Nopileos: A novel from the X-Universe: (X4: Foundations Edition 2018) (X Series)

by Helge T. Kautz

  This comment made Uchan less confident more than it reassured him. Elena clung to the fire control console, as she feared that the pilot might pull the weapons controls over to him to open fire unprovoked. She no longer worried about the pursuers. They could have long since fired, if that was their intention. Some mizuras before the FL Raindragon reached the jumpgate, a video screen opened on the console.

  “In the name of the Patriarch, we wish you a good flight,” a uniformed Split said with the perfectly straight corners of his mouth a sign of his good mood.

  Uchan and Elena exchanged blank looks. “What Patriarch?” Ghinn gasped in a strangled voice.

  “The ruler over all Split, Patriarch of Rhonkar, sends you his deeply felt thanks,” the officer continued. “The escort turns around now and returns to Nif-Nakh.”

  There was a small pause while Elena stared at the video transmission, petrified.

  “But you, Ghinn t’Whht, Uchan t’Scct, and Elena t’Kho, may be assured that the door and gate of the court of Rhonkar remain ever open to you.”

  “Thank you, I, uh, thanks.” Elena stammered, startled. The Split afforded the crew of the FL Raindragon a complicated demonstration of honor, then broke the connection with a hint of a nod. Moments later, the computer chirped.

  “They have just sent Us the legislative code of the new Patriarch,” Kalmanckalsaltt reported in the breathless silence. “With it, every Split will bestow on Us the befitting honor due to Us.”

  “But who,” gasped Ghinn,” who is this Rhonkar?”

  The blueish flickering of the approaching stargate seized the FL Raindragon and swallowed her as if she had never existed.

  Five tazuras had passed since the FL Raindragon’s departure from Nif-Nakh. The sluggish freighter made its way toward the outskirts of the Community of Planets without any significant complications. Immediately after the launch, the scientific ethicist Nola Hi had disappeared into his environmental area, where he worked incessantly to decipher the files from the Nyana’s Fortune. It had not been possible to retrieve Inanias, the Teladi yacht’s onboard computer; it’s entire memory cores, however had been salvaged. They contained the valuable data of the Ancient Ones. Nola Hi was endlessly fascinated, so much so that he put off Elena, who occasionally asked after his well-being and progress of his work, with decidedly interwoven, but still rather short sentences. Elena was content.

  Nopileos, too, was pleased, even though his nervousness increased with each astronomical unit that brought the FL Raindragon closer to Ianamus Zura. When the ship finally passed the legendary home planet of his people at a distance of just a few light-mizuras, a strange feeling arose in him.

  With shiny saurian eyes and open muzzle, he stood in the control center and stared through the cockpit window: there, that little point! A blinking, computer-projected arrow marked the tiny speck on its path through the firmament. If it had been possible to step up to the metal glass, Nopileos would have shamelessly flattened his nose against the glass. But this special star among all the other stars soon disappeared again, and he remembered the promise he had made to Elena: he wanted to accompany her wherever she went. On the return flight, however, when everything they needed to do had been done, he wanted to pay a visit to Ianamus Zura! And it wouldn’t even be difficult to coax this accommodation out of the star warrior, he knew that.

  When on one tazura he told Elena about his experiences in Nif-Nakh’s jungles, the Earth astronaut was more than a little amazed. Especially the expression on her face that was conjured up by his detailed description of Rhonkar, which made Nopileos’s scaled fin twitch.

  “Hey, you can laugh again!” was Elena’s grinning comment. “But what’s with this Rhonkar? I already told you that the honorable Ghinn t’Whht shot her consort. Barely three stazuras later, Patriarch Rhonkar is sitting on the throne! Is there any explanation for that?”

  Nopileos waggled his ears and told her under what circumstances he had last seen Rhonkar t’Nct. “I don’t know what happened after my escape from Ghus-tan. The two planes that landed on the beach when I escaped, maybe their pilots belonged to his followers. Or maybe they were hijacked. With the blowpipes!” The Teladi looked at Elena with wide eyes, in which she thought she recognized enthusiasm. Can you imagine that, Elena? Even Cho t’Nnt, the Cho t’Nnt, had to reckon with Rhonkar’s backers!’

  “That is hard to grasp, Nopileos The split are hard to grab. Not at all like the Teladi!” Elena nudged her saurian friend and winked at him.

  “Rhonkar is a good man, Elena. Whoever raises as fine a daughter as Hatrak must be a good person… a good Split. I mean—tsh! You know!”

  “Perfectly clear,” Elena grinned. “And at the palace you met with Rhonkar’s people, who were just trying to blow up the power generators, right?” She already knew the events from the perspectives of Kalmanckalsaltt and Nola Hi.

  “Hai! With Thro, the Supreme Warrior! That was a strange situation. Thro and us didn’t know that Chin was dead. And some of Chin’s henchmen didn’t know it either!”

  Elena put her hand on the saurian descendant’s arm. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re back with me, Nopi. I’ve really missed my little lizard cheapskate!”

  “Lizard cheapskate? Tsh! Says a hairy star warrior with aesthetic ears!” Nopileos’s fin twitched and betrayed his true emotions. Elena snorted, giggling.

  “That’s what happens when you talk to the Boron too much! They are really sweet, but…”

  A sudden, shrill sound whimpered in barely audible frequency ranges and made Elena jump up. “Combat alarm,” Nopileos growled in horror. Elena, who had not been able to identify the strange sound immediately, reached for her light blue pilot’s jacket, which slipped on along the way. Nopileos wattled after her more slowly. Outside, in the narrow corridor of the improvised passenger area, Ghinn t’Whht stood in front of her room with a waxen face and a distinctly arched belly. She made no move to take a step back as Elena tried to pass her, so the Earth spacefarer squeezed between her and the wall without a word. Too proud to ask a question, the Split woman’s gaze followed Elena, and then she had some choice swear words for Nopileos as he tripped over her feet two sezuras later. She knew that the second stage of the combat alarm was only given when the ship was already under fire. After all, she had been present during a few battles in Cho t’Nnt’s time on the Bone Scout. She stepped back into her room. She didn’t want to go to the command room with Uchan t’Scct. She had probably overstepped her bounds, but that didn’t mean she was afraid to confront the pilot. All in good time—if there was still time left.

  Elena rushed into the command room and involuntarily ducked as the shields lit up to deflect a sideways-approaching torpedo so that it spun and fizzled ineffectually on the other side of the freighter. The weapon console’s status light, still hanging over the copilot’s chair where Elena had left it several tazuras before, showed that it was currently in use. Kalmanckalsaltt had taken control of the weapons at his standing console while Uchan steered the ship. Elena threw herself into the copilot’s chair and checked the displays at lightning speed. Three slim spaceships, two of which were Argon as well as one Split model, had been attacking the FL Raindragon for four mizuras. They had already scored over one hundred hits on the protective screens. Uchan struggled to fly evasive maneuvers as unpredictably as possible, but the mass of the freighter fought against effective course changes with all its power. The weapons towers, controlled by Kalmanckalsaltt, constantly flicked energy bolts at the agile enemy ships, and often hit them.

  Pirates, went through Elena’s mind. She had heard that the New Sectors were used by many outlaws as a haven, and when the opportunity arose, as a hunting ground. Most of them caught Teladi pilgrims, but a fat Split trader like the FL Raindragon might be a welcome change. The pirates often fought in groups of spacecraft of different origins. And they almost always used missiles instead of particle weapons to wear down the shields of their victims more quickly.

  A noticeable concussion
traveled through the ship, a clear indication that the shields were slowly but surely giving up the ghost. Uchan bent the control yoke far to the side. On any normally massive spacecraft, the inertial compensators would now show the first signs of misfires and reel the crew with potentially several Gs of acceleration. Not so the FL Raindragon. The ship only reluctantly dived “down.” The pirate ships followed effortlessly. Blow by blow, the hits fell. Each time, stronger concussions came through. Kalmanckalsaltt managed the trick of destroying or deflecting many of the incoming missiles, but the moment finally came when the ship’s battered shields failed with the nerve-racking shrieks of overloaded generators. The computer immediately blared a continuous warning message that Uchan silenced with a fist on the controls.

  Elena looked out of the window when no new hit had taken place for sezuras. At the upper left, upper right, and below the FL Raindragon, she saw the fighter squadron slowly approaching. The lateral control thrusters of the ships blazed blue. Uchan made a circular motion with the steering pins and the freight obediently broke left. He almost rammed one of the approaching attackers, but at the last moment the pilot recognized the danger and turned away. What was Uchan’s plan? Kamikaze attack? Elena clung hard to the broad arms of the chair. Not a sezura too early, because the FL Raindragon was seized by a titanic fist, turned upside down, and whirled around. All the bulkheads pounded. A direct hit, right in the hull of the now completely defenseless FL Raindragon.

  The compensators failed with a yowl, all displays switched to warnings. The occupants would at any moment be crushed to chunky red salsa because the acceleration of the engines at full throttle could no longer be compensated for. But at the same time as the inertial compensators gave out, the ion engines gave out, too. The ship no longer accelerated under its own power. A second massive explosion shook the fuselage of the freighter. Yet another hit. Somewhere, Nopileos screamed. Bursting instruments sent shards of glass through the control room, the Paranid’s standing console trembled and then buckled sideways.

  Where was Kalmanckalsaltt? Elena didn’t have time to look for him, because she was seized by a violent jerk that finally tore her sore hands from the backs of the chair and flung them into the now useless weapons control console. The swivel arm gave way with a crunch and released itself from its ceiling brackets before it slammed against the instantly darkening metal glass pane of the cockpit and shook it with a horrible crunch. Elena’s hand was caught between the bent swivel arm and the main console; her scream disappeared under the roar of destruction.

  It took a while for her to realize that it was all over, because pieces of debris still clattered through the control room and everything was in constant motion. Her stomach twisted as the artificial gravity failed. Indeed, everything was now weightless, but much of it still had the inertia from the last explosions. Where were the others? Paddling laboriously, Elena managed to get herself into a different position. What were the pirates doing outside? Her right hand hurt badly. The attackers had ceased firing, but there was nothing else to see outside the dark cockpit window, and the controls were either destroyed or without power. Something groping touched her back. Elena floated around and looked up: Kalmanckalsaltt drifted past her, slowly spinning around his own axis. A thick, yellowish fluid gushed from one of the joints of his multi-jointed gripping arm, one, two smaller drops drifted like shimming balls of honey at the side of the Paranid. Flickering, his pupils resolved on her.

  “They’ll board our ship,” he said so clearly and sharply modulated that Elena flinched involuntarily.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked.

  “Only slightly,” the Paranid answered. “We lost Two-Dimensionality” for a short time.” Consciousness, Elena translated in her head. Kalmanckalsaltt pulled his way over to the main console. “The ship will generate emergency power,” he said, touching a sensor. Like a quickly falling elevator, Elena felt the heaviness return. She hit the ground painful among the falling debris.

  “A warning would have been nice,” she cried. The Three-eye didn’t answer. Somewhere, a throaty voice groaned, which she recognized as Nopileos. Elena crawled forward a bit and then straightened up, groaning. Rubble cracked under her shoes. The Teladi lay in the right front corner next to the navigator’s chair, right at the foot of the main instrument panel. Elena walked over carefully and knelt down next to him. “Are you all right?”

  Nopileos groaned. “I don’t know. I think. Yes!”

  “Come here.” Elena reached her hand out to him to help him, and screamed.

  “What is it?” Nopileos exclaimed in horror, and straightened up fully.

  “I think my right index finger is broken,” Elena groaned. Damn, that too!

  “Is that bad? For a human?”

  “Bad enough. It really hurts a lot.”

  A loud noise, which sounded suspiciously familiar to Elena, echoed through the ship: klonk.

  “The hull welder—it’s been hanging on the ship since Nif-Nakh,” someone said. Elena looked up to see Uchan, leaning on Kalmanckalsaltt, limping to the left side of the cockpit.

  “Or they brought their own along,” Elena speculated.

  “Completely irrelevant. Everyone has to put on spacesuits. If they are Split, they will weld their way into the control room and let the atmosphere escape into the vacuum.

  “Ginn—and Nola Hi! We have to help them!”

  “They’re already dead,” Uchan countered with an emotionless face. “And if not, they will be so shortly.”

  Elena tugged at the mechanical lock of the central bulkhead, but it wouldn’t budge. “Open it,” she commanded.

  Uchan operated a sensor on the instrument panel without comment. If t’Kho wanted to die, very well. The mechanism howled in a cloud of smoke that smelled like burning rubber.

  “We’re trapped!”

  “Not for long,” Uchan said. “And now: spacesuits.” The Split opened a large stowage compartment in the back part of the cockpit. “No Teladi suit,” he said with a sardonic grin, pulling out two Split suits and an oversized Paranid suit.

  “Pull your head in, Kho, then you’ll fit in here.”

  “Damn it, Uchan, you can’t be so cold-blooded! Nopileos fits a Split suit just as well!”

  The pilot made an uninterpretable gesture. “A Teladi creature in a proper spacesuit?” He began to put on his suit; When Kalmanckalsaltt wanted to help him, he fended him off. The Paranid put on his two-piece suit in a matter of sezuras, and with a hiss, he secured the helmet.

  Klonk.

  Elena gestured for Nopileos to come to her. She leaned forward and looked into the dark chamber. Just as she thought! The control room was designed for four people—therefore there were also four spacesuits in the stowage area.

  Klonk. The sound drew closer.

  The Teladi looked awkward and clumsy in the far-too-large suit. It was nothing more than a prison that kept him alive. Neither could he moved in a controlled manner nor grasp anything in his claws with the oversized sleeves. Elena finally put on her spacesuit at the same time as Uchan.

  Klonk. Very close.

  Disturbing silence. Something rasped not far away. Elena’s spacesuit was uncomfortably tight and it had a strong smell. She was a few inches taller than the average male Split, and the suit’s epaulets squeezed her upper arms; but at least she was faring better than Nopileos, who was doomed to almost complete immobility. The helmet’s speakers clicked.

  “Kho, to the right of the bulkhead. Kalmanckalsaltt, left. Teladi,” Uchan hesitated. “Into the stowage. Kho, help him.” Elena pushed Nopileos through the door and closed it.

  “Tshhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” she heard the lizard curse. Then she went next to the right side of the bulkhead. Uchan, with his injured leg, hid directly behind the remains of the standing console.

  A loud hissing sounded, but it was getting thinner. Condensation whirled around a red-hot, growing hole in the middle of the bulkhead. Liquefied metal ran downward. By the time the opening reached the size o
f a fist, all the air had already escaped from the control center.

  Long mizuras passed, in which Elena wondered what Uchan thought they would do once the pirates invaded. She glanced over at Kalmanckalsaltt, who stood in the pose of a praying mantis that was ready to strike.

  When she began to believe that the pirates had given up, the door to the stowage opened noiselessly and Nopileos’s bulging suit lurched forward. Restrained cursing: “Egg salad!”

  “Nopileos, back!” Elena cried, knowing full well that the Teladi wouldn’t be able to do so without help. Why hadn’t he just stayed in the stowage compartment?

  A metal ball on a long, metal rod slid through the fist-sized hole in the central bulkhead. The thing looked like a round shower head covered all over with tiny holes. For a short time the strange structure hung motionless, then suddenly there were thousands of tiny strips of smoke in the room, radiating from the sphere. A delicate patter ran through the ship’s sides and floor. Warning lights and alarm signals sprang up in Elena’s helmet. A wave of hot pain spilled over the entire left side of her body. Softly and very slowly, the air hissed out of her pressurized suit, but Elena didn’t notice. With a strangled sound, she collapsed. She lost consciousness.

  Chapter 28

  The years flicker by in fast forward to a long-life: a century is like a decade, a decade like a year. No one knows if, later, Joan Mitchell ever found what she was looking for in her lifetime: a permanent mooring for her emotional understanding of all things beyond the Earth. We wish that for her.

  Fran Foster,

  The Hydra and the Hero

  Siobhan stared out into the black emptiness of space, lost in thought. The Xenon had access to gateless jump technology, it could not be otherwise. Even more than four decazuras ago, she had realized that if it ever happened, it would mean the downfall of the Community. The thought that the machines might be intelligent enough to develop the technology themselves hadn’t come to her then. So she had tried to prevent people from developing jump technology with every means at her disposal. Her plan had been so good that for almost fifty jazuras long, she had almost completely prevented research in this field. Nothing similar had been achieved in the past since Albert Einstein with his theory of special relativity. But now that was all over. Siobhan sighed as she thought of what lay ahead. She pushed those gloomy thoughts away with conscious effort.