Far From Home: The Complete Second Series (Far From Home 13-15) (16 page)

The Namar were dying. They had used and exploited every planet in their native system and their offensive manoeuvres in other star systems had faltered.

"Cessqa, it's time," her second in command urged her.

She stood regarding their home world with tears in her eyes. Perhaps it would be the very last time she would be able to look upon it. A once brilliant diamond in the cosmos, and now
. . .

Little more than a ghost of its former self.

"Cessqa, please, if we do not leave now we will never make it," Ranesh said.

"Yes. I am coming," Cessqa said finally. She turned and followed him to one of the awaiting transports.

In the hope of ensuring their future survival, the Namar had elected to build a revolutionary vehicle, the largest such construction they had ever attempted. It would hold hundreds of thousands of their people, and an armada with enough firepower to pose a definite threat to all who encountered them. Within it, those chosen few – the Namarians' best and brightest – would sleep and await the day they were reactivated. To continue the work of their people.

To conquer.

Cessqa stepped onto the transport and it departed from the space station orbiting the Namarian home world and headed for the secret location where the great ship had been built, hidden from the watchful eyes of their opponents.

She was never more than aware that the fate of their people may rest solely on her shoulders. Cessqa had been placed in command of the mission and her orders were simple:
Assess the state of our people. Conditions permitting, continue our work. Take the galaxy one planet at a time. Conquer everything. Rule all.

*

Cessqa was the last to be put to sleep. Any normal organism might not have been expected to last hundreds, if not thousands, of years in hibernation. However, the Namar were no longer strictly organic. Over the millennia they had adapted their race to incorporate technological elements, and it had served them well. Life spans were near on indefinite. Sickness and disease, a thing of the past.

But for all their advancements, one thing could not be denied: somewhere along the way, in the process of adding to themselves, they had lost something. A part of their people, their souls maybe, that they would never get back. And the change had made them a cruel, vile race.

So as Cessqa lay down in her capsule to begin the hibernation sequence, she did not fear perishing in the course of her long sleep. Her body, strong and enhanced by numerous mechanical additions, would continue to operate. Death would not come near.

One day I will wake,
she told herself as the technician connected her to the various tubes and wires within the capsule.
And it will continue. We will survive. The whole galaxy will fall to our feet . . .

And with that thought, she succumbed to the hibernation. She closed her eyes and slept for a thousand years. Until she found herself once more rising to consciousness, strange sounds and an unknown language greeting her ears.

*

Her eyes fluttered open, and one of them looked down at her.

Hatred. It rose from deep within at the sight of the man with his hand on her wrist. She saw his expression change as she stared at him.

For all they had lost in advancing their race, one thing had remained. Hate. With every implant, with every enhancement, it had only grown stronger in the Namar. And whereas millennia before it had proved to be their undoing, now it would fuel the fire that would see them begin their work anew.

It all starts here,
she thought.
With these. Our first, unwitting prey . . .

1.

Cessqa dropped the guard to the floor where he writhed, hands at his throat where she'd crushed his windpipe. He gasped for breath, face turning blue until he went rigid and death made him still.

She moved swiftly along the ship's corridors, deserted for now due to the change in shifts, and tried to recognise anything from the layout she'd studied on the wall in the doctor's small office.

There – a turn that would take her to an umbilical docking device. The tall, female Namarian took a gamble that it would be attached to the
Amarax
somehow.

Cessqa only encountered three crew members on her way there. All of them, she dispatched effortlessly and with cool detachment.

Luckily there were not more before she reached the Walkway and left the
Defiant
at an incredibly fast run. Already six had died by her hand.

The Walkway swayed beneath her, yet still she
ran. Whether the material of the umbilical dock tore around her was of no concern. The Namar were quite immune to the harsh kiss of the void. It would not harm her. In moments they would know she had fled the ship, and that she had killed several of its crew along the way.

The entropy of a thousand years sleep left her limbs as she raced to the airlock that would take her back inside the
Amarax
. And to her people, deep in slumber.

*

"Captain on the bridge," Commander Greene announced as Jessica hurried to the command chair.

"Status report," she said. "Tell me about the alarm."

Commander Chang shook her head as she checked her screen. "It doesn't make sense. Apparently someone has run the length of the Walkway toward the
Amarax
. But we did a head count, twice. Everyone is aboard."

"So somebody has left the
Defiant
?" King asked.

"Yes," Chang said.

"Commander," Jessica said, turning to Commander Greene. "Bring up the security footage. Let's see if we can spot who entered the Walkway."

"Aye," Greene said. "Working on it."

The front viewscreen changed from a view of the
Amarax
to show the small airlock in the
Defiant
's nose section. A grey-coloured figure bounded past the camera, en route for the Walkway. There could be no mistake.

"Cessqa!" Jessica said.

*

The Namarian travelled the length of the
Amarax
– all sixty kilometres of it – in no time at all. What short distance she couldn't traverse by means of the tram, she did so by foot. Her long, powerful legs made surprisingly quick work of the few kilometres required.

Curse them for building the control room at the rear of the ship!
she thought as she entered the tall structure at the stern of the
Amarax
. The
Defiant
's exploratory team had nicknamed it
The Chrysler
though the name would have meant nothing to her, had she known it.

The control room was a large oval, crammed from floor to ceiling with consoles and displays. Not one seat in the whole place. There was no display screen; only a holodisplay emitter at the centre of the room. Cessqa quickly accessed the controls, and power flooded into the unit. It filled the room with a three-dimensional simulation of the surrounding space. There was the planetoid, and there the small vessel that had breached the
Amarax
's hull.

What had that ship's commander called it? The
Defiant
?

It was of no matter.

Cessqa accessed the helm controls. There was a barely perceptible rumble underfoot as fresh power surged through the length of the
Amarax
. Its mighty engines roared to life, and the Namarian handled her with ease. In times of battle, this room would be filled with people. Every station manned and at the ready. But for the most part, the
Amarax
– and much of Namarian technology – were intended to operate autonomously. Indeed, the many warships tucked within the central hull were only ever meant to carry a handful of Namar. Priority had been given to Artificial Intelligence and cybernetic crew. The ships literally flew themselves. They just required . . .
guidance
.

The
Amarax
was no different as Cessqa single-handedly steered the colossus out of orbit.

She could see by the display that the
Defiant
remained attached to the front of the cylindrical ship via the Walkway. It would make no difference. The
Amarax
would plough through the smaller ship in much the same way a mosquito strikes a speeding truck on the highway. As if it were never there.

*

Lieutenant Kyle Banks spun about. "I'm reading a change in altitude," he said.

"Is the
Amarax
moving?" Jessica asked.

He checked the readouts on the helm station again. "Aye. And we're losing speed, falling toward its front face."

"Disengage the Walkway and back off!" King ordered.

"Aye!" Banks sounded back. His hands flew across the console, fingers keying controls like an expert pianist. Within seconds the Walkway had been jettisoned and the
Defiant
was tearing away from the oncoming
Amarax
.

"Red alert!" King ordered and buckled the safety harness on the captain's chair. "Charge the hull plating and hold off at one thousand kilometres. Get us some distance. I want every instrument trained on that vessel
. . ."

"Aye!"

Jessica stared dead ahead at the mysterious craft and wondered just what it was they had woken from a thousand years' sleep. The giant black cylinder headed away from NA-45 and she knew that even though she'd issued an order to the contrary, there would only be one thing to do:
pursue.

"Dollar was right. We've opened Pandora's box," she whispered, barely audible
above the din of the bridge.

"
Amarax
gaining speed," Chang reported.

"Banks, scrap my original order. There's only one option here. Execute a pursuit course. Do what you have to do to keep up," she ordered. "Close the gap."

"Yes Ma'am."

The comm. unit came to life.

"Bridge, this is Commander Greene,"
his voice heavy with sadness.
"They're all dead."

The Commander had gone to the sickbay shortly after the discovery that it was Cessqa who had left the
Defiant
, only to find Nurse Munoz dead down there. And Frank hadn't been the only one. Cessqa had left a breadcrumb trail of dead crew in her wake.

Jessica's jaw set with anger. She
glared at the behemoth attempting to leave them behind. "Understood, Commander. Return to the bridge."

"Yes, Captain."

The channel closed.

We opened Pandora's box,
Jessica thought.
By the looks of things, we weren't the first. In either case, it's now our responsibility to close it again . . . and at what cost? How many more will die before I put an end to this?

"Contact the
Amarax
whichever way you can," King ordered. "Tell them – tell
her
– she has committed an act of war against the Terran Union. Stand down and prepare to be boarded."

Rayne nodded and set to work. Around Jessica, the bridge was suspended in a deep red light the colour of blood. An emergency klaxon whined somewhere. The crew manned their stations with determination and focus.

"Can we extrapolate their course?" King asked.

Chang set to work. She looked up from her display. "If I had to warrant a guess, based on their current trajectory out of the system, it would appear they're headed for the Chimera Cluster."

Chimera Cluster?
Jessica asked herself.
Where have I heard that before?

"Monitor their course changes," she ordered. "Banks, keep up. Don't let them get too much of a lead on us."

"Aye Captain," Banks said. Ahead of them, the
Amarax
continued to gain distance. "Requesting extra power from engineering."

"Do what you have to do."

2.

"Increase the gain," Chief Gunn told Lieutenant Belcher. "Let's see if we can give them another five percent."

Belcher's face grew tight with concentration as he focused on redirecting energy from other systems, and sending it directly to the engines. Already they were operating at one hundred fifteen percent output.

"Done. Try it," Belcher said.

Gunn's hands flew over her control station as she redirected the energy flow.

"Good work, Gary," she said. "Now keep an eye on it. If we start to see the energy levels spike, we'll have to dial it back. I don't care what they say."

"Last thing we need is an overload. Short of kick-starting a reaction with our bare hands, it'd take at least an hour to get this old bird back on her feet," Belcher said.

The Chief crossed her arms. "Lieutenant, that's not going to happen. Don't be so negative."

"Sorry," Belcher said.

The Chief
began to walk away. The engineering section was a hive of activity. The reactor thrummed through the deck plating, surging with pulses of raw energy. She stopped, turned back around.

"Chief?" he asked, wondering why she'd turned back.

"One thing, Belcher," the Chief told him. "Less of the
old
. She takes it personally."

*

"Anything?" Jessica asked.

Rayne shook her head. "Nothing. Still trying, though."

Up ahead, the
Amarax
continued to speed away from them. "And no change in their heading? You think they're definitely headed for the Chimera Cluster?"

"Yes," Chang said. "Though I couldn't imagine what they'd want in there. Strange choice if you ask me. It's not exactly the safest locale in the galaxy."

Jessica couldn't agree more. She remembered it more fully now, from records she'd read back in her Academy days. The Chimera Cluster was not a place you travelled into lightly. For one thing, there were the accounts of Captain Driscoll's famous exploits in there aboard the
Manhattan
. . .

"However, it is the best place to be if you happen to be hiding something," Banks said from the helm. "Remember what Driscoll discovered in there, back in the day."

"It's no easy feat, navigating the Cluster. But if you know where you're going . . ." King said.

Commander Greene strode back onto the bridge. "Captain."

"Del. Grab a seat. It would appear they're headed for the Chimera Cluster," Jessica told him.

"Really?" he asked incredulously.

She nodded.

"And no answer to our hails?" Greene asked.

"None as yet. At least the
Amarax
doesn't appear to have any weapons. If it did, we'd probably be blown out of the sky by now. As it stands, I think we have that to be thankful for," Jessica said.

"No weapons," Chang said. "Apart from what's on the inside."

It hadn't exactly slipped King's mind that the
Amarax
had a third of its bulk filled to capacity with ships and other tech. Sure, the behemoth didn't have any external weaponry . . . as far as they could tell at that stage. That had obviously never been its intention. The
Amarax
was simply a vessel – an ark; a means of carrying a precious cargo not only through the harsh seas of space, but the currents of time. A vessel so big, so strong, no conventional weapon could harm it.

"Well, she slaughtered half a dozen of our crew to get back on that ship," Commander Greene spat. "I wouldn't put it past her to use some of it. In fact, I'd expect her to."

"You're probably right Del," Jessica said. "We have to bring this Cessqa in as soon as possible. Get some answers."

"If we can catch up with her," Greene noted.

*

The
Amarax
thundered beneath her. It was the trembling of an entire world. Cessqa walked to a nearby console and initiated the thawing sequence for the hibernation pods. All controls aboard the
Amarax
were simplistic, easy to use. The many systems of the giant cylinder were intended to be intuitive, to perform complex functions at the press of a button. And so it was with the hibernation pods.

Cessqa accessed the monitors in the sleeping chamber and made instant note of the empty pods.

The
Amarax
's sensor screens would have recorded any intruders. While the hibernation pods began their activation cycle, Cessqa turned her attention to a different control station, this one with a miniature holo-emitter atop of it. It crackled to life as she scanned the records for the point when the empty pods had been accessed.

Her silvery eyes bulged in surprise as she watched humanoid soldiers enter the
Amarax
, eventually finding the superstructure at the end that housed the bridge, engineering sections and hibernation pods.

They stole my people,
she thought. With each passing moment she became more enraged. Her face twisted into a vile concoction of hatred and anger.
They will pay the ultimate price for what they have done.

She knew those Namarians well. Takahan. Fojitia. Dubelok. All of them fine warriors; ripped from the protective hibernation pods as if they were babies torn from the womb. When the invaders from the
Defiant
had entered the third habitat, the
Amarax
had rightly activated Cessqa's pod. It was protocol. She, as leader, must be the one to wake the others. To assess the situation. But why had that not happened before? She could have stopped them . . .

And what had happened to those who'd been taken? How had the Union treated them? How long had they tortured her people until eventually dismembering them?

It
is what I would have done. Tear them apart to see how their insides worked.

Cessqa slammed her fist down on the console. The metal buckled like a crushed can. It spat hot white sparks in all directions, the holo
-emitter flickered and died.

She had questions but they'd have to wait.

It was time to go back to the hibernation chamber. Ranesh would be one of the first to come around, and she had a lot to tell him. It was not how they had expected to wake. Perhaps her people had been naive to expect those rousing them from a millennia's sleep to be Namarian. They should have considered the possibility that an alien race would stumble upon the
Amarax
and explore what was inside.

But what was done was done. Their work continued. Evidently, the last of the Namar had died away. Consigned to oblivion, like so much dust on the wind.

We are the last of our race,
Cessqa thought. A sense of calm washed over her.
Now the great work of our people continues. We will strike fear into the hearts of those who have forgotten us. And they will know us well when we have enslaved their people and desecrated their homeworlds.

Inside the chamber, Ranesh had indeed woken. The lid of the pod sat wide open. Ranesh lay still within it, but his eyes focused on her as she walked in. Cessqa went to his side. "Old friend."

Ranesh didn't say anything, but recognition showed in his pale white face.

"Our time has come again," Cessqa told him.