All The Frail Futures: A Science Fiction Box Set

by J Battle

  'Yes?'

  'Call them The Denied Ones, quarantine this system, and an honorable return home for the fleet.'

  The Commodore glared down at him, his wattles shaking and his long mouth snapping.

  An honorable retreat? Mark this place as unsafe and return home?

  Could he justify this action? They certainly seemed to have unknown technology. A full world shielded from all electronic emissions. An invisible fleet that could strike at will. A single ship, with the confidence to take on a full Hru-argh crest.

  He'd lost hundreds of ships and not fired a single shot in anger.

  He straightened his back, his tail rigid. He was a soldier and would not hesitate in his duty; the decision was made.

  'I am marking these humans as The Denied Ones and will establish a quarantine boundary to protect the Galactic Confederation from the danger they present. This is the word of the commander of the Hru-argh Crest and the word is law.'

  'Yes, Sir!' snapped his second in command.

  'Prepare the fleet to leave. Squadrons Heron, Purtur, Neelsis and Excot will set up boundary stations at a distance of one light year from this system. It is now our responsibility to keep the Galaxy safe.'

  'Yes, Sir,' he spun away, thinking that these were the best orders he'd ever received.

  Chapter 56

  Jullie had watched as the humans and the strange aliens had appeared at the head of the rift valley, hidden between the two low rocks that had become his home.

  At first he thought it might be an attack on his erstwhile comrades and he felt exultation rising in his chest. Then Sublan had revealed himself, welcoming them as friends and the exultation turned to gall.

  When they’d gone, Sublan’s incessant voice carried by the wind, he had settled back down between his rocks. It wasn’t much of a home, but the sand was soft, and the rocks sheltered him from the worst of the sun. There was a narrow brook nearby, sounding annoyingly happy as it leapt down towards the foot of the valley, and a clump of bushes bearing the unexpectedly tasty round fruit that was all he could find to eat nearby. It was all he needed; he certainly didn’t want company.

  A couple of days after the arrival of the aliens, he was surprised to hear the irritating tone of Sublan’s voice again, calling to him from lower down the slope.

  He wanted to ignore him, but he knew him too well to think that was a viable option. So he climbed from his rustic domicile and stood straight and tall, glaring at his old adversary as he came into view.

  ‘What brings you to disturb my rest?’ he snorted.

  ‘Greetings old friend and new enemy. We have been friends much longer than we have been as we are now. Let us return to those days and work together to help our brethren to make their new home in this hot and unforgiving place. Is this not wisdom, clear and true, dear brother?’

  ‘You suck the very air from my lungs with your continuous talk. Say whatever is required to fulfill your purpose and leave me to silence.’

  Sublan held his head to one side as he studied him and shook his stump of a tail.

  ‘Let us soothe our wounds with the benevolence of forgiveness. Let us leave the past where it might lay and bring our present and our future together in a bond of friendship and love; a bond that time will only strengthen as it becomes the foundation on which the new Sherdling nation will be formed.’

  ‘Stop with the words, Sublan. You do not believe them, and nor do I. You want me to come with you and hide in a dirty cave, to forget what I could have done for that Sherdling nation you speak of, if not for interference and treachery. I would have led my people home, to our own world, to a world of free Sherdling. You cannot expect me to forget that and scrabble in the dirt at your feet, as your own private sub-dub!’

  He watched as his old friend turned away, insulted by the term. He wanted to say stop, speak some more; try harder to persuade me. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t…

  But he couldn’t bring himself to say the words. The pride that had made him stand up to lead his people, that had made him absolutely certain he was correct, would not let him. So, as Sublan’s stumpy tail disappeared from view, he slipped back to his makeshift home, between the rocks.

  It really wasn’t that bad.

  **********

  'So bid me farewell fair colleagues, and wish me fortune in my mission. If success is the result of my efforts, then perhaps I shall return. If failure meets me instead, then I leave it to this august body to find a more effective solution to the threat that looms over our galaxy. I wish you the same good fortune that I ask for myself.'

  With his final words spoken, Heldon had turned to leave the great chamber of There, Heshna-del by his side.

  With smooth words and effortless lies he had convinced Jashna-del's son that he had no choice but to follow him. The story of his estranged father being tortured and bound in heavy chains by the evil aliens from another galaxy had failed to move him, but, when told of the imminent threat to his own star from those same aliens, he had finally agreed to accompany Heldon and provide what aid he could.

  Using the technology provided by the Selflief, Heldon had caused Heshna-del to grow the shift organs and communication muscles necessary for his forthcoming journey, though he'd kept him very much in the dark about what he might find at his journey's end.

  As they eased through the complex walls of There, they were already focusing on ramping up their shift organs. Within a few moments, they would be ready to go.

  'Heldon!'

  The voice in his head was familiar, so Heldon was not surprised to find Stave floating just outside the great chamber when he finally emerged into the silence of hard space.

  'Stave? I was not expecting to hear from you, and in person.'

  Stave's skin-tight silver exo-suit carried him closer.

  'I thought it important to offer my report before you leave, Heldon.'

  'I see.' Heldon glanced at Heshna-del, who had not quite completed extricating himself from the awkward wall of There. 'Well, as you've travelled so far, perhaps I can spare a moment to hear what you have to say.'

  Stave was less than ten meters from him, and still moving closer, as if drawn by the gravity of There.

  'The humans are not capable of withstanding the Hru-argh, so I have made things a little easier for the Hru-argh, to enable them to complete their action sooner than might otherwise have been possible.'

  'That makes sense; I would have preferred a quick defeat for them, but as long as there is no delay, victory is acceptable.'

  'In gratitude for you efforts on their behalf, the commander of their fleet asked me to give you this token.'

  As he spoke he reached out with a small package, wrapped in glowing green; Heldon's favorite color.

  'I really don't have time for this, but I suppose you are witnessing this on their behalf?'

  Heldon accepted the small parcel and held it closer to his face.

  The package unwrapped itself at his touch. It appeared to contain nothing.

  Heldon looked up at Stave, who had begun to drift away from him.

  'What...?'

  He said no more as his defense mechanisms detected the attack of the nano-plague. Before they could react, his upper limbs succumbed to the relentless hunger of the tiny machines and they were reduced to a dull grey liquid that splashed against his great dense chest.

  As his body fought desperately to save something, anything of itself, and the pain threatened to drive the sanity from his mind, Heldon looked up and saw another figure beside Stave. Longer, slimmer; her exo-suit as blue as her own skin.

  As his brain began to shut down, he recognized her; it was such a long time. He knew her and he understood.

  Heshna-del floated nearby, horror marred his face.

  With his great shudder wings spread he hissed. 'Do you know what you've done?'

  Stave heard the words through his suit's com and saw the danger.

  'Come,' he said, as he grasped Staff's hand.

&n
bsp; Together they flew away from the threat of Heshna-del's simmerglow.

  Epilogue

  And so we draw a veil over the events and dramas of this torrid tale.

  On TCE, the Sherdling and the Evinesse seem happy in their joint venture. When the Sherdling stripped the anti-matter facilities left by the humans and made them safe, the Evinesse proclaimed them two-time friends.

  Dan spent a full week marking out a four hundred meter running track in the rich green grass of the valley and, with Sublan in charge of the watch, took almost three seconds off his four hundred meter PB.

  Close to the center of the Milky Way, drifting in the empty space near There, Heshna-del is struggling to deal with the anger and confusion that threatens to overwhelm him. As he sets up a protective field around what is left of the mighty Heldon to deny the nano-plague further victims, he knows that he has to carry on, to find his father, to give him the chance to accept the honorable death that he refused so long ago; not knowing that he is far too late.

  Upon the return of the formidable Hru-argh fleet to their home system, Hy-Dehone is stripped of his command as his second in command reports that his argument for The Denied Ones status was initially refused by the Commodore, causing the needless death of thousands of Hru-argh and the loss of hundreds of ships. The second in command is happy and honored to take responsibility for the fleet in his place.

  In the Solar Union, the remnants of mankind are beginning to learn the benefits of being Denied Ones and will soon discover that they can once again walk on the surface of their home planet; a dead planet, for now, but home nonetheless. With the retro-engineered technology gleaned from Stave’s fabricators, and the shift capability that was his gift, who can say what the future holds for a reinvigorated mankind?

  On Mars, Moira is surprised to find that she enjoys her role managing the fabricators, and there is even the scent of romance in the air. The young man she has her eye on doesn’t know that his fortune is about to change, but we should not pity him too much. On her day, when the mood takes her, Moira can be quite fun.

  Almost exactly six months after Stave’s attack on Heldon, seven novae light up the sky. It will take many years before their light can reach Earth and mankind becomes aware of the danger that faces the galaxy.

  We can only hope that when that time comes, they will be ready to do something about it.

  ****************

  The End

  ***************

  An Intervention of Angels

  Beneath the shadow of the Wall, all hope is lost

  Prologue

  Nordus arched his back and stretched his forelegs out before him; his tail flicked from side to side in an absentminded way.

  With a groan, he lifted himself upright, standing tall and magnificent on his hind legs. He rolled his shoulders back and felt them click into place, making his chest stick out and allowing full movement of his forelegs. His brown chest fur was stained with blood, but that meant nothing to a warrior of his renown. A scar might even help him improve on his considerable success rate with the ladies. In fact, there was a certain young female who was in season and might just be the recipient of his attention tonight.

  ‘Generosity is my middle name,’ he purred.

  He’d trained all afternoon and was happy that he was close to his peak; when the clamour of battle called him, he would be ready to take his place once again in the Thousand.

  He withdrew his swords from his back scabbards and lazily swung them through the air; gripping each hilt firmly with his four toe pads and opposing thumb pad. It had been a good training session, even if Redbus had nicked him with a thoughtless blade. He knew that he had caught the eyes of the officers looking on; they could not have failed to notice his speed and skill; and, surely, they must know his reputation.

  Now, as the day waned, he was outside the concentric walls of the city and his feet felt the smooth hardness of the wide yellow road. The rough-lands edged the road; brown and dusty and empty of all but the toughest vegetation. To his right, he could see in the distance the lush verdant fields that were barred to him and his kind, and to his left, of course, was The Wall. Black and implacable, it dominated the landscape. He knew that it started low to the ground at the temple, just behind the city, but it grew as your eyes moved along its length, growing higher and higher. In the middle distance, it towered over even the mountains, and it was said to go on forever.

  One day, it was said, the true Messiah would come and lead the tribes of cats along the top of The Wall and into the arms of the Twin Gods; may they bless the sky and the land.

  Nordus put away his swords and dropped to all fours, feeling his hips and shoulders slot back into their more comfortable formation. He breathed deeply. He was going to do it again; he knew he was; it was proof to himself that he was ready for the fight. He’d fought in two battles; been defeated in both it has to be said; but that wouldn’t stop him. Each time, before he took up arms, he’d made this run, and he’d survived the run and the battles. For a third time, he would do it, and hope for a better outcome against the apes.

  He studied the dark, bulging clouds above his head. They were so close, so low, he felt that he could leap up and rip out the belly of the black cloud directly above him and have its black, dirty water rush over him. There was still a dull glow, low in the west. The sun would set soon; it was almost the moment.

  When darkness eased down upon him, he judged that the time was right. With a roar of defiance, he leapt from the road and raced across the dirt, raising clouds of dust behind him, aiming for the base of the Wall as it reared from the scabby ground. It was less than a quarter of a league’s distance, and he covered the ground in a matter of minutes. He roared again as he slapped his massive forepaws against the smooth, warm side of The Wall.

  Then he spun. That was the easy part of the run; getting to the Wall was never a problem. Getting back was the issue. He raised himself up onto his hind legs and scanned the area around him, his ears pricked as he listened and his nose twitched. At first, he saw nothing in the dim light, and the silence was absolute. He thought that he detected the scent of rotting vegetation but, in itself, that was hardly unusual.

  He was just about to begin his end run when he heard it; a single click. He froze; just for a second, his body refused to react. Then he leapt away from The Wall, desperate not to hear the inevitable. Before he’d taken two strides, it came; the clack.

  He stopped and rose to his hind-legs; any attempt at escape now was futile. Calmness washed over him then; all of a sudden, he knew that there would be no glorious battle for him, side by side with the Thousand; no victory against the damned apes to impress the fragrant females. This was where it would end.

  He drew his swords and adjusted his stance with his shoulders back; preparing for the attack. There was another click-clack, then another. He couldn’t see them yet, not in the dim light. The noise grew and he swung his swords; his eyes flicking from one place to another, eager for the first sight of his enemy.

  Without further warning, they were on him, clicker-clacking as they scurried over the dirt; eager for their prey.

  If there had been a witness to his heroics, songs would have been written about his final battle. Songs of valor and loss; of skill and strength; of death and dismemberment.

  For no matter how bravely he fought; no matter how many he tossed aside, no matter the skill he had with his swords; he was still only one cat. And they were so many, and they burned with hunger.

  At last, there was not a patch of bloodied fur left behind; not a half chewed bone, nor a broken tooth.

  If there had been sufficient light, a single red ruby of blood might have been seen as it bejeweled a twisted blade of red-grass.

  Nothing more, for this is the land of The Wall, and nothing ever changes.

  Not until the arrival of a stricken craft from a devastated Earth.

  BOOK 1: Of Cat-like Aliens and Ape-like Aliens

  Chapter 1
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br />   Helen stared at the dead view screens as she tried to clear her mind and plan for the trials ahead.

  But her thoughts were bundled up like clothes in a drier; twisted and confused and difficult to separate.

  It was only three days since they’d left the worm-hole and already the mission was over, ending in absolute disaster. They were all dead. Every single one of the passengers was dead.

  Twenty thousand of them; or was in eighteen thousand? She couldn’t even get that clear in her head. They’d started out with twenty thousand; she was sure of that. Two thousand to each suspended animation globe; that was the plan. But what happened in the tenth globe? Two thousand passengers entered it before they left Earth orbit, but what had the Succ-y-Rist done to them? It had to be them; there was no other explanation.

  When the life support system failed, the back-up system should have kicked in. When the generator died, its auxiliary should have taken over. The least that would have been expected was for the alarm klaxon to scream its distress.

  But none of this had happened.

  When Helen had woken up to the absolute darkness, just twenty-four hours earlier, even her still sleepy brain had registered the most terrifying sound in space; that of silence. No reassuring background hum of the hidden machinery that made life possible in this most hostile of environments, no radio squawks to tell her that her crew members were at their stations.

  The panic had clutched at her guts and she’d wanted to roll into a ball and hide in the darkness. But she was the captain of this ship, and the lives of her small crew and twenty thousand sleeping passengers depended upon her being calm, professional and assured.

  When she saw the sudden bright light that tossed shadows around her cramped quarters, she’d fought back the urge to cry out and swung her legs from her bed. Then she caught his smell, already heavy in the tiny room.