Annals of the Keepers - Rage

by Christiaan Hile

  The small colony was transformed when parts of the Erudition unfolded into working quarters upon landing over a month ago.

  A Human town was born overnight.

  The workers this morning were doing all sorts of experiments in their new surroundings alongside work stations and equipment benches.

  Geologists checked soil samples, biologists examined the flora and fauna, and engineers crafted or mended tools to help others with their tasks. A small contingency of military personnel paced around the town in groups, ensuring safety from any remaining Kryth pirates.

  Looking like a vendor’s paradise, there were draped canopies and varying booths lined in rows along the port side of the great ship, which towered above as their home-away-from-home.

  Director Shawna Bowlan exited down one of the open ramps of the Erudition.

  She stopped at the base when her feet touched the grass.

  A wide smile filled her face.

  Closing her eyes, she drank in the morning aromas. Breathing deep through her nose and allowing the sun’s rays to touch her face.

  This is where she wanted to be.

  No. This is where she belonged.

  It had taken her fifteen years to pursue this personal endeavor. After having always been turned away from her lifelong dream of returning and rehabilitating the Earth, either by politics or military, she had finally arrived.

  No matter, she thought. The Precept had finally passed and she had a job to do.

  “Good morning, director,” a female voice came from her front, breaking her from her tranquil moment.

  “Ah, good morning, ensign,” Shawna replied, straining against her star-sparkled vision as she reopened her eyes. “How’s the first set of experiments going?”

  The ensign handed her a holo-tab. “A little surprising, director.”

  Shawna’s right hand waved the device’s flat surface to life. “How so?”

  “The poisoned air particulates are less than what we anticipated.”

  “Well that’s good news, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, director,” the Ensign replied.

  A holo-image of a sensor tower now hovered above the hand-held device.

  Shawna moved the image around with her hand.

  “Have these relay towers been connected to the power grid?”

  “No, ma’am. I was waiting for the captain to return to request that.”

  Shawna’s eyes rose from the tablet with an inquisitive look. “‘Return?’”

  “Yes, director. He said he had to investigate a site.”

  “And what site would that be?”

  “He didn’t say. He said he would be back in an hour or two.”

  The director’s look went from mild curiousity to bewilderment. “That’s odd. He didn’t mention anything to me.”

  Shawna activated her wrist comms. “Computer, where is Captain Ronclar’s location?”

  [Unknown,] the computer’s female voice responded.

  “Where was his last known location?”

  [Captain Ronclar’s last transmitted location was in northern sector fourteen approximately one hour ago.]

  “That’s near Cheyenne Mountain,” Shawna said out loud.

  “Cheyenne Mountain, director?” the ensign asked. “I am not familiar with it.”

  Shawna looked over at the personal hover craft station. A hover unit was gone. “Computer, where is the captain’s hover unit located?”

  [In the same vicinity of last-known location of Captain Ronclar, northern sector fourteen.]

  She frowned. “Cheyenne Mountain is the old headquarters of the Earth Defense Force before the invasion.” Shawna walked over to the hover unit charging stations, “It shouldn’t be of interest to us scientists, now would it?”

  “No, Ma’am,” the young female responded, “What’s over there?”

  The director handed the tablet back to the ensign.

  Shawna began to activate one of the personal hover units as she strapped herself in the up-right machine. “They stored the final artifacts and history of mankind there. It’s all the physical items they couldn’t take with them when the Erudition ships fled Earth. Have the field team assemble and be ready when I return with the captain.”

  “Yes, ma’am. What could he want there though?”

  “That’s what I am going to find out.”

  The hover unit hummed as it lifted into the air and left the Erudition’s landing site, heading out over the green canopy of the forest which lay out in front of her destination, Cheyenne Mountain.

  ∞∞∞

  Director Bowlan was heading to a facility she knew about in the Annals.

  As her hovercraft cleared the treetops, she activated her holo-screen, which came alive on her front windshield.

  “Computer, basic brief on the Cheyenne Mountain Complex and continue to scan for Captain Ronclar.”

  The image of the outer perimeter and defenses materialized that led into the mountain entrance.

  [The Earth Defense Force command and control structure was the primary site for Earth’s defenses against the attacking Kryth Mahr Domain in the year 2498. It became the depository for human artifacts that could not be taken onboard the seven Erudition ships once the battle was lost. It’s an autonomousisolated, level five secure subterranean structure. The main entrance shaft descends one mile below the surface. All control and storage facilities are located deep underground as well.]

  The computer continued, calling out the nomenclature of the mountain.

  Shawna spotted the fortified entrance leading into the side of the complex, as well as the captain’s hovercraft near the front perimeter wall near the southern entrance.

  She brought her craft down beside his. The hum of the anti-grav cycle motor slowed as it touched down.

  The director exited her vehicle and walked over to the captain’s hovercraft to inspect it.

  She looked around. No sign of Ronclar.

  The computer continued its briefing of the facility before her.

  The gates that were in front were seven meters high and made of reinforced marcron-steel and balcrete.

  She could see the two large landing platforms sticking up above the inner side of the walls. Each platform held a one-hundred meter long transport ship. The last ships to offload their precious cargo here.

  The whole walled compound looked to be frozen in time, as if it was built and completed yesterday.

  She knew they were forever structures.

  These buildings could withstand the elements without needing maintenance of any kind.

  They were coated and bathed in an anti-rust-foliage skin.

  The outside structures and the ground around them, in a ten-meter radius, had no weeds, grass or foliage.

  The system did its job well.

  Shawna walked towards the main gate which was swung ajar.

  She didn’t walk five meters before freezing in place from the voice of the computer in her vehicle.

  Her face was tense.

  She backed up, looking around her, not making any sudden movements.

  She reached her hovercraft.

  Opening a compartment, she removed a lance pistol.

  “Computer, replay defense status.”

  Shawna was rigid as she awaited the information.

  [The outer weapon towers are powered down. Inner facility defenses also show offline. The dynomak-teller reactor is still functioning in the lower center chamber of the complex. The bassor-wolf patrols and stations are unknown.]

  That’s what she thought she’d heard, her breath catching in her throat.

  Bassor wolves.

  These were hybrid wolves designed to be guard animals, able to live off the land and be tied to a facility, which they would defend to the death as if it were part of their own pack.

  She remembered these from the Annal stories as a kid.

  It’s always the scary stories that stay with us, she thought.

  She knew the wolves’ genes wer
e modified from three Canis lines. The timber, Great Plains, and the more ancient dire wolf.

  The bassor wolves were huge, she recalled. Measuring one hundred and twenty-eight centimeters at the shoulders and weighing one-hundred and thirty-six kilograms.

  Could they still be alive? She wondered.

  Could they have bred and passed on their engineered genetics after all these years?

  This was a troubling thought.

  Her eyes widened.

  Was the captain aware of them?

  Shawna activated her wrist comms, “Captain Ronclar, come in.”

  She waited.

  “Captain Ronclar, come in.”

  Dead air awaited her ears.

  “Computer, continue to send contact response to the captain’s comms. I am going into the facility to look for him. If I do not return or transmit in thirty minutes, relay a distress message to the security post adjutant at base camp. Actually, do it now.”

  [Confirmed, director. Relaying distress message now.]

  With a deep breath and an iron grip on her pistol, Shawna walked towards the walled entrance, looking for her friend.

  Data Cell 5

  “Something approaches,” announced a warrior on the communication channel reserved for the Korin Shai.

  Lintorth looked past Voskal, disturbed by the flow of data from his orb.

  A flock of flying beasts veered away to the east.

  Avog growled low again, not at the yadlith, but something else disturbed his keen senses.

  For all the advances in technology, the beasts still seemed to always know when something was amiss first.

  “Do you see anything on your scans, captain?” Lintorth asked the scout ship.

  “No, my lord. We do not see anything besides you, Commander Voskal, your aythras, and the three search teams. Unless you count the local fauna,” the officer concluded.

  Lintorth attributed the rude tone due to the boredom suffered by crew more used to combat than scans.

  “Prepare to tolerate ,” Lintorth ordered casually.

  “We have already complied, my lord,” came the response from the unseen Korin Shai.

  A rippling on the surface of the sky, a little over a kilometer distant, revealed an object as it appeared in silence.

  The section of sky disappeared like a cover being pulled off a hidden treasure.

  A round orb, one hundred meters in diameter, floated in the sky.

  The dull black surface of the orb was covered with hundreds of raised triangular shapes. A yellow, glowing dot of light was visible in the center of each triangle.

  The Vrae had arrived unbidden to Oxgris.

  “Pretentious prigs,” Voskal growled to no one in particular.

  The Vrae Empire was as vast as the Kryth Mahr Domain. The subjegated races under their sway were comparable to the masses under Domain law. However, the Vrae themselves were fewer in number than the Kryth. Their population was little more than half the number of the Kryth, but did not make them less formidable. Their advanced technologies, stolen from the defeated Gashnee, had transformed them into an imposing power.

  The Vrae had allied themselves with the Kryth, Cukkzen, and a host of other races during the Gashnee War almost four hundred ronns ago.

  The Kryth had spearheaded all the major assaults, leaving the others to assume auxiliary roles in support, logistics, and intelligence.

  Vrae shipmasters had taken advantage of not being in the forefront of battle and had been able to search lost holdings of the Gashnee, undisturbed, as they retreated before the Kryth armadas.

  Many treasures and technological wonders were uncovered and taken back to the Vrae homeworld in secret while battles still raged across the galaxy.

  The defeat of the Gashnee culminated in treaties between the victorious allies. Territories, treasure, artifacts, and captured weapons were meant to be shared to a level of contribution to the rebellion.

  The battered Kryth wanted and took most of the defeated territory into the Domain. The Vrae took a larger share of territory than agreed upon; but the Kryth, weakened by relentless battles, were not capable of opposing them or their Gashnee-enhanced technology.

  The animosity between the Kryth and the Vrae stemmed from the belief that the Kryth won the war against the Gashnee at great cost and freed many races in the process.

  The Vrae were stealing their place of power rather than earning it.

  The matte black Vrae ship hovered in silence above the barren landscape, no noise emanated from the propulsion system only the howling winds were present.

  The Kryth search teams muttered amongst themselves, not used to being so far outside the Domain and uncomfortable outside the protected borders of Kryth civilization.

  It was either the Zarados or the Faranill thought Lintorth, sifting through intelligence gathered by spies and space probes.

  He also knew that the Vrae has two of these stealth ships in the Empire’s fleet, as they had been unsuccessful recovering more working ships during the Gashnee War.

  A round portal on the axial bottom of the ship spiraled open, emitted a beam of red light, and struck the ground, searing a blackened ring into the dusty surface.

  The heat could be felt even where Lintorth Sar and Voskal Lat stood.

  Avog snarled and tried to back away from what his predatory brain saw as a threat. Lintorth snapped his harness with a powerful jerk, cowing the aythra to trained compliance.

  “The Zarados, then,” pronounced Lintorth, as he knew one of the two Vrae ships had a working transport beam.

  Voskal Lat watched the ship, being less privy to Vrae intelligence, trying to memorize as many details as possible for later use. “They steal the ships, crew them, and use them as their own.”

  “But they are still incapable of maintaining them, much less duplicating them,” Lintorth scoffed.

  The red beam hummed even louder as a cylinder, ten meters in diameter and three in height, descended slow and unstable, wobbling side to side, before dropping the last few feet to thump onto the ground.

  This demonstration, meant more for show than any tactical advantage, failed to impress any of the Kryth.

  Lintorth wondered what kind of Vrae Lord was descending in the metal cylinder. No doubt, whoever it was cared far more for dramatic flair than any practicality.

  Ancient records in the Chamber Lore archives revealed numerous accounts of Gashnee technology from ages past. The cylinder descending from the Zarados was a pathetic example of their former overlord’s technologies.

  The xenerach was an apparatus employed by the Gashnee to transport personnel and equipment from ship-to-ship or ship-to-surface. The operation, as designed by the Gashnee, should have taken seconds.

  The xenerach’s sides whirred open, disgorging Vrae soldiers. Their green and tan carapace armor stood out against the red sands.

  Fifty Vrae swept out and reformed twenty meters away into a rough semicircular formation, facing Lintorth and his contingent of Kryth researchers.

  The quad cannons on Lintorth’s drop ship swiveled to target the Vrae soldiers, then stayed by a lazy wave of Lintorth’s hand.

  Numerous treaties, accords, and sanctions forbade the Kryth and Vrae from engaging in ship-to-ship combat.

  The astronomical cost of materials deemed to be too high a price to pay for petty conflicts between the two galactic powers. Soldiers, on the other hand, were easy to train and far more replenishable.

  Lintorth waited, unconcerned, as the Vrae soldiers spread out, bumping into one another, betraying their inexperience.

  The full-faced helmets and respirators hid the Vrae features under stylized scrollwork, dotted with precious gems over the luminous eye lenses.

  Verbal communications may have been on a secure channel, but the rapid and angry hand gestures from six Vrae soldiers, whose armor was less ornate and scarred, immediately indicated those in charge.

  These veteran soldiers had been tasked with young and unblooded troops, per
haps from one of the numerous martial citadels, scattered across the expansive Vrae Empire.

  “Lordlets,” Voskal Lat laughed, amused at their antics. “The flowers of the Vrae Empire have come to task us.”

  “Such a show they put on,” Lintorth agreed with a predator’s grin. “Those six bear watching,” he finished.

  The veterans strode, confident around the tramping, clumsy feet of the lordlets. Their presence molded the less experienced Vrae into a semblance of a fighting force. Their armor customized spoke volumes to the fellow warriors. A thick bracelet on their left wrists pulsed with yellow light that increased and decreased with intensity, like yellow beating hearts. These bracelets were Gashnee ornamental, but useful weapons which, according to records, took years to master.

  The Vrae scanned the surrounding area, searching for threats, while the lordlets continued to face forward.

  They held their plasma rifles in stiff, trembling hands.

  The Lordlets’ formation was a classic defensive pattern, gleaned from some ancient data sphere and modified to allow for more modern weapons. It had been favored by most Vrae battlelords for centuries. It allowed for a good defense with a mix of different weapons and could be altered to offensive as battlefield situations changed.

  Vrae tactics had not changed for about a millennium except for some technological advances in weaponry and armor.

  “Gauge that one.” Voskal indicated a tall, slender Vrae standing behind two of the Vrae veterans in the horn formation. “The one with red jewels on his helm.”

  “Those red jewels are Pelanthus fire drops,” Lintorth said, now interested with a bit of malice creeping into his voice. He knew the red gems were rare, expensive, and difficult to smuggle off Pelanthus, as they held religious significance in the Sectolic of Fire. It would take someone with a tremendous amount of prestige and influence to even think of obtaining such treasures as these.

  “More to the youth than a mere Lordlet, then. A Lordking’s whelp?” Voskal asked, still appraising the Vrae formation.

  “An Arbiter’s heir, I’ll wager,” Lintorth grumbled.

  He watched two of the veteran’s conversing with the youth in the red-jeweled helm.

  They both bowed their heads as the young Vrae made harsh chopping gestures with his hands, swept his hands in a broad arc around him, and pointed towards the few assembled Kryth.