But soon, even routine tasks proved difficult. He had trouble concentrating, and that was a dangerous liability in the clouds of Zeus. Then, while bending to reach a switch valve, a rush of premonition seized him; real danger, possibly lethal, was imminent. He stood abruptly to scan the sky for trouble, when all of a sudden there was a terrifying bang, and his instruments went red.
The hydraulic actuator on the mech’s right leg had blown apart, spraying bits of metal and fluid all over the rig. Adam was paralysed: the machine was immobilised below the torso. To reach the sled, he would have to pull himself there using its arms.
His dread barely had time to register when he glanced up and saw an Arkady hunter – the largest he had ever seen – soar over the rig railing. The creature halted in the jet stream, snapping its fleshy black wings wide open and taking the current on directly; it hovered like a gunship as electrical pulses hurtled through translucent tentacles that lashed onto the rig’s railing.
Then a second hunter appeared, just as monstrous as the first, and latched on beside it.
Adam’s heart was racing; he had to return to the sled now. More of the creatures were darting about – dozens at least. He dropped the mech’s good leg and bent forward, assuming it would fall onto its belly. But instead, it fell backwards with a crash. Adam was facing the blood-red sky, frantically trying to turn the machine over so he could crawl, when a huge shadow fell upon him.
The massive creature he had seen weeks earlier had returned, and the hunters tethered to the railing were reaching out with other tentacles to grab hold of the beast’s huge wingspan.
Mesmerising electrical patterns erupted beneath the skin of the beast’s underside; chains of lightning coruscated from one undulating wingtip to the next. Scores of gills fluttered in waves with the wind; glimpses of dark internal organs revealed themselves during fierce flashes of light. Schools of hunters were present now, sailing past in packs of ten or more. Lumbering majestically above the hunters, the beast covered the entire surface area of the rig.
Suddenly, the electrical pulses ceased. Adam was staring at a black, undulating shadow now. Conceding that escape was impossible, he sat up, terrified but fascinated.
The beast’s underside flashed a single pulse of light, followed by darkness.
Then twice in quick succession.
Three, and then darkness.
Adam watched in surreal amazement as it kept this pattern up, losing count in the twenties.
Then it restarted with one. Two. Three … and on.
It was just too deliberate to be an accident.
Quickly, Adam withdrew his arms from the actuator controls of the mech and began typing into the console. Cursing his clumsy gloves, he wrote a simple algorithm that used the Pegasus’s cameras to count the number of pulses. All the while, the creature relentlessly kept up its steady pattern.
His algorithm determined that it was pulsing up to twenty-six times before starting over.
Adam eyes opened wide. There was nothing extraordinary about that number, other than being the exact number of letters in the UNSEC Standard Language.
He had to answer. First he tried waving his arms; then he remembered the mech’s floodlights, flipping them on and off.
The creature changed its pattern:
1 – 4 – 1 – 13
Adam adjusted the program to map the pulse count to its corresponding letter.
A name spelled out on his console.
Impossible!
Adam started flashing his floodlights to respond, then thought better of it and began writing another program that would translate keystrokes into floodlight pulses, when the beast’s pattern changed again:
18 – 1 – 4 – 9 – 15 …
Radio?
Adam flipped the transmit switch on his comms, selecting a random frequency used by other rigs.
‘Hello?’ he asked.
The beast flashed another pattern, much faster this time, and the console translated:
WHY ARE YOU HERE
Adam had never felt more intimidated by such a simple question. The surrealism of the experience, coupled with his adrenaline response, was making his head pound.
‘Because we need fuel?’ he said aloud.
Another eruption of pulses. Adam hoped the cameras could keep up with the barrage. When the beast finally finished, the console had spelled out:
THERE IS DANGER
WHY DID YOU RETURN
The hunter packs were veering closer, radiating pulses of their own. Adam keyed the radio tentatively.
‘My family won’t survive if I don’t.’
A frantic burst of effulgence consumed the beast, and the hunters seemed to respond with a light show of their own. After a few moments, its underside went dark, and the sharp light pulses returned.
FAMILY
MOTHER AND CHILDREN
THIS WE KNOW
The wind had grown stronger, and Adam sensed that the hunters were struggling to maintain their grip between the beast and the railing. More of them appeared and lashed on to help, some grabbing intake pipes that were very close to where Adam was sitting. He was completely surrounded by the creatures, and the luminescence beneath their skin, rapidly changing colours, appeared threatening.
‘What do you want from me?’ Adam asked.
The activity abruptly stopped. After a few moments, the creature resumed its communication:
WE WISH TO CROSS THE VEIL
‘The “veil”?’ Adam asked.
WILL YOU HELP US
‘Me? Help you?’
WE OFFER WHAT THE VEIL HAS SHOWN US
Adam had never felt more excited, or helpless.
‘What are you?’ he asked. ‘How can you hear me?’
ARKADY
YOU CALL THEM WAVES
ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES
WE FEEL THEM
SEE THEM
FROM AFAR
The strobe of lights was hurting Adam’s eyes.
‘How can you understand what I’m saying?’
WE LEARN FROM YOUR RADIO
YOUR KIND SPEAKS TO THOSE IN THE VEIL
THIS WE KNOW
‘Wait, do you mean space?’ Adam asked. ‘The blackness above the clouds? That’s where you want to go?’
YES
WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU
‘For me?’
OTHERS CAME BEFORE
TAKE FROM US
The very last thing Adam wanted to do was offend these creatures.
‘I’m sorry!’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean … we didn’t realise we were stealing from anyone.’
NO OTHERS HELP
YOU DID
‘Help? When did I …?’ Adam started. Then he remembered his ordeal with the hunter weeks ago.
HELP WITH NO BENEFIT
THIS WE DO NOT KNOW
‘How can I explain this,’ Adam said aloud. ‘Your … we call them “hunters”. One got stuck in our machinery. It was suffering, so … I wanted to help it.’
HUNTER CLAIMED YOU
YOU ARE IRRATIONAL
Adam smiled.
‘You sound like my mom.’
MOTHER
SHE SEES THROUGH US
SHE SEES YOU
THIS WE KNOW
‘Huh? My mother?’
OURS
ADAM SHE ASKS
PLEASE TAKE US TO THE VEIL
A pair of nearby hunters released their grip on the rails and unfurled their menacing tentacles towards Adam. Before he could blink, they had latched onto the Pegasus, yanking the machine upright as though it were a toy.
‘Whoa!’ Adam protested. ‘What are you doing?’
YOU MUST GO
Using the huge creature as an overhead crane, some of the hunters’ tentacles ‘walked’ along the belly of the beast while others kept a firm grip on the mech, eventually placing it within arm’s length of the rocket sled.
‘Wait!’ Adam protested. ‘I have so many questions!’
YOU
MUST NOT BE HARMED
‘Harmed?’
ACTUATOR DAMAGED
YOU ARE IN DANGER
Adam laughed a shriek of amazement.
‘How could you possibly know that?’
OTHERS HAVE FALLEN
YOU MUST GO
A powerful gust of wind nearly knocked the mech over, but Adam grabbed the sled rail just in time. All of a sudden, Abby’s voice howled on the radio.
‘Adam!’ she hollered. ‘What the hell are you doing? There’s a huge storm coming! Who are you talking to?’
She was right; the upwind cloud layers were rising into ominous mushroom-shaped mountains in the distance.
He unhooked the refuelling hoses.
‘Will I see you again?’
The hunters all released their grip, allowing the wind to take them away from the rig. Above him, the enormous creature began gliding away.
WE WILL FIND YOU
‘Adam, what are you talking about?’ Abby demanded. ‘Get inside the sled!’
He pulled himself in, turned and shut the door.
‘Do you have a name?’ he asked. ‘What do I call you?’
NO
YOU CHOOSE
The ignition sparked and the sled rocketed upward. Adam panicked: what did you call an alien? His imagination failed him as the sled rushed higher and faster. Without thinking, he blurted out the commercial name engraved above the console:
‘Pegasus!’ he shouted, as the zenomorph disappeared beneath the clouds. ‘I’ll call you Pegasus!’
18
WYLLYM
Excruciating pain had never felt so good.
As the starfield rolled and centred on the bright sphere of Corinth Naval Yards, Wyllym blinked away bursts of agony, concentrating on flying his Gryphon home. The numbing effect of nerve dampeners was wearing off, and the bioadmin could not deliver more without endangering his life. Wyllym had pushed himself to the brink for this final sortie, since it marked the end of a remarkable Navy career.
But his legend as an absolute master of space combat would persist. The deadly combination of his Gift and flying skills were simply unfair; he had been a cruel pilot today, pushing cadets to the very limits of their endurance, all in the name of discovering which of them deserved to be called Gryphon pilots. Many had failed. To have made it this far then fall short in the final contest was a bitter test of character.
But a few had succeeded, if only just. They would become the first and only Gryphon wing, permanently assigned to the Archangel. There were only eighteen of the unique fighters in existence, and as of today there were twenty-four pilots qualified to fly them. Now that the programme had ‘proved’ that Gifted humans were more capable pilots than machines, Admiral Hedricks planned to add three more wings. Those pilots would have to be trained by someone else.
Easing off the throttle, Wyllym took a moment to regard the brutish fighter flying beside his own. Two pairs of asymmetric ‘wing’s converged on the main hull; a gimbaled 70mm railgun was affixed to each end, allowing her to keep simultaneous fire on multiple targets from any aspect. There were eight vectoring exhaust jets, each capable of withstanding 50% of main engine thrust; the Gryphon was more agile than gunships half her size. Eight weapon hardpoints could accommodate every missile and EW/SIGINT/RECON sensor platform in the Navy; and for self-defence, a 12mm rail turret was affixed to her stern. It was the kind of ship that every child dreamt of flying, zooming toy models about while pretending to shoot down evil red ships.
Wyllym hoped he would never see one again.
Gliding through the hangar entrance, he landed the Gryphon’s skids onto designated docking latches, the boundaries of which marked the edge of an elevator platform. Three more fighters landed around him, forming a diamond pattern. When they had all locked in place, the entire platform rose several metres, rotated upside down, and then began ascending into the outer sphere of the station. As gravity began pulling on Wyllym’s bones, the pain intensified to unbearable levels. And still, he remained elated. When the maintenance hangar level descended into view, he saw the waiting ground crew cheering wildly.
They swarmed round his Gryphon, moving beneath to where he could not see them. Of course, he would need their help exiting the craft; all the pilots would after today’s exercise. For a moment, he cringed at the notion of being hoisted on their shoulders, as he could barely keep his own head upright.
Still, Wyllym managed a smile as the nestled pilot module descended from the Gryphon’s belly. The airlock seals released, and the hatch opened. His moment of triumph had come.
And there was not one person there to greet him.
The crowd had moved straight past his Gryphon to the pilots who had made the final selection. Some were even flocking to those who had failed, offering them consolation and booze. All Wyllym could do was watch. Eventually, almost as an afterthought, two ground crew members returned to help him.
‘Let’s go, old man,’ one said, hoisting him out of the seat into their arms. Unceremoniously, and with a hint of contempt, they placed him on a gurney as the celebration roared on nearby.
No one noticed him being wheeled away.
As the senior officer on the flight deck, Wyllym was entitled to a private recovery room, for which he was grateful since the main ward was now a raucous, wild scene. His retirement papers had been filed before the drill began, and the final list of graduating cadets had been sent straight to CENTCOM (Central Command)”. His days in the Navy were over.
An assortment of intravenous tubes and wires penetrated Wyllym, labouring to repair the damage to his muscles. Some of his internal organs were already encased in a protective biomesh to help them heal from prior sorties Wyllym wondered how his body would fare in retirement. In the last five years, the longest he had gone without flying a Gryphon was a week, and he felt pain even when the bioadmin said he shouldn’t be.
This was a masochist’s profession, though it was hard to tell from the party raging next door. The Gryphon applicants were young, aggressive risk takers who were highly competitive, resilient, and motivated by self-imposed standards to be the best. But regardless of psychological profile, the human body just wasn’t built to withstand such prolonged punishment, even with the miracles of medical nanobiology. Wyllym imagined their careers lasting a few years at most, assuming they never actually encountered a Raothri warship.
He hated to admit it, but Augustus Tyrell was right. Wyllym fed these cadets the Navy-enforced propaganda that they were being prepared to face such an encounter. But he knew they were far more likely to use their unique abilities to kill humans instead.
In spite of everything he had taught them, Wyllym had never truly earned their respect – because he was not firstborn. These students were elite scions, some with living highborn parents. Wyllym was a ghost possessing mastery of the Gift, adept at honing their skills through punishing training – nothing more. Direct interaction between student and teacher was kept as impersonal as possible. The case was made that this assured impartial evaluation of their skills. But on a personal level, he felt none of the mentoring responsibility for his charges that other commanders did. And his pupils were more than relieved to be rid of his tutelage for good.
Wyllym shifted uncomfortably, reminding himself that those spoiled children were no longer his concern. He reached through a tangle of cords for his corelink. It was time to start his new life.
A land broker had provided him with a list of plots that Vulcan Industries leased out on Eris, a world with a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere. The equatorial regions made for excellent biodome farming, and the broker found him one with an impressive view of the planet’s largest mountain range. Wyllym smiled as he scrolled through the specifications. The plot was a full hectare, and included all the topsoil and equipment he needed to grow a wide range of crops.
Grain was always a safe bet, although there was more money in fruits and vegetables. Wealthy farmers ran expensive domes that could regulate atmospheric
pressure and rainfall for really exotic crops like coffee and quinoa. But the money didn’t matter; his Navy earnings could sustain him indefinitely. Wyllym simply loved the challenge of growing food. Farming was in his blood.
His thoughts drifted towards plots of serene vegetation basking in the warmth of the Orionis sun. The sweet sensation of sleep was upon him when an unwelcome voice shattered the bliss.
‘You good enough to walk yet?’ Augustus Tyrell was asking, standing at the foot of his bed.
Wyllym squinted at him.
‘No, why?’ he said. ‘We celebrating?’
‘What’s there to celebrate?’
The Tabit Genesis Page 18
