The Beacon, page 13
Bright plasma erupted from the caves and exploded in the spot where he had been standing. He and Lyra rolled on the ground in a tangle of limbs and curses. His suit’s shielding and shock absorbers cushioned his fall and took the brunt of the pain, but the rocky surface was awkward at best and didn’t feel good no matter what.
He was in a daze as he tried to stand. All around, his crew leaped into action, weapons snapping up and voices rising in surprise and fury. More plasma rang out from the cave to their left and the one behind them.
His limbs felt impossibly heavy. Time seemed to have no meaning, too fast yet too slow. Somehow, he brought his rifle up, aimed it at the darkness of the cave opening, and sent a ballistic volley to cover them. He saw a flash of blue light, an eye, a Colossi, one of the smaller land units. They usually had golden plasma, so he knew this was them.
Did Red lead us into a trap? No, if she had, there would be the Lightbringers and the mindless here to attack them. More than likely, Red somehow stopped off here with her masters and left this message, and the Colossi came later, followed the signal, and laid in wait for someone to come.
The enemy didn’t emerge from the caves, as they were smart enough to know that they had the only cover while Melias and company had none. They were out in the open, so all they could do was run and jump and hope to evade the plasma fire.
But they didn’t have to for long.
The battle had only really just begun when the Goose unleashed a volley from the heavy front cannons, first smashing into the cave on their left and sending an explosion of rock and mecha parts. The boom was deafening from outside. When in the ship and in the vacuum of space, it was a dull thud, but out here, it was thunderous. And the force of it was tremendous, shaking the earth and making him falter.
The effect was destructive and helpful, and as the dust cleared, the cave was decimated, and there was no more fire from it.
The Colossi in the other cave entrance foolishly pivoted their attack to the Goose. To their credit, they aimed for the guns and the cockpit, but both were shielded, and it would have taken a hit or two from a skirmish-class ship or stronger to do any real damage quickly. Tomi wheeled the bird to starboard to face the cave and didn’t hesitate in unleashing another blast.
This time, the cave crumbled and made the whole outcropping break. The grave fell apart, and the message from Red was splintered. Melias almost cried out, but there was so much noise, so much chaos, that it never got out.
Then, it was quiet. Still.
Melias gasped loudly, finally exhaling a breath after the quick and stunning pitched battle that had erupted out of nowhere and then been snuffed out in a matter of seconds. Battles were often like that, though that was no comfort or relief to the mind or soul in any way.
“Everyone okay?” he asked, voice hoarse from yelling and worry. His eyes dragged around the scene, and he saw that his crew were all standing, seemingly no worse for wear. There was some plasmic scorch on Nummer’s armor as well as Niath’s, but their armor, shielding, and quick movements had protected them.
“We’re fine,” Niath said.
The others echoed their agreements. More relief.
“Thanks for the assist, Tomi,” he said into the comms.
“You owe me a new toolkit,” she replied, “if we’re counting favors.”
He snickered. “Is that on top of the many rounds of drinks and the bar that everyone thinks I owe them?”
“We don’t think. You absolutely do,” Aaron sniped.
“Yes, on top of that,” Tomi said, a smile in her voice.
His smile grew wider. “Fair enough. Keep the tab open.”
Once he had his wits about him again, he turned his attention back to the message and the grave. The message was still partly there, but cracks had formed and a few letters and whole words were chipped away, but not enough that they couldn’t discern the message. Besides, he remembered what it said, and most of their helmets had cameras that recorded things.
The grave was demolished, which he thought was sad for a moment. He wasn’t sure what the significance of it was, whether it was meant to signify her death or the changing of her life, or if she had actually buried someone here, or if it was simply a marker for them to find.
His eyes snagged on something in the ground, a sheen of light, a discoloration.
“Hey, what’s that?” he asked aloud, more to let his crew know that something was off. Not off, per se, but different. He crept closer to the overturned stones and the color coming from below, color that decidedly did not belong to the patches of green and golden moss or the dark crimson and grays of the volcanic rock.
He stopped in front of the grave, holstered his rifle at his back, and dropped to his knees. In front of him was a thing that was unmistakably metal.
“There’s something buried here,” he said. Those simple words, that simple fact, got them all excited.
They gathered around and began to clear away stones and loose soil. He, Nummer, and Niath pulled out utility shovels from their packs and got to work while Lyra pulled at the heavy volcanic stones and Arke and Aaron used plasma blades to cut where they could.
It was grueling work, and their suits’ cooling systems did little to keep them all from sweating and huffing. The gravity didn’t help, either. If it was regular earth that gave way to digging, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but the hard rock of the planet was not very forgiving and did not want to budge without a lot of struggle.
Eventually, though, they cleared it all away. The rocks were piled to one side and the soil on the other. In stunned silence, they stared down at the thing before them, a collective breath held.
“It’s…” began Arke, her head titled as she examined the thing.
“It looks like an old cryochamber,” Lyra’Tonvash said. “My people used this sort of tech for many centuries before we first made contact with the Yoruta, and they shared their wormhole-generating tech with us.”
Melias frowned, then looked from her to the thing in the earth. “So, does that mean that…that there’s a person in here?”
None of them answered. All their eyes were drawn to it.
Melias had seen pictures and videos of old cryopods and cryotubes used by humanity in the early days of extrasolar travel, and he’d seen designs from other species as well in ruins and in museums. Some poorer or more industrious frontier settlements repurposed them for their own use. He supposed this did look like those devices.
It was long, sleek, and metallic, with a dark sheen that remained despite all the dirt and rock. There wasn’t a scratch on it despite everything, so it must have been an incredibly resilient material. Not tough enough that its creator wasn’t able to carve words into the side of it. Near the top, or what he thought was the top, was a thin oval in the center. When he shifted, it looked like the same metal as the rest of it, but then when he moved, it was cloudy and gray. He tried to look closely, like it might be a glass window into who or what lay within, but no matter how he turned it, he couldn’t see within.
He didn’t recognize the script. Diagonal dashes and crisscrossing lines that he couldn’t make heads or tails of, and it wasn’t Octopoid script either. He ran a gloved finger down the lines. Finely carved, with machine precision, and set deep into the metal.
“Arke, can you read what it says?” he asked.
She shook her head. “This is no writing that I’ve ever seen.”
He moved aside so she could get a better look. She crouched low and bent so that she was almost prostrated against the dirt, but the pod was so wedged into the earth that she had no choice. Melias did note that the whole thing wasn’t even a meter into the rock. It was hard to tell if it had been buried here intentionally or just where it “crashed.”
Arke studied the writing, running a hand over the lettering as he had. She went beyond and let her hands trail along the entire perimeter, her eyes no doubt inquisitive and alight with curiosity behind her visor. She even dug her fingers behind and beneath, shoving her gloves into the earth.
Suddenly, she stopped, her shoulders and head perking. “I think… I think I found a way to open it. I might…be able…to…”
There was a click.
A seam appeared on the sides of the pod where there had been none, as if materializing from nothing. They traced along the edges like a zipper slowly being opened. When the seams finally joined at the head and foot of the device, there was a long hiss. Melias stepped back, as did the others. Who knew what was waiting for them? It looked like a cryotube, sort of, but what if it was a trap, a bomb or filled with gas? They had no clue, so better to be safe than sorry.
The top half of the device slowly rose, and what he knew was definitely steam began to pour out. It was cold, which made him certain this had to be a cryopod of some kind.
They stood back, keeping their distances until the steam finally cleared. Then, they all peered inside.
There was a person. Bipedal, a bit thin but with broad shoulders, almost unnatural in their shape. They had gleaming armor that was iridescent red and dark green with hints of silvery blue. Their left arm seemed to be a cannon, and their head was a large domed helmet.
With a start that was shared by his crew, he knew immediately who—or what, rather—this was.
They were like Red.
And they spoke.
12
“Ojka vallo ces nagos.”
Melias almost jumped from the voice. Deep and booming, yet somehow gentle in its cadence and tone. The rest of his crew had not been expecting the suit or person or whatever they were to speak so suddenly. So, they all jumped.
More startling, their new friend sat up, torso sliding forward with an ease and slowness that felt unnatural, but that would have been natural for an android or droid. Given what he knew about Red, this wasn’t surprising. They turned their head a bit from side to side, which Melias deduced to mean they were looking at each of them. They repeated the phrase they’d spoken.
“Apologies,” Melias said, “but we do not know your language.”
At that, they looked Melias. It was hard to tell, but the positioning of the dome made him know he was being directly stared at. He’d learned to read those nuances from Red, so this was not as unnerving as it had been originally with her.
Just like with Red, and with the Lightbringer for that matter, they had an innate or technical ability to take in the language of a species as it was spoken, almost immediately consume it, and then be able to speak it on their own.
“Greetings,” they said.
Even though he was expecting it, the sound still made them all jump again, but they quickly composed themselves. Speaking in Galactic Common, the boom of their voice was less pronounced. They sounded…kinder, quieter.
The crew gave them a wide berth as the large figure pushed themselves to their feet and stepped out of the cryopod.
They were taller than Melias thought—much taller than Red, who was shorter than anyone on the crew. This one was Niath’s height, a hair shorter than Melias, though still not nearly as tall as Nummer or Lyra. If they were exactly like Red, then he knew what sort of raw power and devastating skill laid within that suit, so he was tense and on guard. They did not know for certain that this was a friend, even if their voice didn’t seem to convey any hostility.
Melias cleared his throat. “Hello. My name is Melias. Do you… Do you remember yours?”
“I am called Ossen, Varakesh of the 4th Native Cell.”
None of that meant a lick to Melias other than a name, but that meant he had his memories, so maybe this would be easier to navigate than it had been when they first stumbled onto Red all those many months ago.
“Do you know where you are?” Arke asked. “Or when you are?”
His gaze turned to her, regarded her for a moment, then spoke. “This is Moolen Coss. And according to my suit’s astronomic readings, it is… My word. It is nine hundred and two thousand, seven hundred, sixty-three galactic standard years since my last check in with…with…”
Ossen’s words faltered, and his head and body turned as if to look around. When his focus snagged on the message left by Red, he went to it and put a large hand over the text. His shoulders drooped, a clear sign of sadness. Now Melias wondered if the message was for them or for Ossen. But no, she had left it written in their standard language. If she had wanted to leave a private message for Ossen, she could have done so.
She wanted them to see the message, and perhaps also find this person, which meant they had a connection somehow. Maybe he would be able to help them track her and bring her back.
“If you are looking for Red, I’m afraid she is a bit out of our reach at the moment,” Melias said.
Ossen let his hand fall from the message and turned back to them with a quizzical air about him.
“Who is this…Red that you speak of? I do not know this name.”
Perhaps they lacked concept clues. After all, they were coming from hundreds of thousands of years ago, from a wildly different culture and time. Melias did his best to answer and describe Red to him. He gave as much detail as he could, from where they found her and in what condition, to some of the things she had told them and then all that had transpired with the Lightbringers and her ultimately leaving to join them.
When Melias was done, it was quiet for a while as Ossen processed the information. Melias shared a look with his crew, who were all as bewildered by this new stranger as he was. This was the last thing any of them had expected.
Finally, the old suit found his voice. “So, the Oshok, the Octopoids in your tongue, they have…they have been eradicated, long dead?”
“Very long dead,” Nummer said.
“Then our mission succeeded. The revolution was a victory.” He darkened. “But judging by your faces, none of my species or others from my time have survived. Not surprising, given the vast passage of time. But to think, the Lightbringers have returned. Most troubling.”
He spoke a lot clearer than Red ever did. She had memory problems, along with an obvious connection with the Prime Ones. Perhaps something with her suit had malfunctioned, whereas Ossen was in perfect health.
“So, you know Red, then?” Melias asked.
Ossen nodded. “Ah, her name is—was—Tasnim. She was my partner, both in service and in life. We both were on route to Parovosh when… I don’t remember. We were swarmed, and I was in pain, and I… She put me in here and went on without me, fought until the end, until she…until her suit…”
He padded away from the message and cut through them before he found a large moss-covered rock to sit on. He slumped onto it, making a sound close to a sigh. He cupped his hands to his domed head.
“Oh, Tasnim… What did you do? What has become of you?”
Arke, being the kind soul that she was but also a Pathfinder and historian who’d devoted her life to studying the stars and learning about the Prime Ones, came to his side and asked softly, “What happened?”
“Our race was bipedal like you, strong and hardy, which made us excellent soldiers and laborers for the Oshok, but we wanted our own destiny, as did many species. Us Lessers, as they called us, rose up, fought against the masters and the beings called the Lightbringers. They unleashed their weapons, but we stole some and caused oblivion for them as well. I suppose I never saw the end. But it seems we beat them, even if perhaps it ended us all until a new wave of galactic civilizations arose.”
Melias tried to imagine it, this warfare, this rebellion on a galactic scale with scores of species rising up to take on the Prime Ones, the great civilization whose echoes still shaped the galaxy almost a million years later. What would that war have looked like? He could hardly imagine.
And then throw in the devices being used on a large scale for terror and warfare. Whole worlds, whole swaths of space being torn apart.
He wondered how Ossen had stayed alive for so long. Even the most advanced cryotube couldn’t last under such a small grave for nearly a million years, and when they had found Red, she had not been in any tube at all, yet she was alive. Not alive in a sense, but alive.
Not quite a droid, not quite AI or an android, and certainly not organic life as they knew it.
He couldn’t help but ask. “Ossen, I hope this doesn’t sound off-putting or offensive in any way, but Red—Tasnim—was never able to give us an answer on this either because she didn’t remember or didn’t want to give the answer, but… What are you? You and her.”
Melias felt he was about to answer, but as Ossen rose to his feet, he suddenly let out a pained gasp and stumbled forward. He caught himself, but they all knew something was wrong.
“Oh yes, that is right. I had forgotten,” he said with a sad, almost ironic, quality to his voice.
“What? Is something wrong?” Arke asked.
Ossen’s gaze, or what Melias approximated as his gaze, drifted to some part of his suit. “Before I was cast into cryosleep, I had a fatal malfunction in my suit. Our suits are designed to keep us alive beyond when our natural bodies would decay and wither way. Our minds continue on, powering a body that has long since died. In a sense, we are echoes of who we once were, ghosts and phantoms in flesh, so to speak. But if our suit’s core life-support function is damaged, then we will die.”
“And is it?” Niath asked. “Are you dying?”
He winced and sat back against the rock, making an air-sucking noise. “Yes. Tasnim put me in the cryosleep to preserve me, but she knew this would only delay the inevitable. I suspect if she had remembered, she might have done more, but I think she might have only remembered this world and not…me.”
The tragicness of that statement hit Melias like a rocket.
He let out a groan. His suit began to emit a low, whining beep that didn’t sound good. “I don’t… I don’t have much time.”
Taking a knee beside him, Melias put a hand on his shoulder and tried to draw his focus. “What can we do for Tasnim? How can we get her back?”
“We built a failsafe into the suits to keep us from the di’farro’s control, so if she has been able to leave this message, here of all places, then that means she at least has some measure of control over her mind and body. If her memories were tampered with because of her unsealed suit for so many millennia, then I don’t know if that failsafe will last for long, but if you can take her and fix it, she can return to herself.”
