The Kepos Problem (Kepos Chronicles Book 1)

by Erica Rue

  Oh the waters are rising,

  Uprising, my dear.

  And there’s no compromising

  This time, no, my dear.

  For the rain drops are falling,

  Befalling us, dear

  And no shelter is stalling

  This flood, no, my dear

  Still there’s no time for drowning,

  Or frowning, my dear.

  It’s a new king their crowning

  Bow down now, my dear.

  Still nothing. And with her song over, she could better hear Brian groaning.

  “Colm, stop.” Dione was surprised to hear Victoria’s voice. “Don’t kill the boy. He has his uses, but starting Flyers just isn’t one of them.”

  Dione knelt by Brian. His forearms were already bruising from blocking as many blows as he could, but she could see his right cheekbone swelling as well. He clutched his abdomen in pain, but still managed to moan something to Dione. “Change the key. Be…”

  He was making even less sense. How could she change the key? Be what? She couldn’t change the lock, so what use would a different key be? If you’ve got the wrong key to a door, you can’t just change the key. You have to find the right one. And what did he want her to be? Careful?

  The echo of footsteps crashed through the hangar for the second time.

  “What is it now, Nick?”

  “The Aratians are attacking. There’s an inbound Flyer.”

  “Colm, organize the men and women.” He left immediately, but Dione’s relief was short-lived. Victoria had pulled a small hand gun on her. The hairs on Dione’s arms stood on end when she heard the cocking of the gun.

  “Start this Flyer now, or I’ll kill you.”

  36. ZANE

  Zane was getting worried. He’d checked on Bel, and at first, she hadn’t responded. If it weren’t for the monitors and the gentle rise and fall of her chest, Zane would have thought she was dead. After a few minutes, she opened her eyes long enough to look confused before going back to sleep. There was nothing he could do until Dione and Lithia returned, so he channeled his energy into figuring out what to do about the Vens.

  Zane knew it was a long shot, but based on what he knew about this station, it was certainly possible. His parents had never been stationed on those state-of-the-art ships that actually did have self-destruct mechanisms, but he knew they existed. This station, well, it certainly had been home to terraforming pioneers. Geniuses.

  What Zane didn’t know was where to start. If there were any self-destruct capabilities, they would be very well hidden. So, the first thing to do, of course, was run a search for “explosives.”

  There were a lot of results. Apparently there were records of a few small explosions on the station due to some experiments gone wrong. Then there was the explosion of an experiment gone right. Too right. Some sort of reaction between… plants? Weird. Dione would be interested.

  None of these things would work for blowing up the station, but he hadn’t expected “explosives” to reveal a self-destruct program. He had just hoped that he would find an alternative that didn’t involve digging around in code for hours.

  Self-destruct programs were not searchable. They often had completely boring and innocuous names, and they required multi-pronged initiation. He didn’t know if he could find it, start it, or if it even existed.

  Zane began to slog through code, line by line, looking at the station’s automated protocols, waiting for something to jump out at him. This is what desperation feels like. He had about a zero percent chance of success, but he didn’t know what else to do.

  After an hour or so, he stopped. This wasn’t working. There had to be a way to figure out if a self-destruct protocol even existed. Time to take a step back and think through things.

  Why install one?

  Because you don’t want your technology to get into enemy hands.

  What’s the easiest way to stop an enemy corp from getting your tech?

  Blow it up.

  No, it’s not. That takes time, money, permits, additional risk of a malfunction. Look at the hardware around you. It’s top of the line for a century ago, sure, but none of it is truly mind-blowing. Today only the most innovative hardware is equipped with self-destruct programs. What was the real value of this station?

  The scientists.

  You’re a corporation, people are irrelevant.

  Their research. The data. The genetic blueprints for all the new species and terraforming techniques.

  Bingo. So how do you prevent that type of theft?

  Data wipe.

  Well, that was not the conclusion Zane was hoping to reach, but that tended to happen when searching for the truth. Sure enough, Zane found evidence that a data wipe procedure had been initiated over fifty years ago. What was unexpected was that all the data had been restored. Apparently it had been downloaded not only by the people initiating the data wipe, but a second time by someone in the Forest Base. After the wipe, everything had been restored, and no one had come back to check. And so, everything, all the research, records, and absence protocols that kept up the station, was still there.

  That’s when he noticed that new records had been added after the data wipe. After whoever was in charge metaphorically torched the mainframe, someone stuck around. Someone added a tiny little protected corner for some audio and digital logs, new research, and who knows what else. They were added to a personal file that had existed before the wipe.

  Zane read the name aloud. “Myer, Samantha.” He downloaded this data to his manumed. He wanted to know more about this Samantha. If she was around after the data wipe, she might have had something to do with the Farmer and whatever else was happening on the planet.

  He skimmed through the titles of the entries. Some of them were just dates, but others had titles. It didn’t take long before one audio log caught his eye, “Just a farmer.” He pressed play.

  I got assigned to Jameson’s team, and I couldn’t be more excited. Up to this point, I’ve spent most of my time modifying species, rather than engineering them. What if colonists could control their livestock with a measure of music? What if hunters could summon their prey with a whistle? What would happen if another predator learned these musical cues? But working with Jameson will be something new. I’ve spent the past few hours familiarizing myself with his research, and it’s incredible.

  Let me put it this way. In the early stages of terraforming, a rocky sphere is painted in broad strokes, like a primer. Then it’s seeded with life in primary and secondary colors. Finally, they bring in the artists to paint the details that really bring the planet to life. I am an artist. But Jameson? He’s Peter Paul Rubens. He’s Vincent Van Gogh. And he knows it, even if he tries to downplay it with stories of his humble origins. He claims he’s ‘just a farmer,’ but he’s so much more.

  This woman, Samantha, had been one of the original researchers on this station. And this Jameson guy, could he be the Farmer? Or was that just a coincidence?

  He didn’t think these entries would help him find a solution to the Ven problem, so it surprised him when he found an entry from much later, years later, after the station had been abandoned, titled, “Venatorian beacon.”

  Jameson’s going to shut down the distress beacon on the Venatorian scout ship. The Icon, the weapon he installed in the Mountain Base, didn’t work. His AI was too slow, not smart enough to pick up the threat in time to completely destroy it. Two Venatorians survived the crash. I found the bodies. All of them. So many dead colonists. And there were only two! How could two Venatorians kill more than twenty men? Even those loyal to him, brainwashed into thinking he’s some god, didn’t deserve the deaths they got. Blood everywhere, and I bet Jameson only weeps for their precious DNA.

  I need to put a stop to this. In my desire to be left alone to my research and find a non-violent solution, I’ve let him get away with too much. Without him around, maybe these people can find peace. But I’ll need to figure out a way to i
mprove that AI. No Venatorian, no pirate, no despot, can ever find this place again.

  This was the last entry. As curious as Zane was to find out what had happened in between, he already knew bits and pieces. He was fairly certain that Jameson was the Farmer and Samantha was the Architect. They were the only ones who had been here after the evacuation. Why they had both stayed and where all the colonists came from was still a mystery, but the answers were within reach. Unfortunately, there was nothing in that entry that would help him blow up the Vens. However, he did have one new, useful piece of information that Dione and Lithia might be able to use.

  The Mountain Base definitely had an AI.

  37. LITHIA

  Lithia and Cora had been sitting in the tree house for over an hour.

  Lithia kept messaging Zane, but he’d stopped replying. Something about working on his plan to get rid of the Vens.

  Every time she thought about them, her anxiety grew. Why were they just waiting? Why not attack? What would happen to the people here? Was it her fault?

  She knew the answer to that last one. Yes. And here she was, just sitting in a tree house, waiting for Dione to come rescue her and for Zane to save them all. If she had been short enough to stand beneath the low, rough ceiling beams, she would have been pacing.

  “Are you sure they won’t look for us here?” she asked.

  “My father had a meeting until early afternoon, so they probably still don’t know you’re missing,” Cora said.

  “But pretty soon they’ll start looking for me.”

  “I guess.” Cora looked bored, and from the sound of her stomach growling, she was hungry. Cora was not accustomed to discomfort, and this time alone was allowing the doubt to creep in.

  Lithia didn’t completely trust her. She was so… pious. Lithia never trusted people who were absolutely convinced of their beliefs. It had never made sense. It was something she had learned from Dione, when they were younger. Never close your mind to a new perspective. Dione had probably read it in a book before programming it into a flowery font and adding it to the rotation of inspirational quotes that cycled through her wall display.

  “We can’t stay here much longer then,” Lithia said.

  “What does Zane say?” Cora asked. Cora didn’t know what a Ven actually was or that they were here, portending death like a black cloud promises rain. They were demons out of her father’s stories, ready to be vanquished, not living, breathing murderers.

  Lithia checked her manumed again. Zane had still not replied. That was it. “We’re taking the Flyer, the one I came down in. Do you know where it is?”

  “Right where you left it. I overheard my father and uncle talking about posting a guard.”

  “It’s guarded, then?”

  “Yes. A few techs have been working on it. They were talking about doing a test flight tomorrow.”

  Hope flickered inside Lithia. If they were planning a test flight, they had probably made some repairs. She still had their crash coordinates, the ones Dione had figured out, in her manumed.

  “All right, let’s go. It’s this way,” she said, pointing off into the woods.

  “With no machi?”

  “What’s a machi?”

  “It’s a machi, you know, we use them to get around.”

  “I’ve only seen maximutes.”

  “Machi have long noses, like this,” Cora said, extending her arm in front of her face, “and strong legs. They have short fur, usually brown or black, and they’re very affectionate.”

  “Are they fast?”

  “Not as fast as maximutes, but they are much easier to command. Maximutes require too much precision with the pitches and sequences you use. I can ride one, of course, but you’d never be able to.”

  As much as Lithia wanted to accept that challenge, she didn’t like the idea of Cora going back to the town, where someone was probably looking for them already.

  “We’re walking. It’ll take a couple of hours, so we’d better get started.”

  Cora kept complaining, but much to Lithia’s satisfaction, she did so while following her. Lithia didn’t really think that wandering off into the woods again was the best idea, but she wouldn’t sit around and do nothing. No one ever played the damsel in distress in the holos. That role was utterly boring.

  ***

  Just a couple of hours later, Lithia was soaked with sweat and tired of Cora. Lithia had shushed her almost immediately after they headed out, worried that they would be discovered, so Cora had taken to whimpering in discomfort at regular intervals. She had almost given them away to a passerby in a green cloak, but he seemed in too much of a hurry to wonder about a few strange noises.

  Still, something had been nagging at her the whole trip. She felt like they were being followed, but every time she turned around, there was no one. After a while, she shook the feeling off. If someone had been following them, they never would have gotten this far.

  She finally caught sight of the shuttle in the distance, large and sleek despite its dents. Outside stood two guards, wearing the same type of harem pants she wore to dinner, except theirs were dark brown. Their shirts were the same color and had a more masculine cut. Each held some kind of sword.

  “What’s he holding? Is it made of wood?” Lithia asked.

  “Yes, it’s a pila blade. Sharp and lightweight.”

  “So no guns?”

  “There’s no need.”

  A man she presumed to be a tech was examining her shuttle. He had no uniform, and wore simple shorts and a tight tank top. His outfit reminded her a lot of Brian’s, well worn and not nearly as baggy as Aratian harem pants. He was limping as he moved along the hull. She noticed that her own ankle was not sore at all, even after their hike.

  A few boxes of supplies had been brought to the crash site, and that’s where she saw it. Lying on top of one of the crates was her stun rifle.

  Minutes ticked by. Two guards, one tech outside. Probably more inside the shuttle. Her only chance was to get the stun rifle, but the crates were right in front of the guards. Why were there guards, anyway?

  That’s when she figured it out. The tech wasn’t limping. His feet were chained together. Of course. The Ficarans were the tech-savvy ones, so they liked to keep a few handy for big projects like this. This was good news. The techs probably wouldn’t try to kill her.

  “You need to distract them so I can get the stun rifle,” Lithia said. “Right now, both guards are staring straight at it, and it’s clearly visible from the shuttle.”

  “What do I say?” Cora asked. “Are you sure this is what the Farmer wants us to do?”

  “Ask them about their work and themselves. People love complaining about one and talking about the other. Just make sure you get them away from the shuttle and the crate.” Lithia looked at Cora saw the worry in her eyes, and for a moment, Lithia felt a little sympathy for her. Or maybe she just needed something. Either way, she offered Cora a little encouragement.

  “Cora, by helping me, you will save lives. A very important life. I know this is difficult for you.”

  The girl smiled and hugged her. Lithia was not a hugger, but she did her best.

  Cora walked up toward the shuttle, but stopped at a distance before calling out her greeting. Good. The guards would move closer, away from their posts.

  Lithia doubled back and approached again from a different angle, closer to the crate. Her back was touching the side of the shuttle that faced away from the center of the clearing. When she peeked out, the two guards had their backs to her and the tech was on the opposite side of the shuttle, completely out of sight.

  She was about to dart forward and grab the rifle, but another guard dressed in brown emerged from the shuttle.

  “What the—” For a moment, she thought she was busted, but he’d apparently noticed the Regnator’s daughter and stopped himself.

  He took a few steps in Cora’s direction. Lithia crept forward, but the man began to turn. She was too far to get to
the rifle in time, and too far from her hiding place. The only option was to go inside the shuttle.

  She ducked inside and saw a tall man and dark-haired woman staring at her. The man was holding a metal wall panel that the woman had just removed, judging by the tools in her hands. They didn’t scream for help, which she assumed was a good thing.

  “Are you Ficarans?” Lithia whispered. They nodded. “If I can get to that stun rifle there, I can stop all the guards. When the coast is clear, I’ll—”

  The man suddenly looked behind her and rushed forward, using the panel like a shield. She turned and realized that the shuttle guard had been about to return to his post. If the man’s feet had been unshackled, he probably would have knocked the guard over. Instead, he knocked the guard off balance. The woman charged in to help. The second guard was running back to help, and the last was protecting Cora. He took a horn from his belt and sounded the alarm at the same time that the third tech joined the fray.

  Lithia sprinted for the rifle, but the second guard saw her. She was ahead of him, and managed to grab it first, only to feel an arm closing around her throat from behind. She tried elbowing her assailant in the ribs, but couldn’t land a blow.

  The edges of her vision were beginning to blur when she heard a strange clicking sound. Sweet oxygen came rushing back into her lungs. Maybe Cora had managed to help after all.

  Instead, she saw Evy, holding some sort of electrified cattle prod. Unbelievable.

  “Evy, where did you come from?” Lithia said.

  “I followed you.”

  Lithia smiled. This kid was going places. “Thanks for the help, but it’s time to go.”

  “Nadia, look out!” said the other tech, but it was too late. Cora’s guard had decided it was time to intervene and jabbed his blade at the dark-haired woman. She turned at the last moment, but not soon enough. Blood poured from a gash on her abdomen, a dark splotch on her shirt radiating outward from underneath her hands.

  Lithia shot Cora’s guard, and he collapsed with a loud thump, his red, wet blade slipping from his grasp. The shuttle guard looked at her, eyes wide, and the third tech punched him. Lithia fired again, but her hands were shaking and both her shots missed. They were enough to send the guard under cover. Lithia took a deep breath and tried to steady herself as she waited for the man to peek out from his hiding place. Moments later, when he did, she hit him. The final guard was unconscious.