Predator - Incursion (25 page)

Outer Rim
August 2692
AD

She was used to spending time alone. When Liliya had been created, more than three hundred years before, solitude would not have concerned her at all. But now, progressed as she was, evolved, loneliness was one of her nightmares.

Sometimes while resting her systems she imagined that she was the last living thing in the galaxy. All humans were gone, vanished into the void. Other species had faded into history, just like whatever civilization had created and maintained Midsummer so many millions of years before. There was only her…

…and she could not die.

It was difficult to conceive a greater hell, but while fleeing on the stolen assault ship, Liliya had only hoped that her loneliness would last a little while longer, because she knew she was being pursued.

Traveling at such incomprehensible speeds, skimming hyperspace planes that swirled and twisted toward the Human Sphere, she knew for certain that Beatrix and the rest of the Rage would have sent one of the generals to bring her back if they could, or destroy her if they could not. She even knew which general it likely would be.

Alexander was their troubleshooter. He had been at the forefront of their takeover, and she had long suspected that he might even have been the weapon Maloney used to kill Wordsworth. Big, scarred from combat with an aggressive indigenous life form on one of the planets they had landed on, his skin pale and eyes deep, dead pits, he was the least human-looking of all the generals, and he would not come alone. His two thousand Xenomorph soldiers would accompany him, nursed in their cocoons in the belly of his ship. Maloney would suspect where Liliya was heading, and she knew that Alexander’s ship would be bigger, faster, and far more advanced.

The odds were stacked against her. The assault ship she had stolen was barely up to the task. She wasn’t a soldier or a pilot. Her knowledge of military tactics was limited, although she’d had long enough to study and understand the ship’s weapons systems.

Nevertheless, she had a head start, and the deep-set belief that she was doing the right thing.

The Rage had been traveling on their return journey for decades. They had been nurturing their weapons, creating their armies, and now, this close, she knew that the initial attack on the Human Sphere was being launched by an advance guard. She hoped that the information she had injected into her veins could be used to combat the greater invasion yet to come.

When she closed her eyes she thought of Erika, the woman she had killed, but with her eyes open, she saw only Wordsworth. Everything he had dreamed of had been trampled beneath the Rage’s feet. All the good he had proposed, the advancements and progress, the evolution of the human mind he had been so desperate to seek, all had been assassinated by the people he’d sought to remove from negative influence.

Assassinated, as had he.

A synthetic with good on her side, Liliya would do everything in her power to make it back to the Human Sphere. She might yet have time to avert genocide.

* * *

Thirty-three days into her journey, the assault ship’s hyperdrive failed. The computer informed her that a cease signal had been sent.

They’ve found me!
she thought. Hurrying into the small ship’s containment hold, she shrugged into a sleep suit and programmed a pod. Even she could not survive a rapid deceleration from hyperspace travel to real space, and whoever or whatever had discovered her would be waiting once the ship had slowed beneath FTL speeds.

She might only have moments to leave the pod, take control of the ship, and fend off an attack.

The vessel was starting to shake as she immersed herself. Before initiating suspension she spoke to the computer.

“Avoid contact with any other vessel, protect the ship at all costs,” she instructed. “Bring me out the moment we’re out of hyperdrive.”

“Of course,” the ship said, its voice neutral. She wasn’t convinced that she could trust the computer. Though she had probed its quantum folds and examined the many levels of its mind, she had been unable to discern any loyalty programming. However, she was left without any choice. The hyperdrive couldn’t reverse the cease signal without catastrophic effect, and whoever had sent it would likely be waiting.

The cryo-pod closed around her and she breathed in the suspension fluid. Time slowed to a crawl, reality became slurred. A human would be asleep by now, gone, but her mind did not allow such luxuries. Liliya remained conscious as time slowed, and then stopped around her. Frozen in a moment, her existence became a micro-second with nothing before, nothing after. All thought fled, and only a shred of consciousness remained.

Even so, each thought lasted an eternity.

* * *

Reality, the great expanse of time, the crushing depth of infinity rushed in.
“Proximity alert… proximity alert…”

Liliya expelled the suspension gel from her insides and rolled from the pod, slapping onto the floor.

“Status?” she gasped.

“Probe approaching, distance seventeen miles and closing.”

“What sort of probe?”

“Rage.”

“Manned?”

“Unmanned,” the computer said. “Should I destroy it?”

“Of course,” Liliya said. “Why haven’t you before?”

A subtle vibration passed through the ship, so subtle that a human would not have felt it.

“You did not order me to engage any other vessel, only avoid contact,” the ship’s computer said. “The drone has been destroyed.”

“It will have…” Liliya scrambled to her feet, unsteady as her systems caught up with real time once more. She had been under for less than thirty minutes real time, but her own internal systems insisted that she had been prone for several years. She closed her eyes and did her best to ensure that sense overtook logic.

Drying and dressing quickly, she hurried through to the small flight deck. Once in the pilot’s seat she accessed all system views and assessed her situation, preferring to do it herself rather than request it from the ship’s computer.

Paranoia’s your prize for betrayal
, she thought, instantly trying to cast the idea aside. She had betrayed the betrayers, that was all. It had taken her far too long, but at last she was pursuing ideals that Wordsworth had also been following. She told herself that, remembering Erika’s death in the same thought.

“Full status,” she said, and as the computer ran through the assault craft’s position, Liliya scanned the displays to double-check the information. Speed and location were accurate, system analysis seemed correct, and full weapons capability was confirmed.

The probe sent ahead of Alexander and his army had disabled her drive and dropped her back into real space. He’d likely sent hundreds, and this one had been lucky enough to detect her hyperspace trace. She was still traveling at point-three light speed, but had to assume that the device had sent back a signal before it had been destroyed.

A sub-space contact would have reached Alexander, however many light years away he was, and he would be making his way toward her. Full speed, surfing the nebulous waves of various hyperspace planes, he and his army would bear down on her, and she would be no match.

She still had time, but she needed to plan a course of action that meant she could rid herself of the assault ship and go into hiding. Lost in space, she could then make her way into the Human Sphere and surrender to someone in authority.

Then it was simply a case of telling her story, and hoping that they would believe.

Liliya knew that she was close to the Outer Rim, that uncertain area of space that marked the current extent of the Human Sphere. Not a true border, it was constantly expanding as human exploration drove outward. In the two centuries since she and the Founders had left, the Sphere had grown hugely. Over the years she had absorbed as much information as she could, about how everything they had left behind had progressed.

At first she’d kept her research clandestine, but when Wordsworth had found out, he had approved, saying that just because they had left humanity behind, that didn’t mean they’d broken every tie. Though he’d never revealed even the smallest desire to return, he nevertheless agreed that it was wise to keep abreast of human progress.

After all, if mankind ever created a space drive more advanced than that of the Founders, the Sphere’s expansion might swallow them up.

That had never happened, but the expansion of the dropholes had been of significant interest. Capturing errant sub-space broadcasts, listening in on quantum folds, and collecting information in any way possible, Liliya had built a comprehensive picture of how the new series of dropholes worked.

She had managed to procure activation codes, and it had become a personal project to assess the complex tech required to operate them.

Shortly before Wordsworth’s death and the Founders’ transmutation into the Rage, she had gone to him with her results, proposing that such tech should be incorporated into their ships. He had agreed.

Part of her was glad, because it meant that her journey into the Sphere would be quicker. It also meant that Alexander—and the Rage—could follow.

“There is a ship nearby,” the computer said.

“How close?”

“Thirteen million miles. Speed and direction similar to ours.”

“If we’ve seen it, then we’ve also been seen.”

“That is likely,” the computer said. “Here you are.” It flashed the details on screen, including a whole slew of vectors and comparative speeds. It was too far away for a visual, but she scanned for its drive signature and anything else that might reveal its provenance.

“Human?” she asked.

“Uncertain. It’s not a ship with documented design and drive characteristics.”

Liliya began thinking ahead. She could send the assault craft on a pre-programmed course across the edge of the Sphere, hopefully leading Alexander and his army on a lost cause. Then surrender herself to this ship. Impress upon them the importance of the information and nano-tech she carried.

As a plan, it was thin.

If she moved quickly, it might also work.

“All weapons offline,” she said.

“Really?”

Liliya uttered a short laugh. “Yes. Really.” The weapon controls closed down, and the flight deck grew a few shades darker as various drifting holo displays folded and vanished. “Send an approach vector, and record a message along with it.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Recording.”

“My name is Liliya. I’m approaching from far beyond the Human Sphere, where you may have already sustained some attacks from a force that threatens the whole of the Sphere. I come in peace to help you defend against this force. I have knowledge and samples of the tech they intend to use to wage war on humanity, and I offer it freely.

“I say again…
I come in peace
.”

She closed her eyes, replayed what she’d said in her mind, and then nodded. “Send.”

“It’s gone.”

“Take us in slowly.”

Thirteen million miles closed to thirteen thousand in a hundred seconds, and then the other ship suddenly slowed, swung around, and targeted an array of weapons on the assault ship.

“Countermeasures?” the computer suggested.

“No,” Liliya said.

“Really?”

She laughed again, nervously. “Who programmed you?”

“I’m a warship,” it said, as if that was an answer.

“War is what I’m trying to prevent.”

Liliya waited, the human side of her scared and expecting the brief, shocking flare that would signal her end. Instead, the other ship moved in close, like one curious animal investigating another.

“No sign that they’ve received the message,” Liliya said.

“They’re running silent,” the computer said.

“Big ship,” Liliya said. “Life readings?”

“Sparse.”

“Dip our nose and drift us in,” Liliya said, frowning. If this were a warship, then she’d have expected more crew. Maybe humans had expanded their use of androids and other automatons. It might be that exploration had become the domain of artificial life. She found herself strangely disappointed at the idea. She had been hoping to meet someone…

Like me?
She smiled. She knew that her human sensations and thoughts were genuine, because they confused and troubled her so much. Most humans she knew were badly damaged individuals.

As it turned out, there were no humans to meet.

* * *

In her many years of existence, Liliya had learned a lot. Some of it was programmed, combined with essential progressive learning, and much more had been picked up through desire or choice.

Various dialects of Yautja was one of the latter. Stranger than any human language, its multifarious incarnations and accents had presented her with a huge challenge, and its very difficulty had intrigued her. Even after she’d mastered it, though, she’d had no way of knowing how complete her knowledge had become.

When the tall, imposing figure met her as she exited the airlock onto the warship, Liliya’s shock was compounded when it spoke.

“I am Hashori of the Widow Clan.” A pause, a heavy silence.

“I am—” Liliya began, the words difficult in her mouth, but she got no further. The Yautja struck her across the face, snapping her head sideways and sending her smashing into the airlock door. She slid to the floor, assessing the damage the impact had caused. Some bruising, a small split in her skin.

“No talking,” Hashori said.

No fool, Liliya did as she was told, taking the opportunity to assess the creature who was towering over her. Perhaps nine feet tall, torso scarred with old battle wounds, it was also virtually naked apart from a crotch piece and two wide leather belts around its upper and lower chest. No armor, no weapons, each of its clawed hands was as big as Liliya’s head. Its feet were splayed and viciously tipped. It was unmasked, its wide, hinged jaws opening and closing slightly as it breathed.

Small, glistening eyes focused on her.

Liliya guessed that it was a female. There were no obvious differences that she could discern—breasts, sexual organs—and its build was muscular, broad, and as forbidding as any Yautja she had studied in holos or old books. However, there was something about its expression, its eyes.