Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three)

by Worth, Dan

  We then took the decision to try to sleep until our world became habitable again. All other options seemed closed to us, but the machine had been constructed to be governed by one of the artificial intelligences that the gods were so fond of creating. We had none available, and so it had been modified that a living person must form the heart of the machine. We had also connected it to a vast transmission array, so that we could call for help to any of our kin still out there and to the gods if they might hear us, to come and rescue us from the hell to which we had consigned ourselves. Since it was I who was in command and it was I whose orders had led us to this terrible point, it was I who volunteered to remain awake inside the machine and oversee its operation. Ironically, I was to be the only survivor. No-one heard our cries for help. Our kin were lost or dead and the gods did not answer our prayers. Over time, the device that we had constructed began to fail, and my comrades never woke from their centuries of sleep. I failed them, just as I failed my people, just as I failed the gods. Perhaps my thousands of years of incarceration, my life unnaturally extended by the machines, were my divine punishment!’

  Ushild started to sob, a hoarse wheezing sound that wracked his ancient body.

  ‘I thought as much,’ said Steelscale. ‘They found Progenitor technology and used their new toys to destroy themselves. I suspect that my own people would react in a similarly destructive manner were they to get their talons on such things.’

  ‘So now we know,’ said Rekkid.

  ‘We don’t know everything,’ said Katherine. ‘We still don’t know what it was that the Akkal found on the other side of the portal that provoked such a sudden and violent change in their society. They went from being a peaceful people united under one nation and one religion, to tearing themselves apart and annihilating themselves in a few short years.’

  ‘Because it was a lie!’ gasped Ushild. ‘All of it! All that we had been taught for thousands of years! All of it was untrue! We found proof...’

  ‘Proof? Proof of what?’ said Katherine.

  ‘Proof that it was not the gods that had made the Akkal people. It was the Progenitors!’

  ‘What? That’s impossible,’ said Rekkid. ‘The Progenitors were gone from this galaxy billions of years before your people evolved.’

  ‘No! No, you do not understand! They are the makers! They....’ Ushild cried out in pain and shuddered. Spittle began to leak from his mouth as he thrashed uncontrollably. Okanno shoved the archaeologists aside and leant over Ushild, desperately trying to help him.

  ‘He’s going into cardiac arrest!’ cried Okanno to his staff. ‘We need to stabilise him, quickly! It’s both of his hearts this time!’

  ‘Something’s happening to his implants,’ cried one of Okanno’s aides. ‘There are massive neural impulses coming from them, stronger than before!’

  ‘It’s the portal, it’s communicating with him again!’ said Katherine.

  ‘It’s killing him, that’s what it’s doing!’ said Okanno, and commanded the medical drones to assist him.

  At that moment, the shipboard comm. came to life.

  ‘This is Mentith, what the hell is going on down there? We’re seeing power fluctuations in the portal. The ship has locked down the intended targets of the transmission. It’s talking to Ushild.’

  ‘We know!’ cried Rekkid. ‘It’s too much for him, he’ll die if we can’t shut it off. Okanno’s doing his best, but...’

  ‘It isn’t just Ushild that it’s talking to...’ said Mentith, before the comm. system cut out.

  At that moment, the lights went out. The ship’s systems died. The sickbay was plunged into darkness. There were cries of alarm now mingling with Ushild’s cries. Then the walls and holographic displays came alive with light. Symbols began to scroll across them. They were composed of Progenitor tri-linear script, the same pattern endlessly repeating on all the displays. Katherine looked at Rekkid, his face illuminated in the light from the glowing symbols.

  ‘What does it say?’ she asked urgently.

  ‘I am alive,’ Rekkid replied. ‘It says “I am alive” over and over.’

  ‘Who is?’ said Katherine. ‘Who is it that’s talking to us?’

  It was then, as the ship began to move, that Ushild died. His ten thousand year old body finally gave out under the strain. He welcomed death. He was free from the pain and guilt, free from the endless isolation. He had peace at last. He slipped under into unconsciousness for a final time with a smile on his cracked lips as the Shining Glory surged forward of its own accord and plunged into mouth of the now active Progenitor portal.

  Chapter 31

  Isaacs yanked the controls, desperately trying to pull the Profit Margin away from the emerging warship that now loomed above them. The sleek craft skimmed across the belly of the vast ship, its port wing-tip mere metres away from the slab-like hull plates. Something wasn’t right, thought Anna. This didn’t look like any Shaper vessel that she had yet seen.

  Isaacs pulled the craft out of its turn and powered the ship forwards at full throttle, frantically moving his hands over the control surfaces for the jump engines. He only had seconds to get them clear...

  ‘Hey!’ Steven cried from the dorsal turret. ‘That’s no Shaper ship: look!’

  At that moment, the comm. came alive with chatter.

  ‘Profit Margin, Profit Margin! This is the Uncaring Cosmos! Captain Isaacs, please respond! Profit Margin...’

  Isaacs spun his ship through one hundred and eighty degrees so that it now faced back towards the ship. Sure enough, the vast irregular globe of the Nahabe gunsphere filled the view from the cockpit windows, its dull green hull pockmarked with weapon strikes.

  ‘Uncaring Cosmos! Jesus, it’s good to see you. You gave us quite a shock...’ Isaacs replied, the relief palpable in his voice.

  ‘Apologies Captain. We had to remain cloaked until the last minute. Please come aboard, you are cleared to dock.’

  ‘What happened here?’

  ‘No time to explain. Please, we must re-cloak and leave this area at once before the enemy spots us.’

  ‘Acknowledged, Uncaring Cosmos. Preparing to dock,’ Isaacs replied, and then began to pilot the Profit Margin towards the waiting Nahabe warship.

  The Profit Margin settled on its landing gear inside the dark, cavernous docking bay of the Uncaring Cosmos. Isaacs noted, as he brought the ship to rest, that the bay contained the battered remains of the Hidden Hand’s fleet of ships. Several craft appeared to be being repaired and were surrounded by equipment and parts, whilst others, too wrecked to be repairable, were being broken up for spares.

  As they exited the Profit Margin’s boarding ramp, Isaacs could feel the deck shifting beneath his feet as the Nahabe ship got under way and slipped back into the cover of its cloaking technology. They were met by a phalanx of armed Nahabe crew members and Farouk. Farouk eyed the three new arrivals warily, hand resting on the butt of a rail rifle slung at his hip, until the Nahabe floated forwards, extended articulated mechanical arms from their sarcophagi and scanned the three humans with the instruments that they held.

  ‘They are uninfected,’ said one of the Nahabe. ‘Welcome back, Captains.’

  ‘Cal, Anna, my friends, it’s good to see you!’ said Farouk with relief as his face broke into a broad grin. ‘You made it all the way to Earth?’

  ‘Certainly did, thanks to my expert flying,’ said Isaacs.

  ‘And thanks to the modifications that you guys helped us to make to the ship,’ Anna added. ‘The Navy got the intel. that the Nahabe gathered. They were very grateful. Cal’s ship is loaded with weapons.’

  ‘Excellent. I’m sure we can put those new toys to good use. So, are you going to introduce me to our new guest?’ said Farouk, nodding in the direction of Steven.

  ‘Depends who’s asking,’ Steven replied levelly.

  ‘Farouk Ali Khan of the Hidden Hand, or what’s left of it at least. I fix things around here,’ said Farouk, indicating the collection
of battered spacecraft in the hangar, ‘and I kill Shapers too when I get the chance,’ he added.

  ‘Agent Steven Harris, Special Operations Command,’ said Steven and stuck out a hand. ‘We appreciate all the help that you and your people have given us so far, Farouk.’

  Farouk took his proffered hand and shook it firmly.

  ‘Of that I have no doubt,’ he replied. ‘You are here to kill Shapers, Agent Harris?’

  ‘Something like that, yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Farouk, what happened here?’ said Anna. ‘We saw the remains of Port Royal. Frankly, we were surprised to find anyone left alive.’

  ‘Yes, the enemy came looking for us, alright. We got away before they found us, is what happened. Very lucky, I call it. You’d better come with me. The Speaker wants to see you. You can tell him everything and I expect that you have plenty questions for him too.’

  ‘Yeah, we do,’ said Isaacs. ‘Such as: how do we get onto the surface of Orinoco undetected?’

  ‘You always were a crazy son of a bitch, Captain Isaacs. This way, please.’

  Farouk and the Nahabe that had accompanied him - now forming an honour guard - led Isaacs, Anna and Steven deep into the bowels of the ship. The interior of the Uncaring Cosmos was a gloomy, distinctly alien place. The ship’s internal corridors, dimly lit and made from geometric panels of the same dully green material as the outer hull, seemed to be both arranged almost randomly and at strange angles to one another. Isaacs had soon lost all sense of where he was in relation to their starting point and unlike Commonwealth and Arkari ships, the Uncaring Cosmos seemed to lack any kind of network of internal transport arteries. Instead, the Nahabe crew negotiated its warren of corridors and spaces in their floating sarcophagi at dizzying speed and in almost total silence, like bees in a hive. Occasionally, the angular form of one of the crew would suddenly appear out of the gloom and whizz past on some errand or other, the occupant swerving their floating casket around the new arrivals at the last second. It was deeply unnerving.

  Eventually they joined what appeared to be one of the main thoroughfares leading through the ship, a broader corridor that led straight ahead into the heart of the vessel and which was busy with Nahabe moving to and fro. They followed the flow of sarcophagi and after passing through a series of pressure doors, they arrived at the vessel’s command centre. The bridge of the Uncaring Cosmos lay at the centre of the roughly spherical vessel. It was itself a sphere, many tens of metres across and pierced by the entrances to corridors leading off in different directions to the rest of the vessel. The corridor that they had just exited had deposited them near to the base of the sphere. Looking up into the gloomy space, they could see a large number of Nahabe floating among vast holographic projections that glowed in the darkness, depicting data from the ship’s systems and other information in the Nahabe script. A three dimensional map of the Achernar system hung above the centre of the chamber, forming a huge translucent orrery that showed the positions of the various bodies as well as those of the ships in the system that the Uncaring Cosmos was currently tracking.

  As they watched, a couple of the floating sarcophagi detached themselves from a group of Nahabe and descended gently out of the gloom towards the new arrivals. People often commented that all the Nahabe looked alike, but the floating sarcophagi that they willingly enclosed themselves in were all subtly different and unique to each individual. Isaacs recognised one of the approaching Nahabe almost immediately as it drew closer.

  ‘Speaker, it’s good to see you again,’ said Isaacs as the Nahabe came to a halt in front of them.

  ‘And you also, Captain Isaacs,’ said the Speaker. ‘I was party to your conversation in the docking bay. One of your escorts relayed it to me. I must congratulate you on your success. Now it seems you have returned to aid us once more?’

  ‘I was hoping that we might be able to help one another,’ Isaacs replied.

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Might I introduce...’

  ‘Agent Steven Harris, Special Operations Command,’ said the Speaker, completing Isaacs’ sentence for him. ‘Yes, as I said, I overheard your conversation earlier, but the Nahabe are familiar with him. Welcome, Agent Harris.’

  ‘You two know each other?’ said Isaacs, turning to Steven and jabbing a thumb towards the Speaker.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Steven replied. ‘But I’ve worked with the Nahabe before. This ship is from the Order of Dead Suns, correct?’

  ‘Yeah, it is,’ said Isaacs. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I recognised the hull patterns on the way in. An honourable order of holy warriors, but you are not of them, are you Speaker?’

  ‘No, I am not. The Hidden Hand are merely guests aboard this vessel. Might I also introduce her captain?’

  The other sarcophagus remained motionless and silent before them.

  ‘He doesn’t say much, does he?’ said Anna, after a moment’s awkward silence.

  ‘Perhaps, in time. There are certain protocols that must be followed,’ said the Speaker. ‘He wished to meet you all the same, and sends his warmest greetings.’

  ‘Right...’

  ‘Oh no, you misunderstand. You were present at the death of his commander, the Lord Protector of the Order of Dead Suns, who fought and died to protect you, and whose death you avenged in battle. His silence is a mark of the deepest respect as befits your status, Captain Favreaux and Captain Isaacs.’

  ‘Well, uh thank you. We are indeed honoured,’ said Isaacs, awkwardly and a little taken aback.

  ‘Agent Harris, your previous exploits with our people have earned you much renown. The Captain would have me inform you that you are welcome aboard his vessel,’ the Speaker continued.

  ‘Thank you,’ Steven replied.

  ‘What have you been up to?’ said Anna under her breath.

  ‘It’s classified,’ Steven whispered back, then to the Nahabe said: ‘Speaker, Captain, I am here on a mission of great importance. Any assistance that this ship could render me would be greatly appreciated.’

  ‘Perhaps if you could tell us something of your intentions?’

  ‘We received a distress signal from the surface of the moon of Orinoco indicating that Admiral George Haines of the Commonwealth Navy may have survived the destruction of his vessel, the Abraham Lincoln. I have been tasked with locating the Admiral and either rescuing him, or terminating him depending upon his current status.’

  ‘You refer to whether or not the Admiral has been enslaved by the enemy, of course,’ the Speaker replied.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We should be able to assist you in getting you to Orinoco. Many of our people are already there, blending in with the locals and gathering intelligence. They are currently operating from an unlisted landing facility a little way from the capital, Bolivar City, that the Hidden Hand have previously used for smuggling operations. They have made contact with a number of Navy personnel who survived the battle and have joined forces with them. We are in regular contact with them and do so at pre-arranged times. Maria Velasquez has assumed command. Although we have heard nothing regarding whether Admiral Haines survived or not, it is entirely possible given that many of his people have also done so. I believe that it should be possible to get you down to the surface to join up with them, as well as deliver the cache of weapons that you brought with you.’

  ‘Excellent. That’s very encouraging,’ said Steven. ‘What intelligence do you have on the situation in this system?’

  ‘Yeah, and would you mind telling us what happened to Port Royal?’ Isaacs added.

  ‘From the beginning, then...’ said the Speaker. ‘Shortly after you departed for Earth, it became clear that the enemy was aware of our presence in the system. Perhaps they were able to detect the signature of your ship’s departure, but we just don’t know. In any case, they proceeded to sweep the system methodically with their ships, working outwards from the centre of the system. It was only a matter of time before they locate
d Port Royal. With no means of moving the base again, our options were limited, particularly since most of our smaller craft had been too badly damaged during the previous attack to be easily repairable, if they could be repaired at all.’

  ‘I did my best,’ said Farouk. ‘But most of the ships in the main bay had been almost totally destroyed, either by the Shapers or by our attempts to destroy their ship once it had rammed its way into the bay. We salvaged what parts I could manage, but it wasn’t much. Those that we had in side bays were the only ones to survive, and many of those were already damaged from previous missions. We didn’t have a hope of repairing enough of them in time to mount an evacuation.’

  ‘Our only remaining option was to repair the Uncaring Cosmos, and use it to get everyone off the base,’ said the Speaker. ‘The engineers aboard this vessel worked tirelessly to get her operational once more and make good the damage she sustained in the battle against the Shaper destroyers, but time was not on our side. As it was, they only succeeded in getting the main sub-light engines and cloaking device back online. We had no weapons, and no jump capability, but it was enough. We transferred what ships and supplies we could and got everyone off just in time before the Shapers arrived and assaulted the base a second time. This time they did not attempt to capture it and brought in heavier craft to finish the job. We had vacated the area less than an hour before, by your reckoning, when they arrived. I believe the appropriate human phrase would be: we escaped by the skin of our teeth. Yes?’