Forbidden System: A Benevolency Universe Novel (Fall of the Benevolence Book 1) Read online

  “Are you sure it was damaged?” Tal asked. “Oh, never mind. I just saw the gaping hole in the side.”

  “Why would they return here?” Gav thought too strongly, not meaning to send the message to his chippy.

  “Most likely the ship was damaged in battle, sir, and this was the nearest world where they could crash land and make repairs.”

  Gav zoomed in on the ship wreckage. “That’s a lot of conjecture.”

  “We don’t have much to go on, sir. But damage from a battle seems most likely.”

  A research vessel on a world that could host the Ancient temple he was looking for? It was time for some human intuition.

  “Enic, route all available power into a targeted sensor sweep and check everything within two kilometers of the wrecked ship, to a depth of one hundred meters.”

  “We won’t be able to maintain our passive sensor sweeps of the system,” Tal warned.

  “Or finish mapping the rest of the planet,” Enic added.

  “It won’t take long,” Gav said. “And I don’t think there’s anything out here but us.”

  “Rerouting all sensor power,” Enic said. “Time to completion…twenty minutes.”

  Nervously trailing his fingers along the controls on the command console, Gav waited on edge. It only took ten minutes for the scan to find what he was after.

  Enic clapped his hands together. “You nailed it, boss! I’m detecting an underground structure…stone walls…the general layout in keeping with an Ancient temple.”

  Gav sighed with relief. At last.

  “I’m reading something odd here…” Rina added. She had been helping Enic with the scan. “A repeating distress signal…very faint.”

  “I’m not familiar with the signal method or frequency,” Enic said, “but it’s definitely Benevolent in origin.”

  “Any sign of life?” Gav asked.

  Rina shook her head. “Just a basic SOS.”

  “Return the sensors to regular operation mode,” Gav said. “We can look into this signal when we get down to the—”

  “Sir, I’m detecting a power source within the main temple building. I’ve never seen anything like it before. The readings don’t make sense. And the inner walls of the temple are not just stone in composition. I’m reading diamondine, graphene, and perhaps another substance.”

  Gav’s eyes widened with amazement. “A power source within the—”

  A buzzing alarm went off in the ship, accompanied by a flashing yellow light above them. The ship itself had determined the threat level of what it had detected with its passive sensor sweep restored, which was never a good sign.

  “Shit,” Enic said, reading the sensor data. “We’ve got trouble.”

  He didn’t say what type. He didn’t need to. They were all seeing the same emergency feed in their HUD’s. A ship had just entered the system, and not just any ship.

  A Krixis destroyer was burning toward them at full speed.

  Chapter Two

  Eyana Ora

  187 years ago…

  Infiltrator Eyana Ora, of Empathic Services, crept silently through dense, alien foliage on Morat VII, a Krixis world on the edge of Benevolent Space. By treaty, the Krixis were set to abandon the planet in two years. Losing Morat VII was far from the worst sting of their defeat, though. The dying world only had a decade or so left before its entire ecosystem would fail.

  Millions of Krixis were piling into starships and heading off to newer worlds. Their chaotic departures provided the perfect cover for an infiltrator, especially one equipped with the best gear the Benevolency had to offer.

  Eyana kept hidden from view using an advanced RC-4 refraction cloak, a hand-sized unit attached to the bottom of the sensor array mounted on the back and shoulders of her battlesuit. The system emitted a localized energy field that at full-strength could render her practically invisible, while lower, power-sustainable settings delivered a chameleon effect, subtly blending her into her surroundings.

  The AND Scrambler mounted beside the RC-4 jammed sensor sweeps, fuzzed recordings, and dampened every sound she made by ten decibels. Eyana hardly needed the sound dampening function, though. She had always taken pride in moving swiftly and silently, no matter the environment. It was a combination of careful footfalls, perfectly tuned antigrav assistance, and, to be fair, probably a good bit of natural instinct.

  This was an especially easy day for sneaking around. A strong wind fanned across the forest, whipping the treetops and scattering slender, pink leaves. The Krixis, with their rudimentary ears, would never hear her. The only worry she might have was running into one by accident, but that was where her ScanField-3 Sensor Array came in. The lightweight, shoulder-mounted sensor pack could pick up the presence and exact location of individuals up to a hundred meters away.

  Eyana trusted her skills, honed over many grueling hours of practice, and her tech implicitly, but she had never trusted in talent, with one exception: her empathy. Being an empath was something you either could do or you couldn’t. And when you could, it was a mystery as to why.

  Without that talent, she wouldn’t even be an infiltrator.

  The military and all special service branches were manned by sentient androids with enhanced speed, strength, and toughness far exceeding what biological humans could achieve, even through modified genetics. This was coupled with an unbreakable loyalty to the Benevolency at the very core of their service programming.

  Empathic Services was the lone exception, because no android, no matter how well crafted, could do what Eyana did.

  “You know,” her chippy said, “it’s not too late to change your mind, Ana.”

  “I’m doing this, Silky. Get over it.”

  “Your death, Ana.”

  “And yours.”

  “Hey, I’m a survivor, baby.”

  Eyana stifled a laugh. Silky always knew how to make her feel more at ease. He was also good at keeping her from taking too many risks, which she was naturally prone to do.

  Normally, she’d have agreed with him on this one. Getting this close to a squad of Krixis soldiers was far too risky, and her mission protocol only required her to observe from a distance. But this…this was different.

  She had spent the two weeks since she’d dropped onto the planet scouting small military bases. The war was over, for now, but learning about one’s enemies never stopped, especially given the inscrutable Krixis and their telepathic language. It had all been routine enough, until she had picked up a strong reading on this group, and from a surprising distance, as they exited a decommissioned bunker.

  That reading had made the hairs on the back of her neck stand out and her stomach knot with worry. There was something off about them, and they were definitely more dangerous than any of the other Krixis soldiers she’d scanned. So she’d followed them, staying at a relatively safe distance. Along the way she’d continued to get vibes from them, and none of what she picked up had made her feel any better.

  Eyana had no idea what exactly they were up to, only that it was big and it was bad. They could be plotting against the Benevolency, but as far as she could tell it was just as possible that they were plotting against their own people. There was no way to know from a safe distance. If she wanted to know what they were up to, she had to get closer.

  “The cloaking field?”

  “You are fully invisible, ma’am.”

  “Cut—that—out!”

  “Sorry, Ana.”

  “You’re not sorry.”

  “That’s true, Ana. I’m not.”

  “I can’t believe you’re still annoying me with ma’am, going on…”

  “Forty-seven years, and you haven’t aged a day.”

  “Youth restoration treatments will do that for you. Is the empathy booster online?”

  “Check, Ana. Or as checked as it can be. I’ve still got a lot of doubts about it.”

  “It worked great on the test runs. Remember that creepy dude in Special Ops? I knew vividly
what disturbing thoughts he was thinking.”

  “Ana, I could’ve told you what he was thinking.”

  “That Krixis family I watched for two days, I could practically hear them speaking! And how else would I know these soldiers were up to something?”

  “I know, Ana. I know. But the more I examine its schematics, the more I think it’s bound to fail, sooner rather than later. You just can’t trust experimental tech units.”

  “You are an experimental tech unit.”

  “And you just proved my point, Ana.”

  “Silky, you’ve never failed me. Not once.”

  “Fail you? Never. But I’m not supposed to have so much personality, Ana. That’s a defect.”

  “That defect is why I love you.”

  “Yes, Ana, but if this empathy unit also has ‘personality’ then…” He sighed. “I don’t really know why I still bother arguing with you.”

  “Beats me. I always win.”

  The Krixis communicated with one another strictly through telepathy. They had no vocal chords, and only a rudimentary written language, primarily numeric. Yet they were a spacefaring species of considerable power. The genetic and cultural differences between humanity and the Krixis were extreme. That humans and the Krixis couldn’t communicate with one another whatsoever had in no small part lead to two protracted wars.

  To solve this communication problem, the Benevolency had spent several centuries studying the most empathic humans it could find. Using that data, it had manipulated the genetics of unborn children belonging to promising parents, enhancing their empathy. Those people had continued to pass the traits along until the first true empaths were born. Now, everyone within the Benevolency possessed some latent empathic ability. However, there were still very few true empaths. And telepathy itself remained out of reach.

  Eyana’s gift was stronger than that of most, since she was a true empath, third generation advanced. After a number of competitive tests amongst empathic agents, she’d qualified to do a trial run of an emppy, a technological device designed to boost an empath’s abilities, extending range and enhancing clarity.

  Installed in the same manner as a chippy, only with the socket on her right temple, the emppy held the promise that one day they’d be able to not only pick up emotions and intent but pick up language, and to maybe even send thoughts much as a chippy could project information into a user’s brain.

  This was her first true in-field test of the equipment.

  Effectively invisible, Eyana carefully slid between thorn-tipped bushes, ducked under the low-hanging branches of a poison-coated tree, and crept silently to within a dozen meters of the thirteen Krixis soldiers. She paused for a moment within a deep pool of shadow while Silky adjusted the light-filtering levels on her smart lenses.

  The Krixis stood in a circle, facing one another. In this fading light, they looked almost like a cluster of gnarly, leafless trees. They were all dressed the same, save one with bright orange trim along the seams of his uniform. He was a highly ranked officer, perhaps a starship captain.

  While Krixis faces were generally expressionless, Eyana had learned through thousands of hours of empathic observation and study to read a number of other, more subtle cues—how straight they stood, how they held their arms, if their heads were cocked to one side, which direction they leaned, who they did or didn’t look at, how much their fingers flexed, and so much more—to the point where it had become instinctual.

  The lenses adjusted to the twilit forest. Then, with three long blinks, she tripled the lenses’ zoom function to the max setting, revealing every bump on the bark of their skin, every silk thread in their uniforms, every speck of amber in their eyes.

  These thirteen showed all the telltale signs of Krixis soldiers preparing to go to war: broad stances, uplifted chins, hooked fingers, shifting their weight from one leg to another. And yet…there was something else there, something unfamiliar…something she couldn’t pick up through observation alone.

  “Prep the emppy.”

  “Emppy in standby, Ana.”

  Eyana took deep breaths and opened her mind to the intents and feelings projected by the Krixis. At the same time, she suppressed her own thoughts and emotions by reciting the Fibonacci sequence, starting at one and going as high as she could without losing track.

  Uncharacteristically, Silky remained silent, knowing it was important not to distract her.

  The Krixis could pick up strong emotive waves coming from an empath at approximately the same range from which an empath could get a read on them. But the emppy could provide a basic read from far enough away that a Krixis would only detect them if they were using their telepathic ability to actively scan for empaths. In this case, though, Eyana needed to be as close as possible. Accuracy was more important than safety.

  She listened, but didn’t try to focus on the actual discussion yet. With thirteen Krixis communicating all at once, their discussion hit her as a wave of jumbled of thoughts and emotions. She needed a few moments to orient herself to the gist of things and pick out individual voices.

  Krixis tended to talk over one another, thoughts zooming by almost simultaneously, making it difficult to follow their conversations. Of course, humans did the same thing, communicating through facial expressions and gestures while talking.

  Taking soft, purposeful steps, she eased to within ten meters of the Krixis. Invisible or not, she was too near them for safety. She knew what Silky would say scoldingly, what her commanding officer would say with a stern reprimand, but she had a hunch and had to follow her instincts.

  The emppy had another feature, one that she had yet to try out. Her commander had wanted it tested on her last day, against a couple of children or a lone citizen, so if things went wrong she’d have a good chance of escaping unharmed. The emppy could project a field that would dampen her emotive signature, like empathic camouflage. That was the theory anyway. It worked against human empaths. And most of the time it worked in computer simulations.

  Eyana stopped, having gone as close as she dared. She blinked her smart-lens zoom back to normal. Then, as she recited the Fibonacci sequence, she listened carefully to their conversation. She had no idea what words they used precisely, or if ‘words’ was even an accurate way of describing how they communicated. But the scroll of general ideas and emotions was clear enough: Shame…betrayal…righteous anger…revenge…desperation…a fervent call to action…

  By tapping her right thumb to each finger on her right hand, she triggered the emppy. Despite having used it dozens of times now, she was still surprised by its effects. A momentary pulse of vertigo swamped her, and her own emotions washed back onto her. As a young girl she’d liked to go sledding in winter. If her normal talent was like sliding down a safe, kiddy slope, then this was like zooming down from a sixty-degree angle.

  Eyana knew better than to fight it. She waited patiently, taking deep breaths, until the side effects gave way.

  The boost had worked perfectly. She could sense the thoughts of the Krixis warriors with such clarity that she could almost picture what they were saying and hear the phrases they used. Her empathy had never before been so precise, and the clarity increased rapidly as she listened and began to discern individual voices.

  She translated the storm of Krixis thoughts to Silky, who recorded them silently:

  “Our leaders have pulled their punches yet again,” one of their number said, “betraying all of us who honor the true faith, all of us who keep the ancient Goddess of Knowledge and Benevolence in our hearts. But things can change. Following the plan Four outlined, we can exact revenge against the humans and thus honor our goddess as she demands.”

  The Goddess of Knowledge and Benevolence? That was new information! Scholars had long believed the Krixis worshiped some sort of feminine primal force, perhaps nature itself. But they’d had scant evidence to work with, given that the details of their religious beliefs were almost impossible to pin down through empathic scans. Norma
lly, only the strength of the beliefs could be discerned.

  “The Benevolency must die,” said another speaker. “Without their interference, we could spread our seed and the true faith across the galaxy, and properly prepare ourselves to face the Ones from Darkness.”

  One of them nodded and proclaimed loudly, “The shadows from beyond will come again.”

  The Ones from Darkness? That was new as well. Eyana was shocked by the clarity the emppy provided. This single recorded conversation was going to revolutionize their understanding of Krixis culture, perhaps lead to better relations and maybe even prevent another war that would cost millions of lives.

  “If only our leaders had possessed the will to win, we would not have lost two wars to the chittering humans,” the officer said. “But we are not weak. We are strong. We will seize the great weapon the Ancients left behind, the weapon our leaders are too timid to use.”

  One of the Krixis, anxious and worried, voiced his concern. “We are going too far. This weapon would not wage war solely against the Benevolence’s military but against their women and children. It would destroy their entire civilization. Trillions upon trillions might die.”

  “That is the point. With a single strike onto a single planet, we can ruin them all.”

  A great weapon that could ruin the entire Benevolency with a single strike against a single world? Eyana would’ve thought this nothing more than wild speculation except for the conviction in the speaker’s voice.

  “It is too much,” the dissenter said. “I have changed my mind. I cannot go along with it. My brothers, we cannot do this. It is wrong.”

  The others radiated confusion then disbelief…camaraderie…anger. The officer with the orange-trimmed uniform drew his blaster and shot the dissenter. The hot acid pulse struck the Krixis soldier, burning a hole into his forehead. He dropped, and the only sound was the sizzling noise the acid made as it melted his head into a puddle of goop.