Long Fall Read online

  Biotech Legacy

  Long Fall

  by Chris J. Randolph

  Copyright 2013 Chris J. Randolph

  This ebook is proudly presented to you under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For more information about the rights this grants you, please visit CreativeCommons.org.

  For other uses, please contact the author directly at: [email protected]

  To Steven, who was once told never to read his silly little brother's writing. Never is much longer than children understand.

  Special thanks to Bradley Keck... Thank you for being my audience. You gave me something to look forward to during a long and trying journey.

  "I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel."

  -Mary Shelley

  Chapter 0

  Fertile soil shook under the repeated hammer strikes of orbital artillery on a planet with a golden sky. The nearby landscape was all scattered rubble and the broken remains of walls, smoking craters and sundered roads.

  The crude buildings were gone, their inhabitants long ago evacuated to the distant mountains, but the battle for their planet burned on. Chirin war machines marched forward like shimmering scorpions made of crystal, modular works of abstract geometric art firing invisible lasers into the distance. Where those beams struck, targets burst into flames and wailed in agony.

  Their ancient enemies, the Slilid, fought by their side. These were members of the Spear Chapter—the warrior caste—all of them long-legged amphibians clad in armored moisture suits, wielding particle-rifles shaped like halberds. They moved in bursts and dashes, darting from one piece of cover to another in formations that would look chaotic to an untrained eye.

  Diverse troops from New Arcadia and the Legacy Fleet advanced over the next hill. Human soldiers were clad in sleek MASPEC armors, while members of the Alarhya species floated overhead in their living exoskeletons, six arms flailing like the goddess of destruction made flesh and bone. Rhino-like Rozom troopers trundled along firing heavy cannons in high arcs, while the ridges behind were filled with the furry and long-eared Kitsu, who provided sniper support.

  The enemy troops were no less varied, though they represented only one species... only one genotype. They were human. The infantry called Maqabim were men twisted into new shapes, with weapons grown as organs in their leathery flesh. Behind them marched the Goliaths, human forms standing fifteen meters high, whose pale flesh hid beneath iridescent plates. Massive barrels on their shoulders coughed explosive death at high velocity.

  Even the Canaans—swift attackers shaped like monstrous hounds, who rolled across the battlefield devouring prey—were human. Every gene was human; only the methods of gestation were different.

  Benjamin Hernandez was pressed against a shattered wall watching bolts of light streak past. The blood red armor that encased him was a living carapace, a combination of human technology and ancient Eireki biotechnology that transformed the wearer into an agile walking tank. When a momentary lull came, He turned and fired his stormrifle, launching high density rounds with the rhythm of a jackhammer.

  The enemy didn't duck or dodge. They advanced into fire that tore limb from body, always moving in perfect coordination to the beat of a single telepathic song.

  The enemy was fearless, implacable, and unstoppable.

  But Benjamin didn't need to stop them today; only slow them down.

  His team laid into the enemy front with concentrated fire, and even as the leading edge of the wave fell away, the rest pressed onward. Ever onward. Charging forward and devouring, growing and never sated.

  Benjamin gestured past the ranks of Maqabim to their Grigori, a monster even larger than a Goliath, and his hand painted a digital command that went out to his troops. "Focus fire here. Rozom, give me some big blasts."

  The other MASPEC troopers responded, pouring iridium rounds downrange. The rhino-like Rozom's assault hit an instant later, dropping explosive shells that reduced the line to pulp.

  Benjamin motioned forward with two fingers, and his people received a charge order. Bubbles of red armor bounded forward on blasts of blue flame, their rifles belching hot metal in controlled bursts.

  Their foe still did not pause, did not recede.

  Benjamin headed toward the gap and set his sites on the Grigori, the huge lumbering figure that was the lynchpin of the enemy formation. Its interlocking plates gave the impression of medieval armor, while its head most resembled a Japanese beetle, complete with an antler-like crest atop its head.

  The monster paid Benjamin no mind as he approached. His feet touched down just long enough to prepare for the next leap, then he was off and blasting through the air again. He reached down as he flew and retrieved a metal disc from his thigh... a fusion charge.

  At the feet of the giant, he leapt upward and reached out to deliver the payload, but the monster struck. It swatted him from the air and sent him careening back toward his own troops, the charge knocked free from his hand.

  Benjamin hit the ground and dug a trench in the rubble, then finally skidded to a stop. Screens glitched, his eyes crossed, and his whole body felt like a struck funny bone. Things were broken.

  He lifted his rifle and resumed fire into the horde. Still the Grigori pressed onward, with a wave of hideous creatures surging at its feet.

  An unknown trooper's voice crackled over the comms. "He's here!"

  Benjamin dragged himself back behind a pile of cracked stones for cover and tried to right his head. There was only one man the troops spoke of that way, but he didn't want to get his hopes up just yet. It could be a false sighting.

  "Can someone confirm that," he asked with a wheeze and a gurgle. Blood was trickling out of his mouth.

  "Confirmed. I have eyes on Vigil."

  He was really there. Maybe they could do more than hold the bastards off for a little while... Maybe they could even win the battle.

  Benjamin brought up his strategic display and looked over a live satellite feed of the battlefield. A swipe through his field of vision marked a swath of land for tactical strikes, and he hoped the Khoom Yuon Kwon a dozen kilometers away were paying attention.

  He coughed and smiled. "Let our friend know I've prepped a dramatic entrance for him."

  "Relayed," came the reply.

  Seconds later, the sky screamed and thunder struck. Shells blew soil into the air in great gouts of smoke and fire. Benjamin turned away from the carnage just in time to see a figure rush across broken terrain, then snatch his fusion charge from the ground and dive into the mass of disoriented enemies.

  The next time Benjamin caught sight of him, the gaunt figure had scaled the Grigori. Standing atop its shoulders, he struck with one hand and tore a hole through the armor. His other hand jammed the pack inside, and then he was gone.

  An explosion rocked the Grigori, rending its chest in two and sending an arm tumbling away. The great beast howled, shaking the ground for a kilometer around, then fell.

  Without the Grigori, the enemy no longer heard their song. The horned giant was a psychic transponder, and without its signal they fell apart, becoming isolated and confused individuals who desperately surged, fired, and died.

  Slilid and Chirin on the next hill redirected fire toward the broken formation, and enemy troops crumbled under the combined attack.

  "Looks like we have quadrant G9 buttoned down," Benjamin said.

  "Acknowledged, Major Hernandez. Mobile fortress is advancing on your position."

  And then Benjamin let himself breathe. His collarbone was toast, and a few ribs were no doubt snapped. He mentally directed micro-medics to his wounds, and partially masked the pain through self-hypnosis, an applied psychotechnology.

  Then
he ventured a peek around the stone-pile and finally got his first good look at the Eireki knight called Vigil. He strode purposefully back toward his allies as the teeming masses behind him were shot to pieces. He was a slim and angular figure, an avatar of ancient technology so unlike the MASPECs and their signature bulk.

  As Vigil approached, Benjamin could make out the surface of his skin like a mosaic of shimmering shards, canals between them forming circles and spokes. The geometric patterns were separated into regions of bone-white and others of dark blue, except the right hand clad in twisting red and orange.

  Vigil spoke with an unearthly voice, in tones both commanding and spectral. "Are you alright, Major?"

  "Nothing that'll keep me down," Benjamin said.

  Vigil offered him a hand, and lifted him to his feet as if the weight were nothing at all.

  "If you don't mind me saying, it's a damn relief to see you here, sir."

  Vigil ducked his head. "Sorry I wasn't here sooner. I could've prevented so much death."

  "You prevented some. That'll have to be good enough."

  The last word slipped from Benjamin's mouth just as a shadow overtook the land. He felt the immense pressure of it before he saw it; a glance upward revealed a kilometers-long darkness in the golden sky. It was an enemy command carrier.

  The knight called Vigil turned and said nothing, his body remaining in a state of relaxed preparation. He stood ready to leap into action at any instant.

  The ship above let out a long, low tone like a furious god's bellow. A twinkling star appeared at the its nose, then sliced down out of the heavens.

  The shooting star was a single piece of mobile armor. It was a terrible angel born on wings made of razor-sharp ribbon, brandishing a sword whose blade was living flame. This type was called a Seraph, and few who'd seen it first-hand lived to tell the tale.

  As the Seraph approached, the field full of its subordinates fell silent, while the humans and their motley allies stared in awe.

  The shimmering warrior touched down lightly some fifty meters from Benjamin and kneeled, then the chest case cracked open and a bubbling mist leaked out, rolling across the riven ground like a conscious thing. A silhouette stepped out of the machine in flowing steps and proceeded to walk across the battlefield as if it hadn't a care.

  The figure was a nude human, but strangely devoid of sexual organs. It exuded male strength and female grace, melding them into one indivisible whole that existed beyond gender. It was so beautiful that Benjamin momentarily thought it glowed.

  "Glad tidings, Wildlings," it said. The voice was like a sweet song, the tinkling of chimes and the howl of autumn wind. "I am that which is born but once a millenium. I am the scion of Nemesis, the prince of the Nefrem, the unique amid the legion."

  "Shit," Vigil said.

  "And behold, a Wildling clothed in the bones of his Eireki forebears. The heretics. The betrayers. Identify yourself, wayward child."

  "I'm Vigil."

  The Nefrem prince squinted its perfect eyes, two points of luminescent blue like the sun shining on an arctic cave. "Do you speak for your feral breed, Vigil?"

  "No... I only protect them."

  "Intriguing... Then I shall appoint you emissary. Tell your kind that Nemesis welcomes the return of her kin with open arms, and stands ready to fold your genetic diversity back into the One Code. She offers you an opportunity to be one race again, of many minds but only one glorious purpose."

  The prince grinned, and Benjamin thought he understood the message clear enough. It was offering mankind an opportunity to lay down and relax while being eaten.

  Vigil very simply said, "I'm not a messenger," and stood his ground.

  "So be it. Then I shall be forced to spread the good word myself."

  Without the slightest telegraph, the prince struck with terrible speed and force, but Vigil's fist intercepted it mid-air. Rubble flew in every direction from the force of the impact.

  The two fighters shared a moment of surprise and mutual respect, then began to trade blows, their arms and legs moving so fast that Benjamin couldn't see the individual attacks.

  Then came a moment frozen in time. The prince turned in frustration and looked him directly in the eyes. Debris tumbled through the air. There was a blur, and Benjamin heard his own neck snapping.

  ***

  Vigil couldn't react in time. In the milliseconds it took him to guess the prince's next move, he was already late. He could only watch it happen and try not to think of what he'd just lost.

  Rage. He forced it down and in. He caged it. But still it screamed in captivity.

  "Kill," Hush said to him. "Destroy." The disembodied voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, a deafening whisper, a boiling compulsion that refused to be ignored.

  Vigil trained his focus on the prince, allowing any other thoughts to gently bounce off of it. This was just as Kai had trained him to do two centuries before, back when simply facing the day seemed impossible.

  He pressed the attack.

  Deriving energy from a miniature hollow-drive, the living machine that was Vigil's body would never be exhausted. It would never need to catch its breath. It just fought and fought until the battle was complete, then waited for the next confrontation.

  And the prince was apparently as efficient, matching him blow for blow. They traded hundreds of punches, kicks, and ripostes, with neither scoring a solid hit.

  They disengaged.

  "Interesting," the prince said. If he was afraid, it didn't show.

  Hush stirred. "More strength," it said inside him, and Vigil felt a surge of new output from the hollow-drive. "Kill!"

  A microscopic tremor rumbled across his body, but he kept the rage safely contained.

  The prince smiled warmly. "You want to lose control. Lose control."

  Vigil had before. The memory was a blackness filled with screams and a hatred deeper than the sky. It was his first recollection after becoming this thing, and there was nothing he wanted less than a repeat performance.

  The prince cocked his head at an angle, a mannerism like a raven considering the fate of a worm. "No? A shame I won't see the full measure of you. Not yet."

  Then the prince turned and casually walked back to his armor. Vigil meanwhile raised his hand, signalling to hold fire, but he didn't know why.

  The Nefrem prince leapt into the chest of its Seraph and the shell closed around him, then he rocketed upward and was gone.

  Vigil's focus dissolved, and with it the illusion of silence. The battle had already resumed all around him, but he stood alone in the field beside a dead man.

  Then he ran away from the anguish and into the remains of the broken Nefrem line.

  Chapter 01

  On High

  Marcus Donovan floated in a sea of stars. Infinity surrounded him, brushing up against his skin and washing over him, but still he wasn't free. This was nothing but an illusion created by the ancient starship Legacy to whom he was bonded. It was a small glass bubble of bullshit she created so he could believe, if only for a moment, that he was out there naked against the void.

  Lately, he was spending too much time like this: alone in his cabin with the walls set to crystal mode, waiting for the universe to give him a sign. Any kind of direction, really. But signs never came, and there were still too many fires burning out of control.

  He wanted to see the Earth, and Legacy heard his thought. A live satellite composite of Marcus' home planet appeared before him.

  It was funny how easily such things came to him now. He'd been connected to the ship for more than four years, and their relationship had become so fluid that Marcus was starting to forget where one of them ended and the other began.

  Reminders came. She lied to him sometimes, and he jealously guarded secrets from her, but both tasks became more difficult day by day.

  And there was the device, the link which had grown like a mechanical fungus to cover the right half of his head. People invariably stared,
and the polite ones at least partly hid their disgust.

  The link was a constant reminder, but its existence somehow didn't bother Marcus as much it should have. It was just another difficult part of life to be endured, and the only alternative—even temporary separation from Legacy—was unthinkable.

  How else could he prepare for the Nefrem? Without his link, he couldn't oversee construction or watch the further reaches of the solar system like a silent sentinel. When the time came, he wouldn't be able to fight back.

  Legacy simply wasn't complete without a human connection. Her psyche had a gaping hole in its core, something missing that Marcus struggled to identify at first. It was a quality that he only really recognized in himself by comparison to the ship's lacking: the ability to make decisions according to his own desires. She lacked a will.

  He felt the faint stirring of an individual will in her every so often, but the stunted weed that grew in her darkness was weak and twisted, exhibiting traits which Marcus might honestly fear if he weren't there to suppress them.

  But all these were just small, petty concerns; things to dwell on while taking a break from the real issues.

  He reached out toward the image of the Earth and pretended to cradle it in his hand. That was where he needed to focus his attention but the problem was too complex. Ragged nations had formed, war was brewing, and Marcus couldn't fix any of it with a bit of gumption and a can-do attitude.

  A new round of border skirmishes broke out every few weeks, growing bloodier, and wasting too many lives. He needed every soldier he could recruit, and that begrudgingly included the alien coalition who had tried and failed to sterilize his planet.

  The Nefrem would do worse when they arrived, that much he knew for certain. He sometimes found himself transfixed on borrowed memories of that fight, which Legacy had shared through their bond. The vivid flashbacks left him not just frightened but in total existential panic. He was suffering second-hand PTSD.