a quarter of a full injection. He’d had three installed because his work was dangerous. Most people had only one.

  And now his medibot system had failed at the worst possible time. Perhaps whatever had caused Torus to malfunction had also affected them. He groaned. Or the medibot capsules had released their doses immediately and they’d already done all that they could. Maybe they were the reason he was still alive and awake.

  Careful not to use his left arm, he sat up. The room tilted around him, the sliver of light pulsing back and forth. He choked back vomit and again focused on his breathing. He noted then, thanks to the light, a web of fine cracks spreading across the faceplate of his helmet.

  When he returned home, he was probably going to need a few days of post-concussion brain therapy to prevent longterm damage.

  When he returned… Gav almost laughed. No way he was escaping this now.

  The pain in his arm and shoulder hadn’t subsided. Unable to scan his body using Torus’s sensors, he had to try to figure out the damage on his own.

  He extended his elbow and grunted, then he flexed his hand and cried out. He touched his right hand to his left arm. It was hard to tell through the enviro-suit, but he couldn’t feel any bones jutting out. Maybe just a fracture.

  Next he tried to rotate his injured shoulder and winced from the pain. He could hardly move it. Not good. He felt the area with his right hand, noting immediately that the enviro-suit was ripped. At least the shoulder wasn’t out of the socket. Probably it was just jammed, maybe sprained, bruised to the bone without doubt.

  Blood trickled down his neck from the wound on his head.

  Cautiously, especially since he could only use his right arm, Gav started to pull off his helmet. A dented section caught against his chippy socket. His heart rate surged.

  “Torus?”

  No response. His HUD remained dark.

  Adjusting the angle on the helmet, he continued to pull. The dent tore free from the socket then scraped painfully across his scalp.

  He tossed the broken helmet aside and lifted his right hand, touching the fingertips to the chippy socket. A current zapped him as he pricked his finger on a jutting wire.

  His heart rate continued to accelerate. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He triggered the ejection switch. The 6G chippy popped out, clattering onto the ground. Sparks shot out where it struck, then…nothing. He couldn’t see Torus in the dark. It was just as lost as he was.

  He began to hyperventilate as he madly scrambled to get the backpack off his shoulders. He winced from the pain as it forced his left shoulder to move. But he didn’t care. He had to get into his pack. He had to get a flashlight and…

  And…

  And…

  It was getting more difficult to breathe. He was growing faint. His vision swam. He was go
ing to pass out again. He was going to die here. He’d never get to the Ancient temple. He’d never see his nine-year-old son again.

  Siv’s smiling face appeared to him. The boy was always eager to learn what Gav had discovered on his expeditions, demanding to know everything before Gav could even stow his gear and wash up. So in lavish detail, Gav would tell him about his new discoveries, then Siv would beg to go along on the next journey. It was going to get harder and harder to tell Siv no as he got older.

  He couldn’t give in. Siv had already lost his mother. Gav had to carry on. Sure, he might still die, but he would die bravely, in the line of duty like Siv’s mother had. Gav almost laughed. Siv would probably see it like that regardless and, with Gav rotting away on this godforsaken world, he’d never know otherwise. But Gav wanted it to be true. He wanted to be the brave explorer his son believed him to be, right up to his last breath.

  He forced himself to take deep, slow breaths. This…this was just chippy panic. Nothing more. Almost everyone had a panic attack after losing a chippy. The devices were difficult to damage and rarely failed. No one was used to being disconnected for more than a few brief moments. To live without a chippy seemed far worse than living without a limb. But humans had survived for thousands of years without chippies. If his ancestors could do it, then so could he.

  Slowly his mind cleared, and his heart stopped thundering. Once the panic subsided, he rummaged through his pack, hands still shaking, until he found the flashlight. Rather than scanning his surroundings, he turned the beam immediately onto Torus.

  He didn’t even need to examine the chippy to know that it was busted, and probably unrepairable. Gav cupped Torus in his good hand.

  “Goodbye, old friend.”

  He placed the chippy in his pack, just in case he made it out of here, just in case Torus could be repaired. Then he pulled out the cheap, emergency backup he always carried with him. It was a 1G, exactly the sort of chippy luddites used. The most destitute child in the galaxy would have a 2G thanks to government programs. He plugged the chippy in, hoping the socket wasn’t damaged.