The Tabit Genesis (6 page)

It was strange enough that he seemed to know what the enemy was going to do before they did themselves. But while he fought, Wyllym declared that the Ceti fleet attacking the Hera outposts was a diversion, and warned Navy Command that Brotherhood Station was in danger even though it was millions of kilometres away.

This was the red flag the Navy was looking for. The telemetry of what Wyllym Lyons was accomplishing – singlehandedly mauling one Ceti ship after the next – triggered a secret protocol whose urgency exceeded the outcome of the battle itself: the captain of the
Santiago
had to be recovered, dead or alive, because it was clear that he possessed the Gift.

‘I remember a rock the size of a frigate tumbling towards me,’ Wyllym said. ‘Next thing I knew I was in a medbay with a bunch of doctors telling me six months had gone by. They said I died a few times. I have no idea. You’ll have to ask them.’

Captain Ishiin shook his head.

‘You must possess extraordinary skill,’ he said. ‘They’ve never gone through such trouble to bring a man back before.’

‘Might wish they hadn’t, depending on how the Gryphons turn out,’ Wyllym said.

‘I doubt that,’ Yoto said. ‘Is it true your students are all as …
Gifted
as you?’

‘It’s a classified programme,’ Wyllym said. All his students had the Gift, though some used it better than others.

‘My crew really does admire you,’ Yoto said. ‘I confess, I am somewhat envious. There are few enough opportunities for a captain to accomplish what you have.’

‘A crew has to respect you before they’ll admire you,’ Wyllym said.

In spite of the insult, Captain Ishiin smiled pleasantly while the sound of hydraulics and metal gears rumbled through the bridge.

‘We’re almost there,’ he said, strapping on a five-point harness. He flashed one of the belt straps towards Wyllym, gesturing that he should do the same. Then all the seats on the bridge rotated to face the rear of the ship.

‘You’re accustomed to Gryphon braking manoeuvres,’ Captain Ishiin said. ‘So this should be no bother.’

Wyllym felt the impulse drive beneath the
Belgrade
ignite, and the bridge instruments indicated the wingtip vectoring thrusters were doing the same: the ship was executing an emergency high-G burndown. With barely enough time to fasten his own straps, unrelenting pressure mashed him into his seat, pushing him to the brink of unconsciousness. Crushing agony stretched seconds into hours and stamped the breath from his lungs; waves of bone-crushing pain tested his will to survive. After what seemed like an eternity, the pressure finally let up.

‘I hope that wasn’t too unpleasant,’ Captain Ishiin announced, as the bridge seats all resumed their forward positions. ‘The Navy requires us to perform these burndowns to maintain combat readiness. It couldn’t be avoided.’

‘I’m…sure,’ Wyllym stammered, as the tunnel vision subsided. Captain Ishiin was slightly out of breath, but appeared no more the worse for wear. A burn that aggressive should have left him incapacitated … unless the Navy had given him the same genetic augments that kept Gryphon pilots alive for their own combat manoeuvres.

Then it dawned on Wyllym all at once: Admiral Hedricks had insisted on seeing him in person to make the subtle point that neither he nor his Gryphons were that special any more. It was a threat, and Captain Ishiin was the messenger.

‘Ah, she’s in range,’ the captain said. ‘Let’s look upon her with our own eyes, shall we?’

Shaking, Wyllym unbuckled his straps as segments of armoured plating retreated from the
Belgrade
’s
bridge, revealing viewports that offered an unaided view into space. Even from their distant vantage, the
Archangel
was breathtaking and foreboding all at once. Her construction resembled nothing else in the Navy, and for several ethereal moments Wyllym had difficulty believing he was looking at something built by humans.

He had heard about her dimensions: a kilometre longer than the
Tabit Genesis
and nearly twice as wide. Captain Ishiin set the
Belgrade
on wide approach pattern, no doubt so he could admire the beast himself. Every metre of the
Archangel’s
hull was a reflective ebony sheen broken only by the glare of construction lamps and navigation beacons. From above, the hull resembled an elongated pentagon with two superstructures cutting through her beam like oversized keels. The front and rear of these structures housed recessed thruster nozzles wide enough to accommodate a cruiser. Her cross-section was hundreds of metres thick, lined with docking bays that could take a frigate aboard. Docking ports for corvettes lined her dorsal and ventral surface areas, with launch and recovery systems for the Gryphons built into the twin superstructures.

But her most startling feature was the four vertical columns rising through the centre of the ship, extending all the way through the decks. If their endpoints were connected, they would form a perfect cube, at the centre of which was … nothing. A massive circular gap whose diameter matched the distance between the columns was cut into the main body of the ship. The towering walls lining this gap were buzzing with construction activity; arrays of instruments and machinery ringed the cross sections of unfinished deck levels, the only segment of the ship not doused in black.

As the
Belgrade
closed range, Wyllym scoured the hull for signs of more traditional weapons, like turrets or missile bays. But all he saw was the reflection of engines and welding sparks against the onyx curves of this mysterious ship.

‘Magnificent, isn’t she?’ Captain Ishiin whispered.

Wyllym snorted, motioning towards the four towers.

‘Is that the drain for this money sink?’

‘Rumour is that’s Raothri technology,’ Captain Ishiin said.

‘Civilians can spread rumours,’ Wyllym said. ‘Soldiers can be court-martialled for it.’

Captain Ishiin smiled again as the
Belgrade
changed course.

‘The people who live there must know the truth,’ he said, pointing to the torus-shaped station adjoining the construction yard of the
Archangel
. Within it lived thousands of lowborn employees, all skilled labourers plucked from the general population. Many would spend their entire lives there, building this ship and nothing else, with little to no contact with the outside colony. The station was as finely equipped as any built in Orionis, even Luminosity. They lived more comfortably than most, and in many respects were like the generation that built the
Tabit Genesis
centuries ago.

But to Wyllym, they were slaves in all but name.

‘I bet they don’t even care,’ he muttered.

The captain’s expression changed to frustration as the
Belgrade
approached one of the open hangar bays.

‘Why do you hate the
Archangel
so much?’ he asked.

‘Because we could have built a dozen stations or terraformed a moon with what it cost to build this,’ Wyllym said. ‘For millions of people, this is home. The
Archangel
was never going to bring them all to another system, let alone a new world. We should keep building here.’

‘Or we find the right world now, instead of trying to change one that will never be what Earth was,’ Captain Ishiin said. ‘With the
Archangel
, we can link with the Tau Ceti settlers, build more ships like her and find another pale blue dot to colonise. Who knows? Perhaps someday we can return to Earth—’

‘That will never happen,’ Wyllym said.

Captain Ishiin looked at him thoughtfully.

‘Admiral Hedricks believes it will be possible someday,’ he insisted. ‘If we had a fleet of
Archangel
s, he’d point them—’

Wyllym had heard enough.

‘If he thought it’d make him a hero, Hedricks would point a gun at his own mother.’

Captain Ishiin was stunned.

‘That’s classified, of course.’ Wyllym added, fighting through the pain in his limbs to stand. ‘Best kept secret in the damn Navy.’

Two gladiators, a man and a woman, clashed in a blaze of combat, unleashing a furious symphony of strikes and parries. Powerful muscles bulged beneath the milky-white flesh of the combatants as they danced, their bare skin exposed to the frigid cold from the waist up, save for the narrow strap that pressed the breasts of the female tightly to her muscular chest. Both combatants were armed only with Obyeran skythes in each hand: part knife, part plasma torch, the indispensable tool of spacefarers for centuries converted to deadly melee weapon.

Worn on the wrists, the skythe was a retractable amorphous alloy blade with an edge of nanoscale-sized teeth that could saw through metal as easily as bone. At the tip of the weapon was a suspended plasma arc designed to cut through wreckage or weld breaches shut; they carved white-hot arcs through the air as the fight raged on. Beneath the armoured hexglass dome high overhead, the crash of weapons sent menacing echoes across the rock amphitheatre; a deep, sizzling shriek
that sounded like heavy cloth being ripped apart. The arena basked in soft beams cast down from orbital solar mirrors, each one a sun in the hazy night-time sky, as the bluish-yellow face of the ice giant Heracles gazed down on the spectacle.

Hundreds had journeyed to the surface to attend the match in person, and thousands more were viewing on the local net. The cameras capturing the event split their time between the combatants and the man who sat at the highest seat in the arena: King Masaad Obyeran, the Pathfinder, founder of the House that bore his name. The Rites, revered as they were in this culture, had drawn more eyes than ever before, since the warriors battling today were the King’s own son and daughter. To claim a Lightspear command, an Obyeran had to pass the warrior trials, and his children were no exception.

Masaad was old but unwrinkled, his pale flesh stretched across an iron jaw and high cheekbones that held the cradles of his amber-coloured eyes. Beneath his hood was a shock of thick hair, white as snow, long to the sides and back. He sat expressionless, gauntlets gripping each arm of the stone seat, unmoving since the contest began. The cadence of air exiting his mouth in long icy wisps gave the only hint that he was alive. He did not flinch, nor even blink, no matter how hard his children struck one another. He simply held his gaze, watching his bloodied, weary progeny back away from each other, circling, studying, anticipating each other as only twins could do.

It was his son Maez who erred first, feigning a kick and then launching a savage overhand that would have cleaved his sister from neck to crotch. But his daughter Myrha countered with a spinning backstrike, avoiding the blow and meeting the base of her brother’s skythe near the ground. The blade sliced clean through his wrist, and both hand and weapon caromed away. Yet even as streams of blood spurted out, he swung his hips and shoulders towards her in a continuous, fluid motion. Now his other skythe had a clear path to her neck, and she had no way to parry or dodge. All she could do was snap up the closest blade towards his heart, and hope it reached there in time.

But The Rites allowed no deaths, and the arena technology linked to their weapons ensured that striking a mortal blow was impossible. Just milliseconds before biting into flesh and artery, the blades vanished back into their sheaths. Blinding spotlights flooded over them as guardians converged to break the siblings apart. The contest was over.

King Masaad exhaled slowly, watching as a medic clamped a clear tube over his son’s haemorrhaging stump. When the blood made contact with the gelatinous substance inside, the container filled with pinkish-white foam. Maez grunted in pain, though his pride hurt more than his wound. The same was true of Myrha, who was furious with herself for losing what should have been a decisive victory. According to Obyeran Code, the siblings now shared the honour. Facing the podium, the combat master grasped their wrists, and raised them high overhead.

King Masaad rose slowly, nodding his approval, as those in attendance crossed their fists in the Obyeran salute. The deeds of his son and daughter had been witnessed by all. Maez and Myrha climbed the stairs, steam rising from their bare skin. Both were orders of magnitude stronger than he had ever been. They were perfect creations; the unsurpassable specimens of humanity.

‘I am the proudest father who ever lived,’ King Masaad said. ‘You honour me.’

Guardians placed heavy cloaks over the shoulders of the twins as they approached. Myrha quickly bundled hers up.

Maez turned his away, motioning towards his stump.

‘“Honoured?”’ he growled.

‘The honour is ours, my King,’ Myrha said, ignoring her brother and bowing from the hip.

Over two hundred and fifty years of age, Masaad Obyeran was the oldest living survivor of the
Tabit Genesis
. He and his brothers, Al Khav and Alim, had been the founders of Arcwave Technical, an ancient corporation that had helped fund the Genesis project. The signature achievement of Masaad, a renowned nuclear physicist, was the invention of scalable aneutronic power. All industrialised machinery, from exomech suits to the
Archangel
, used Obyeran technology to produce energy. The breakthrough is considered the most critical enabler of sustainable habitats beyond the mothership and the human exploration of Orionis.

But thirty years after his arrival, Masaad, his wife Lyanna, and his brothers vanished from civilisation. They reappeared another three decades later, reborn as the self-appointed rulers of the icy moons of Heracles. Their settlement remained the most remote in the system, located some five billion kilometres from Tabit Prime. Masaad and Lyanna declared their independence from the Orionis government, stating themselves free both of rights and obligations to the colony.

House Obyeran was thus born, then just several dozen followers strong. The brothers established a dynasty by leapfrogging through time, entering hypersleep for decades on end as one brother after the next carried forward their mandate to build a culture free from the corruption of Orionis. Masaad ruled from the inception of their House in 2701 until the reign of Al Khav began in 2731; thirty years later, the reign of Alim began. Through it all, Masaad and his beloved Lyanna slept for sixty years, their lives entrusted to technology that placed their bodies in deep hibernation, slowing their metabolisms to a standstill.

King Masaad was now eighteen years into his second reign. All the brothers were loved, but Masaad’s return was heralded the most by the citizens. Al Khav was generous and a fearless warrior, but he lacked Masaad’s charisma. Alim was a brilliant strategist, but was known more for his temper than his intellect. Together they both deserved just as much credit for the colony’s prosperity as Masaad himself. But there was only one Pathfinder. And of the three brothers, only Masaad had taken a wife.

Every Obyeran knew that this contest between his children had become important for more reasons than just a mere starship command.

‘Call me “Father”,’ Masaad addressed Myrha. ‘Lightspear captains or not, you are my daughter and son. You both achieved your goal, no matter the cost. Even in death, you were both victorious. That is the Obyeran way.’

‘I’m not proud of my performance,’ Myrha muttered. ‘You fought well, brother.’

‘Have you named your spear yet?’ Maez asked, as the medic checked the tube covering his stump. The device would keep the nerve endings, bones, and tendons nourished and free of infection. A new hand would be grown in bioreactors and reattached within a month. ‘
Vindictive Bitch
seems fitting.’

Masaad had watched his son dominate every opponent in every contest, physical or mental, during The Rites, remaining almost blasé throughout. The same was true of his daughter, though she made less a show of it.

‘The Rites reveal weakness,’ Masaad said. ‘She exposed yours as no one else could.’

‘Think it’s worth losing a limb over?’ Maez asked, flexing his formidable arm at the elbow. The medic left without a word. ‘I suppose I’m fortunate to have kept my head.’

‘With one arm you proved your strength beyond measure,’ Masaad said. ‘Most would have crumbled, but you recovered and salvaged victory – a costly one, but victory nonetheless. Men will follow you, son. The House was witness. A limb is nothing for the respect you’ve earned.’

‘I took his skythe,’ Myrha brooded. ‘I should have won outright. What does that prove?’

‘You were flawless, right until the end,’ Masaad said, placing an arm around her waist. Her shoulders were too high for him to reach. ‘Strong as you are, no one expected you to win this contest. Yet you remained valiant.’

‘My “victory” would have cost more lives than my own,’ she said.

‘That is true,’ Masaad said. ‘A desperate enemy can summon great force in a final bid to save himself. The Rites have taught you to never relinquish, not until the outcome is certain. Be thankful you learned that lesson here, and not in real combat.’

‘Yes, now she’ll lop off a man’s cock to win an argument,’ Maez sneered. ‘They’ll be queuing up to serve on your command.’

‘Next time I’ll take both his hands,’ Myrha growled.

‘You won’t have another chance,’ Masaad said. ‘From here on, you will both fight as one.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ Maez said. ‘Seems our lady Obyeran forgets we’re siblings.’

‘Seems you’re only half a sibling now,’ Myrha quipped.

Maez smiled, as he always did when he was enraged.

‘Sweet sister,’ he said, ‘if not for the safeties, there would be no
heiress
now.’

‘Maez,’
Masaad blared, loud enough to make the guards flinch. ‘Mind your words.’

‘Did that offend you?’ Maez asked, turning his towering frame to look down upon his father. ‘Tell me, what if I had done the maiming? Would you be carrying on about how she learned something important then?’

‘Stop it,’ Myrha demanded.

‘No,’ Maez said, holding his father’s glare. ‘I don’t think you would.’

He turned and walked away, towards the tunnel leading into the throne catacombs beneath the surface.

‘His pride will get him killed someday,’ Myrha muttered. ‘I shouldn’t have provoked him.’

‘Three minutes,’ Masaad fumed. ‘Three minutes separated your births, and you would think it was three decades.’

‘He’s still twice the man of anyone else,’ she said.

‘He needed to be humbled,’ Masaad scoffed. ‘I knew this would bring out the worst in him.’

‘Precisely what The Rites are for,’ she said, ‘I have no regrets.’

Long shadows followed the pair as they moved from the arena grounds. The landscape beyond the dome was barren, serene and mystical; a soft glow fell over the icy mountains, valleys and canyons, all glistening from the heat of the orbital mirrors. Works of art cut from the native rock jutted from the surface, lining Strength’s Path like ghostly giants; a crowd wearing survival suits had ventured beyond the safety of the dome and gathered around the work entitled Creation, depicting the old gods suffering at the hands of the Raothri; forbidding stone effigies of Christ, Buddha, and Mohammed shielded themselves from the four-winged demon towering above them, reaching down to take Earth.

The population of native Obyerans numbered just under forty thousand, yet they produced the industrial output of a colony ten times its size. Their pale, tall, muscular physique was unique to their genetically engineered amniosynth bloodline, a stark contrast against the diverse privateer population living among them. Many of those outsiders were staying over from voyages that took years to complete. Trade, the colony’s only connection to Orionis, was as much for information as goods. House Obyeran worked only with reputable privateers, refusing all business with Inner Rim corporations and cartels. Freighters arrived with ores, soil, Helium-3, and some manufactured goods like armoured glass and thruster modules. They left with Obyeran fusion cores, carbon nanotube cables, some luxury foodstuffs, and solar production technology.

But the real power of House Obyeran came from her fleet, which boasted none of the heavy warships that the Orionis Navy favoured so much. Instead, Masaad Obyeran had created the Lightspear. By itself, the corvette-sized starship was a technological marvel, built for resilience and adaptability. It could fly for a limited time without electronics; the ship’s vectoring engine pylons could be manoeuvred manually from the inside, and its Obyeran microfusion cores, unjammable in their dormant states, could provide thrust and power if need be. Redundancies were built into layers that accounted for almost any contingency; every Lightspear was built to serve a mothership’s mission.

Most importantly, the Lightspears were modular complements of each other. Two or more could physically link together, combining resources to serve a single purpose; to multiply engine thrust to push a disabled freighter, or to compartmentalise the functions of a larger starship to travel great distances; to fight as a single weapon; or to pool their manufacturing capability to repair a crippled ship more quickly.

Lightspear captains were required to be just as versatile as the vessels they commanded. Competition among native Obyerans to become crewmembers began in academies that pushed their genetically enhanced mental and physical endurance to its absolute limits, and those who persevered attained a near spiritual devotion to their ships. This competition was called The Rites. At the beginning of the programme, a cadet was introduced to the ship they would later call their own – if they passed. They trained with the vessel, learned her inside out, and by graduation every crewmember could operate every part of her, just as her modular design required.

A Lightspear was crewed by just seven, and The Rites decided who among them would be its captain. Every two years, the captains would compete against each other for the right to be called a lance commander. Among those, Myrha and Maez were the latest to earn that rank.

‘He was right about one thing,’ Masaad admitted. ‘If he had hurt you … that might have been more than I could stand.’