Apex

by Aer-ki Jyr

  By the time they reached the barren jungle floor the air had become richer in O2 than the Resolute had been, and given the increased air density Riax felt himself buzzing with energy. He let it settle then stepped off the descender onto dark, moist soil devoid of any plant life whatsoever. The rest of the squad followed and Riax commed Jalia that she was clear to retract. A moment later the lighted platform rose back up through the trees, leaving only a tiny shaft of sunlight for illumination.

  The Cres activated their armor’s nightvision while both the Kayna and Riax could see adequately well in dim light, more so for the Kayna who had an extra set of eyes for the task. Using a wrist-­mounted navigational device to get his bearings, Riax pointed off to his left and Marren led the way at point with the other two Cres fanning out on either side. The Kayna held back behind Riax, keeping him center in the pentagon formation as all five of his escorts were intent on protecting him, even though they knew that his combat skills exceeded theirs.

  The Cres had offered him Ivara’s armor, repaired with components from Lornas’s, but Riax had declined. The gesture had been both kind and wise, but he didn’t feel like dampening his senses. Even his choice not to use a respirator was based more on freedom of movement than prudence . . . that, and a bit of pride at being able to survive in a wide range of environments.

  But more than anything he was mad, and fighting against the environment, as well as daring any would be threat to take their best shot at him, somehow felt right. He wanted . . . needed to resist something, and fighting the pressure on his skin and lungs salved that desire slightly.

  Travel within the jungle was remarkably easy, with only the 15-­meter wide tree trunks to navigate around, and after ten minutes of brisk walking Marren signaled contact ahead, giving Riax a brief telepathic report that they’d found the metal device that had appeared on the Resolute’s sensors.

  Riax telepathically ordered everyone to halt their advance and the Cres to spread out in a picket line while the Kayna stayed with him. After a minute the Cres signaled that the area was clear and the Human approached the remains of a four-­seat speeder bike.

  He knelt next to the wreck, noting the long skid marks in the dirt stretching thirty meters to the west. Examining the undamaged exterior and open maintenance panel, he guessed that the antigravity drive had burned out and the passengers had been picked up by another bike, based on the footprints still evident in the soft soil.

  Probably from the nearby base.

  Riax stood up and checked his navigator. The rise was off to the northeast and he pointed the Cres in that direction as they quickly reformed the mobile pentagon defense ring. A minute later Marren telepathically reported something of note and Riax moved in his direction to check it out for himself.

  When he arrived, Marren pointed to the ground next to him where a quarter-­meter depression was clearly visible. Riax raised an eyebrow and pulled a quick mental scan of the surrounding area before moving on, leaving the four-­pronged, 2.5-­meter wide footprint behind while noting the northeasterly direction of the large creature’s trail.

  Hopefully they could avoid any run-­ins with it or its kin.

  They walked for another half hour before arriving at the small mound that the Resolute’s sensors had discovered. What they hadn’t shown was the large clustering of footprints in the soft ground around the mound.

  Bipedal bootprints, not wildlife.

  Orrona followed the trail around to the opposite side of the rise, which contained five of the moon’s gigantic trees, then signaled that she’d found the entrance, sending Riax a mental picture of a small dig site leading down underground into darkness.

  Hold, he signaled back as he and the Kayna followed the tracks around to her location. The other two Cres redeployed north and south of the location while the Kayna took up guard positions at the dig site. Riax knelt at the dirt entrance and extended his telepathy downward, but he couldn’t feel anyone.

  “Orrona, come with me. The rest of you stay on guard up here. Let me know immediately if anything approaches, metallic or otherwise,” he said aloud while relaying the message to the others. He walked down the steep slope and into the dark as Steve turned his back to the entrance, pulled off his breath mask, and huffed in the thick air, satisfied that it wasn’t going to inhibit him. Wes followed suit as Orrona disappeared underground as well.

  Chapter 20

  THREE STEPS DOWN and the dim light in the jungle disappeared almost completely, but structural supports appeared as the dirt vanished and steps began. It was difficult to see, but Riax’s eyes adjusted enough to notice that the architecture wasn’t Human. Rather, it was a prefab construct probably installed by whoever had been digging here to keep the soft soil from collapsing in on them, which also meant that the nearby base was more than likely associated with the buried outpost and not a random coincidence of location.

  The stairs suddenly darted left, and as Riax rounded the corner faint illumination revealed itself further down, but the source was still out of sight. The stairs made three more box-­like turns, gaining more and more luminosity until they reached a four meter wide chamber with wall-­mounted light bars and a decidedly familiar floor.

  Riax stepped down from the temporary construction and onto the surface of the outpost. Its smooth grey/white coloration was a welcome sight, along with the hexagonal hatch in the center of the ‘floor.’ It was open, the door having irised out to the edges revealing a short shaft. A non-­Human ladder had been added for easy access down the three meter drop.

  Stepping off the edge, Riax landed with knees only partially bent at the bottom, whisper quiet. Orrona took the ladder and kept the noise of her armored footsteps to a minimum.

  Both of them stood in the center of a circular room lit by tiny, portable blue glowlights. The thin neon bars were standing straight up from tiny tripods in a line leading to an archway, where they continued like breadcrumbs further into the outpost.

  Stay dark, Riax said telepathically.

  Understood, the Cres agreed, slipping into formation behind him as the Human briskly walked off down the badly lit hallway.

  As they progressed, the trail of lights split off into side rooms, most of which had been stripped of any and all contents, but one trail continued to lead further down a series of ramps into the heart of the facility. They’d progressed ten levels before Riax detected a faint mental presence. Fourteen more levels down and Orrona offered confirmation.

  They’d already passed by thirty branches of the light trail and encountered many more until they eventually reached the 52nd subsurface level and a brighter light manifested in a chamber off a seemingly random branch. The pair followed it to their right and gradually approached a chamber with one occupant. The pair kept their presence undetected through both physical stealth and mental distraction, though the latter wasn’t needed. The individual in question was so intent on a datapad that they needn’t have bothered.

  Orrona felt Riax stiffen as a brief glimmer of familiarity flashed through his mental state, then vanished beneath his defensive blocks. Even though she sensed he wasn’t deliberately trying to hide anything from her, his subconscious reflexes kept most of his thoughts buried beneath a protective screen with only the occasional surprise or deep emotion creeping through into ‘sight.’

  Riax signaled to her to stay back, and with practiced ease Orrona retreated into the hallway, putting the corner between her and the contact and making her presence small in the other’s mind if and when it directed its attention toward the entrance.

  Riax walked up behind the thin, transparent skinned alien. It was slightly taller than him, but currently seated on a flimsy chair staring at the results of a technical analysis of what Riax recognized as a Human counterintrusion software program. She was apparently trying to bypass the security on a small device in the room. In fact, there were several of the devices present, though much bigge
r and disappearing into the darkness of the very long chamber. Two were visible in the large glowlamps that brought the nearest portion of the kelzat bay to jungle-­level illumination. Dim, but workable light.

  “You fried two already,” he said aloud from behind her, and in Terran. “You won’t have any better luck with the third.”

  The deep, black eyes on the ovoid head blinked twice, barely registering his words, but gradually the scientist came out of her research-­induced haze and slowly turned around to face him, but remained seated.

  “If I wanted your advice I would have requested it,” she reprimanded him in the commerce language. Her eyes finally fell on him and her equally transparent eyelids half closed in a frown. “I don’t know you.”

  “Your race never did have good eyesight,” Riax said, stepping closer.

  She suddenly stood, her transparent tissue refracting the white glowlamps’ light and coming out hazy, but showing the silhouettes of several internal organs.

  “Who are you?” she asked, this time switching to her native language. What she was seeing was impossible, therefore something must be erroneous. If this person knew her language that would provide another data point in ascertaining his identity. He was speaking Terran, she recognized, and his visage appeared vaguely Human. Her mind raced through the possibilities, finding none that fit her limited amount of available facts.

  Riax sensed her confusion, taking some degree of pleasure from it. “Allow me to shed some light on the obvious,” he said, concentrating his telepathic senses on finding the chamber’s computer interface. It was in power-­conservation mode yet still active, and with a quick series of commands he activated the reserve cells and shunted power into the deactivated outpost, with every light, console, and system coming online.

  Now brightly lit, the transparent scientist appeared merely opaque, with a clear/white hue to her skin. She had long spindly arms and legs and wore no clothes, save for a covering on the soles of her feet and several bands around her wrists and neck. Her dark black eyes, the only part of her body that wasn’t tolerant to the passage of light, widened as she finally accepted the truth.

  “Human . . .” she said/asked softly.

  “Vespa,” he answered back. “I thought you weren’t interested in weapons,” he accused.

  “Times change,” she answered, taking a step closer to him and looking down at his missing arm, which had already regrown nearly to his elbow. “Why are you not dead?”

  “They missed one,” he said with a hint of animosity. “What do you want with our technology?” he repeated.

  The Vespa was silent for a long moment. “You’ve been absent for 8,200 phases. Had you simply survived the onslaught you would have reemerged long before now, therefore I surmise that you have either been incapacitated in some manner or are a genetic clone regrown from recovered tissue.”

  He took a step closer to her, looking up directly into her pitch black eyes. “I was at Tellaratix.”

  She returned his gaze. “Not a clone then,” she admitted. “Where have you been?”

  Riax glanced at his severed arm. “In a medical pod on a crashed ship. I wake up, find the Empire is gone, our allies degenerate, and our greatest critic steeped in hypocrisy,” he said, not letting go his original question.

  She made a gesture of disgust and returned to her seat, still nearly at eye level with the Human.

  “You want me to believe you’ve been in stasis all this time?”

  “No . . . I want you to tell me what you want with my kelzats.”

  The Vespa glanced behind her at the large walkers. “Is that what you call them? Interesting.”

  “Talk Vespa . . . now,” Riax said forcefully.

  She stared him down for a moment, then relented with a lowered head. “Tell me first how you survived.”

  Riax crossed his arm and a half over his chest. “Like I said, I was in a medical pod. It was damaged in combat a few weeks ago and I was automatically revived. The Cres had found me in the remains of a crashed ship and fought their way past an army of lesser races squabbling over the scraps of our technology . . . which now apparently includes you.”

  “I know well the ‘squabbling’ you refer to,” she said, resting her tiny hands on her spindly legs. “The galaxy is chaotic. Travel infrastructure is virtually nonexistent. There is no race rising to meet the challenge of rebuilding. After your Empire was gone, the Kettak ravaged many other races, your allies included, but also several others that possessed formidable technology. They subsequently vanished and the galaxy was thrust into a dark age it has not yet recovered from, nor cares to, I believe.”

  “Kettak?”

  “Our word for them. We never discovered their identity.”

  “Neither did we.”

  “For all your flaws, I am forced to admit the galaxy is lesser in your absence.”

  “Why are you salvaging our technology, and how did you locate this facility?” he said, not letting her run off on tangents.

  “The second is easier to answer than the first,” she said, pursing her thin lips and making a buzzing sound of exasperation. This was going to take a long time to explain, but then again, what was the rush?

  “The Concordat mercenary group discovered a geologic anomaly when surveying this moon for potential resources after the excavation of a base construction site revealed trace amounts of corovon. Upon investigating the anomaly they discovered the Human construction buried beneath the surface and a quiet recovery project was initiated.”

  “How did you become involved?”

  “I created the Concordat,” she said simply.

  Riax laughed. “You created a mercenary unit? The most ardent pacifists the galaxy has ever known created a mercenary unit?” he said, still laughing. “Oh, that alone is . . . worth surviving to see,” he uttered between laughs. In fact, he started laughing so hard he clutched his abs with his good arm and sat down on the ground, partially incapacitated. Her admissions were so ironic and gratifying he didn’t bother to control his amusement. This was millennia of philosophical warfare finally coming to a conclusion . . . with the Humans victorious.

  “There is no need to be rude,” she reprimanded him as if he were a child.

  “Oh yes there is, and you know it,” he said, pulling up his legs in a crossed sitting position, both informal and irreverent of the overly respected race as he got his laughing under control. “I can’t wait to hear what rationale you’re going to use to try and justify this hypocrisy.”

  “I suppose I can forgive your tone considering the plight of your race, and I can see how you might erroneously mistake my change of course for hypocrisy, but I can assure you the truth is much more complex than that simple declaration. Much has changed since your absence. There are less than 800 of us now, too few to form a Veraxium. When Apex forced us below that numerical threshold Vespa society ceased to exist. We are now individuals, scattered throughout the galaxy to live out our lives in whatever way we choose with no coordination, kindredship, or oversight remaining.”

  “And you choose to become a merc?” Riax asked irreverently, but he had finally ceased his amusement. To a Vespa, society was everything. They existed as if each person was a cell in the body of their race. They acted with combined purpose and will, lacking individual personas. For this one to refer to itself as an individual meant that all they were before was now broken and the Vespa before him was no longer a true Vespa, merely a remnant, or so they would have said.

  Humans always saw themselves as individuals, bound together as brothers and sisters for common purpose, defense, and advancement, but such bonding never threatened their individuality. Which was, of course, yet another point of contention with the Vespa, who declared such a society as fundamentally unstable and reckless.

  “I choose to make a difference where I can and with the galaxy all but insane, force is requi
red to achieve any form of change. Pure diplomacy is now an antiquated practice. Only with military backing can I now negotiate with regional powers.”

  “If you have your mercs, why then are you here futilely trying to bypass the genetic lockouts on a kelzat’s control cluster?” he emphasized, telekinetically picking up the melon-­sized component from behind her and levitating it down onto his lap. He brushed his fingertips over the surface and a myriad of status lights activated.

  “A simple fact that the galaxy has recently taught me. Those who find and recover the remnants of Human technology will control the fate of the galaxy.”

  Riax palmed the control cluster and stood up. “Kinda obsolete now, wouldn’t you say?” he said as he walked off down the bay to the nearest kelzat.

  “Not at all,” she said petulantly. “The fact that your Empire was defeated in no way invalidates the power of your creations, especially in this technological dark age.”

  “Same old, same old,” he said, leaping up six meters to the top of the kelzat’s leg joint that stuck out from the side of the quadruped machine. “You always did miss the obvious.”

  “And exactly what have I overlooked?” she asked as Riax jumped again up to the machine’s back.

  He walked forward to the wolf-­like head and knelt next to the exposed panel where the armor had been cut away sloppily to give the mercs access to the weapon’s computer systems. The level 3 tech reattached the control cluster and made some quick fixes to the other systems that had been inadvertently knocked offline during the hasty removal.

  “Me,” he belatedly answered her.

  “I will admit that your presence adds another element to the already complex situation, and that whichever faction you choose to align yourself with would obviously gain from your counsel, but the recovered remains of your technology will prove far more valuable in the long run.”