Earth Song: Twilight Serenade (2 page)

Chapter 2

Octember 25th, 534 AE

Bellatrix

Despite the Kaatan being her home, the place that she'd spent almost her entire life from conception onwards, Lilith smiled as she returned to the Bellatrix star system once again. Floating in the center of her CIC, all senses linked into the powerful warship, she swam through space as the ship dove toward the star lighting the planet which gave birth to her mother, Minu Groves.

The ship slowed to only a few multiples of light speed as it passed the ringed world of Valhalla. Vulcan and Vega, the two other worlds besides Bellatrix itself, were elsewhere in the sprawling system at that time, only aware to her in mathematical equations and time indexes that danced in her cybernetically enhanced mind. Her quantum communications came alive a few moments later.

“Is that you, Lilith?” hissed a Rasa voice.

“Var'at, it is I,” she replied. “I am pleased the advanced detection network is up and working.”

“We've been working for many weeks on Remus to assure its function. Since we'd modified the computer networks here to attempt the movement of Bellatrix anyway, it was not a stretch for the installation of the tachyon sensors without the human’s awareness.”

Lilith nodded and made notes in one of the thousands of files she kept in secret places of the ship's databanks. “And replication of the batteries?”

“Well underway,” the satisfied voice replied. “Tell Kal'at the designs were very adequate.”

“I am here,” the Rasa scientist replied over the network, “and this would not have been possible without the Kaatan's computers, and Minu’s expertise.”

“It was my pleasure.” Lilith closed her eyes in the CIC, vision not really being necessary to fly the ship anyway, and took a deep breath. Her analysis of that system’s flyby had gone no further. And now that she was home she had to tread carefully. Without a second thought she moved the images to deep memory and locked them away under a spot-written ninety bit script code. There would be time later.

The detection array she and Kal'at had helped the Rasa build on Remus was undetectable to Lilith and all the instruments on the Kaatan, and that was just the way she'd wanted it to be. Her people were at a critical juncture of their lives within the massive Concordia. They were expanding in power and influence thanks to the rangers and the other Chosen, and the demands by the Tog had all but ceased as well leaving them to pursue whatever venture that humanity wished. But as they moved out, others within the Concordia were noticing.

In the most recent years, they'd come into conflict with first the Rasa, eventually defeating them then allying with the former enemy. After the Rasa lost their home and most of their people in a war with the T'Chillen, they were allowed to call Bellatrix their new home.

A few years later a brief but brutal war was fought with the Tanam on the Beezer leasehold. They'd intended to take out the Tog and eventually the humans as well, but Minu had defeated them on the Beezer world.

Next came the mission to rescue Pip by finding a medical codex that would save him. It took Minu into their first encounter with the T'Chillen, and resulted in their getting the Kaatan, and Lilith being born on that mission. Unable to operate the ancient ship well, the medical intelligence of the ship had used the time distortion effects of faster than light travel to age Lilith in only days to be old enough to operate the ship. Her brain was a hybrid of natural human and computer implants.

Then most recently, rangers were tricked into a mission on a world defended by the Mok-Tok. When the Mok-Tok were defeated, they released a virus designed to kill humanity in one fell swoop. The Nocturne virus failed in that, but did cripple thousands of young children whose brains were damaged beyond even the codex's ability to repair. They were housed all over the planet in coma care wards, forever dreaming and unable to wake. 

Now humans were well known in the Concordia, and hated by many of the powerful higher-order species. The location of Bellatrix was still a secret, and the early warning system was part of Lilith's plan to keep it so for as long as possible. They'd long been told that the Concordia didn't use starships any more. A huge lie, as it turned out. All the higher order species used starships, though some more than others. While humanity had only one ship, it was supremely vulnerable.

With Bellatrix only a few million kilometers away, Lilith dropped her ship below light speed, no longer generating a tachyon shockwave ahead of its travel, the means with which the Remus detection grid had noted her entering the star system. She took a slow approach around Romulus, as agreed with Var'at and Kal'at to give them time to calibrate the array. She entered a perfect polar orbit over Bellatrix at exactly the time she'd planned. And just as planned, her mother checked in.

“Are you home, dear?” her voice came over the local communications network. There was no need for the quantum communicator this close.

“As planned, mom.”

“I'll be up in a couple hours, just finishing some work at Fort Stuart in Jerusalem.”

“No need, I'm coming down.”

There was a slight pause as Minu looked surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, it's been a while since I came down, and I wanted to meet the new First among the Chosen in person.”

The distant chuckle from her mother was honest. “I'm no different than when we parted company a few months ago. Maybe a little fatter…”

“How is my baby brother/sister?”

“Still cooking.”

“I'm sorry?”

Minu laughed again. “He or she is fine. Just saw the doc a last week. He said I'm a kilo lighter than I should be.”

“Then we should have dinner at your cabin.”

“That's a great idea dear. Why don't you meet me there in three hours?”

“Perfect. That will give me time to drop off Kal'at.”

“That is appreciated,” the Rasa scientist said over the radio.

“See you soon.”

Lilith wrote a series of command subroutines and stored them in the Kaatan’s semi-autonomous controls. She could command the ship from almost anywhere in the galaxy instantaneously through the quantum communicator, if absolutely necessary. It was much better to be onboard if anything serious happened. She was confident that between her ship’s sensors and the new array on Remus, she'd have the better part of an hour’s warning should a ship decelerate into the system, plenty of time to return. No starship would risk passing through a star system at superluminal speed. Even a powerful ship of the line like the Kaatan would be hard pressed to survive an impact at more than the speed of light.

The housekeeping work finished, she informed Kal'at she was ready and floated out of the CIC and down the corridors with gentle hand/arm motions that the computer converted into slight nudges from the ships force fields. At only 175 meters from needle bow through bulbous central section to cylindrical stern, the Kaatans were not a large ship, but they packed massive firepower and adequate space for a large crew if necessary. The ships boat hangar carried four needle shaped shuttles for her to use as needed.

Just outside the hanar, her ground side transport awaited, a huge spider shaped bot with a null-gravity bubble projected on its back. Using the bot she could spend extended times on a planet with quite high gravity.

Though she'd worked with her body to get it stronger, being born and raised in zero gravity had left her without the physique Bellatrix raised humans took for granted. Her bone density was only forty percent of normal humans her age. An accidental fall could break limbs.

“Ready to go?” Kal'at hissed, a pair of crab bots passing them, all weighted down with baggage, samples, instruments, and all manner of other equipment. Scientists of all species were the same, they never traveled light.

“I am. Do you look forward to returning to Romulus?”

“It is not the planet of my birth, but it is now home. I look forward to seeing how the maturation of our young proceeds!”

Lilith nodded and gestured, following her reptilian friend into the bay where one of the shuttles was already on the deck. They`d spent months together as the only occupants of the starship. Lilith was somewhat surprised to realize she would miss the Rasa.

A score of the blue crystalline bots the Kaatan used scuttled around the shuttle, detaching power and consumable cables and verifying the crafts readiness. The ship was automated to such a degree that she only needed to order it made ready, and the ship did the rest.

The Rasa crab bots worked side by side with the blue crystalline ones of the Kaatan to finish loading the shuttle only a minute after they'd arrived. She gestured and her transporter came to life, trundling gracefully on eight insectoid legs to board the shuttle. It found an empty space in the rear cabin, folded in upon itself, and went into stand-by mode as Lilith and Kal'at continued to the cockpit.

Even before she'd left the hold, Lilith triggered the flight sequence to life. The cargo door irised closed, the gravitic drives spun up, and the craft lifted off the deck. As the cockpit door slid open at their approach, the exterior door of the Kaatan was already sliding open and the shuttle passing out into space.

“Why do you bother using the cockpit?” Kal'at asked as he wedged his tail behind into the seat which was not quite designed for him. “You could pilot the craft from anywhere on board...”

“Truth be told, I could fly it from anywhere in the galaxy.” Kal'at turned an eye turret toward her. In many other beings that would have been a boast. He knew a lot more of her capabilities now, after months together. There was no false bravado in her statement.

“Then the question is even more relevant.”

Lilith gave a rather typical human shrug and smiled slightly. “My father made me promise. Should something happen to the automated systems, the manual controls are located here.”

“Is that a possibility?”

“Not even a remote one.”

“Then why give your word?”

Outside they'd cleared the Kaatan and were angling away. The big green cloud covered face of Romulus swung into view and centered, then began to get larger before she answered. “Minu says it is human custom to obey your parent’s wishes.” Kal'at seemed unconvinced, but did not pursue the topic.

With the powerful gravitic drive of the shuttle, they were burning down into the atmosphere of Romulus in only minutes. The ship cancelled out all sensations of motion as it rode out the upper atmosphere turbulence and dropped below the perpetual cloud deck. Endless deep green seas stretched out below them.

“Your people have begun construction of a third platform?” Lilith asked as the shuttle dropped down to just above the waves.

“That is correct,” he agreed, “new contracts for food have been very lucrative, and the platforms are constructed largely from scrap we buy through your Chosen and transported up here by contractors in Phoenix shuttles.”

Lilith was aware of the arrangements. Though the conversation made little practical sense as it exchanged no unique information, it was from another lesson from her mom that she continued. Small talk.

Lilith paid attention to the talk with a small part of her brain as the rest reveled in the simple joy of flying a perfectly designed craft in the atmosphere. The Lost might be gone for untold eons, but their engineering was gloriously eternal.

Travelling at five times the speed of sound, the prime habitat platform went from the distant horizon to looming in only seconds. Lilith applied gravitic control to break, bank, and climb all with the kind of flawless precision only a pilot with her brain partly controlled by computers could manage. They dropped below supersonic barely a hundred meters before rocketing past the platform. She got a spectacular view of the facility with its hundreds of humans, Rasa, and some Traaga all busily working. Many looked up in shock at the sudden appearance of the shuttle, some waving when the recognized the sleek needle shape.

The shuttle banked into a fantastic skew turn at more than two hundred gravities, tail slipping in to precisely line up with one of the platform’s many landing pads. Lilith backed her in and down, setting onto the platform as light as a feather.

“Your father was as wonderful of a pilot as you are,” Kal'at pronounced with a nod from the copilot seat. To his credit his claws hadn't even tightened on the hand rests during the hair raising approach. He had complete faith in her abilities.

“He still is,” she said and floated aft.

“Of course.”

Lilith wasn't being illogical. Now that she was home she had every intention of meeting with her mother, and then finding her father, or those that had killed him. A little smile curled the edges of her mouth. That was something she was looking forward to. Where there was no satisfaction, there was at least revenge.

Minu had just taken the fish from the small infrared oven when she heard the distant multiple cracks of a vessel tearing through Bellatrix's atmosphere at hypersonic velocity. She smiled as she carried the hot dish to the table and then checked on the mushroom casserole. She enjoyed making a meal completely from local foods occasionally. It didn't always work out, but this time it did. The mushrooms were plentiful in the fall by her island and the fish were biting as well.