Ancient Enemies (The Space Legacy Book 3), page 1
ANCIENT ENEMIES
THE SPACE LEGACY
BOOK 3
IGOR NIKOLIC
Copyright © 2023 by Igor Nikolic
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover Design by Elias Stern
This book is dedicated to all the people who helped in its creation.
Special thanks to Keith Fletcher and Richard Mousley. They spent months hunting for typographical and grammatical errors, word choices, weird sentence structure, noticeable repetitions, wrong word usage, and tense issues.
William ‘Bill’ Dutcher, and Lee Wibbels, who went through the entire finished manuscript and polished off all the rough edges. (Both of them are amazing writers in their own right.)
Beta Team:
Keith Fletcher
Ian Nicholson
Chris Ecclestone
Richard Mousley
David Bell
Paul Benkert
Robert Lee Beers
Janie Wallace
Paul & Tracey Mason
William Dutcher
Lee Wibbels
CONTENTS
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Author’s Notes
Also by Igor Nikolic
“It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.”
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Arthur C. Clarke
PROLOGUE
Earth, North American Continent (12,900 Years Ago)
Dark, gray clouds covered the entire sky, sending torrents of ash-contaminated, acidic rain to fall to the ground. Sitting on the muddy ground and leaning against a massive, weathered boulder, a lone man gasped in excruciating pain, waiting for his death.
He pressed his hands against his abdomen, trying to slow the blood leaking from his wound. He had suffered a gut shot, and the projectile that had ripped through him had done its deadly work well. He knew his injury was far too extensive to survive without swift medical attention. But he knew that there was no longer anyone who could come to his rescue. As far as he knew, he was probably the last surviving member of his entire civilization. They had all been hunted to extinction.
Despite all that, a defiant sneer twisted his lips; the pack of monsters responsible for his end, and for countless other deaths, were dead as well. But not, unfortunately, before his entire group was wiped out.
He thought back to happier times. He’d been surrounded by his family and friends then, living in a paradise. Their home had been like a garden, cultivated and nurtured through countless generations, making it the most beautiful place on the entire planet. But it was all gone now, destroyed by the orbital bombardment and energy weapons of the monsters. Undeterred by the destruction of their home, his people had still hoped, and believed their civilization would endure.
He and his men were chosen to go on this mission, to walk across the entire continent in the hope they would reach the hidden spaceship. The journey, which would have taken only a few hours if they could have used their flyers, lasted much longer. As they journeyed, they had watched the seasons pass, one after another, till the planet had traveled almost one entire orbit around the Sun. And they had come so close to reaching the ship. But ultimately, they failed.
Because the enemy had made a sport out of hunting them down, one by one. Somehow, they could detect the technology in their bodies even though it was deactivated.
However, the aliens hadn’t counted on the primitive trap he and his younger brother had set. They were the last two surviving members of their mission and knew the chances of both of them getting out of this alive were slim. Still, if they could destroy the aliens’ flyer, maybe one of them could make it to the ship.
They said their goodbyes in the morning, embracing one another for a long time. They took what comfort they could at this parting by thinking back to their childhood before this nightmare began, back to when things were far simpler.
His brother volunteered to be the bait for the trap because his injured knee was slowing them down. The nanites, which could have easily healed his injuries in the past, had been permanently deactivated in the vain attempt to avoid detection. So, he waited at the bottom of the steep cliff, taunting their pursuers, daring them to come after him and kill him… and they had.
The lone man had had to watch as they shot the last adult member of his family like an animal. And when they came for his brother’s flesh, he had sprung the trap. The large rocks they had positioned the previous day were precariously balanced, waiting for the nudge that would set them into motion. And once started, their stones dislodged other even larger boulders and activated a catastrophic landslide… right above the monsters' heads.
Despite the almost impossible odds—their trap had worked.
He watched as the massive stones fell on the delicate flyer, crushing it beyond all hope of repair. But the aliens’ reflexes were inhumanly fast. A moment before the devastating rockfall ended their lives, one of the red aliens whirled, aimed and pulled the trigger. And with that shot, he was mortally wounded, killing the hopes of his people.
Now, only death remained… he would never reach the ship.
He looked at the night sky, watching as violent winds tore an opening in the black canopy, allowing him to see the stars. He searched for one particular light, remembering the exact position it occupied at this time of year. When he finally saw it, he raised his hand painfully upwards, as if to touch it. There it was, just a tiny, twinkling point of light in the sky, but he knew it was the red planet. It was the most important place in the universe as far as he was concerned. His son was hidden on that desolate world, waiting for his parents to come for him. But that would never happen now. He would remain there, asleep… for eternity.
His last thought was a prayer, that one day someone would find his little boy, and wake him.
With a sense of finality, the dying man did something he hadn’t done for a long time. He activated his implant and instructed it to play images from those happier times, images of his son, wife, and their idyllic home. It didn’t matter anymore if the other packs of monsters detected his position.
Ision closed his eyes for the last time as the acidic, ashy rain washed the tears down his face.
CHAPTER 1
Spaceship Excalibur - Low Earth Orbit
Michael sipped a cold beer while sitting in the pilot’s chair on the Excalibur. The Ascension no longer relied on it for the myriad behind-the-scenes tasks as it once had; hundreds of MIs installed throughout it were now responsible for the day-to-day workings of the massive City-Ship. Besides, Max had mentioned how Ares needed to have more human interaction and learn about responsibility, so the young AI had been assigned to supervise it all.
Michael had taken the spaceship out to be alone for a while. It seemed to him that recently, he was no longer the master of his own time. He only had a finite amount of time every day and everybody seemed to want some of it, leaving him less and less time for what he knew to be truly important; time for himself to simply decompress, and think and process, and time to be alone with Elizabeth. What with daily meetings and incessant questions seeking his opinion on things, he found himself making decisions that impacted other people's lives greatly, and it bothered him. He was slowly turning into that hideous life form he’d always had an aversion to— he was becoming a politician.
So, he had flown the Excalibur out of the bay, parked it in Low Earth Orbit and… simply relaxed, enjoying the view and the eternal tranquility of the place. Max received specific instructions in case someone was looking for him. He was to tell everyone that Michael was unavailable unless it was a life-or-death situation… except for Elizabeth. She had the authorization to reach him anytime.
Looking down at Earth from this perspective moved him every single time he saw it; it was so beautiful and fragile. The old girl was constantly under attack from the very beings it nurtured into existence. And being here in LEO was a good place to find some solitude and unwind. At least it would be if his mind would stop thinking about all the things they’d done; so much had been accomplished in such a short time. Yet, his inner drive still pushed him onward, fearful that if they stopped, all forward momentum would vanish. And then where would they be?
Case in point, almost six months had p
As for the AI-Core, there was only the small problem of activating the mind held inside. It needed multiple support systems, but the only ones available that could run it were Max’s. And he had no intention of turning himself off, just to see who was stored in it. Since Ares ran on a completely different computational structure, one that was mainly based on Earth technology, there was no way to jury rig something on the fly. Therefore, Max first needed to analyze his own systems to a molecular level and then duplicate it for the additional AI-Core. He certainly did not want to mess anything up, so he took every precaution that he could, which meant progress was excruciatingly slow.
By his estimates, it wouldn’t be long before he was finished, and Michael agreed that it couldn’t come soon enough. Michael had caught himself a few times thinking about the answers the AI could give them, before he pulled himself back from his daydreams to deal with some new problem in real life. It was frustrating; there were so many things that he wanted to accomplish, but sometimes progress stubbornly refused to cooperate.
As he watched the world slowly rotate below him, Michael smiled to himself in satisfaction as he recalled some of the major changes the Ascension itself had gone through in recent months. All repairs were completed, and all levels were now fully finished, giving the main residential level the feel of a small town. More than twenty-five thousand people now called the City-Ship their home, and were making a life for themselves and their families in space.
Many restaurants with all types of world-class cuisine were opened, and he and Elizabeth had already visited several. In his opinion, they were comparable with the best ones he’d ever visited on Earth. It was nice being able to go out in the evening, but at the same time it could be a bit annoying, too. Many times, when they went out, people would look up to him as if he were some sort of national hero, and it left him feeling uncomfortable.
Commander Dax, who with his family had immigrated to the Solarian Union, told him he should bask in it while he could because fame fades with time. Well, Dax was an astronaut, with a mission patch to prove it, and he’d had to endure his share of fame throughout his career. So Michael took his advice and tried hard to be gracious when he and Elizabeth went to a fancy restaurant or to the food court for a meal. They went more and more frequently as time passed because both liked the good selection of cuisine. They especially liked the food court where people were usually too busy eating to bother them.
The Promenade, where all the restaurants were located, had all sorts of new establishments. So far, they had several movie theaters, numerous shops, and there was even talk about opening a proper mall. Since the Promenade was several miles long, there was still plenty of space to expand. In fact, they were presently using less than a third of it. Michael was glad there was still so much room available for expansion because new faces could be seen on the ship every day. Jack’s recruitment efforts and their immigration policy were going at full steam, and people were coming from all over the world to be a part of the new future they were building.
While immigration was essential to the future of the Solarian Union, it brought troubles of its own. Michael was glad Max was in charge of the background checks they performed on all immigrants. The process was thorough and invasive, and had already caught a number of spies, with one or two in just about every group that tried to immigrate. Zac suggested that a good lesson for their handlers would be to just drop them from orbit. But the Solarian Union was polite when it happened, and simply returned them back to Earth… and they were even alive. In all fairness, Max might have dropped a few off in some of the most godforsaken places on Earth… nude, but unharmed. And never one to pass up a good opportunity, he even went so far as to make a TV show about it.
Those who sent the would-be spies wanted the Solarian Union’s advanced technology and were persistent to the point of absurdity. The amounts of money they were offering for its acquisition was obscene. So far, they hadn’t gotten one single byte of data, because Max compartmentalized everything, and besides him and Ares, nobody knew exactly how things worked.
Michael frowned as he thought about what could happen if knowledge about the nanites were to leak out. Having them fall into the hands of terrorists was his worst nightmare, because the horrors that could be perpetrated by unscrupulous parties using them was something he knew must be avoided at all costs. So, they were never discussed outside of their small leadership team, and no one possessing medical nanites was allowed to go back to Earth unless the nanites were completely purged from their systems first.
But that didn’t mean that certain things were unknown to Earthers, the name that everybody on the Ascension started calling those on the planet below. Kids connected to the many popular social sites didn’t really care about security protocols or the ‘need to know’ mentality. So, the secret of CEI implants, AutoDocs, and artificial gravity were all out and pretty much common knowledge on Earth. Those in power already knew about Max and Ares, and by connecting the dots they drew a much bigger picture. Nevertheless, it was one thing to know about something, and quite another to replicate it.
Most Earthers wanted Cerebral Enhancer Implants, the wondrous, new tech gadget they’d heard about, but couldn’t have. It was a phone, a computer, an entertainment system, and a personal assistant all in one—and all in your head.
Of course, it was so much more than that, but knowledge of the full capabilities of the CEI was another closely guarded secret. Some heads of state tried to use their connection with Michael to acquire one. There was a possible plan to make them available for the Earth’s general population, but not just yet. It was tied in with another one of Michael’s plans, which was still under development. It wasn’t the right time to propose that particular deal to Earth’s governments.
He knew of multiple attempts to hack into CEIs, especially those that belonged to the teenagers whose lives were inseparable from social networks. But hacking into them was impossible with all the safeguards Max had designed into them. Ares got a kick out of going after the perpetrators and cleaning out their accounts, erasing their identities and getting them into a heap of trouble. It was Max’s way of teaching the young AI about the cause and the consequences of actions.
Meanwhile, most of the Solarian Union citizens already had their own implants; a somewhat lesser version of the ones used by Michael and the team, but still light years ahead of current Earther tech. By Max’s figures, more than 90% of all adults older than sixteen went through with the procedure. That was the lower cutoff age for young adults; any earlier and psychologists feared it might impede their personal growth. It was also the age when they became legal adults, with all the rights and obligations that entailed.
Another change he thoroughly approved of was that the Solarian bank now had a real branch office, complete with a sign and smiling bank officers who greeted customers personally. At first Michael didn’t understand why Max built it since everything was done electronically. But Max explained it was for a considerable percentage of the new immigrants who felt more reassured if there was an actual person to deal with when they were transferring all their financial assets from Earth. They felt safer dealing with real people, and it helped ease their transition anxiety. Besides, both parents and their young kids enjoyed the lollipops they handed out.
