Survival Aptitude Test: Rise (The Extinction Odyssey Book 3)

by Mike Sheriff

  The lecturer on the stage—a young Africoid Librarian whose name she’d already forgotten—had delivered an enthralling talk on the rise and fall of Mother China’s empire. He’d since moved on to the question-and-answer segment, pacing the stage with unbounded energy amid a plasmonic map of modern-day Daqin Guojin. Every Cheng was represented, each tinted a different hue. “Fifty Chengs make up our city-state today,” he said, gesturing to the glowing projection. “Can anyone tell me which one boasts the largest population?”

  An Asianoid girl seated midway down the front row stood. “Is it Zhongguo Cheng?”

  “That’s right,” the lecturer said with an infectious grin. “And do you know why?”

  The girl shook her head. The lecturer cast his gaze out over the audience “Does anyone know why?”

  “I do! I do!” Asla said, feigning excitement. Kimye gigglesnicked. It spread to the rest of the audience.

  Even the lecturer joined in. “Anyone besides a fellow Librarian?”

  None of the attendees offered an answer. The lecturer halted mid-stage. “It’s because the founders of Daqin Guojin were Asianoids,” he said. “They were the remnants of Mother China’s Western Empire. The ones who were lucky enough to survive the deprivations of the Cycle of Extinctions.”

  He wandered to the front of the stage, situating himself amid the city-state’s southernmost Chengs. “The other lineages arrived later. Some had to travel across acidic oceans and barren continents to get here. Most of those ancient travelers did not survive the journey.”

  “Is that why we live in separate Chengs?” a boy asked from the upper tiers.

  “Yes, but that tradition is changing,” the lecturer said. “Under the Unum’s new edicts, denizens can now live wherever they choose. They can move between districts without worrying about—”

  The quantum tile in Cordelia’s outer pocket chirped. She offered the lecturer an apologetic smile and fumbled to mute the shrill tone. It sounded another three times before she succeeded. The glass screen displayed the untimely caller’s name.

  Daoren.

  Cordelia sighed and tapped the screen. She raised the tile to her mouth and lowered her voice. “Two calls in one day?”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Hardly. I’m in the amphitheater in the middle of a lecture.”

  “Put me on private.”

  Cordelia frowned. His voice carried an undertone of urgency. She tugged a crystal earpiece from the tile’s base and inserted it in her right ear. “Go ahead.”

  “I don’t want you to panic, but an incursion is under way.”

  Her heart skipped a beat despite the warning. “Just a moment.” She rose from her seat and descended a short staircase at the end of the row. It led to the base of the lumenglass stage. Her ill-mannered movement earned an admonishing glance from the lecturer, but it placed a more comfortable buffer between her and the other attendees. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes. I’m sending Heqet to the Librarium. Can you make sure someone meets her at the southern entrance?”

  “I’ll meet her there myself. But what about you?”

  “I’m staying at the wall. Commander Hyro and I are organizing the defenses.”

  A foreboding chill dimpled Cordelia’s skin. Unbidden memories of her captivity twenty-one years earlier flooded her thoughts, stunning in their forcefulness and clarity. The last meal she’d shared with Lucien and his team of silica engineers among the mammoth dunes of the Great Eastern Regolith. The ominous thrum of rotor blades penetrating the flexglass tents, announcing the arrival of mongrel gyroblades in the middle of the night. The frantic shouts of Lucien and the other men amid the chaotic scramble to get little Mako back to the geology aerostat, then . . . nothing. Nothing but darkness until she’d awoke, alone and bound by nullglass chains, inside a holding pen in Havoc.

  She pushed aside the memories and refocused on the tile’s screen, only to realize it was shaking uncontrollably. She steadied her hand and her voice—the last thing Daoren needed to hear was panic. He still had no idea she’d been held prisoner by the mongrels . . . or that she’d fallen in love with one of her captors. That news alone would gut him. The revelation that she’d lain with Ragaris ili Siragar and emerged from captivity pregnant would destroy her son’s entire worldview. “You must tread carefully,” she said. “If you’re captured by the mongrels, they’ll—”

  “I know,” he said. “I won’t let them capture me.”

  “What should we do here?”

  “Pass word to every Librarian to start moving students into sheltered areas, but make it clear it’s just a precaution. We’ll stop the mongrels at the wall as we always have.”

  “How long until they arrive?”

  “An hour.”

  “Did you say an hour?”

  “If we’re lucky,” he said. “I’ll stay in touch. Make sure you keep your tile close at hand.”

  “I will.”

  “Good.” His voice lowered to the faintest whisper. “I love you.”

  Cordelia’s heart skipped another beat. “I . . . and I love you.”

  The call terminated. A shiver wracked her body. For Daoren to utter I love you aloud and unprompted, the situation had to be much graver than he let on. She waved at Asla and motioned for her to come down to the stage.

  Asla arrived thirty seconds later. Her brow crimped. “You look like you’ve seen an apparition.”

  Cordelia pulled her closer and whispered in her ear. “A mongrel incursion is under way. We need to get the children into shelter. Any ideas?”

  Asla blanched, but maintained her composure. “The data repositories?”

  Cordelia mulled the question. The twelve data repositories were located deep underground, but most of their internal space was occupied by massive quantum cradles. They’d be lucky to get a thousand children inside, and at least twenty times that number were on the Librarium’s grounds on any given day. “What about the Void?”

  The Void beneath the Primae Librarian’s abode had been destroyed during the Jireni incursion into the Librarium nine months earlier. Dredgers had spent months clearing the rubble. Most of Laoshi’s precious artifacts had been destroyed in the collapse, but the ruins of the ancient Colosseum had been spared thanks to their proximity to the Void’s perimeter. The newly excavated space could accommodate at least thirty thousand people—more if those people were children.

  Asla nodded. “That could work. We’ll need to stock it with food and water.”

  “Contact whomever you can and tell them to start transferring supplies into the Void. We need to get every student inside within the hour.”

  Asla let out a whooshing breath. “I’ll fetch Kimye and start making calls.” She headed for the staircase.

  Cordelia mounted the stage and approached the lecturer. He stopped mid-sentence, a look of bewilderment clouding his expression. Cordelia drew him closer and repeated what she’d told Asla.

  To his credit, the young Africoid didn’t drop his genial demeanor. “A slight change of plans,” he announced to the attendees. “We’re going to cut short the lecture and muster outside the Spires. Right away, if you please.”

  Low grumbles arose from the attendees. Some exchanged confused looks. Others could barely contain their glee at not having to endure more questions and answers. Cordelia raised her voice, but kept her tone light. “Older children take charge of the younger ones,” she said. “Let’s get moving!”

  Row by row, the attendees stood and filtered toward the stacks surrounding the amphitheater. Asla escorted Kimye down the staircase and brought her up onto the stage. For the first time since her arrival, Commander Hyro’s daughter looked excited. The Africoid lecturer was already on his tile, passing words of warning to other Libraria.

  Cordelia watched each row empty. She resisted the urge to scream at them to hurry up.

  7

  Free-Fall

  “ANOTHER WAVE CLOSING!” Jiren Bhavya shouted from her acoustic-sensor con
sole. “Two thousand feet on the starboard quarter!”

  Cang anchored herself beside the nav console and reviewed the threat bearings in her head. Port bow, starboard beam, and now the starboard quarter. None were within the engagement-exclusion zone she’d set up on the port beam to avoid firing upon Commander Eshan’s wounded vessel. “Bring the point-defense weapons to bear as the gyroblades break! Fire at will!”

  “Fire at will!” the weapons operator repeated, voice flattened by the strain of the relentless assault.

  Yet another ripple of recoils jolted the bridge. The barrage from the point-defense system’s gun turrets had barely let up for the past ten minutes. So far, they’d repelled ten distinct waves of gyroblades and half as many uncoordinated melees. The mongrels showed no signs of letting up the pressure.

  Each coordinated attack followed a similar tactic; the craft would close to fifteen hundred feet in a line-astern formation, then break left or right to rake the aeroshrike’s gas envelope with kinetic and acoustic rounds. So far, they’d only succeeded in damaging two turrets on the port quarter. What the mongrels lacked in tactical innovation and firepower, however, they made up for in persistence. For every gyroblade her aeroshrike shot down, another ten appeared.

  Her gaze panned the bridge windows. Beyond each armored pane, scores of gyroblades streaked through the sky. Every second, direct hits transformed a dozen or more into glimmering clouds of pulverized nullglass. Using the point-defense weapons against such minuscule targets was an exercise in overkill. A Jiren with a sonic rifle could bring down the craft—if their speed and maneuverability didn’t make them impossible to hit without targeting lidar.

  The only saving grace was their feeble weaponry. To breach an aeroshrike’s armor, a gyroblade would have to open fire within one hundred feet of the gas envelope. None had penetrated closer than one thousand feet, choosing instead to limit their engagements to harassment.

  The tactic was costly, but effective. The cullcraft fleet was growing ever-larger as it closed from the north. With every spare electron diverted to powering the point-defense system, the barometric cannons had been taken out of the fight.

  Two thousand feet on the port beam, a torrent of black smoke poured from Commander Eshan’s aeroshrike. During the third wave of attacks, a gyroblade had lost its main rotor and corkscrewed into the vessel’s starboard engine mount. Eshan’s crew had suppressed the resulting fire, but two of the mount’s three airscrews had been destroyed. His aeroshrike had lost significant maneuverability, but none of its firepower. Its triple-barreled turrets fired without interruption, scoring the surrounding sky with sonic contrails. The pop-crack of direct hits punched the air.

  “We can’t maintain this rate of fire,” Jiren Yongrui said from his nav console, voice barely audible above the pounding guns. “The turret batteries will be drained of power in another five minutes unless we break contact.”

  Cang filtered his advice through the tactical situation. If theirs was the only aeroshrike in the fight, she’d have followed it without hesitation. With the other aeroshrike damaged, however, breaking contact was impossible. She’d be condemning Eshan and his crew to their deaths.

  “We may have to do it, sireen,” Yongrui said, seemingly reading her mind. “We may have to leave them to their fate.”

  “We don’t abandon our own,” she said. “We aren’t—”

  “Pop-ups low on the starboard beam!” Bhavya screamed. “Ten contacts at seven hundred feet and closing fast!”

  Cang whirled to the threat bearing. Her mind had just enough time to register ten gyroblades in line-abreast formation, all streaking inbound on a collision course. “Brace for impa—”

  The gyroblades broadsided the gas envelope, two hundred feet aft of the bridge. The resulting impact knocked her off her feet. She stumbled sideways into the commander’s chair and grasped its arm to stay upright. Damage-control klaxons blared, adding another level of clamor to the din. “Damage report!”

  “Envelope breach between frames eleven and twenty-seven!” a crewman shouted from the damage-control console. “Hydrogen cells are intact! No indications of fire!”

  “What in Sha’s name are they doing?” Yongrui asked, righting himself before his nav console. “Since when do the mongrels conduct suicide attacks?”

  “They must have seen the damage inflicted on Eshan’s vessel,” she said. “They’re adapting their tactics.”

  “Since when do the mongrels adapt their tactics?”

  Yongrui would have to tarry for her answer. Survival now took precedence over every other consideration. “Helm, put us one thousand feet on Commander Eshan’s port beam.”

  “You think that’s wise?” Yongrui asked. “In such close proximity, we’ll be limiting our firing arcs.”

  “We may lose power to our starboard gun turrets. We have no choice.”

  “We can withdraw, sireen . . . while we still have all our engines online.”

  “Say that one more time and I’ll have you hauled off my bridge!”

  Cang immediately regretted the outburst. Thirty pairs of eyes fell upon her—the full complement of bridge personnel in the first degree of readiness—every one of them glazed with alarm. The last thing they needed to hear was fear in their commander’s voice. The debilitating emotion could sweep through a crew like a hydrogen-fueled fire . . . with equal devastation.

  She drew a deep breath and lowered her register to a more commanding tone. “Helm, put us alongside Commander Eshan. And expedite the maneuver.”

  “At once, sireen!”

  Yongrui leaned nearer as they closed Eshan’s aeroshrike. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Cang bristled at the remark. Under ordinary circumstances, she’d have him disciplined for voicing doubt in her command ability. For now, she needed to send a clear message that her aeroshrike was still in the fight. “Weapons, divert power from the point-defense system. Target the nearest cullcraft and give them a full-spectrum barrage from our barometric cannons.”

  “With pleasure, sireen!”

  Her resolute gaze found Yongrui. “This isn’t over yet.”

  JULINIAN HUDDLED AT the gondola’s forward window beside Massum and Itta. Six miles beyond its glass, the two damaged aeroshrikes maneuvered toward each other, closing the distance with each passing second.

  She found it impossible to suppress a grin. The plan to harass the aeroshrikes with gyroblades had worked even better than she’d hoped.

  “You find this amusing?” Massum asked.

  “Encouraging would be the word I’d use.”

  “Encouraging?” Itta asked. “Our gyroblades are being decimated!”

  She sighed. Yes, fifty percent of the craft had been shot out of the sky, but success always came at a price. The tactic had allowed the cullcraft fleet to close the aeroshrikes without attracting more withering fire. It had impelled the Jireni vessels into close formation for mutual protection. And yet all of this was lost on Itta if her unbroken laments were any indication.

  Julinian pointed at the aeroshrikes. “Look at how they’re maneuvering. We’ve compelled them to pool their strength.”

  “So? How does this help us?”

  If she’d learned anything over the past eight months, it was that the mongrels were a decidedly unimaginative people. “It makes them an easier target.” She turned from the window and focused on the aft bulkhead.

  An Asianoid-Slavv mongrel stood before a gleaming console, offset to the port side of the bulkhead’s centerline. The console’s ordered layout and glinting surfaces hinted at its foreign design and fresh installation.

  She’d overseen the plasma-beam’s installation on three cullcraft in the fleet. Credit for the design went to Hai al Kong of Zhongguo Cheng.

  Hai had perfected the technology only a year earlier, but hadn’t tested it in an aerial vehicle. Her exile in Havoc, coupled with her desire to overthrow Daoren the Usurper, presented an opportunity that he was only too willing to exploit. Ha
i had offered to transfer the design specifications to her on the condition that he be granted a leading role in the new order.

  She’d agreed . . . on the condition he support her return to the city-state in a particular manner. The mongrels—always suspicious of scheming Guojinians—hadn’t given their blessing to the invasion until first seeing a demonstration of the new weapon. That led to the construction of a ground-based plasma-beam system on Havoc’s southern border.

  The demonstration that followed obliterated three aeroshrikes whose ill luck had brought them to the colony on a reconnaissance mission. Their misfortune was her good fortune; it provided stunning proof of the plasma-beam’s effectiveness as a weapon and convinced the mongrels to support her plan to retake Daqin Guojin.

  The Asianoid-Slavv’s gaze never strayed from her—as if he knew who truly commanded this mission. She nodded at him. “Charge the beam!”

  “You don’t give orders on this cullcraft!”

  She ignored Itta’s screeching complaint. Massum may hold command authority over the fleet, but this order was too significant to relinquish to a—

  “Incoming rounds!”

  She spun back to the forward window.

  Six thick contrails carved the sky, emanating from the aeroshrike that had absorbed the impact of multiple gyroblades during the last attack. The barometric rounds tracked left, homing in on the cullcraft holding station on the port beam.

  A frozen fist squeezed Julinian’s heart—less than two thousand feet separated them from the targeted vessel. “Hard to starboard!”

  The order came too late. Six barometric rounds slammed into the adjacent cullcraft’s bow. Six impulse blasts condensed the air to fog, engulfing the doomed vessel in a roiling gray shroud.

  She bunched her shoulders on instinct. The gray shroud expanded at supersonic speed. It enveloped the control gondola, blotting out the sun. Six shockwaves struck milliseconds later, shattering the windows and flinging her off her feet.

  She sensed her body floating over the deck, drifting left while making no effort to do so. Her shoulder grazed a console’s stanchion before smacking into the port bulkhead with enough force to expel the air from her lungs. A tri-tone ringing muddied her hearing, but not enough to mute the crew’s screams. She blinked to clear her vision and her mind.