Chaos Cipher

by Den Harrington

  Had he imagined tearing off those badges and racing after them before they were thrown into the back of an APC and taken away? He must have imagined it, because it hadn’t happened, yet the thoughts were there. In fact, all that had happened was he allowed the Syridan army to carry out their arrest and remove his wife and child.

  ‘Because she threatened the state…’

  ‘Yet thou imagined fighting off the soldiers? I’m curious to know why.’

  ‘I don’t know…’ Nitro whispered meekly.

  Raven stood in the brimming light as it faded to return everything to focus again. The Olympian warrior’s hair had somehow been restored to its youthful pitch black vigour and his skin no longer etched with age. He was rejuvenated by whatever qualities lay within those spheres, and somehow Nitro had been telling Raven of his past, bearing his soul like he had to nobody before. He’d told the giant Olympian more about his family than he’d even told Ripley.

  ‘I imagined fighting off the soldiers because what they were doing felt wrong,’ said Nitro at last. ‘But I didn’t carry through with it because I was sworn to duty. Sworn to protect my country… And I was supposed to protect my family…not oppress them.’

  And a great weight suddenly lifted from Nitro Harbeck, and he realised quickly that tears had been flowing.

  ‘There’s no shame in feelings,’ Raven admonished as he passed the broken commander. ‘To control them is an act of dignity. But never deny them. Thou art an emotive sentience.’

  And Nitro wiped his eyes and slumped by the open safe.

  ‘What was that thing?’ he asked. ‘What the hell did you just do to me?’

  ‘That,’ said Raven ‘was a gift from the Sacred Star Acolytes, the light of Elixir. You may call it enlightenment, anamnesis, epiphany. It’s the reason I have come so far. It’s the last of its kind; and perhaps the first intelligent being humanity has ever encountered. Its light fills the space, that missing link we seek between thought and nature, words and materialism. And because of the actions of thy human kind it will soon perish. Like everything else thou so arrantly aim to destroy with all thy omnipotence, humanity fails to recognise its responsibilities. While earthly men dream of their servitude to vengeful Gods they fail to see thou hast become so veritably alike them. I sympathise with the devil who takes on the eternal battle with an enemy he knows beyond defeat, because respect is a mutual value as are goodness and evil, for are we not all capable of both? If respect were to be shared equitably, such scarcities as the Elixir would not perish.’

  Nitro blinked in shock, and he glared down at his badges incongruously; then began to remove his decorated armour.

  ‘I can’t wear this,’ he said. ‘I feel sick!’

  ‘Keep it!’ Raven said, landing his heavy palm upon Nitro’s armour to stop his efforts. ‘Thy mark. Thou shalt not run from thy responsibilities, hast thou heard not a word of what I just said?’

  Nitro attempted to stand, then stumbled tiredly and collapsed on his backside again, staring blankly at the ceiling.

  ‘An epiphany is an overwhelming experience of enlightenment, to understand your place, your nature, is not an easy thing. It will take thee yet some time to invoke back your energies.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I have a mission to finish.’ Raven said, ‘I’ll be taking The Nova Storm.’

  ‘I have to find them, Raven.’ Nitro explained as the Olympian warrior turned away. ‘Fuck the Shield of Spheres, fuck the Orbital Guard. Fuck this Serat son of a bitch. I have to find my family.’

  ‘And I’m sure with such virtuosity, you shall,’ Raven nodded. ‘But turning away from thy sins is to deny thy penance. The Elixir asks not for perdition, but for recognition, to be true to thyself. Remember what was learned in the light of that sphere. It’s a fleeting moment, but do not let it go lightly. The shock is still fresh, commander Harbeck, realise who you are. I will finish up from here.’

  Raven slung the broad sword over his shoulder and turned to leave the room before Nitro shouted after him.

  ‘It’s Richard!’ He said. ‘Nitro’s an alias. One of many, but my name’s Richard Hartley.’

  ‘Tis a good start,’ said Raven, while respectfully bowing his head. ‘And a pleasure to finally meet thee, commander Richard. A pity the meeting was so very brief.’

  -76-

  As the elevator made the last few meters to the top it locked into position and Raven shoved aside the gate. He could hear the rain clattering through the surrounding forests and the lightning flashed voraciously in the clouds above, illuminating the dark swaying palm trees and surrounding herbage. Shouldering the large black sword he shifted into the rain, his bright pale green eyes glaring through the strands of his long and wet black hair.

  Once behind the Nova Storm’s cockpit, Raven rested his hand over the flight deck and his nanology traffic poured through the veins of his arm to hack the computer. The Nova Storm softly hummed to life after security protocols were bypassed and the engines fired into life. Raven sat back to allow the harness to drop down and lock him into the seat. Gently, the cadonavis lifted vertically into the sky and stopped at an altitude of fifteen thousand feet.

  ‘Raven,’ a voice channelled into the ship’s communication network. ‘Where’s Nitro?’

  Raven lifted his gaze from the flight deck to Chief Claudia Noble on the cockpit’s head’s up display.

  ‘The commander has conceded to a brief hiatus,’ Raven explained. ‘I shall be taking the mission from here.’

  ‘What did you do with him?’

  ‘He is alive,’ Raven divulged.

  ‘We have an arrangement, Raven,’ she reminded. ‘You have what you wanted. Now honour that arrangement.’

  Raven stared out at the clouds where the crosshairs of his cadonavis aligned on Havenband Province, the hiding place of the Galileo Coterie.

  ‘What news came out of the Havenband Province?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s been nothing,’ said Claudia. ‘Everyone we send vanishes and there’s no more contact. SkyLord Gallows is now arranging with private and state defences globally, to plan to resolve this issue. I want Shield of Spheres to beat them to the punch without too much of a problem. You’re a specialist, Raven. That’s why you’re here. Be sure that if you get Serat, then the Xenotechs are without purpose. You might even be able to save your hidden group, the Galileo Coterie. Make no mistake, Serat will not pause to destroy them.’

  Raven was silent for a moment as he assessed the decision, eyes staring at the Havenband Province marker bearing North-East, ready to launch there.

  ‘We know the Galileo Coterie have been residing there,’ she explained. ‘We know there have been some Olympians on this planet still. But Raven, they are no longer our concern. If you face that Xenotech alone,’ she said, ‘you’ll end up like everything else we send there, specialist or not. Killing it doesn’t stop Serat.’

  ‘She knew all along.’ Raven said levelly, ‘Avenoir knew we would not get here in time.’

  ‘Yes,’ Claudia nodded. ‘That’s what Chronomancers do. They manipulate.’

  ‘No,’ Raven insisted. ‘I do not believe the child brought me here to destroy the Atominii world as I had schemed to do for so very long. She brought me here to stop this threat.’

  ‘You believe that?’

  ‘I would have torn this world to pieces in the name of vengeance,’ Raven sighed with a dreamy gasp of realisation. ‘Yet a more fearsome foe got here before me and I believe he will not stop his mad philosophy at this world.’

  ‘You’re right.’ She stated, ‘but you’re going to need back-up.’

  ‘Find it for me,’ said Raven, ‘because Nitro is out of this mission.’

  ‘If you fail,’ said Claudia, ‘you should know, we will send the Chronomancer into the Erebus. We’ll find him in the temporal Doppler and kill him in the past.’

  ‘It’s quite likely that killing him there will have little effect on Serat here,’ Raven said. ‘Sin
ce this moment is already being written. I do not know the logics of time and matter, but like everything, there is a pattern. And I feel the universe will not allow for paradoxes.’

  ‘Well,’ Claudia shrugged, ‘we’ll just have to see. We’re relying on you Raven. The Chronomancer child believes you will bring us a victory.’

  ‘No,’ Raven said justly. ‘She said I will complete my mission.’

  The Nova Storm’s engines blazed and the cadonavis fired out towards the selected target in the crosshairs, a target over seven thousand miles to the West-Coast and deeper into the Nevada desert.

  -77-

  Since drifting off to sleep, Artex had made very little motion. He simply lay in the captain’s chair, torpidly cranking his eyes, whenever he heard a sound or sudden movement. Kyo wondered if he was naturally on guard, always subconsciously battle weary.

  ‘You want one of these?’ Gus asked the Olympian kid, breaking the seal of his capsule holder and offering him a white pill.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘last time somebody offered me something like this my, veins were on fire.’

  ‘It’s a sedative,’ said Gus.

  ‘I don’t need it,’ said Kyo, turning again to a sleeping Artex. ‘I’m tired as it is.’

  Gus closed the capsule and pocketed the tablets again. ‘Whatever.’ He said.

  The door to the Perigrussia’s canopy once more opened and Pania walked inside looking flustered.

  ‘Just dragged Mad Hat up to medical,’ she sighed, patting herself down in search of something. ‘Awww, shit. Gus, you got any tobacco.’

  ‘I got sedatives,’ Gus offered.

  ‘Not really,’ said Pania. ‘I’d prefer a smoke.’

  ‘How did you find us?’ Kyo asked Pania. ‘I thought we were seriously going to end up dead.’

  ‘You can thank Artex when he wakes up,’ Pania nodded over to the sleeping scout. ‘He’s the one who got you out of this mess.’

  ‘I think I’ll thank all of you,’ said Kyo, nodding to both Pania and Gus. ‘Thanks for coming for me.’

  ‘What the hell did Laux give you, anyway?’ said Pania. ‘Last time we spoke, you was…’

  ‘My parents!’ Kyo suddenly realised. ‘Where’s my mama and papa?’

  Pania looked to Gus, expecting an answer for some reason and Gus momentarily looked at Artex for his own and got nothing more than heavy breathing.

  ‘Look, kid,’ he started, ‘I don’t know about that shit. But what I heard, was the Blue Lycans got them.’

  Pania suddenly kicked Gus in the shin and he cried out angrily and moved away.

  ‘What the hell’s up?’ he yelled.

  ‘Listen,’ Pania said, taking Kyo by the shoulders and ordering his attention. ‘We can’t be sure about that. Truth is we don’t know where Dak and Sonja are.’

  ‘Where did they take them?’ Kyo asked, grabbing back desperately.

  ‘Kyo we don’t know,’ she responded assuredly. ‘Nobody knows. Artex wasn’t able to track them. We came for you.’

  ‘But, what about their quantics? What about the signals?’

  ‘We’ve got some of our best in the syndicates trying to locate the chips in their quantics, Kyo. I haven’t spoken to anyone back home yet. I don’t know. All that mattered to me was you.’

  And she held Kyo and he embraced her for a moment, considering the worst before knowing the facts, it was a curse, he thought at last. A curse the mind bestowed upon itself.

  ‘We’ll find them,’ Pania reassured. ‘You bet your bones we’ll find them.’ Pania told him to take some time out and explore. ‘I bet you’re hungry,’ she said.

  Kyo knew damn well he should be, he hadn’t eaten in a while, but the stress of recent events had caused him to lose his appetite as of late.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘why don’t you take a look around and find some fresh clothes. Take a wash, get yourself out of that jumpsuit.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Kyo agreed. ‘Alright.’

  He strolled around the lower quarters where Raw-Dog’s cheer-leader group would sleep and found only empty bunk-beds and various women’s clothes piled around. There were empty flasks rolling across the floor as the Perigrussia cruised through the sky and there were many accessories lay about. But still, nothing he could wear. Kyo passed a food storage area and refrigeration unit where selection of jars filled with all kinds of unknown substances were stored. They hadn’t been used in a long time from the looks of things and they were overgrown with mould. He searched around with an indignant grimace and paced back through the main body of the ship for anything, even if it was chef overalls it would feel more comfortable than what he wore now.

  After rummaging around Kyo ascended towards the bridge again when he happened upon several medical facilities and thought about checking them for medical overalls.

  Two of the three medical compartments were empty and opened, one was closed. And he found Hattle reclined on a stretcher strapped to one corner of the facility. Kyo approached carefully, listening to the wounded boxer breathing steady through his nose.

  ‘Hattle?’ he said, stepping closer until he hung almost over him. ‘You sleep a lot, don’t you?’

  Hattle made no moves, he didn’t budge an inch. But Kyo could see his eyes were shifting behind his eyelids, like a rat beneath carpet the pupils chased from corner to corner.

  Kyo turned to look at the medical compartments. He’d been here before with Hattle and remembered suddenly. Remembered the one that was closed, he’d seen it before when he first came aboard the ship.

  ‘Holy shit!’ He cried as he realised at last that the medical capsule was still occupied.

  Approaching the capsule activated the sensors and quickly a detailed diagnosis was called up to display over the chrome rounded metal husk, glowing symbols skittering over a warped and tall mirror. He couldn’t read the Cyrillic, but he knew a progress bar when he saw one. Lyov was still in there. He was alive and any second the door was about to release him and bring him around.

  ‘No fucking way!’ He sibilated.

  Kyo hurried away and quickly bustled into the bridge pointing back.

  ‘Artex!’ He shouted, ‘Artex, wake up!’

  Artex opened his eyes and jolted his head, his impaired vision blurring to draw focus on Kyo as the boy shook his shoulders.

  ‘What’s up, kid, what’s up?’ Gus reacted, pulling Kyo away from the sleeping scout.

  ‘Kyo, what you doing?’ Pania also joined.

  ‘There’s someone on the ship.’

  ‘What?’ Pania asked.

  ‘One of Krupin’s people!’ Kyo claimed. ‘There’s someone in the medical bay, they’re on the ship.’

  Gus began cracking his knuckles and with a devious smile and asked the Olympian kid where the bastard was hiding.

  *

  Lyov had opened his eyes to a mercurial light and the sound of dripping water neighboured. A shifting, blurred figure shimmied past and the heavy footsteps made it real. And he heard a whisper, something said to another, before a small shape shifted by, and another not too much bigger.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Lyov said. ‘Krupin. No games now. I can’t see well. Krupin?’

  ‘Krupin’s dead, asshole,’ Pania announced.

  ‘Who are you?’ Lyov declared, attempting to sit up and Gus pushed him back down.

  ‘I would hold out on trying to move, you fucking pig.’ Gus declared. Pania began snorting into Lyov’s ear and the man twitched irritably, not expecting the sudden nasal sound.

  ‘Who are the Blue Lycan’s?’ Kyo asked, and Lyov recognised the kid’s voice. Hefting his head from the stretcher Lyov stared into the blurred light and smiled all sinister.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t the gene-freak.’ He chortled. ‘You would know more than anyone who the Blue Lycans are, boy.’

  And Pania drove her fist into Lyov’s ribs and he coughed in surprise and began to laugh.

  ‘That was a woman’s punch,’ He said. ‘I can tell. Either the dainty wr
ist of a woman or a fag.’

  ‘Give her a minute,’ said Gus, holding Lyov’s shoulders down to the stretcher’s support. ‘She’s just getting started.’

  ‘You should answer, my friend,’ said Pania, stretching her arms and preparing to break his ribs. ‘He’s the only one who can heal you. Apparently, I don’t give two shits about you, whoever the fuck you are. So the bargain is with your friend, the Gene-freak.’ And Pania drove another fist hard into Lyov’s ribs, this time breaking something. Nevertheless, Lyov burst out with laughter, a manic and horrific laughter that demanded pain.

  ‘Yes!’ He cried. ‘Go again, bitch, pain is my relief. What do you think I’m trained for, slap n’ tickle?’

  ‘Who are the Blue Lycans?’ Kyo asked again, himself this time grabbing the confused security guard by the collar and pulling him nose to nose.

  ‘Fucking gene-freaks!’ He respired with a hateful and pained wince, a breath too foul for Kyo to inhale without turning away in disgust. ‘Like you kid. Gene freak warriors. They do whatever they want. For now. We’re working on getting control of them.’

  ‘Who are they?’ Kyo tried again, slamming Lyov’s head back against the head rest and although padded, he did his best to make the impact count.

  ‘Warriors,’ Lyov replied, vaguely.

  ‘I’m a warrior,’ said Gus. ‘He means what is the origin of the Blue Lycan, who do they work for?’

  ‘Eat shit,’ Lyov chuckled. ‘I don’t have to tell you a damn thing and maybe I don’t feel like talking.’

  Gus suddenly pulled his knife from a leg holster and descended tip first deep into Lyov’s leg and further still into the bone. A great roaring scream emanated from Lyov’s mouth, a scream so filled with awe, he barely recognised it as his own. And Gus twisted the blade with cruel intention, opening the wound further still.