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

by David Alastair Hayden

  All Gav could do was run ahead, hoping he could find a way to exit the ship and enter the tunnels.

  “Debris ahead. Approximately one meter high, spanning the corridor, two-and-a-half meters in depth.”

  Finally, the chippy proved helpful. “Boost antigrav by fifty percent. And do nothing except scan directly ahead of me from now on. Don’t worry about anything else.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Gav reached the debris. Not bothering to figure out what it was, he hurdled over it, ducking his head to avoid hitting the ceiling.

  Getting to the front of the ship seemed to take forever. He didn’t remember the ship being this large. But maybe that was because he was moving so slow.

  Another section buckled in behind him. This time there was no pause as dirt streamed in. Immediately, another rumble sounded. Boom after boom thundered as the ship collapsed in on itself. A thick cloud of dust overtook Gav so he could hardly see anything ahead.

  “Filter the spectrum so I can see.”

  “What wavelengths would you like me to—”

  “Just make it so I can see what’s ahead of me.”

  Gav had opted to have smart lenses grafted onto his eyes when he turned eighteen, because he had decided to become an archaeologist and travel through space to other planets. The lenses could shade out harmful rays, provide basic night vision, or operate on any number of useful wavelengths. They also enhanced eyesight to levels beyond normal genetic capabilities and allowed chippies to record everything the viewer saw in an ultra-enhanced mode.

  “You are approaching the end of the ship.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  If he survived, Gav was going to purchase a 3G as a backup and throw this thing into the trash.

  The corridor behind him began to give way as he stormed up a ramp into a bulbous section that he presumed was the bridge. The system stations and chairs were nothing more than piles of debris. A honeycomb of transparent panels stretched across the front section, allowing a crew to look outside.

  “I know you informed me to only look ahead. However, the ship is about to collapse in on itself.”

  “Really? Any ideas about the material strength of the transparent viewing panels?”

  “No, but I could run an analysis.”

  Dust billowed into the room. The floor rumbled. An avalanche of dirt cascaded toward him.

  “No time for that!”

  Gav drew his plasma pistol and fired continuously at the nearest window as he barreled toward it. He didn’t recall what transparent material the Krixis used on their ships, if he had ever known, but he hoped it wasn’t transparent diamondine like the Benevolence used on warships, starfighters, and cruisers like the Outworld Ranger. Otherwise, the blaster shots weren’t going to do a damn bit of good.

  One of two things was about to happen. He was either going to break through the transparent material and roll into the tunnel. Or he was going to splat hard against it and suffocate as the ship buried him.

  As the third plasma burst struck, a fine web of cracks spread across the window.

  “Drop antigrav!”

  Howling like a madman, Gav ran the last few steps, carrying his full weight under his own power. He leapt forward, tucked his head into his right elbow, and brought his knees up, forming a sort of fetal ball. At nearly full speed, he crashed through the window, the transparent material shattering—reluctantly—on impact. Whatever the alien material was, it certainly wasn’t glass or diamondine. But it was plenty sharp.

  Broken shards sliced through his enviro-suit, cutting and scraping across his legs, arms, chest, and face. He plowed into the hard stone of the tunnel floor, right shoulder first, and rolled onto his back. The impact had knocked the wind out of him. He climbed, dizzily, to his feet and stumbled forward. A series of bangs sounded in the ship.

  He had to run. If the whole ship collapsed then a wave of debris might pour into the tunnel. Or sections of the tunnel ceiling, weakened by the ship having punctured through, might fall in. Hell, the whole tunnel system might give way.

  “Antigrav to twenty percent!”

  “Acknowledged.”

  The antigrav kicked in, reducing his weight. His stride lengthened. His speed increased.

  The Krixis wreck crumbled behind him. He heard debris storming in, but he didn’t look back. He just kept running.

  A minute later, a sharp pain shot suddenly up his right leg. His back stiffened. His head swam. He realized he’d dropped his plasma pistol when he’d struck the floor, or maybe the ship window. Everything that had hurt before was hurting even more now, and his body stung all over as the pain from the cuts set in.

  Limping…stumbling…he continued on for another ten meters, then collapsed, weakly writhing in pain. He’d been wrong before. This had to be what surviving a skimmer crash felt like.

  Gav glanced back. Though some dust swirled around him, he’d cleared the debris storm. He held up his right hand. It was hard to examine the cut in the dark and through the glove of his suit, but blood was oozing out. He flexed his fingers. The hand was functional at least.

  He plucked the flashlight off his shoulder and aimed it all along his body. It was hard to tell much about the many cuts he’d suffered, but he didn’t think there was an immediate danger of bleeding out. What seemed to be the worst cut was high on his right shoulder, and he had no doubt there would be a nasty bruise to go along with it. But like his hand, and unlike his other shoulder, he could still use it.

  He pulled out the first-aid kit. He wasn’t going to last long if he didn’t do something. All of these minor injuries were going to overwhelm him, and if he passed out again, he might not ever wake back up. And if he did, he might be staring down the barrel of a Krixis needler.

  As he reached for the medibot injector, a pebble landed on his shoulder. Then a number of tiny stone fragments rained through the tunnel. He leaned back. The flashlight caught a fissure of cracks spreading through the ceiling. Damn. He was going to have to summon the willpower to keep going, he had to try to get ahead of this.

  He grabbed the stimulant injector, dosed himself in the neck, then shoved the first-aid kit back into his pack.

  He stood and loped forward.

  “Increase antigrav another five percent.”

  “The suit’s power pack is almost drained.”

  “Then activate the belt!”

  “As I said before, it is unnecessary to shout commands.”

  “Screw off!”

  “I am sorry, but I am unable to do that.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’ll help you as soon as I can.”

  “I am looking forward to it.”

  Had the damn thing just trolled him?

  “I am not linked to the belt, and I am having trouble connecting.”

  Gav slowed up long enough to manually adjust the belt, leaving a smear of blood on the tiny control panel.

  The stimulant hit his system, firing up his muscles and speeding up his heart rate. He engaged in a mockery of sprinting, lurching down the tunnel in bounding strides. Twice he crashed into the side of the tunnel. But he kept going, running along like a madman.

  “You are losing blood at an alarming rate, particularly from your right leg.”

  “There’s a cut that bad on my right leg?”

  The only cut on that leg he’d seen hadn’t look particularly threatening.

  “Presumably. And the stimulant is making things worse. You need to dress the wound and take both a coagulant and a medibot injection. Otherwise, you will bleed out in roughly seventeen minutes. You will lose consciousness in half that time.”

  “That’s too bad. For the moment bleeding to death is preferable to being crushed by the tunnel ceiling.”

  “I see your point.”

  Gav lost track of time and distance as he ran for what seemed to him hours on end along a never-ending tunnel. As he grew weaker and dizzier, he became confused. Twice, he thought he saw a ghost of a woman in
combat armor, with wide hips and flowing hair, running just ahead of him. She was shouting and firing plasma bursts.

  Gav stumbled more and more. Steadily, he slowed down, until eventually he was merely walking at a fast clip.

  “You should stop and rest. Your health is declining.”

  “Have…to go…on.”

  “You do not even know if the damage to the ceiling has spread this far.”

  “You…you should check that…for me.”

  “Despite your pathetic speed—”

  “Thanks.”

  “—you are moving too erratically for my sensors to process the environment. You could pause and check for yourself, though.”

  Gav shook his head. “Have to go on…have to reach temple…be safe there.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Another…another set of…something. Walls…maybe? Pillars! And…and not tunnel.”

  “You are no longer making sense.”

  “Well you…you never made any.”

  The female ghost paused and glanced back. While not attractive, to his tastes, her features were striking. And though ghostly and lacking color, her eyes held a captivating intensity. She raised a military issue plasma carbine and fired two bursts straight through him. He yelped in surprise, but the bolts flew harmlessly through him.

  The ghost continued onward, and he followed her.

  He reached a crossing where the tunnel split off to the left and right. He knew to ignore those dead ends. Straight ahead was all that mattered. The ghost disappeared.

  “We are closing in on the distress signal.”

  Gav hardly looked where he was going anymore. Moving forward was all that mattered. It was all he could do. He even ignored the ghost, fascinating as she was. He had to concentrate on each foot as it struck the floor, hoping that if something was in his way, the chippy would pick it up on its scan and point it out.

  Something was in the way. And the chippy proved itself useless yet again.

  Gav tripped over something large and stumbled. He would’ve plowed into the floor without the antigrav. Off-balance, he almost smacked headfirst into a door, but at the last moment, he threw his arms up. When his broken forearm struck the door, he screamed. His cry echoed down the tunnel.

  Gav slumped down the wall, leaving a trail of blood along its surface. How had he come to an end? That didn’t make any sense. He had avoided the intersecting tunnels. He’d kept straight ahead, hadn’t he? He was certain of it. How far had he gone? As his butt hit the floor, his eyes fluttered.

  “You must use the first-aid injections! Stay awake or you will die!”

  Gav fumbled at his pack and finally got it off his shoulder. As his hands reached in, he slumped sideways.

  “Coagulants! Coagulants, or you will die!”

  “Die? Can’t die. Siv…temple. Gotta live.”

  “Then take the injection!”

  Gav managed to stay awake long enough to reach into the first-aid kit and draw the injectors. He dosed himself with the coagulant first. Then he placed the medibot injector against his neck. As he triggered it, his hand slipped and part of the dose sprayed into the air.

  He started to fade.

  “That…enough…yeah?”

  “We will see.”

  “Could take…another…stimu…”

  As Gav passed out, his eyes fell upon a skeleton beside him, and just beyond the fingertips of the skeleton’s left hand lay a square ceramic of tile engraved with Ancient markings.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Eyana Ora

  Overwhelmed by the sedative effects of the neurotoxins that only moments before had her writhing in agony, Eyana hardly felt anything now. Neurological overload, that was what her instructors had called it. The Krixis toxins hadn’t stopped burning through her system. It was just that the body reached a point where it could no longer register the pain they caused. Add that to their sedative effect, and it resulted in only a brief rush of pain before a relatively peaceful death.

  Her mind swirled toward a confused bliss. Her eyes fluttered, then closed. Though the Krixis beasts were closing in, she couldn't find it in her to care. Whatever they did wouldn't last long. It just wasn’t going to take much to do her in at this point.

  “Ana, I am releasing five percent of the stimulant solution from your medibot implant.”

  She couldn’t even respond.

  “I need you to remain conscious, Ana. But only just. A dreaming mind will attract them.”

  “Wh…what?”

  “Please begin mentally reciting the Fibonacci sequence.”

  “Ca…can’t…think…don’t care.”

  “Increasing stimulant to a ten percent dose, Ana.”

  Her heart rate picked up and her eyes opened. The Krixis beasts were only five meters away now.

  “Recite, Ana.”

  She stared in horror at the certain death shuffling toward her, a death she was beginning to think she might feel after all, thanks to Silky’s futile and incredibly foolish efforts at keeping her alive.

  “Please stop thinking and emoting, Ana. Focus. You have a galaxy to save. Fibonacci. Blank your mind. Remember your training.”

  “Let…let me…die.”

  “Increasing stimulant to sixteen percent, Ana, to counter the neurotoxin effect, but I can go no higher. You need to be almost sedated.”

  “Sedated…that’s what…I want.”

  “Illia, Ana. Do it for her.”

  Illia…

  “Count with me, Ana. One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen…”

  Out of habit she began to mentally recite the numbers, closing her eyes of her own volition. She focused her mind on the image of Illia smiling as she talked about going into Empathic Services. It was the perfect memory if she couldn’t blank her mind, because it was a neutral mix of happy and sad. And really, it wasn’t a bad memory to revisit when dying.

  Eyana’s body jerked, and her eyes snapped open. Her heart thundered in her chest.

  “I have released all of the remaining stimulant, Ana. You need to get up and move now.”

  She gasped for breath. “What…what the hell’s going on?”

  “The Krixis beasts thought you were dead, or couldn’t detect you. Either way, they left you here and moved back into to the tunnel. They are going to figure out you are alive soon, though, so you need to hurry.”

  She climbed to her feet and drew her neural disruptor. The locator showed the group of warrior beasts in the main tunnel. Luckily, they weren’t between her and the insurgent leader.

  She winced as she plucked a needle out from her jaw. “I can’t believe I’m alive after getting hit by this many needles.” She pulled four more out from her cheeks and scalp. “I only had one antitoxin dose remaining. That’s barely enough to counter one of these.”

  “I released a mix of painkillers and medibots targeted to your brain stem to manage your pain and send you into a near comatose, yet awakened state, so that the antitoxin could work better.”

  “That…that doesn’t make sense. How could that work?”

  “New research suggested it was possible, Ana, so I gave it a shot.”

  Her mind was fuzzy, but she couldn’t follow Silky’s logic. “I still don’t—”

  “Now is not the time for explanations, Ana. You need to get moving. The insurgent leader is already at the temple door.”

  “Right.” As her alertness increased, she picked up her plasma carbine. “Prepare a flashbang.”

  “I already took the liberty.”

  “Good.” She checked her locator. “Set the neural disruptor to overload.”

  “It will overload on your mark, Ana.”

  “Target lock the insurgent leader.”

  “Locked on the leader.”

  She burst out into the main tunnel and dropped the pistol as she sprinted toward the temple. “Overload the disruptor when the warriors reach it.”

  “Will do, Ana.”

  The insurgent leader
spun around and ran toward her.

  With the plasma carbine braced against her shoulder, she matched the yellow dot against the blue targeting triangle. As the insurgent leader bent down to pick up his needle rifle from where he’d left it on the ground, the targeting dot turned green. She squeezed off three precise shots. Plasma bolts streaked toward the insurgent, and with a fiery sizzle, they spattered into him.

  As he went down, his red dot disappeared from her locator.

  The neural disruptor overloaded behind her, bathing the bestial warriors in a brilliant white flash before its power pack exploded into a sizable fireball. The resulting boom shook dust from the ceiling, and the shockwave knocked her forward onto her hands and knees.

  The red dots in her locator were blasted backward, against the walls, and onto the ceiling. Two of them winked out immediately.

  She got back up. “That ought to buy me a minute or two.”

  “Perhaps it did, Ana,” Silky responded gloomily. “Perhaps it did.”

  “Cheer up, you. I just need to get the device from the leader and… Well, maybe I can negotiate a deal with the Krixis starship captain I spoke with.”

  As she reached the dead insurgent, she noted with satisfaction that she’d blown a hole clean through his neck, along with a shot to the face and one on his right shoulder.

  She fished the device out from one of his pockets. It was still active. She could tell by the tiny pulse she felt in her palm and in her brain. Good. Because she had no idea how to operate it. She checked her locator. The bestial warriors who had survived had picked themselves up, but they weren’t moving toward her.

  “See, I’m halfway there already.”

  She noticed a small ceramic amulet attached to a chain hanging from the insurgent’s neck. Odd patterns she knew weren't Krixis in origin were etched onto it.