Kantovan Vault (The Spiral Wars Book 3)

by Shepherd,Joel

  Kantovan Vault

  The Spiral Wars; Book Three

  Joel Shepherd

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Joel Shepherd

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and is not intended by the author.

  Cover Illustration by Stephan Martiniere. http://www.martiniere.com/

  Titles by Kendall Roderick. http://rmind-design.com

  Created with Vellum

  1

  Captain Erik Debogande strained his neck against the thundering pressure of re-entry, and blinked upon the tactical icon within his field of vision. It showed his ship, the combat shuttle PH-1, accompanied by its sister ship PH-4 and two tavalai shuttles, spread in wide entry formation through Stoya III’s stratosphere. In his ear he could hear the terse chatter between pilots, expressing displeasure with something else following their re-entry track.

  “Yeah I see it.” That was Lieutenant Hausler, pilot of PH-1 and senior pilot of the UFS Phoenix contingent. “That’s too damn close, keep an eye on them.”

  “Tav’rai stupid?” complained an alien growl from the second Phoenix shuttle.

  “No Tif,” said Hausler. “Tavalai not stupid, tavalai just damn pain in the ass.”

  “Lieutenant Hausler, this is the Captain,” said Erik as the Gs began to ease, and PH-1 settled into a shuddering, rocking descent. “Is there a problem?”

  “Sir,” said Hausler, “those two shuttles off Tokigala just paralleled us through re-entry at about half the standard safe range. It’s reckless and if I had any idea who to send it to, I’d file a complaint.”

  “How about a missile lock?” Hausler’s co-pilot Ensign Yun suggested from the front seat.

  Tokigala was a tavalai foreign affairs and diplomacy vessel from one of the largest tavalai government departments. Humans called it the ‘State Department’, because that harked back to lost things from human history, and the actual tavalai name required an acronym too long for humans to bother with. The State Department was an ancient beast of tavalai bureaucracy, formed directly after the fall of the Chah’nas Empire nearly eight thousand years ago. It ran all tavalai external affairs, and was held partly responsible by most humans for the belligerence that led to the Triumvirate War, and all its hundreds of millions of casualties.

  Phoenix had entered tavalai space nearly a month ago, though only two weeks had passed on Phoenix’s clocks, thanks to time-dilation through multiple hyperspace jumps. If not for the protection of Makimakala, Phoenix would have been attacked and destroyed immediately. But the Dobruta vessel had its own reasons for granting Phoenix safe passage through tavalai space, and once granted, not even the State Department could countermand it.

  The Dobruta couldn’t make them like it, however, and the State Department vessels had shadowed both Phoenix and Makimakala from Alidance System, five jumps ago. Upon arrival here at Stoya System, they had been greeted by another two State Department vessels and five tavalai main fleet warships. The State Department ships had challenged Makimakala, in conversations Phoenix had been unable to overhear, while the fleet warships had looked on. Makimakala had ignored them, and the State Department ships had had no choice but to allow Dobruta and humans to progress to the surface of Stoya III, as the fleet ships appeared to have no interest in stopping them. State Department vessels, Erik had been pleased to have confirmed, were always unarmed. They had plenty of shuttles, however, and these two were making a nuisance of themselves.

  “Signal from the surface,” came Ensign Yun. “Doma Strana base gives us an approach trajectory, all looks good. Kulid-One, do you copy?”

  “Kulid-One copies,” came the translator-metallic reply of Makimakala’s lead shuttle. “Good signal, we land.”

  Without thrust, PH-1 was nearly weightless as she fell rocking through the atmosphere. A spacer long accustomed to weightlessness, Erik was not at all certain he liked this kind. This was the first gravity-well he’d entered since Homeworld, and the death of Captain Pantillo. He remembered that last descent, exhausted from preparations for the great parade and sleeping through much of re-entry. Back then, he’d thought he only had to worry about the marching, and the family reunion to follow. He could not escape the feeling that now, like then, he was falling into a trap… only this time, he went knowingly.

  His link to external visual showed the surface hidden beneath an expanse of white cloud. PH-1 and escort plunged into it, and all vision blanked, then came abruptly clear on a stunning view of mountains. Altitude was perhaps fifteen thousand meters, yet already Hausler was engaging thrust to pull them from the dive as the tallest peaks came up just below. Huge valleys plummeted into ice-cold rivers, water gleaming silver beneath the white overcast. High forests made patches of green on the lower slopes amongst black rock and white snow. And here ahead, Nav was fixing on the end-point of their inbound course.

  “Wow,” said Hausler, as the camera got a close-up for the first time. “Would you look at this thing.”

  Their destination was a mountain, at least eight thousand meters high. One entire section of west-facing slope had been cut away, to make an enormous, artificial feature. The feature crawled up the mountainside in several parts, some vertical, others angled, and from the machine-smoothed stone emerged the carved facades of imitation building-fronts. Like the facades of city buildings, straight lines amidst the rugged peaks.

  “Nav says the feature is a touch over three kilometres high,” said Ensign Lee from PH-4. “It just climbs all the way up. Tunnels everywhere inside.”

  Erik switched to full-screen view on his glasses — unnecessary, but he was further from human space than most serving Fleet officers ever got to travel. If he was going to come all this way, he might as well enjoy the view. Hausler swung past one looming mountain, the shuttle bumping through windshear and slowing as the unnatural cliff face approached. It faced a smaller, lower mountain, and as PH-1 curled around on the side-angle, the huge, deep cleft between the two vertical surfaces became visible for the first time. Down at the base of the cleft were unnatural caverns and surface vehicles, small dots far below. The main temple cliff had many levels, with landing platforms and open walkways protruding from its surface. Great pillars seemed to thrust from the rock, a carved facade in the old style of parren temple. An entire mountain, dedicated to worship, nearly twenty thousand years old.

  PH-1 approached a mid-level platform, itself nearly two kilometres ab
ove the ground. Only as they approached, thrusters roaring, did Erik get a true sense of the scale, as all four shuttles lined up for landing upon the same platform with much room to spare. A touch, and they were down, and the roaring vibration stopped. Down the back, Lieutenant Zhi shouted for Echo Platoon to dismount, and Erik remained at the front command post until they were done.

  “Captain, platform is secure,” came Major Thakur’s voice on coms. “You are free to dismount.”

  Erik unharnessed, performed a final check of his light armour, sidearm and com gear, then edged between rows of vacated armour racks and harnesses to the open rear ramp. Chill air stung his face and he resisted the urge to grab a hydraulic arm for balance as the mountain vista opened up before him. PH-1 was parked literally upon the brink of a precipice, plunging two thousand meters straight down. From this angle he could see the face of the opposing, smaller cliff for the first time. The carvings made the shape of a face — heavy-browed and alien, hewn into rock and at least two hundred meters tall. The weathered features looked as old and solemn as the mountain, with wide, staring eyes. Snowflakes blew on a flurry of wind across its dark, impassive stare.

  An earsplitting roar made Erik look up. Two tavalai shuttles were passing overhead — too low to be accidental. They flew on, headed for an adjacent and slightly higher platform up the cliff face.

  Erik walked past Echo Platoon marines in defensive position, beneath the shuttle’s starboard weapons pod as the huge ceramic-plated beast pinged and cooled, radiating heat like an iron just removed from the fire. Ahead he saw Trace and Command Squad, waiting before PH-4, and walked to her. Beyond her was a cavernous chamber, sheltered behind floor-to-ceiling glass, behind which various alien figures milled.

  “Stupid bastards from the State Department,” Trace said conversationally as he arrived. “That flyby was intentional.”

  “It’s almost as though they don’t want us here,” said Erik, staring upward. The sky above the cliff was cold and grey. “Fancy that.”

  He glanced left as footsteps approached. It was Commander Nalben off Makimakala, lightly armoured as was Erik, and likewise accompanied by lumbering armoured karasai — tavalai marines. Expressions were difficult for humans to read on wide, amphibious tavalai faces, but Erik got the distinct impression that Nalben was cold, and unhappy about it.

  “Captain,” said Nalben in his perfect English, as his karasai stopped in guard formation behind. “Are you pleased to be back on a planet after so long?”

  “More pleased than you, I think,” Erik replied. “This is a little cold for tavalai, yes?”

  “Human understatement,” said Nalben, shoulders hunched, repressing a shiver. He looked longingly toward the enclosed glass, and warmth. “They will be out soon. They are arranging protocols.”

  He was connected to the temple occupants through coms, Erik knew. This whole complex, this whole world and solar system, were tavalai. But the temple itself was parren, built in the latter half of the Parren Empire that followed the fall of the machines. Tavalai being tavalai, they called it still by its original parren name — Doma Strana, ‘strana’ meaning ‘temple’ in the relevant, old parren tongue.

  Stoya III was a large world and had many cities in more temperate zones than this. But the tavalai love of ancient things had compelled them to settle and occupy this old temple, and make modern use of it. Now it was occupied by the Pelligavani — a financial department, of all things. Erik thought it the oddest and most extravagant use of public space by a bunch of accountants. But it was so typically tavalai, to fill every last outpost with bureaucracy.

  “You’re sure he’s here?” Erik asked Commander Nalben, eyeing the odd civilian costumes behind the glass. Mostly tavalai, he thought, in those loose-fitting, baggy garments that passed for middle-ranking formality.

  “Quite sure,” said Nalben, with a trace of irritation. Tavalai could usually be relied upon to keep their promises. Human doubts were impolite. “We do not go to this much trouble for everyone. This is a most controversial figure.”

  “So I hear,” Erik replied, with a glance up at the higher platform where the two State Department shuttles had landed. “But it wouldn’t be a Phoenix mission if we weren’t upsetting everyone.”

  “No,” Nalben agreed. “A Makimakala mission neither.”

  Tavalai civilians emerged from sliding glass doors, and walked to the waiting crews with that familiar rolling gait. They were bundled against the cold, and carried various ribbons and flowers. Lilies, Erik identified. Tavalai preferred life in temperate places where water met the land, and had a special love for the plants and flowers that flourished on both as tavalai did.

  These tavalai introduced themselves to Commander Nalben, who introduced them in turn to Erik. They were the Pelligavani, he said, and Doma Strana was their facility. That meant formalities. Erik nodded, unsurprised. One did not venture into tavalai space without expecting formalities.

  It was actually kind of interesting, he thought. The tavalai bureaucrats seemed pleased to meet them, which was surprising, given the recent hundred and sixty one years of war, and so many millions dead. Perhaps it was that they knew of Phoenix’s split with human Fleet Command, or perhaps it was the simple prestige of a visit from such a famous name… but either way, there were smiles and bows, and the granting of ribbons and flowers. There were stamps too, of the ink variety, to be pressed into old leather-bound books on the appropriate pages. The books were astonishing. They looked many centuries old, worn to the point of falling apart, the pages smothered with older, overlapping stamps to which Erik contributed new ones.

  Tavalai society was not primarily divided by race, class, caste or religion, but by institution. Tavalai accumulated institutions as some birds collected shiny objects. Erik gathered from translated conversation with Nalben that the Pelligavani had roots going back to the Parren Empire, twenty thousand years ago. Perhaps that was why they liked to occupy this old temple, Erik thought — both it and the Pelligavani were about the same age. The Pelligavani had produced competent economic and government administrators for various empires across the millennia, and these tavalai were as proud of their grand institution as any Fleet officer was of his own.

  Most of what the tavalai called ‘government’ sprang from the contest of such institutions, large and small, scattered across tavalai space. Humans elected individuals to represent regions. Tavalai voted only within their institutions, and let those institutions battle it out at the higher levels to determine tavalai government policy. The Pelligavani, Erik was sure, would have internal elections in which all members voted. Humans thought tavalai undemocratic because individual tavalai had no say in who ran the entire race. Tavalai thought humans undemocratic because most humans worked in institutions without any say in who ran them. Given how most humans spent their days working under bosses they could not replace, while human government remained so distant from most daily lives, Erik thought the tavalai might have a point.

  When the last formalities were observed, and the heavily armed Command Squad had been reduced to carrying lilies and wearing ribbons, all were invited inside. Trace signalled back to PH-4, and from the rear of the shuttle Lisbeth came running, with little Skah’s hand grasped firmly in hers. That brought new fascination from the tavalai, at Skah in particular. Several got down on one knee to speak to the little boy at eye-level, and pat his shoulder. In his heavy parka and hood, Skah could barely be identified as kuhsi, but that tawny-furred face, big gold eyes and sharp teeth were clearly not human. Kuhsi were a species unfamiliar to tavalai, and these tavalai seemed to think meeting one was an event.

  “Herro,” Skah said politely, more interested in staring around at the huge cliff on which they were perched. Tavalai, he’d seen before. And said to Lisbeth, as they were finally walking inside, “Nahny cun too?”

  “Skah, your Mummy has to wait with the shuttle for now,” Lisbeth said patiently, also staring around at the cliffs. “Pilots have to keep the shuttle rea
dy in case we have to leave quickly. Here, wave to your Mummy, she can see you.”

  She pointed back to the narrow, front-and-back seating of PH-4’s business end, above the massive lower-side cannon mount and surrounded by atmospheric intakes and loaded missile pods. Behind the heavily armoured glass in the rear seat, Tif could be seen faintly, waving. Skah waved back enthusiastically. Lisbeth’s eyes strayed to the looming alien face on the cliff behind. “Wow,” she breathed, then turned to follow her brother, Commander Nalben and Command Squad inside.

  “You brought your sister,” Nalben said to Erik with bemusement. They passed through the big glass doors, and the warmth enfolded them.

  “She’s been off-world for four months,” Erik explained. “Skah too, they were desperate to see a planet again. This one looks safe enough.” He’d slowly come to accept that his options in protecting Lisbeth from danger were limited. Being on Phoenix was dangerous, for everyone. Excluding her from away-teams could just make her sullen and resentful, and all spacers knew that poor morale only made dangers worse.

  “The little boy’s mother trusts you enormously,” Nalben observed.

  “Kuhsi operate in clans,” Erik explained. “Phoenix is Tif’s clan now, like family. Raising the children is a clan responsibility, she knows we’ll protect Skah like he’s our own.”

  This part of the temple was all new and modern, with loading vehicles and wide branching corridors — a docking port for cargo. The modernity only lasted until the next corridor, where the modern wall fittings were replaced with luminescent cables. Yet the exposed stone walls and floors were not rough from some pre-technology era. The Doma Strana had been constructed during the height of the Parren Empire, when the parren had replaced the hacksaws as dominant species in the Spiral. The floors here were so smooth that if properly polished, Erik was sure they’d be slippery.

  The elevator at the hallway’s end was similarly new, and large enough to fit twenty with ease. It took them up, while holographic walls gave them a view of the mountains outside, as though millions of tonnes of rock became abruptly transparent. After a long climb, gravity eased, then restored as the car arrived. One of the Pelligavani guides spoke to Nalben in rapid Togiri, who replied in kind.