Generation (Shadows of the Void Space Opera Serial Book 1)

by J. J. Green

  The shuttle had landed. Loba unfastened his belt and got up unsteadily before following the geo-phys scientist to the open air lock. An icy breeze hit him as he stood on the shuttle’s ramp in the pre-dawn light. He shivered. He wasn’t dressed for such weather. He was wearing only the uniform that he wore aboard ship. What the hell was he doing here? He hadn’t set foot on an alien planet in years.

  The woman was already walking away into the gloom. She was determined to show him something, but what? What could possibly be so important, so valuable, to drag your master from his bed and all the way to the mission planet?

  His first impulse was to order the scientist back, return to the warmth of the shuttle’s passenger cabin, and direct the copilot to fly them back to the ship, but he considered that might not be the best path of action. The trip was already unorthodox, outside of company regulations. He would face additional scrutiny from his officers if he aborted the expedition as soon as he arrived. They would be too cautious to say anything outright, but his behavior would be rich fodder for anyone who wanted to accuse him of incompetency.

  Secondly, his curiosity was piqued. Had the woman found something truly remarkable; something that really did deserve his scrutiny, and his scrutiny alone? Perhaps it was a find that would make him so rich he could buy enough mythranil to last a lifetime.

  He started after the scientist. She was heading over the dunes in the direction of one of those structures Harrington had been investigating. Those places she had been getting her panties in a twist over. Misborn. Her excessive caution had been a thorn in his side this whole mission. He wouldn’t hire her again, and he’d write an unfavorable reference if anyone asked. He hoped she’d failed the mental health assessment he’d ordered the doctor to give her. The report was due in the morning. If she passed, maybe he could persuade Sparks to tweak the results. The man was usually quick to pick up on hints.

  Loba caught up with the geo-phys woman. She didn’t speak as he fell into step beside her, seemingly intent on reaching the structure as quickly as possible.

  “What is it you’re going to show me?” he asked. “Is it a new mineral? Or something very rare? What’s important enough to bring me here?”

  When she didn’t answer, Loba’s temper rose. As always, coming down from mythranil left him fragile and moody. “I command you to tell me immediately.” He grabbed the woman’s shoulder and spun her round. She slipped on the sand and fell to her knees. Her expression unchanging, she rose to her feet.

  “You have to come with me,” she said, and went on. It was all she would say, no matter how much Loba quizzed her.

  They reached the structure. The glow faintly gilded the edges of the hexagonal blocks but didn’t penetrate the dark interior.

  The woman went inside, turning on a flashlight she had brought with her. Exasperated beyond words, Loba followed, brushing the wall with his fingertips as he entered. The material was glassy, smooth, and cold. The master shivered and hoped it was warmer inside.

  Within the room they’d entered was another opening. The woman immediately passed through it, and Loba followed. The next room was identical to the last, except the floor sloped downward. The woman quickly took the nearest doorway again, and again, and again. Loba could barely keep up as she led him deeper and deeper within the structure. Soon, he was completely lost. Sometimes only the beams from her flashlight told him where the woman had gone. He called out to her as they went, telling her to slow down, asking where they were going, how much farther they had to go, what they were going to see, but she never answered. He ordered her to stop, on pain of dismissal, but it was as if she didn’t hear him for all the notice she took.

  Did the scientist know where she was going? The structure seemed larger than it had looked on the outside. But maybe they were now underground. Loba was very tired. Mythranil sped up the metabolism and sapped the user’s energy levels, and he hadn’t eaten his usual post-run high calorie breakfast. The cold seemed to bite his very bones. He begged the woman to stop so that he could rest. He staggered on through another few rooms. Then, before he knew it, she was gone. He was in complete darkness. He shouted for the woman. There was no answer. He was deep within the structure. He was exhausted, hypothermic, thirsty, and hungry, and he didn’t know the way out.

  Loba collapsed onto his hands and knees. For a moment, the ache of his muscles distracted him from a strange tingling in his palms, but the sensation grew stronger and more unpleasant. He gasped in pain and tried to lift his hands from the floor, but he couldn’t move them. It was as if they were stuck with a strong adhesive. He pulled harder. It felt like he was pulling off his skin. He cried out in agony. His hands had somehow become melded with the floor. Loba whimpered and wept. He shouted for the woman to return to help him, for anyone to help him. His hands were on fire.

  Even the edges of his sleeves were stuck to the floor. They were sinking in. His hands were sinking in, too. The floor was absorbing his hands.

  “Nooooo,” screamed Loba. “Nooooo, help me, please. I’ll do anything. I’ll give you everything I have. Pleeeeeease.”

  As his wrists and arms began to disappear, he fought and flailed, flinging his body backward and forward in an effort to free himself. He would have broken his bones, torn his own skin off, to free himself, but he could not. His writhings brought his cheek in contact with the alien surface. Immediately, his face was stuck. It also began to sink in. Jaw, then cheek disappeared. The edge of his lips reached the floor. Loba shrieked incoherently until his mouth and nose were absorbed. After that, only the muffled noise made by his slowly disappearing vocal chords could be heard.

  Chapter Seven

  Lying on her back in her bunk, her arm over her face, Jas groaned quietly to herself. The mental health assessment hadn’t gone well. In fact, it’d gone very badly. She could have sworn that Sparks had been deliberately, subtly antagonizing, but also, just maybe, she’d let her emotions get the better of her.

  Her memory of the encounter was painfully clear.

  He didn’t believe her. Despite all her explanations about how the records of her conception were lost, how she’d spent her first few years in a government institution on Mars, how she’d never wanted to have herself tested, she could tell from his expression that he thought she was a natural, and she was lying to cover up the fact.

  He gave her a patronizing look, rested a hand on her knee, and said, “You don’t need to say any more. I understand your caution, but it isn’t as if you can help it, is it? We can’t choose our parents, after all, nor their economic situation. Don’t worry. As I said, the answers you give are completely confidential.” He leaned closer. “I won’t tell a soul.”

  The force with which Jas knocked his hand away was a little too strong, because Sparks fell forward and toppled to the floor. As he got to his feet, his practiced mask of serene benevolence broke for a moment. He scowled before regaining his composure. He straightened his tunic and resumed his seat. Raising a hand, he said, “I understand this is a difficult subject for you. No need to apologize.”

  Jas hadn’t been about to apologize. “I’ve told you as much as I know about my genetic status, okay? I’ll answer the rest of the questions.” She pressed the fingerprint scanner on the interface screen. Her name flashed up as the device registered her identity. She skimmed the questions. Did she ever wish to harm herself or others? She threw a hooded glance at Sparks as she pressed no. Did she ever feel restless, agitated, tense, or frantic? Only when confined to her cabin for three days. No.

  It was standard, obvious stuff. Anyone with half a brain could fake their answers to make it appear they were functioning normally. Jas answered as she thought someone who wasn’t mentally ill would answer, with one or two slightly questionable responses just in case the test was set up to identify fakers. Most of her answers were true anyway.

  She handed the interface back to Sparks. “Don’t you have a brain scan for this kind of thing these days?”

  “Not y
et, though I believe they’re working on it. But we do have a physical assessment. The physician interprets the results.”

  “What?” Jas scooted back a little on her bunk. Sparks was going to examine her? And it was up to him to say if she passed? It was game over. The man couldn’t tell the difference between the thermatic plague of K.76309c and the common cold, and even if he were competent, there was no way he would clear her as mentally fit now that he thought she was a natural.

  “Can I refuse?”

  Sparks smiled. “Who in their right mind would refuse?”

  Jas grimaced and turned onto her side as she recalled what happened next. Sparks had shone a small flashlight in her eyes and tracked her eye movement. He’d tested her reflexes and made her go through a set of physical exercises. She’d grown gradually angrier. What he was asking her to do was ridiculous. She’d suspected he was making it all up. Playing with her. Finally, she’d lost her temper.

  “I’m not taking any more of this. Get out.”

  The doctor was in the middle of keying his findings into his interface. He looked up. “What?”

  “You aren’t going to pass me no matter what I do, are you? Get out of my cabin.”

  Sparks looked amused. “I appear to have upset you.” He brought his hands together as if in prayer. “I’m so sorry.” A slight smirk appeared on his lips.

  The smirk had been the final straw. She’d grabbed him, opened her door and pushed him into the corridor.

  Jas shook her head. She was an idiot. If she’d just played ball, if she’d just lied and said she was modded, she might have been back on duty the next day. Finding out what it was on that planet should have been her focus. She shouldn’t have let that obsequious, two-faced bigot get to her.

  She sighed and her arm fell to her side. Opening her eyes, she gazed, unseeing, at the low ceiling. How was she going to protect the crew? She had to do something, but what? She had to get out of her cabin, for a start. She couldn’t do anything trapped in there.

  She turned on her bunk screen to check the time. It was the quiet shift. Most of the crew would be asleep. She might be able to get around the ship without being seen if she were careful. But where to go? The answer was obvious. The danger was on the planet. If she could get down there and continue her investigations, she might find something concrete she could show the master; if she displayed the evidence in front of the other officers—something he couldn’t ignore—he would be forced to act.

  There was only one way to get planetside. She removed her comm button, which contained a tracer, and placed it on her bunk.

  ***

  A short detour to collect one of the defense units was worth the additional risk of being seen, Jas decided. If she encountered something dangerous, she would need all the help she could get.

  No one crossed her path in the ship’s corridors on her way to the unit storage room. The defense units were all exactly as she’d left them, facing each other in two rows on either side of the room in the dark, as they always were when not in use. She’d often wondered if they ever spoke to each other while they were alone.

  “AX10, come with me.”

  One of the figures turned and moved toward her.

  “Close the door,” she said over her shoulder as she left. The unit’s footfalls were heavy as it followed her to the shuttle bay.

  She was in luck. The door to the hold on the shuttle had been left open. She climbed into the dark, bare, metallic interior and directed AX10 to do the same. Stowing away in the passenger or pilot areas was out of the question. There was nowhere large enough for her to hide, and definitely nowhere the defense unit would fit. But tucked in a corner of the equipment hold they wouldn’t be easily seen. The RA teams wouldn’t check the interior before throwing in their equipment.

  She’d brought along her combat suit. As soon as she heard the crew arrive for the next assessment trip in the morning, she would suit up. Though the hold offered some protection from the extremes of space, she stood a good chance of dying if she wasn’t wearing a suit, and though planet’s atmosphere had been cleared fit to breathe, she might need the suit’s protection.

  She lay down and rested her head on the unit’s thigh while she waited. Its large, firm muscles didn’t make much of a pillow, but it was better than nothing. In a way, being uncomfortable was a benefit. She couldn’t risk falling asleep.

  “Hey, AX10.”

  “Yes, C.S.O. Harrington?”

  “Do you units talk to each other when you’re alone?”

  “We do not.”

  “Why not?” Long experience of working with defense units had taught Jas she was on shaky ground asking one of them a 'why’ question, but she needed to stay awake.

  “We have nothing to say, C.S.O. Harrington.”

  Jas was about to ask another question, but she snapped her mouth closed. Footsteps. Someone was entering the shuttle bay. More than one person. It sounded like two or three. She sat up. What was going on? It was much too early for an assessment trip. The starship was on down-time, geostationary above the side of the planet currently facing away from the sun so the scanners could take night-state readings.

  Whoever was in the shuttle bay, they weren’t talking. The footsteps were headed toward the shuttle. Surely they weren’t going to board and fly out?

  She couldn’t take any chances. Jas grabbed her suit and hastily began to put it on. She thrust her legs and arms into the holes and sealed the front. She froze. Someone was walking toward the hold. She couldn’t see the door from her position, but she heard it swing down and clunk closed. She was in pitch darkness before her helmet light blinked on. The floor began to vibrate as the engines started up. The shuttle lifted, and she was tossed onto her side. She clipped her helmet in place and pulled down the visor just in time as they entered space.

  Chapter Eight

  Deep within the alien structure, a bulge appeared in the wall of a chamber. The bulge swelled and rippled. It took shape. The shape of a human head. Colored the matte gray of the surrounding wall, the head turned from side to side, and its as-yet unseeing eyes opened, also a uniform gray. The mouth gaped in a silent scream. A neck, shoulders, and a torso emerged. Arms broke free. Below the torso a gray knee appeared, followed by a thigh and foot. A leg took a step out of the wall, the foot gripping the floor for traction, and dragged the rest of the body out after it.

  The figure stood, unsteady, as color bled across its surface and the facial features refined. Hair grew from the head, swirling into white curls. Cloth rose from the skin and separated from it, forming clothes. The creature breathed in for the first time, and needles of fiery pain spread from its opening lungs.

  Ah, an atmosphere-breathing organism with a nervous system. Exquisite agony. To breathe, to feel again, after eons of confinement.

  Nerves spasmed into life, sending signals from the being’s periphery, information about ambient temperature and the movement of air. The sensations were unpleasant. The environment was too cold for this organism. The material that covered the creature also stimulated its nerve endings, though the sensation was more satisfying. The cloth captured the animal’s heat and protected it from the cold.

  The heart beat once, twice, and settled into a steady rhythm. Newly formed blood moved sluggishly then faster through opening veins and arteries. The visual organs, the eyes, remained unstimulated. The creature speculated that light must be required for them to operate. Outside, they should work more effectively.

  Two limbs...legs...adjoined the lower half of the body, and two more sprang from the upper half. Arms. The being moved its legs and toppled to the ground. More pain. It lifted itself up and balanced again. The legs appeared to be the only method of locomotion. It tried again and fell once more.

  A short time later, the creature took a few staggering steps. Once it had succeeded in this task, its learning was exponential. Within a few minutes, it began to walk confidently. After encountering a wall and experiencing pain, it used its arm
s to supplement the poor quality of information coming from its visual organs. The arms had many nerves at their far ends, in the hands and fingers, and the creature navigated its way in the darkness, using them to locate obstructions.

  The sensation of being separate was strange, and it took some time for the creature to reconcile the information it received from its nerves with its previous experience of being at one with the structure and the void beyond it, and the others of its kind. But in time it perceived the building as a discrete entity, and that it was located inside. At this realization, it ceased wandering randomly and began to work its way to the surface.

  As the being went, it grew accustomed to its new mind, and millions of pieces of information began to manifest, drawn from the alien life form the structure had absorbed. Memories, knowledge, language. Certain vocalizations were very important. The creature opened its mouth, moved its lips and tongue. Brand-new vocal cords, moist and fresh, vibrated.

  “Ah-kah-be-lo-ba.”

  A name. A sound signifying a thing. It was the name of the absorbed creature. But the sound was not quite right. “Akabe.” Pause. “Loba.” That was correct.

  Visual signals from the eyes were strengthening. The light around the creature was growing brighter. It was nearing the exterior. In its mind, neurons fired, channels of information flew open, and new torrents of information poured forth. The animal called its species human. The species was dimorphous. The absorbed creature had been of the type called male, or man. It had been the most important man on a vessel that traveled between the stars. An autonomous reaction from the nervous system fired, and pleasure flooded the creature.

  The light intensity grew bright as the creature neared the structure’s exit. Its eyes didn’t adjust quickly enough, and pain registered. It closed its eyelids halfway. Waiting at the exit was one of the others from which it had separated, and this one had also transformed into a human. It was a female of the species, and it had brought Master Akabe Loba to the structure to be replicated.