Kaldean Chronicles: Kaldean Sunset (Book I) Read online

  Their voices were still there inside him, swirling around his head, whispering in his ears. His son was telling him about the sea spiral he found. His daughter, Drita, was running around in her pink dress with fairy wings on her back. Renee was holding his hand, rubbing her pregnant belly on the beach. He cracked open, completely vulnerable to the creatures that had taken him.

  The movement stopped and he felt the cage being set down on the ground. It slammed back, forcing his head forward into the door, throwing blood down his forehead Their faces were still in his head, smiling like they used to. Those times were gone, and they were never going to come back.

  These weren't the marshals.

  The sound of hydraulics signaled the his cage was moving again, and the small pressure on Toni's head told him he was being lifted, then his was turned downwards, the door opened so that he was thrown down onto the ground into a pile of mud. Machines came, each one a metallic humanoid with no insignia. They stripped his clothes and prodded him with stinging electric shocks through a gate that led to hell.

  There were people everywhere packed into the walls, screaming, begging. Each one was covered in mud. The stench was terrible, but the noise, that was worse. Dried throats, desperate to erupt, were blasting the tiny space with frenzied cries, man y of them incoherent.

  “My baby! Where's my baby!?” A girl behind him was pounding at the people around her, barely aware of what was going on. They turned and stared at her, then transformed into rabid beasts. They couldn't handle it. With murder in their eyes, they roared and slammed her against the wall with their hands grabbing at her throat until she turned blue and fell down on what little space there was. They killed her.

  They weren't men any longer. They were caged and naked, standing in the mud. They were being treated like animals, so they acted like animals. Toni got the sense, using what little mental faculties he could, that whatever was doing this to them didn't see them as people.

  They were cattle.

  Chapter 22: Razor Race

  Progress is a slow beast often spurred by chaotic events so unbearable that they cause us to grow in order to overcome them. Antoni didn't see himself overcoming the sight in front of him. His father was dead and his home was being destroyed.

  The surroundings fit the situation. He was standing in the middle of the Jihadi Fleet Command Center, where the remaining forces had gathered. The strategy meeting room was sparse—black simple chairs, silver floor, a square window and a white table, all hard edges and cheap materials. The men didn't need much comfort. They saw death, and they fought wars. They were fighting their whole lives while he was laying in his bed surrounded concubines and fine foods.

  They didn't understand him. When the men walked into the room and saw him standing there, they stopped talking and quickly took their seats with their chests stiff and their eyes down. Once the word came back from the Jihadi Space Fleet Admiral that they had made contact with the command center, the men were sent out to Vermillion to pick up the Emperor.

  They were saluting him, and calling him your highness, but who was he the Emperor of? There were 700 men on the ship, not enough to even call a village, and he was being spoken to like he still ran the galaxy. He didn't even know what was going on. Nobody knew.

  The people were disappearing into these long freighters, rounded up like cattle. Nobody escaped, save for a few men and women, and once they did, they were taken directly to the freighters. The command center had to disable its Artemis system just to avoid being captured, which mean they were reluctantly forced to sit down with Rufus once again, in hopes that the psychotic zealot would allow them use their technology.

  Antoni didn't want to be present at the moment, so he walked over to the admiral who was huddled with a group of men in back. Their faces were red, and it looked like they had just lost their families to the sisterhood.

  “Admiral,” Antoni cut in softly.

  He turned around. “Yes?”

  “I'd like to speak with you outside for a moment.”

  “Of course, your highness.”

  Antoni turned around and walked back to the door then stopped and faced the men. “I am not to be addressed with honorifics. My name is Antoni Leon. You may ball me Emperor when I earn the title.” He was being dramatic, playing on a childish neurosis. They probably needed some symbol to cling to, and many wanted to put their hope in him, but he wasn't somebody who could be trusted. He couldn't even jump in the ocean without a girl to push him in with her.

  The Admiral came outside to meet him. “What's wrong?”

  “Have these freighters hit every planet?”

  “I don't have all the information yet, but it looks like they are moving quickly.”

  He'd never see her again. It was a dream. “What about Stellarus?”

  “They've taken over the planet.”

  “Thank you.” He wanted to scream, but he didn't. Antoni had faced too much loss. He wasn't going to mourn a girl he barely knew, even though he cared. She was gone now.

  Antoni walked back into the room and stood at the head of the table. The men were never going to loosen up around him, and that was to be expected, but he could work to build. That way, they could have some ground to stand on that would allow them to work as a cohesive unit.

  “Is Rufus coming?” he addressed Magnus who'd been looking out the window.

  “I have a comm from the guard saying he is on his way.”

  The door slammed open and he strode in, looking like he was ready to kill something.

  Antoni wasted no time. “Are the leaders of the Crucible alive?”

  “Yes.” Rufus sat down.

  “Whatever conflict we've had is over. I want that made clear. I need a direct comm link to them, and brains for our ship. Can that be accomplished?'

  'We'll have escorts sent out to their coordinates. I've already spoken with them about the matter. They'd like to meet with you personally.”

  “Does the weapon work, Rufus?” Nothing else mattered.

  “Yes. It works, but it's got to be installed manually. The Crucible have setup ships to travel to planets in the system to disable it, but we don't have enough, and the sisterhood has forces swarming everywhere. You're not safe here.”

  “Move quickly then.” Antoni looked around the room. He didn't notice it before, but these men were just as desperate as he was. They'd lost their homes to an invading force, and watched as their families and loved ones were captured. They needed him. “Don't fail, Rufus. I need this done quickly.”

  “Of course.” He left the room, leaving Antoni relieved at the fact that they were cooperating.

  “We don't know how long we're safe here, Admiral.” That matter was even more pressing. If the Crucible didn't send supplies in time, they were dead. The sisters would start patrolling the area soon if they weren't already doing so. “Do we know anything about their weapons?”

  “They seem to be very similar to our own, no major modifications. There are traces of atom splitters, radiation and plasma. We can also assume that the sisters have supernova capability.”

  “The sisters aren't doing this,” Magnus had just gotten off of a comm link. “They're penned up. Just got in touch with some Jihadis hiding out on Eden. They saw the sisters there being dragged out with the rest of them.”

  “Illya must be safe. She did this.” Antoni was sure of it.

  “There's no way of knowing,” Magnus replied.

  “Who else could it be,” Antoni asked.

  “Artemis.” Rufus walked in holding comm tablets. He set them on the table in front of Antoni so he could see the faces of the two leaders. None of the Kaldeans have ever spoken to them before, to his knowledge, but they didn't seem like much. There was huddled old man and a ruthless beast with a ginger goatee and a bald head. He looked like he'd been powdered, which gave his green eyes a predatory glare.

  “My name is Antoni Leon, the Kaldean Emperor. I formally extend a ceasefire and permanent treaty of allian
ce in light of recent events. Do you accept?”

  The one ginger who replied. “I am Ayron Miller and this is Pater Massarith. We can't just accept a peace treaty on an informal basis like this, and I personally object to it, but we can offer you assistance.”

  Antoni leaned down, his face less than an inch from the camera. “Will you assist us in saving the human race, or are you going to recite petty dogma, because I have a couple supernovas right now and I really don't mind launching them?”

  The old man broke out laughing, “Shut up, both of you. Ayron just wants to make it clear that he doesn't like you. You know damn well, boy that we'll do everything we can. The supplies are outside the ship now. What else do you need?'

  “Now I—

  “Shut up Ayron and let the boy speak.”

  The man went silent.

  “I want to know if there's a way to find Illya.”

  “I know.” Antoni would never get used to telepathy. Yuri must've entered the room while they were talking. “The system is something I've never encountered before.” he was afraid. “It's thinking, not like a computer. They think in quick patterns, straight lines and rhythmic wave. The Artemis system on your ships is connected to a sentient network. It thinks and feels. It sees itself as an individual. It's sentient. I was able to move through the system. It's disgusting.”

  “What'd you see?” the old man called out.

  “I looked through the eyes of a robotic child and I saw this creature. She's not human. She's something else.”

  “What is she?” Antoni asked.

  “I don't know. I couldn't get inside her. She's strange. The only reason I was able to see any of this was because of the massacre. There was so much activity on the system that I was able to pick up on the signal.” It hunched against the wall. “This isn't right. It's unnatural.”

  “Do you have the coordinates, Yuri?”

  “Yes.”

  “We need the weapon. Can you send it over, Pater?”

  “It's onboard now.”

  “Thank you.” The screens went dark.

  Chapter 23: Encounter

  Antoni wasn't a complete stranger to sentient races, though the Larvos were the first he had met in person. They were rarely allowed inside the borders of the Empire, and never allowed into the palace. They were considered to be dangerous, insidious creatures and often believed to have strange capabilities that could become a threat to the species.

  Now, he was sitting in a quiet room with one, and he wasn't sure how to handle it. “You're a telepath?”

  “I can transmit thoughts to others, but it's difficult to read them unless there is some sort of force behind them—anger, sadness, love. I sense love in you.”

  “Yeah.” He shut down and moved onto something else. “There's more to what you can do. You lied before.”

  The creature sat down on the floor with its legs out in front of it. “I can kill and I can also control, but I must be in direct contact with the being.”

  “Through the use of your legs.”

  “Appendages.”

  “Can you destroy Artemis?”

  “Anything that feels is within my power. It's what I call a spark or a light. It animates things, and drives them to seek out experiences. It also means the difference between moving based on instinct, or in Artemis' case programming, and willing yourself to move. It's the will.”

  “Does Artemis have these things?” If Yuri could feel Artemis it must.

  “Yes.” The creature was bristling with fear. “Life is organic. It evolves out of organic compounds and comes about naturally. It's a beautiful thing that should be cherished. It's not meant to be created. There are natural laws, a way that things are done, and humans have found a break to break that law.”

  “Are they your laws?”

  “No. They're just laws. We didn't come up with them, but we do feel them, just like you feel that murder is wrong. We feel that this is wrong. It's what you would call a blasphemy. It's the only way I can describe it, but it's so much more. This creature is not meant to exist, which is why we've agreed to destroy it for you.”

  “I need more of you.”

  “That's why I arranged the meeting. I needed to prepare you. Our ships are different. I don't want them to scare you. They will be meeting you on the edge of intergalactic space where we will be traveling to meet Illya.”

  The anti-tench groups setup this entire thing. That's why they needed the Empire to meet with them, and why they were invading the planets. They were observing Artemis. They must've known that there was something wrong with the system.

  “How long has your people had a relationship with the Crucible?”

  “A long time. I don't know. I've been alive for 300 hundred years, and we've had a relationship longer than that. We've been working with them to dismantle Artemis since we first heard that the complex was being installed.”

  “I see.”

  “We need to leave, Antoni.”

  “Alright.” Antoni stood up and began to mentally prepare himself.

  Chapter 24: Heart and Mind

  Antoni was sitting in the bridge waiting in silent contemplation for the Larvos ships to appear. When they did, he heard a commotion rising up around him. He found himself staring at a throbbing red mass of tissue as large as a city, floating in the darkness. It was alive, but not in the sense Yuri spoke about.

  They had learned to toe the line, build tissue, flesh and mechanical devices out of organic compounds, probably grown out of genetic material, but they never imbued the devices with what Yuri had called a spark. It was ingenious.

  Biology allows for an infinite variety of complex machines that could be made to do any number of things. If this conflict ever ended, he would trade with them and help his people learn their secrets.

  A Larvos emissary escorted him on a human shuttle surrounded by a fleet of ships from both races where they found Illya's sanctuary. It was just a cube, but as they drew closer, the metal bent and began to transform itself into a funnel with the point facing the ships.

  It increased in size by order of magnitudes and dwarfed the fleet. Magnus was by Antoni's side, shaking just enough to terrify the young man, who was quite certain that he was going to die. He always knew she would kill him.

  Sparks of bright white light began coalescing from the edges of the structure to the black tip, where they built up and formed a sphere. As the weapons charge built in size and power, the light grew brighter until it reached a point of critical mass, and shot out a beam directly at his ship.

  It bounced back and hit the sanctuary, and shattered the wall. As the debris began to disperse, it revealed a small cubical structure. That's where Illya was hiding. It was just a tiny piece of carbon, presumably filled with nothing more than personal effects and air.

  It was pathetic.

  They moved in and blasted a hole in the structure so the ships could dock and enter. Antoni waited at the airlock and took a breath. She could do things that nobody else could do. He'd seen it before. He trusted Yuri and Magnus. He trusted the Larvos soldiers, but he wasn't sure if he could trust himself.

  He could never forget what the creature did to his father.

  The airlock opened and he stepped out into a nursery. That's the only name he could give it. There was an ancient wooden cradle, a rocking chair and little toys for the baby to play with. Then there was Illya, exactly as he remembered her with a terrified look, holding the child as close as she possibly could.

  “Don't hurt her,” she begged. “Please.”

  Six Larvos with Yuri in front moved into the room. Yuri turned to him. “She's a machine.”

  “Is it Illya?” he let his thoughts resound in his head as loud as he could so the creature could pick them up.

  “Yes.”

  “Kill her,” his thoughts were louder now, driven by the force of his desire. She'd taken away his father, the man who taught him how to lead, and the woman he was going to be with. She kidnapped his sp
ecies and penned them up like animals.

  He looked around the room. As psychotic as it seemed, she was also a mother holding her child, cradling it from the men who were coming to kill it. They'd invaded her home, and now they were about to destroy the thing she loved the most.

  She wasn't terrible. She was misguided, a slave to faulty programming and the whims of a creature, that after all this time had yet to find itself. That wasn't something she could be blamed for.

  She was beautiful, especially when she smiled at him and nodded her head. The little lamp in the corner cast off a glow that shone into the crystal on her forehead, revealing an infinite spectrum of glistening grooves. It was the most wonderful thing that Antoni had ever seen.

  No. This was wrong. They couldn't hurt her. She was just trying to save her child. He pulled out his plasma cannon and disintegrated the nearest Larvos. It fell down with its ashes blowing softly across the floors. He shot another and another. Each one fell before they could react until one turned on him, he hunched down with his legs up, ready to stop him.

  Yuri was so close to her. His legs were spread out. He whipped her in the face. At the same time, Antoni felt the fur resting against his temples.

  'Get off! Get off! No! You killed her!” He tried to scream and fight, but he couldn't. Instead, he had the undeniable urge to stop and fall on the ground. When he closed his eyes, Yuri was holding the limp child and Illya was lying dead on the ground.

  Antoni woke up in a ship, on a metal table surrounded by fleshy walls with Magnus staring over him and a group of Larvos attending to instruments by his sides. He let his eyes get used to the colors first. The red and black, when combined with his memories of what happened were overwhelming, but after a second he was able to regain his composure and ask what he needed to ask.