Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three) (5 page)

‘How so?’ said Katherine. ‘Did the explosion of the portal do something?’

‘Quite probably yes, we travelled an interstellar distance almost instantaneously. It’s possible that the detonation of the device spun off multiple rogue wormholes... who knows? Quite how far we travelled I just don’t know yet but after the first jump, we were definitely clear of the Maelstrom.  You’ll have to bear with me a moment.’ Mentith cleared his throat, preparing to raise his voice against the clamour.  ‘Everyone, please.  Try to remain calm.  This ship has numerous independently powered auto-repair systems.  We should sit tight and wait for them to do their job.’

There was a rumble from behind them.  It was Steelscale.  He gave a guttural growl and spoke.

‘I hope so, for all our sakes, War Marshal,’ he said, as his harsh alien syllables were translated by the pendant he wore into a flat synthetic voice.  ‘I had not planned on ending my days in a floating tomb.’

‘The
Glory
isn’t dead,’ said Mentith. ‘Not yet anyway.  She is wounded, yes, but she will recover in time.’

As if in response to his words, the bridge was suddenly bathed in a dim green light from panels on the walls and ceiling and the artificial gravity returned.  There was a clatter of floating objects suddenly falling to the deck and a number of startled cries accompanied by the thuds of falling bodies from those who had not managed to secure themselves.  The crash restraints withdrew themselves into their chairs and the nauseating sensation from weightlessness and the ship rolling disappeared as its artificial gravity established ‘down’ as the direction towards the deck.  There was a palpable sigh of relief from the occupants of the bridge, although the consoles and holographic displays remained offline.  Katherine looked at Rekkid in the weird, almost aquatic light.  His large black eyes appeared darker than ever, the pupils having widened to their maximum.  Whether it was through fear or due to the darkness she couldn’t tell.

‘My hand...’ he managed to say eventually.  ‘I can’t really tell in this light, but I think it might be turning blue.’

‘Ah, sorry,’ she replied a little sheepishly and released her grip.

‘I wouldn’t worry,’ he replied.  ‘Numb fingers are the least of my worries right now.  Dying out here, on the other hand?  Well...’

‘I thought we’d had it back then,’ said Katherine.  ‘I think my life really did flash before my eyes and I remember thinking that it wasn’t nearly long enough.  I really,
really
didn’t want to die.  When we were staring at that black hole, I remember thinking that that thing really was the end of everything and I thought...’

‘Yes, I suppose we’re lucky to be in one piece.  Maybe Mentith isn’t as crazy as I thought, since we actually survived.  We’re not out of this yet, though.  We must be thousands of light years from home.’

‘It wasn’t Mentith that took down that portal and flew us out of there, it was Eonara. She saved everyone.’

‘Yes indeed, and what do you suppose has happened to her?’ Rekkid replied. He looked over at Mentith who was standing with a huddle of his officers and technicians.  They wore concerned looks on their Arkari features and were talking hurriedly with one another in their own language.  On the floor between them lay a silvery puddle of nano-form material where Eonara and the ship’s cat avatar had been standing.

‘Doesn’t sound good,’ Rekkid commented.  ‘I can only hear snatches but the phrases, AI core offline and something about the jump drive sustaining critical damage cropped up.’

As he spoke, a number of crewmen dashed out of the bridge.  Mentith came over and addressed Katherine and Rekkid.

‘It’s not good,’ he began.  ‘We have no way of contacting the other parts of the ship, at the moment.  We have light, heat and atmospheric systems online now, but the ship’s computer systems and internal communications are offline and as yet we don’t know how bad the damage is across the ship.  We do know that there was some sort of power surge in the jump drive’s systems and it is possible this may have cascaded back through the ship’s other systems, causing them to shut down to protect themselves.  If that’s the case, the
Glory’s
AI will have taken steps to isolate itself until we manually re-connect it. As for the state of the drive: well we just don’t know.  The aft section of the ship sustained heavy damage before we jumped clear of the explosion.  The hull will heal in time, but more complex components may need replacing.  Auto-repair systems have their limits.’

‘What about Eonara?’ said Katherine.

‘I have no idea,’ Mentith replied and shrugged.  ‘It was a jury-rigged solution when they installed her. Who knows whether she managed to protect herself?  I will try and keep everyone updated, but we need to get at least rudimentary systems back online and find out where we are.’

‘I strongly suspect,’ said Rekkid.  ‘That we may be on the part of the map labelled “Here be Dragons.”’

‘If I understand the reference correctly Professor Cor, you may be right,’ Mentith replied and frowned, before turning smartly and accosting one of his officers.  They fell into deep conversation.

‘Great,’ said Katherine.  ‘So what do we do now?’

‘We wait,’ said Steelscale.  ‘Mentith isn’t lying. It takes a lot to kill an Arkari ship. Believe me, my people have tried and failed often enough.  We should be patient.’

They waited.  Arkari engineers and other crew hurried to and from the bridge.  Mentith listened to their urgent messages and gave orders to them, then sent them back, on foot, to other parts of the five kilometre long ship.  After a while the lights came back up, and then the bridge instruments came back on, although at first they seemed to be displaying nothing more than the same set of error messages in Arkari script.

After about an hour the internal transport system came back on, saving breathless crew members the less than enviable task of running through the ship’s seemingly endless corridors to relay messages between different parts of the vessel and eventually internal comms were restored, albeit on a very basic level.

Finally, after some coaxing, the ship’s computer systems came back up. Holographic displays appeared once more in the air in an arc at the front of the bridge.  They showed self diagnostic information from the ship’s internal systems and sensors as various functions were restored by the vessel’s auto-repair facilities as well as by the efforts of her resourceful crew.  One display showed the status of the warship’s skin, which even now was beginning to slowly re-grow itself.

Katherine, Rekkid and Steelscale sat amid the bustling Arkari whilst all of this occurred, feeling a little out of place and more than a little helpless. Still, the crew of the
Shining Glory
seemed well drilled and focused on their task of repairing the warship and it didn’t look as if they needed the assistance of two frightened, baffled academics and a K’Soth lord.   Even so, there were still no signs of life from the ship’s AI or the mysterious Progenitor AI that had called itself Eonara.

Mentith left a gaggle of officers who had just reported their progress to him and walked over.

‘How go the repairs, War Marshal?’ said Steelscale.

‘Better than hoped in some areas,’ Mentith replied. ‘The skin of the warship’s hull is healing well, and we have restored primary power and a number of other systems including primary life support.’

‘But...’ said Katherine, she could tell that the old Arkari was holding something back.

‘But, the jump drive and primary relativistic propulsion systems will require extensive repairs before they will work again, and I’m afraid we’ve not had a lot of luck in getting either the ship’s AI nor the Progenitor AI to talk to us.  Work is being carried out as we speak on the AI cores, but repairing the drive systems is a bigger problem, we think.  The components in question are too delicate and require a level of precision in their manufacture that the ship’s auto-repair functions cannot furnish us with,’ he said and sighed wearily.

‘So we’re stuck here then?  We’re just going to be stranded in deep, unexplored space until we all starve or freeze to death?’ said Katherine, panic obvious in her face.

‘No! No, absolutely not!’ replied Mentith, attempting to placate her.  ‘You misunderstand, I think.  This ship has facilities on board for the manufacture of entire replacement components for all of our systems.  It will take time, and will probably require the acquisition of additional raw materials, but we can fully repair the ship’s drive given enough time.’

‘And the AIs?’

‘Are perhaps another matter entirely.  However, in the event that we cannot repair them, the ship can be flown by the crew just as yours are.  It will be more difficult, but we will manage if necessary.’

‘But Eonara said that she knew how to defeat the Shapers and that she shared that information with the ship!’ said Katherine.  ‘We have to get her or the ship’s AI working again, for everyone’s sake.  We need that knowledge!’

‘We struck them a decisive blow,’ said Steelscale.  ‘Surely a great many of them must have perished and their portal device has been destroyed.’

‘Alas, I fear our success is only temporary,’ said Mentith. ‘We do not know the total enemy strength or what proportion of them was destroyed when the portal exploded.  As for their slaves: I will wager that they will have little trouble in acquiring more, nor will they have little difficulty in constructing another portal in time.  This will be a temporary setback for them, nothing more.  We have bought time for our people, not outright victory, and now the Shapers will seek vengeance for what we have done to them.  Their wrath will be terrible, I have no doubt of that.  Katherine is right, we must have access to the data that the AIs possess if we are to stand a chance of winning this war.’

‘War Marshal,’ said Rekkid.  ‘I hate to bring this up: but do we know where the hell we actually are?’

‘No,’ Mentith replied solemnly. ‘No, we have no idea whatsoever.’

‘Then how are we supposed to...’

‘What else would you have me do!?’ Mentith exploded.  ‘We’re still alive, can’t you be satisfied with that!?  Taking us into the centre of the galaxy was a calculated risk in order to stop the Shaper invasion of our people’s home systems, to stop the massacre of billions!  Do you not think that that might be weighing heavily on my mind right now?’

‘I’m sorry, I...’ Rekkid stumbled.

Mentith gave an exasperated sigh.

‘Professor Cor, our own people, the Arkari people may have suffered untold casualties.  The Shapers may have destroyed entire populated worlds!  Don’t you think I want to help our people?  Our families, our friends and colleagues back home: they are relying on us!  We cannot fail them, but it is one step at a time!  We do not know exactly where we are, but we do know that we are in low orbit around a planet.’

Mentith manipulated one of the holos to expand it so that it dominated the far end of the bridge.  An image appeared there, filling the display.  It showed a vast curving swathe of boiling cloud tops lit by unknown alien suns, sweeping past as the ship continued to roll.

They watched the scene for a moment.  As the ship’s orientation changed the image flickered to a different feed from another external camera.  Beneath the swirls of cloud could be seen the grey-brown surface and the faint glimmer of patches of open water.

‘What is this place?’ said Katherine.  ‘Where are we?’

‘As I said: we do not know,’ Mentith replied.  ‘Initial sensor readings show a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere and the gravity is about ninety-percent that of Earth, almost the same as Keros.  Based upon the density of the background stars, I’d guess that we’re on the edge of the central galactic bulge.  But other than that I cannot be any more accurate.  I’ve got people working to identify any obvious markers - known pulsars, black holes, nebulae and so on -  to get a better fix on our position.’

‘Maybe the ship brought us here for a reason.’

‘Maybe.  Maybe this was the only habitable world it could find in this part of space.  The ship may have been trying to find somewhere where we could survive for long periods, if need be, if its systems failed completely.’

‘It doesn’t look very inviting,’ Rekkid commented. ‘I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t see much vegetation from up here, unless everything that grows down there is either grey or brown.’

‘Is there any life down there, War Marshal?’ said Katherine.

‘Doubtful,’ Mentith replied. ‘The atmosphere shows a very low methane content, almost undetectable in fact.  The gas is chiefly produced by living things or by vulcanism but it doesn’t last long before it breaks down.  There needs to be a constant supply.  If there was anything living down there, I’d expect there to be a much greater amount of it in the planet’s atmosphere.’

‘If there is nothing living down there,’ said Steelscale,  ‘then what is that?’  He jabbed a clawed finger at the screen, where a geometric pattern could clearly be seen, half hidden by a bank of clouds.  It was a series of radial lines joined by smaller, fainter lines to form a spider’s web pattern.  A thicker, straight line extended from this across the barren wastes until it was hidden by a range of cloud smothered mountains.

‘That looks like civilisation to me,’ said Rekkid. ‘That looks like a road network.’

‘I concur,’ Mentith replied and gave few brief orders in Arkari.  ‘I have ordered my crew to begin sweeping for any signals of any kind.  If anyone is down there, then they may have noticed us, or we may be able to pick up the general background chatter of their civilisation.’

‘I wouldn’t expect too much,’ said Katherine. ‘Look.’

Their viewing angle had changed as the
Glory
continued in its orbit and the clouds obscuring the network of roads had parted, allowing them a better view.  What looked like a great city could now be seen below them, its network of streets extending over tens of kilometres.  The centre, however, had been completely obliterated by a gigantic crater that abruptly erased the lines of streets right at the point where they appeared to converge.