Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1) (40 page)

With Talon’s help we commissioned and began rebuilding a new ship around
the skeleton of the Erebus’s immersion core. The minds inside were purged
and Dom was uploaded inside. Several autons from the Aelita were found
and programmed to do much of the welding and assembly. They worked day
and night side by side with human crews. Parts of the hull were taken and
used for the colony while other pieces taken from the ruins of the Aelita and
Praxis were used to make the new ship space worthy. Cree and Talon also
began a project reverse engineering and cleaning Lethe technology. If we
were going to venture back into the stars we would need something to trade
and ancient tech was valuable to collectors, antiquity dealers, merchant
traders, and relic hunters. In the process of breaking apart pieces of the
Erebus we also found a communication relay that could be used at long
distances. Dom explained that this was something the Erebus activated called
Protocol 17. It was a beacon, a message written in the human tongue that was
an invitation with coordinates to our new home. It was one of twenty two fail
safes programmed into the ship like a virus by Mace and the Archaeon in
case it were to fall in battle to the Skrav or should the human population
inside die out.

———— — —

We had only been building for several months when we saw a Skrav
ship in the night sky. Families took shelter in caves that we had cleared and
begun using for storage. The colony had been flourishing for almost a year. If
they wanted to they could glass us all. For several days they hovered over us
as if they were taunting us with their power, waiting for us to fight back
before they devoured what little we had left. Then just as quickly as they
came they left disappearing from the night sky. Some wondered if it was a
mirage, some kind of mass hallucination or trick. We all knew though what
we saw. The Skrav would have easily been able to see the colony and the
ruins of starships scattered across the orbital’s surface. They could have
finally gotten revenge on us for what we did to their world and yet they did
nothing. Maybe they thought we were nothing to fear anymore since it
seemed we were no longer capable of space travel. Perhaps they made a note
of where we were and decided to go hunt the rest of the humans in the galaxy
before finishing us off. We could speculate for days but truth is no one will
ever know why they came and went at least for now we were thankful we
were safe.

Two years from the day of Balkava’s death I brought
flowers to Hera. I
walked into her room and with the new fingers I had grafted onto my hand I
took the stem of one and placed it on the table next to her bed. She was the
same as she had been before. Still mute and broken but perfect in her own
way. Like Dom she was someone else now. Hera 2.0. I told her the news. I
was leaving Eden- 3. I began to cry as I apologized for it. I didn’t want her to
think I was running away, even if she had no idea who I was anymore I was
still a part of her new life. I was the stranger that visits, that joked and smiled
sang her songs and played games with her for no reason at all. Before leaving
I made Talon promise to watch over her and keep her safe and most of all to
keep her smiling. He would have done it anyway.

The new starship was named Elpis, named for the Greek
personification and spirit of hope. It was smaller then the Erebus but still
bigger then the Aelita though we were only taking a small crew of thirty
aboard. I guess in a way Balkava was right - in the end we built on the ashes
of the old using human and Lethe technology just like she had said. Her ideas
were pure but her means to and end were rotten. On the Elpis Dom was the
heart of it all, Aira was the commander, and I was going onboard as the first
officer. I felt like it was my calling, I finally realized I had people that needed
me. Somewhere in my mind I could feel both Hayden and Hera’s voice telling
me it was the right thing to do.

No one knows what the future holds. Once again I was setting off into
the stars. The first time I was a mess, lost, and following orders. This time I
went willingly into the unknown in a search for the survivors, the humans
still alive in the unknown. We had no idea what we might find or what aliens
we might run into but we had to offer the humans, the survivors, the ones we
left behind a choice; they could stay living among the alien worlds or they
could come to Eden-3. For better or for worst we had no idea whether the
colony would last or what the people here could become but it was finally a
place we could call home.

For the first time in three hundred years the future was uncertain and
we were the rulers of our own destiny.
EPILOGUE

You probably
figured it out by now… the way I mix my words the way
past, present, and future tense blends together the way one sentence moves
forward while another moves back. I tried so hard to put my thoughts to record
an accurate account of what happened but I hear a million voices in my head. I
feel like I am not one but several narrators trying to string together words. A
million thoughts pressed against the keys said into a tiny speaker. My mind is
jacked and I am a ghost of who I once was.

I still wake up from nightmares every night. Most nights I’m
screaming. In my dreams I’m floating in space as the Elpis is falling towards
the dead planet, Eden-3 lays in pieces spread across the orbit. Then I feel my
body twist and I realize I’m not even wearing a space suit. I feel the cold
vacuum of space blanket me but it isn’t cold instead it makes my skin harden
and my spine tingle. I feel my bones break as a small leviathan tears its way
out of my skin sometimes through my chest but most of the time through my
mouth suffocating me and giving me a sensation that I am drowning. Then
before I wake up I realize I am the leviathan. I can hear voices calling me the
dark one, the aberrant, the branded, the God-Eater, ouroboros, and cicatrix.
When I wake up I have no idea what the dream or the names mean. I have
spent hours talking with Dom and Aira about it wondering if it’s PTSD or a
side effect related to the shards of nexus in my blood. At the end of the day
none of it comes up anymore. Our mission becomes all that matters.

The Lethe technology inside the Elpis has given us a tremendous boost
in power and speed. For the first time since we have left the orbital Eden-3
we are approaching a vast alien planet called Kreios full of exotic cities, ships,
and species. Inside one of the small bars underground there is a small group
of ragtag humans waiting for pickup, they contacted us shortly after Talon
turned the beacon on. Aira smiles at me as we begin our descent to the
surface. The Eek controls the world side by side with a collective of species
called the Aggregate. The Aggregate held species we could never have even
imagined; species far more advanced and even some that saw the world
through senses we didn’t even have.

It was with a monitor that we made
first contact and set up a line of
trade. We were going to exchange Lethe tech and a few skimmers for a
resupply of food and safe passage. We also were trading for the bailout of
some of the humans we planned to bring back to Eden-3. It seemed two of
them an older man and a younger woman were bounty hunters and had
broken several of the planets laws. The two had a ship as well, an exotic they
stole from a group of Myra they named ‘Scrycher’ that we would need to
buyback from the impound lot. A line of credit was established with the
Aggregate that we would payoff, as they would relay our new account to the
rest of the worlds under their control, a system they kept up to date via a
subspace signaled developed collectively by several of the species involved.
They sent messages into the immer that relayed information faster then light
from drones to drone, world to world. The Aggregate had some of the most
detailed space charts you couldn’t even imagine.

We approach the surface inside the revamped New Dawn, a now
beautiful ship sleek capable of holding a small crew of twenty filled with
firepower and fast. Two Eek fighters small and sleek like large bullets with
wings escort us to the surface. Below the clouds we can see the beautiful
mountaintops in various shades of silver and valleys filled with bright cities
and spires. As we get closer we can see the alien shapes take the form of
silhouettes covered with balconies, round windows, and neon lights. Bridges
and holographic roadways covered in skimmers and smaller dropships and
freighters connect each of the buildings.

When I
first left Errikus I was too naïve to realize just how small we
are in the universe; among the stars there are countless species and yet we are
so few. Now on the surface of Kreios I see how insignificant we are and yet it
seems like the entire world is watching us as we arrive. We set down and
before our landing gear even hits the space-pads there are hundreds watching
us from rooftops and alleys. The events that occurred on Eden-3 have spread
across the galaxy like a wildfire, the rumors of a God-killer. The humans so
few and so young feared more then the Skrav and yet praised for our ability
to move forward. Immediately after walking out of the backend of the New
Dawn we were asked if the human race would like to join the Aggregate and
handed an invitation. My first response was telling them I couldn’t make the
decision and that we would bring it back to our ‘home’. It was strange calling
Eden-3 my home, it never felt that way, to me it was a place I never wanted to
return to, a hell I was forced to survive.

“So let me get this straight... there is a zombie
flying the ship, you see
the future, and she’s a cyborg? I think I need another drink,” our first contact
with the human race outside the Trinity words that would live forever. “I
don’t actually see the future anymore but that about sums it up,” I said. It did
seem pretty ridiculous in the end. We left the bar a few hours later. All of us
with smiles on our faces. We slept inside the bunks of the New Dawn that
night on the surface. We still had the two bounty hunters to pick up the next
morning. From there we were going to return to Eden-3 with the Aggregate’s
invitation.

I fell asleep later then everyone else. I could feel the fear cover me like
a warm blanket. What is fear though if nothing more then a emotion
something that can be fought and tucked away. It wasn’t just the fear I felt
inside my dream though; the shifting of my body from a human to a leviathan
felt so real. The fear turned into something else, something worst. I had
become the beast and I felt free as the madness began taking hold over my
body. There was something else. I felt like a baby trapped in the womb,
trapped deep in darkness ready to cry and crawl my way out. I could hear
Balkava’s voice this time whispering as if she was still alive. It was like a
trigger. There wasn’t a single word I could make out. I could feel her staring
at me as I floated, the leviathan tearing away at my chest. How long will it be
before our world falls apart again?

A monster descended from the Earth consummated by fear and
darkness born to ride along the stars. It was driven by survival in a one on
one battle with death itself. Hundreds of years the monster waited, the
process of evolution pushed it forward by the very simple need to survive. It
altered its mind and body to survive because there was no other way.
Everyday is a struggle an uphill battle against the dark, against the creature
inside, against nihilism and depression. We are the monsters but that doesn’t
mean we are evil. This world may fall to pieces but peace in our own mind is
all that really matters. I have survived so much, seen through the eyes of the
past, slayed Gods, saved the human race and stopped the Olethro.

This is a lie.

Appendix
The following are a few terms used in ‘Pull’

Aelita – The second largest of the Trinity, the Aelita was a starship created to
act as a military command center. They are also responsible for Research and
Development (though all three ships have their own R&D departments). The
Aelita has a massive immersion core and several ion drives attached to the
back of it that span near the length of the entire ship.

Aether – (also
Ather
and
Ether
) see
Immer
.

Antliod – An mutated version of a flea.

Archaeon – When the Order split into several groups the Archaeon believed
they were sent by God to protect the nexus and use it only for good. During
their time as a secret group inside “The Order” they killed many people who
would have become warlords, tyrants, dictators though nothing they did was
ever quite enough. Many of their kind were assassins, former soldiers, and
monks.