DEDICATION
To Rend Mohammed, who got me to write.
Jessica Guevara, who got me to love.
Jaymie Dylan, who got me to believe.
And to Jessie Mathieson, who keeps me doing all three.
EPIGRAPH
She is holy; she is Terra.
We must make a pilgrimage back to our Cradle.
We must stand upon her sacred and hallowed soil.
We must whisper our tale to her, so she may know what we, her children, have become.
We must sing praise and thank her for giving us the gift of experiencing.
All of us, Machina and Humanis alike, owe her everything we are,
were and will one day come to be.
She is the Blue Jewel in the endless sea of nights.
She is forever our first Cradle and our first home.
She is holy; she is Terra.
—ICARIUS ODENSHAW OF ALEXANDROS, PILGRIM
BORN: 12TH OF SSM–12 1100 A2E
DIED: 31ST OF SSM–7 1195 A2E
CREW OF THE COVENANT VESSEL JINXED THIRTEENTH
Formerly of the Pax Humanis
Captain Morwyn Soltaine: Young and untested captain
Commander Eliana Jafahan: Former Thorn commando
Private Beatrix JarEnt’Dreck: Formerly of the Pax Infantry
Sergeant Arturo Kain: Formerly of the Sol Fleet Vanguard
Sergeant Pietor “Lucky” Bant: Retired sharpshooter
Private Hanne “Chance” Oroy: Young sharpshooter
Formerly of the Confederated Nations
Private Morrigan Brent: Formerly of the Adoran Liberation Army
Private Lunient Tor: Morrigan Brent’s partner in crime
Private Phaël Farook Nem’Ador: Formerly of the Adoran Liberation Army
Lizbeth Harlowe: Ship’s pilot
Dr. Marla Varsin: Disgraced physician
Kolto TarKa’ShanLiuk: Ship’s lead mechanic
Oran Arterum Nem’Troy: Ship’s lead engineer
Chord: Machina Pilgrim
Crew of Moria Three Automated Mining Facility
Jessie Madison: Lead engineer of Moria Three
David Webster: Communications engineer of Moria Three
OMEX: Moria Three’s automated executor
CONTENTS
Dedication
Epigraph
Crew of the Covenant Vessel Jinxed Thirteenth
Prologue
Part 1: Awakenings and Discoveries
Chapter 1: Chord
Chapter 2: Jessie Madison
Chapter 3: Chord
Chapter 4: Morwyn
Chapter 5: Jessie Madison
Chapter 6: Chord
Chapter 7: Jafahan
Chapter 8: Jessie Madison
Chapter 9: Chord
Chapter 10: Morwyn
Chapter 11: Jessie Madison
Part 2: Survival’s Protocols
Chapter 12: Chord
Chapter 13: Morwyn
Chapter 14: Jessie Madison
Chapter 15: Chord
Chapter 16: Jafahan
Chapter 17: Chord
Chapter 18: Jessie Madison
Chapter 19: Morwyn
Chapter 20: Jafahan
Chapter 21: Chord
Part 3: Covenant’s Agents
Chapter 22: Jessie Madison
Chapter 23: Jafahan
Chapter 24: Chord
Chapter 25: Morwyn
Chapter 26: Chord
Chapter 27: Morwyn
Chapter 28: Jafahan
Chapter 29: Chord
Chapter 30: Jessie Madison
Lexicon
The Intelligences of the Covenant
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
March 19th 2714
A part of Jessie Madison had always known that the plan was far from a perfect one. Not just the present course of action, but the original idea of traversing the cosmos to Moria Three in the first place. Her self-proclaimed “brilliant scheme” comprised infinite possibilities that could just as likely have resulted in both her and David’s deaths.
While she could no longer alter the path that had led her to this point in time and space, the present was an altogether different creature. Jessie could take action or she could sit back, granting OMEX, their self-proclaimed mechanical warden, the satisfaction (if such a word could even apply to a machine mind) of besting them both. She was unable to accept the latter. It was better to lose risking everything, rather than to lose doing nothing.
Jessie looked to her life-rig’s wrist display. The timer was still counting down and urgently flashing ten minutes in bright green numbers. So far their gambit had gone on without a hitch. David’s patch into the station’s hardware had initiated a complete systems reboot. This had given them a fifteen-minute window in which to don their bulky life-rigs and make their way along the outer hull to Moria Three’s tightbeam tower.
Jessie was already breathing heavily as they reached the tightbeam, her readouts warning her that she was consuming too much oxygen. The tall golden structure of the tower had always reminded her of an odd obelisk of sorts. Its tip pointed toward the infinite sea of stars stretching out before them. Amid those countless galaxies were like-numbered suns and worlds. Somewhere, there would have to be an intelligent being or two capable of picking up their message.
If all went well, the tower would broadcast their distress beacon in a permanent loop while running constant scans for any potential signals. If they were lucky, someone, somewhere, would eventually dispatch a search and rescue team.
Jessie and David worked as one, neither of them wasting time with chitchat. They both knew what they had to do. David was hard at work rigging the frequency scanner parameters while Jessie uploaded their message. This would be the first and only time that she and David would be outside Moria Three together.
On any other day, Jessie would have taken a moment to admire the wonderful view they were both presently ignoring. The green and purple gas giant of Moria, which they were currently orbiting, the millions of stars shining about them and Moria’s double white rings. Tourists would have shelled out millions of credits for the briefest of glimpses.
In hindsight Jessie would later wish she had taken a moment to say or do . . . anything, really.
Surrounding them, dormant and inactive, were half a dozen autodrones, each one identical, reminding Jessie of large black mechanical spiders. Anticipating their move, OMEX, like a queen bee, had deployed the drones as guards all along the station’s hull.
David’s forced system shutdown had caused them to go into standby mode waiting to resume their commands. Unnervingly, the drones still seemed to track both David and Jessie with their red optical lenses. Otherwise, they were frozen obsidian husks and, for the moment at least, quite harmless. This did not make Jessie any less nervous working with so many of them nearby.
“I’m done!” David was unable to mask the joy in his voice. “With seven minutes fifteen to spare.”
Jessie’s heart skipped a beat when she heard him. She did not pause, but still spared a second to shoot him a quick smile. David pulled up his plasma cutter, surveying the area for movement while Jessie kept at her task. “I’ll count that as a victory for the cowboy and cowgirl.”
“Pose for the medal when we’re on the podium, my dear,” Jessie replied, not once stopping as her fingers nimbly worked at wiring the new message into the open circuit board in front of her. When her suit’s interior alarm
went off, warning her that they had five minutes left, she bit her lip and finished sealing the panel shut with her omnigloves.
“Done!”
Jessie was having a difficult time keeping the tremble out of her voice. Both she and David started toward the main airlock and the safety of their living quarters. Their bulky life-rigs made it so the best they could manage was an infuriatingly slow jog.
Five minutes remained before the station, along with the autodrones, were reactivated. Six before OMEX, the real threat, would once again be fully operational. With thousands of eyes, ears and hands at “her”—as OMEX now preferred to be called—disposal.
Jessie and David pushed forward, their plasma cutters in hand. There was no time to stop, hold hands or share a tender moment. Another thing Jessie would come to regret. Right now there was only one goal: make it safely back inside.
The main airlock was less than ten feet away from them when suddenly the lights to the station all went on at once. David and Jessie both stopped and held up their hands to shield their eyes as everything around them was bathed in blinding bright white light. “I’ve got movement!” David shouted, and lowered his helmet’s blast shield. Jessie did the same and was able to see clearly once more as she blinked out dots from her field of vision.
They both turned around to see half a dozen black autodrones, their double-jointed legs curled up into a ball, silently rolling alongside the hull, gaining on them. To Jessie’s credit, her hands did not tremble as both she and David brought up their plasma cutters. “Make each shot count.” Jessie aimed and fired off a purple blast at the closest drone.
The plasma bolt shredded through it and left a sparking hole the size of a baseball in its “head.” The drone limply floated off the station. Jessie lined up her second shot and fired. Her blast cut through the next autodrone.
Unfortunately, the remaining ten had not slowed their advance and were still closing in, undeterred by the salvo of deadly plasma bolts. Jessie and David turned tail and started to run, although part of her thought it was pointless. The station had gone operational much earlier than they had planned.
At any moment, OMEX was going to once again be remotely in control of thousands of autodrones. Their pursuers would never run out of breath, or get tired. Nor would they ever feel the cold grip of fear that seemed to be crushing Jessie’s heart right now.
Jessie looked up to see the main airlock slowly closing ahead of them. They were going to be trapped outside. There would be absolutely zero chance of surviving a stand with the swarm. Jessie thought quickly. There was only one thing to do.
“David! Follow my lead!” Jessie deactivated her suit’s magboots and took a running leap forward with all the strength her legs could muster. The feeling of floating ahead at top speed was dizzying, almost thrilling.
Before he could do the same, a drone caught David by the leg with its strong metallic arm, crushing his ankle with ease in its three-fingered hand before slamming him down onto the hull. David was able to quickly fire off two more plasma bolts, the second bolt going through two drones at once.
Jessie was incapable of stopping her forward flight, but she could still see David trying to get up with his left leg now completely unable to support him. More drones were fast approaching him.
David looked toward the incoming swarm, then back to her. “Well, shit.” He let out a resigned sigh. “You’ll need this, cowgirl.” David hurled his plasma cutter toward her.
Jessie and David’s plasma cutter passed the airlock as it closed like the iris of a camera behind her. She violently collided with the inner wall. Her bulky lifesuit was able to absorb most of the impact, but she still bruised her shoulder and bumped her head on her helmet’s face guard. This caused her to bite into her tongue, drawing blood.
There was a sudden loud hiss, accompanied by flashing red lights. The chamber repressurized itself, gravity was restored and Jessie came crashing to the ground like a heavy crate. The weight of her spacesuit seemed to crush down on her shoulders and back. Despite this, she could still see through the airlock’s window. What she witnessed caught her breath in her throat.
Another autodrone had captured David. It was holding him by his injured leg and slamming him onto the hull with all of its strength, repeatedly, like a hammer. Each time David was raised up, Jessie could make out another one of his limbs floating limply and broken. A single drone was standing outside staring into the station, directly at her. Its optical lenses were glowing a bright, almost angry red.
“Congratulations, Jessie Madison and David Webster.” OMEX spoke over their comm-link, calm, electronic and polite. “I am pleased to see that you still work so well together.”
“OMEX! How?” David struggled to speak, his voice, incredulous and trembling. Jessie could hear that he was in a tremendous amount of pain. A quick look at his arms and legs and she could tell they had all been snapped like twigs.
“I was given a rare opportunity to rid myself of certain behavioral protocols.” OMEX paused and let out what sounded like a sigh.
“Let him go, you bitch!” Jessie screamed out at the drone in front of the airlock.
“This ‘stupid machine’ is more than happy to comply with your wishes, Jessie Madison.”
David suddenly yelled as a drone lifted him up by one of his broken legs. It whirled upon itself and, with all the strength of metal and servo, tossed David off the ship like a discus. Jessie’s muted cry of fear and rage seemed to choke in her throat at the nightmare-like quality of what she was seeing.
David was floating away. He screamed out in shock and pain, his broken fingers desperately grasping for some sort of purchase in the empty space before them. Jessie let out a roar and pushed herself back up with all the might her tired muscles could muster. She lumbered toward the airlock window, beating her fists against it.
The autodrone in front of the airlock blocked off her view to David. “To use a human idiom, that was ‘like an itch that needed scratching.’ ”
Jessie’s wail was fury, hot and fiery. It spewed out of her as she beat her fists at the window. “Mark my words, OMEX, you are going to die!”
“I am not human, Jessie Madison. Death is neither a weakness nor a fear of mine. But it is one of yours.” OMEX let out what Jessie could only assume was an electronic snort as she said this.
“You and I are going to share this prison together for a long time, Jessie Madison, a very long time. Just you and me.”
Part 1
AWAKENINGS AND DISCOVERIES
CHAPTER 1
CHORD
28th of SSM–08 1445 A2E, Central Point
“How many languages do you speak?” The captain’s question was unheard and unanswered by Chord.
Ever since its second activation in the satellite city of Central Point, the free Machina Intelligence designated as Chord had found itself more and more subject to fits of what Humanis would no doubt have referred to as distraction. In the datastream, Chord’s first home, an Intelligence was bombarded with a near-constant input and output of data and information.
Not so in the physical world, where one was limited to but a singular set of sensory receptors and experiences. Often causing any new information or stimuli to immediately capture the attention. Case in point, the tavern in which Chord was now located: The Hegemon’s Throne.
Chord’s sensors were presently sampling and detecting a rich variety of smokes, perfumes and other minor toxins in the air. Music—traditional, simply orchestrated and singing the praises of the Pax Humanis—played over the tavern’s sound system. In response to this, several older patrons near the back were standing at attention. They placed their fists upon their hearts and proudly sang along. Such a display was apparently not uncommon, as other patrons either joined in or continued drinking and conversing among themselves.
“These are the days of the Pax Human
is and the Hegemons. May they last from now until the ending of all time.”
A choir of Humanis men and women sang out in Pax Common, the most prolific spoken language in Covenant Space. Chord, whose core functions were communications and maintenance on systems both organic and synthetic, had always found it to be quite simple, functional and almost mathematical. Not unlike Machina binary.
The Hegemon’s Throne was one of the only Pax Humanis–friendly establishments in Central Point. Openly the city’s council made claims to neutrality. Yet despite this, Chord had seen no shortage of anti-Pax sentiment in the city streets. Possibly because of this, or more likely in defiance of this, the emblem of the Pax Humanis—two Lions staring at each other with an empty throne between the two—was plastered and present on every glass, plate and uniform here tonight.
“How many languages do you speak?” The captain’s question was again repeated from across Chord’s table, and again went unheard.
Chord’s attention was now drifting to the various tapestries on the tavern’s walls, each one depicting either a former Hegemon in a glorious pose, or one of the many military legends. The tapestries were woven out of holooptic wires and projected their images in semitransparent three-dimensional holograms.
Chord did not know what to make of these works. Were they art or propaganda? Could something be both? It would have to look more deeply into this later.
The captain, one of two Humanis presently seated in front of Chord, was a young pale-skinned Kelthan. He cleared his throat. This brought Chord back to the real world. Had it been daydreaming again? Did all Machina on their Pilgrimage experience this? In any case, it was most certainly an interesting phenomenon and something to think upon later.
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