Chapter 12 Truth #2
His forehead furrowed further. He knew that he had not heard of any of this in the Neenda papers.
Yet he did not really look at them unless he wished to fall asleep or perform mind puzzles.
But surely such clear readings would have gone beyond those dense papers and made it into the military’s recommended review list! Yet they had not. He continued on.
… Dr. Lafrei’s readings have indicated that the Precursors on Thausia were a splinter group with a radical agenda.
That brought him up short. Not that he had thought that any species would all agree on everything.
But the Precursors had seemed pretty united in their fight against the Khul.
All of their society, their technology, was invested in protecting themselves and the Seeded Species from Khul destruction and assimilation.
After countless cycles of war and a stalemate between them, the majority of the Precursors had come to believe that it was better to simply defend themselves and not attack.
Another frown drew his lips down at the corners.
This was mostly what the Alliance’s tactics had been.
Despite their best efforts, they had not been able to find the Khul’s homeworld or the bulk of their civilization.
It was thought that they were a nomadic species, arranged into groups of ships of various sizes called a Swarm.
The more Hives in a Swarm, the more Khul.
It was impossible to stomp every Swarm out, because the Alliance did not truly know how many there were or where they were or when they would show up. Space was large, to say the least.
Even with the Alliance concentrating on defense, the Khul had still managed inroads into Alliance territory.
The Khul seemed to have endless amounts of Swarms. But still it was thought better to remain in Alliance space then thin their defenses by seeking out these Swarms blind.
The Alliance had pulled back to patrol the space that they controlled and no farther.
His sister had not been the architect of this strategy, but he had thought her in agreement with it.
Yet there was something in the tone of the writing which suggested he was wrong about that. Her following words confirmed it.
The splinter group believed that the basis of the Khuls' very identity was to destroy and assimilate all life.
The Khul viewed the Precursors as a threat to that core belief-system and, therefore, the Khul would do everything they could to obliterate the Precursors and they would never stop.
A strategy of defense was simply slow death.
Khoth’s hands tightened on the journal. His own sister’s life had been lost in a similar patrol.
The Xols that had caused his sister’s suspicions to raise had no secrets.
Or rather, it had, but those were about a personal matter that had made it come across as suspicious.
Simply put, it was cheating on its mate when it had discovered the Khul ships and feared reporting it would reveal the affair.
I have come to believe that this splinter group within the Precursors was right.
We are currently following the majority of the Precursor’s lead and we are failing.
We are being chipped away, planet by planet.
We cede space at every turn. We are not more safe now than when I took over command. We are less…
Khoth re-read those words again and again.
He had no idea that she had felt this. He wanted to push her words away as simply private fears, not basic facts.
He did not want her to be right. And yet…
truth. Truth was what mattered. He knew of half a dozen worlds that they had abandoned.
Worlds where scientific, mining, agricultural and other activities were taking place.
The reason given was that the cost to keep these far-flung worlds safe was too expensive in terms of people power, fuel and other resources.
Now, only if a world had Precursor technology at a certain level and density would they protect that new world. His sister… was right. He kept reading.
Dr. Lafrei believes her readings show that the Osiris was built with the intention of offensive action against the Khul.
She believes that the Osiris has the key to defeating the Khul.
And I believe her. I will find a way to resurrect the Osiris and I will use that vessel to destroy the Khul, once and for all. ..
Khoth drew in a deep breath. He thought of Jace, Gehenna, and the strangeness of the Osiris’ outer structure, among countless other things. The Osiris was definitely built with another purpose than any other ship they had discovered.
And yet it was used as a prison. What if it was simply a prison ship sent to take this splinter faction to another world for trial and judgment and not a ship of war as my sister thought?
He did not dismiss this idea. It could be right, after all.
Gehenna’s actions had not exactly been above board.
She seemed almost sneaky and, most definitely, secretive.
He had been able to piece together much of what she had done by reading her one-sided conversation with Jace.
She had tried to create a Pilot by tricking one of the human scientists into Osiris’ Core, but then things had gone very wrong.
She believed that the Osiris had tricked her to gain access to Jace…
There was a sound--a soft splashing--from the pool. Khoth spun around, tucking his sister’s last journal into his inner pocket as he did so. He hoped to see Jace, freed of the lines, climbing out of the pool. But no, Jace was still seemingly unconscious, but he had thrashed.
A bad dream? Or pain?
Khoth brought up his exo-suit’s scanner to check Jace’s vitals. The suit had access to a database of all Alliance species biology, including human ones. But before his suit could even complete the scan, a holographic screen--similar to what he saw in the Exarch--appeared floating above the pool.
He watched the flowing lines that likely indicated heart rate, breathing and brain waves.
The lines were green and looked regular.
But he was no expert on humanity. So he wasn’t sure if these were good or bad and was about to search the database when the holographic screen updated.
In Thaf’ell. in fact, in the dialect he was familiar with.
The information on the screen told him that Jace’s condition was good. There were also links to various dissertations on human biology, also in the Thaf’ell language. There was also grayed out information on the Pilot with a capital “P”. That information, apparently, was locked from him.
Khoth frowned as he asked, “Gehenna?”
He glanced from his suit’s holographic interface where Gehenna had communicated with him before to the screen over the pool.
There was no greeting from the AI on either device.
He turned to look at the “squid”. A tube--not filled with liquid though--was plugged into the clear glass “skull”.
There were no lights inside the skull and it appeared quite dead.
He hoped that Gehenna was sleeping and recovering in the same way that Jace was.
“Gehenna?” he found himself calling again.
The screen’s initial appearance, not to mention it changing to reflect what he wanted to know without him directing such actions, felt very much like that moment in the Exarch when it had shown him Haseon.
It did not show me. It was a glitch of some kind.
Was this a glitch? Or some kind of coincidence? Perhaps he had just stepped in the right place for the tank to appear. Perhaps the ship had simply aligned with the language in his suit. These were all far more likely things than… what?
Gehenna thought she was conned, that the Osiris, itself, had used her to get to Jace. Is the Osiris another AI too?
He stepped back towards the doors to the Core, watching the holographic screen to see if it so much as flickered. Nothing happened. It remained there. Static.
“Turn the screen 45 degrees,” Khoth said out loud.
The screen moved so that it snapped towards him.
“Interesting.” His eyebrows lifted.
The Exarch had a voice function though it never seemed to work well. But perhaps the Osiris’ system was better suited to oral commands.
“What is the remaining time that Jace will remain in the tank?” Khoth asked.
Immediately, a timer appeared on the bottom right corner of the screen. It was counting down from 10:21… 10:20… 10:19…
Khoth felt a wave of relief and happiness that Jace would be released from the tank, hopefully recovered.
A quick once-over again of Jace’s form showed him that the young man had gained considerable muscle.
His sex organs appeared the same. Considering he found them quite perfect, there was no need for them to change.
Flushing hotly, he wondered if his observations were not unseen.
It certainly appeared that someone or something was observing him.
“Osiris?” Khoth asked.
There was no answer, as there had been no answer when he’d called for Gehenna.
Yet that might not mean the Osiris was the one watching him.
While Gehenna had been clear that the Osiris was not like her, it was clearly independent in some tasks.
So perhaps it did not speak or communicate in the way he anticipated.
Perhaps it was waiting for him to ask it something and did not simply respond to its name.
Or perhaps it is simply ignoring me.
“Osiris, I wish to ask you about your makers,” Khoth stated, hands crossed at the wrists behind his back.
No response again. But was there the smallest flicker in the lights?
“Osiris, did the Altaeth create you?” Khoth asked.
He waited. Nothing. Not even that flicker of light.
“Osiris, what is your purpose?”
Nothing.
“Osiris, why did you choose Jace as your Pilot?”
Despite it seeming that he was speaking to himself, he still had the distinct impression that he was being listened to.
He licked his lips as the sensation was unnerving.
He found himself looking over his shoulder, expecting to see something behind him.
But there was nothing there. Just the Core chamber.
“Osiris, there is a Hive in low-Earth orbit,” Khoth stated.
Perhaps if it really had been created to attack the Khul, it would respond to this.
“Our one remaining ship on this world is a Paladin-class. Its weapons are insufficient to destroy the Hive. Do you have any armaments that could destroy this Hive?”
There was a pregnant pause and then another holographic screen flickered to life along one of the curing walls of the Core. Khoth found himself holding his breath. A single blinking cursor appeared on the screen as if waiting for input.
Whose input? Not mine, evidently.
Khoth’s relief that Jace had been taken into the pool to be cared for though was replaced by unease.
The liquids being pumped into Jace’s body were not identified.
This very strange ship might have been created by a violent, splinter faction of Precursors.
Who knew what it’s intentions were? Had he brought Jace to a place of healing or into one of danger?
Khoth’s eyes lifted to the closed doors to the Core chamber. There were no thumping sounds of the humans attempting to get inside. Not that there would be even if they had planted explosives on it. Calcanth resisted all such destruction though it would easily form structures to begin with.
“Osiris, can you show me what is happening in the corridor outside of this room?” Khoth asked, assuming it would ignore him again.
But there wasn’t even a hesitation before another holographic screen appeared on a flat wall by the doors and showed him the corridor beyond.
The humans were indeed out there, attempting to cut through with various torches and thin lines of gummy explosives.
Khoth shook his head. Humans were so predictable.
The reports on them stated that they always had to be doing something, even if that something was not useful, but it, undoubtedly, soothed their Xis.
But Jace is their child.
He could see both Colonel Diane Parker and Captain Jack Parker among the soldiers outside the doors.
Jace’s mother stood ramrod straight, hands on her hips, eyes staring at the closed doors as if she could get past them by sheer will alone.
Jace’s father raked his hands through his short hair until it was sticking up.
There were lines of strain around both of their eyes and mouths.
Neither were yelling or running about. They appeared in control, but it was obvious that they were suffering with worry for their son.
“We should speak to them,” Khoth said.
We? If it is not Gehenna I am speaking to, but some kind of Virtual Intelligence on the Osiris, there is no “we”. Only “me”.
The screen changed and there was volume input. He saw that another screen had appeared in the hallway when Colonel Parker jerked back a step. But then she strode forward, gesturing for the soldiers to move out of her way.
“Commander Khoth,” Colonel Parker said calmly, though there was a harsh edge to her tone. “I order you to open these doors immediately.”
Khoth stood at attention. “Colonel Parker, I would comply with your order, but I fear you will take actions that will harm your son.”
“Harm my son?” Anger sparked in her eyes. “How dare you!”
He was certain that she would attempt to remove Jace from the tank violently. He could not allow that. Whatever the Osiris or Gehenna’s motivations, one thing he was sure of was that Jace needed to complete this process.
“I meant no disrespect. I understand your feelings on this matter, but I cannot risk him at this juncture,” Khoth responded. “I believe your actions, should I allow you in here, would endanger him.”
Colonel Parker brought up one of the e-pads and turned it towards the screen. His mother was on it. She had evidently gone well above his head to the one person who could order him to act differently. Or so they both thought. Khoth though had no intention of letting anyone in here.
“My son, what are you doing?” His mother asked.
“Saving Jace Parker’s life,” he answered simply.
“How--”
She did not get to finish whatever she was about to say as there was a whaaaaaaa sound that seemed to echo in his bones from the Osiris. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and the humans went rigid with alarm. Khoth turned to look back towards the pool.
The countdown was down to zero.
Jace Parker was about to wake up.