The Terran Mandate (5 page)

Old Scrolls

Shoan'fal crested a low rise to find
himself looking down at nothing more than a boxy structure jutting up from the
ground. Moonlight glinted off its smooth surface, giving it a cold sterile
sheen. At first glance, it resembled one of the prefab buildings the humans had
brought with them, but this was different. He pulled the Revealer from the bag
slung over his shoulder and held it in his palm. He pointed it at the building
and a green glow pulsated on the face of the device. He turned to point the
device away and the glow dimmed. His antennae fluttered and a grin crept onto
his mouth just beneath his snout. His body surged with a shiver of glee and he
looked into the sky above him to let out a long sigh of satisfaction.

He trundled down the hill until he was
close enough to touch the structure. He stared at it for a moment and then
carefully placed his hand against the wall. It felt cold and sucked the warmth
from his hand. He stepped around the corner to find a slab of the same material
lying on the ground. There was an opening in the wall where the slab had once
been a door. He peered carefully through the opening and saw nothing but black.
His snout jutted out in front of him and he sniffed the air as he poked his
walking stick through the opening. Holding the stick out in front of him, he
stepped into the building and padded his way across the floor until the tip
clicked on the far wall.

Wind swept past the building and wisps
of sand swirled in through the door, but he could only hear the silence of the
room. He tapped the wall with his walking stick and walked forward until he
bumped into a shelf jutting from the wall. He brushed its surface with his hand
and jumped back when it came to life with a dull glow. As the shelf brightened,
symbols began to emerge. He recognized some of them as names for villages he
knew. Others he had never seen before. Circles of varying sizes were drawn next
to the names. Some were a simple black circle while the rest were colored in
red. Lines snaked in between many of them while the whole picture was overlaid
with a series of lines crossing each other over the entire screen.

The glow from the display washed the
room with just enough light to reveal a smooth surface embedded in the wall
above the shelf. He leaned forward and tapped the surface with a claw. Nothing
happened. He pressed his palm against the surface. Now, a blue glow shimmered
on the surface and traced a thin haze around the outline of his hand and
fingers. He drew a breath and held it, closing his eyes. A part of him still
cowered at the warning against the ancient words. They were words that would
unravel the world and plunge it into the darkness of an ancient past. The words
hadn't changed, but their meaning probably had. Words to be spoken by his
ancestors from countless generations before had become a shrine to the
Forbidden. Why would such words be remembered?  Knowledge of such things was
never without purpose. He opened his eyes. His mouth was dry and his voice
quavered as he spoke words that had not been heard by Shoahn' ears for more
time than anyone knew.

A metallic click filled the room,
followed by a faint hum as the surface unlatched and slid up into the wall to
reveal a shallow alcove. The case sitting inside stared back at him. Small
enough for a man to carry with one hand, its brushed metallic surface was
embossed with a  blue triangle. He tugged at the handle fastened to the top and
it tipped forward. Heavier than he expected, it fell on the shelf with a thud.
Startled, Shoan'fal took a step back and his snout quivered. He eyed the case
for a moment, waiting to see if it would do something. His breath came in short
pants as he approched the shelf and groped around the edges of the case,
tugging at the seam. His hands brushed across an indentation. He dug into the
indentation and tugged at the latch holding the case closed. He gasped when it
snapped open. He tugged at the case some more, but it still wouldn't open. He
found another indentation and opened the second latch, which allowed him to
pull the top of the case back on its hinges and stare down at its contents.

The case was lined with a synthetic
black material that he was able to push in with his finger. A video tablet was
nestled into the lining, next to a thin black box with metallic tabs protruding
from each edge. Again, it all seemed similar to what the humans had brought to
his world, but was still different somehow. The markings next to the thin
buttons on the bezel of the tablet were in the ancient form of the Shoan'
language that only priests were taught. The tablet itself was bulky and less
elegant than what the humans used. His people didn't make things like this. The
Shoan' were people who made carts from cord wood and lit the night with torches
and candles. And yet, here he was, staring at something so far beyond all of
that, but clearly from his world. Nobody had brought this to Shoahn'Tu. It had
been here for generations beyond counting. A tingle of excitement welled up
inside him. It had been waiting for somebody who dared step beyond the gates of
the Forbidden to rekindle its power. It had been waiting for him.

He pressed one of the buttons on the
tablet and the screen came to life. The words were written cryptically and he
had to concentrate to read the ancient dialect. As he read, he began to
understand why only priests were allowed to learn the ancient tongue. His heart
started to hammer as he realized that he was reading the source of all the
mythology he had been taught about the Time Before and why he and every Shoan'
had been warned to never set foot in the Fallen.

He had found the Old Scrolls.

He licked his leathery lips and a low
rumbling purr poured out from his chest and through his snout as he continued
to read. It all flowed through him and came together in a single vision that he
now knew was his destiny.

He was going to set the world on fire.

Dark Winds

Shahn'dra crawled across the dirt floor
towards the radio. Her vision was blurred and her head was spinning from the
visions that flooded her mind's eye. Instinctively, she unfurled her antennae
to project a defensive aura to shut the visions out. But it was forbidden. She
smoothed her antennae back down, but they seemed to have a life of their own
and sprang back up to protect her as she struggled to keep from unleashing the
full strength of her aura. If her mother hadn't collapsed on the floor behind
her, she probably would have just let the visions consume her until they were
done with her.

She groped for the power switch and
flicked on the radio. Static poured from the speaker, along with a round hum
that slowly rose in pitch. She grabbed one dial and twisted it until the needle
in the display moved under a red mark etched just above the window. A stark
image infested her mind - visions of fires climbing out of the towering cord
trees outside blinded her completely and she let out a whimper as she fumbled
with the radio. She clutched at the microphone hooked to its side, but couldn't
pull it free. The fire in her mind blazed out of control and all her strength
drained from her. She collapsed to the floor with a groan.

It was forbidden. Something deep inside
clawed at her mind, desperate to escape and run wild. She was blind. She
couldn't feel the ground. All she could hear was the roar of the fire that
threatened to consume her sanity. She let her antennae unfurl to their full
extension and unleashed the forbidden from its cage. The visions blurred as her
mind pushed back against the intruder. The radio came back into view and she
lunged for the microphone, ripping it from its hook.

She squeezed the transmit key on the
side and shrieked into the grill. "Two Bravo Delta, Two Bravo Delta,
Crimson Sunshine, over." She let go of the key and strained to listen for
the response. Static floated out from the radio as the visions kept swirling in
her mind. She kept them close enough to the edge of her awareness that she
could still see the radio, but she didn't know how long she could hold them
back. She whimpered and keyed the microphone again. "Two Bravo Delta, Two
Bravo Delta, Crimson Sunshine, Broken Arrow -" She lost her grip on the
microphone and it fell to the ground. She rolled over on her back and tears
welled up in her eyes. Her body shuddered with a sob and her snout tucked
itself tightly against her chin. She thrashed the ground with her hand,
searching for the microphone.

The fire roared into the sky. Buildings
she had never seen before collapsed and were swept away by a harsh wind that
swept across the land. Faces she had never known looked at her, imploring her
to help and then disappeared behind a wall of flame. An avalanche of screams
poured over her and suffocated her as they sucked the air away from the sky.
Then she was alone, standing in an endless sea of smoke and wind.

She found the microphone and tugged it
towards her face. She keyed the microphone just as the vision broke through an
invisible wall and wrapped itself around her entire being.

"Help me."

Warning

The throttle was already jammed against
its forward stop and the jump jet's engines whined with the strain of running
at full power. Major Sam Walker pushed the throttle grip in his left hand forward
anyway, huffing when it wouldn't move any further. Captain Holt, his Executive
Officer, sat in the right hand seat monitoring the navigational display. Petty
Officer Graham, the unit's chief corpsman, sat in one of the two passenger
seats behind them; his eyes were a little too wide as the Paladin flung the
craft through the towering spires of cord trees that stood between them and the
Pyramid.

Major Walker keyed the intercom.
"Try again, Captain."

Holt checked the frequency readout on
the floor console between him and Major Walker and squeezed the microphone key
in the chord attached to his headset. "Crimson Sunshine Crimson Sunshine
Two Bravo Delta is inbound two minutes, please acknowledge." He let go of
the key and waited. He glanced at Walker and shook his head. "Crimson
Sunshine, key your mic twice if you can hear me."

Major Walker tried again to push the
throttle forward as Holt eyed the engine status monitor in the center console.
"Inter-turbine's getting a little warm boss."

"We're almost there," Walker
said. The squealing whine from the turbines slowly rose in pitch. "I hear
it. We'll be alright."

The jumpjet shot out from the cord trees
towards a rising slope. As they crested the rise, the Pyramid rose up before
them. A blue haze of light permeated its sloping sides from the inside as it
stood sentinel over the sun-baked ground, waiting for somebody who had long
forgot it was there.

The lone hut sat nestled in its shadow
on the edge of another island of cord trees. Walker pitched up the jet's nose
and settled into an approach course. "Flaps 10," he commanded. Holt
reached down to the center console and clicked the flap lever to its first
position. The whir of electric motors filled the cockpit as the inboard
trailing edge of the jet's wings slid out. The digital readout of the radar
altimeter flickered to life as they descended below 1000 meters.
"Gear." Holt pulled down the gear handle in the main console,
rewarded by a low hum and then the sound of metal latches as the landing struts
unfolded from the airframe.

"Three green" Holt said,
confirming the landing skids were locked in position.

"Ball" Walker said. Holt
pushed a button on the strip at the top of the front console deck and twisted a
knob until a reticle appeared on the front canopy and settled over a point on
the ground just short of the hut.

"Call it," Holt said.

"Roger Ball."

Holt pressed the button again to lock
the landing marker in place. As two additional markers appeared above and below
it, Major Walker worked the control stick to keep the reticle centered between
them. As the craft reached just ten feet over the ground, the reticle flashed
green. He pressed a button on the throttle and the side turbines swung down to
hold the craft off the ground as the rear turbines kicked off. The craft slowed
to a near standstill and he eased the throttle back, allowing the craft to
float to the ground and ease its weight onto the skids. He pulled the throttles
all the way back and flipped off the ignition switches just behind the rear
stops.

All three men unbuckled their flight
harnesses as the canopy hissed open. Major Walker looked over his shoulder and
said to Petty Officer Graham, "Sit tight." He and Holt hopped out on
either side of the craft and crouched down. They each unbuckled a storage box
on either side of the craft to remove field glasses and their P-28 short barrel
carbines. Holt scanned the hut and the surrounding area with his binoculars
while Major Walker picked up a magazine for his weapon.

"Nothing out there," Holt
said.

Walker clicked the magazine into his
weapon and smacked the bottom to make sure it was firmly seated. "Alright,
cover," he said. Holt shouldered his weapon while Major Walker trotted
towards the hut. When he arrived at the door, he crouched down and waved for
Holt to follow. He showed his hand and then curled three fingers down,
signaling Graham to move up as well. The corpsman unbuckled his flight harness,
jumped to the ground behind Holt, and followed the XO as he ran up to join
Major Walker.

The hut was little more than a shack
made from twigs cut from a cord tree and welded together with clay. The door
hung on hinges made from strands of the tree's sinewy bark. Walker knocked and
called out, "Shahn'." There was no answer. The only sound from inside
was static hissing from the radio he had given her. He pushed the door open and
peeked inside. Shahn'dra sat against the far wall staring blankly at the dirt
floor while her mother slept on a strip of blanket on the floor.
"Shahn'," he called again, but the girl did not seem to hear him.

Major Walker shouldered his weapon and
stood up. As the three men stepped inside, he signaled for Graham to check on
Shahn'dra's mother while he stepped over to the radio and switched it off. Holt
crouched down in front of Shahn'dra and unfastened a small flashlight from his
belt. He snapped it on and pointed the light into her eyes, but she still did
not respond.

"Major," Petty Officer Graham
said, pointing at Shahn'dra's mother.

Walker knelt down next to her and asked,
"What's the story here, Doc?"

"I'm afraid she might be in a coma,
sir. Or close to it."

"Stim pack," Walker said.
Graham looked at him for a moment, as if he wanted to say something. "What
else have we got?" Walker asked.

"Alright, sir," Graham said,
digging through his pack to retrieve a small gray plastic kit. A faint whine
filled the air as he placed it on her leathery forehead and tapped it. A web of
thin wires extended from its innards and then latched onto her skin. Graham
removed a small monitor from his pack and tapped the screen. He sucked his
breath in through his teeth as the monitor lit up with readings from the wires
now probing everything from her heart rate to her alpha wave brain patterns.

"What you got?" Walker asked.

"Let's give it a minute to
stabilize, sir," Graham said.

The woman moaned softly as the stim pack
hummed and buzzed with the small electric currents it sent through its web of
leads.

"Shoahn'Kra," Walker
whispered. He put his hand on her shoulder and glanced at Graham. The corpsman
nodded. "Can you hear me?"

Her breathing deepened and her
expression turned from a waxy mask of near death to one of growing pain.
"Doc," Walker hissed.

"It's alright sir. She's coming out
of it."

"Is she in pain?"

"Yes, sir. That's a good thing
right now. I can give her something once this all evens out."

"Shoahn'Kra," Walker repeated.

The woman gulped and then drew in a
stiff breath. Her voice was little more than a harsh croak.
"Dren'Vil," she said. She took another breath and repeated the word.
The furrows of pain on her face tightened as she repeated the word, over and
over. "Dren'Vil."

"That's enough," Walker said.

"Negative, sir," Graham said.
He nodded at Shahn'dra, whose lips quietly repeated the word each time her
mother spoke. All they could do was wait as the two women worked their way back
from whatever void they had fallen into.

"Here we go, sir," Graham
said. He studied his monitor for a moment more and then said, "I have a
shot." He tapped an entry into the small numeric keypad on the monitor and
hit the COMMIT key. Shoahn'Kra gasped and then her eyes flew open, round
bulbous orbs staring once again into nothing more than the emptiness of the
room.

"Shahn'dra," she called out.

"Here Mama," the girl answered.

"Are you safe, child?"

"I'm sorry Mama. I have -"
Tears welled up in her eyes. "I know what I have done is forbidden."

Shoahn'Kra took several deep breaths as
the stim pack worked to stabilize her metabolism. She looked in Walker's eyes
and showed him something he had never seen in her before: fear. "It is
never forbidden to defend yourself, child," she said.

Graham tapped the keypad to transfer a
new sequence to the stim pack. "Think I've got it, sir," he said. The
monitor gave a single low chime and the stim pack shut down. "She's all
yours, sir."

"The pain?"

Petty Officer Graham pulled a small vial
of liquid from his pack and snapped it open. Placing his hand gently behind
Shoahn'Kra's neck, he raised the vial to her lips and said, "This won't taste
very good, but you'll feel better." The woman nodded, raising her snout
slightly so he could pour the vial's contents into her mouth, and then gulped
down the liquid. Her face screwed up in a grimace of displeasure and Graham
smiled. "She'll be fine now, sir."

"Thanks Doc. Well done,"
Walker said. He looked into the woman's eyes and asked her, "What the hell
happened here?"

"Dren'Vil," she said.

He smiled. "We heard that part. Can
you tell me what that means?"

Shahn'dra spoke up from the other side
of the room. "It's- Dark Winds. They are forbidden."

"I can see why," Walker said.

Shahn'dra shook her head and fluttered
her snout, then stood up and crossed the room to sit down next to him. "It
is a way of thinking, of sharing thoughts," she said.

"I've heard of that," he said.

"The sharing is forbidden, but so
are the thoughts that came. They are the Dark Winds."

"Why would somebody share their, um
- Dark Winds, if they're forbidden?" he asked.

"Because they cannot be hidden if
they are too strong. If you lose control of them." She swooned and Graham
caught her before she fell back.

He pulled a small plastic bottle of
water from his pack and broke the seal. "Here," he said, holding out
the bottle. She cradled it with both hands and then uncurled her snout through
the opening to drain it dry.

"Thank you," she said, handing
him the empty bottle. Graham quietly tucked it back into his pack. "These
came from Shoahn'Fal," she continued, "a priest who once sat with the
Pyramid as my mother and I do now."

"So you know him."

"Yes. And he knows us." She
peered into Walker's eyes and unfurled her antennae. "This, too, is
forbidden, but you must understand," she said.

"It's fine. I trust you."

Her antennae fluttered and then swayed gently
over her head as she looked into his eyes. A vision flashed through his mind.
The world went white and then the air swept over him in a wave of searing heat.
The white faded and became a rolling orange ball that boiled into the sky.
Everything around him burst into flame and was swept back into a roaring column
of smoke and fire that rose into the sky and blacked out the sun. The Paladin's
heart stopped as he realized what he was watching. Just as quickly as it had
entered his mind, the vision was gone.

She wrapped her clawed fingers around
his arm. Still staring into his eyes, she said, "He must not come
here."