Legend

II

It was the fourth planet from the star, nestled in that narrow orbit that allowed human life to flourish. It had been chosen for that reason. Once its land surface had been green and vibrant but now most of the ground had been blasted by the weapons of war. Blackened and broken terrain covered most of the four continents and once-proud cities were battered graveyards. Even the oceans had not escaped unscathed — large areas of the blue seas were tainted black and lifeless sea creatures floated on the surface. Where once a large island had held the Gods’ temple and city, there was only black water, floating debris, and bodies.

The war — actually a revolt — was all but over. In only one place was there still fighting. A walled compound, a mile and a half long by half a mile wide, surrounded a totally flat space. Inside the twenty-foot-high wall, set on a cradle of black metal, was the Airlia mothership, a cigar-shaped craft over a mile long and a quarter mile wide in the center. Its outer hull was also of black metal, but the skin was scarred and blistered from heavy weapons fire and blasts that had struck it.

Outside of the wall came the people. Hundreds of thousands of humans, the survivors of a worldwide army that had once numbered in the billions, surged forward. In the lead were the select few, teams of God-killers armed with the only weapons that could permanently kill their Airlia enemy.

Donnchadh was just behind the front wave of God-killers as they blew holes in the tall black wall that surrounded the landing field. She was a scientist, not a God-killer, but knew she needed to be near the front. They would need to move swiftly if they were to grasp success from the jaws of victory.

The first man through the nearest breach was hit with a golden bolt and knocked backward, dead. As was the second man. The third edged the muzzle of his weapon into the breach and fired blindly for several seconds on full automatic. The God-killers worked in teams of two — one man with an automatic weapon, the other with a sword. A strange, but necessary, combination in order to fight the Airlia.

Her name — Donnchadh — meant eldest daughter of Donn, who had been one of the first rebel leaders. He’d died at the hands of the human high priests who served their alien overlords, crucified on the wooden X, pinned to it by straps of wet leather that dried and squeezed the life out of him over the course of many hours. She’d watched him die over two years ago, as had thousands of other herded by the high priests and Guides who served the Airlia into the open plain in front of the very wall they had just blasted a hole in. The high priests and Guides were all dead now. There was just this last pocket of Airlia to kill and they would be free of the alien influence.

The next pair of God-killers threw themselves through the breach. The firing must have worked as there were no more golden bolts. Donnchadh scrambled after them. The man with the rifle was shooting as he leapt over the body of the alien who had been firing the golden bolts from a long spear clutched in its hands.

The creature was taller than a human, almost seven feet from the top of its head to the soles of its feet. Red hair framed a thin face with ears that had long lobes that stretched almost to its shoulders. The eyes were not human, but catlike and red. The hands that gripped the spear had six long, pale fingers.

Blood was still seeping out of the wounds in the alien’s chest and, from experience, Donnchadh knew they had about five minutes before the creature came back to life and the wounds healed. The second God-killer with the sword was there to ensure that didn’t happen. He swung the weapon with an experienced hand and sliced through the alien’s neck, severing head from body. It was not simply that the head had been removed that prevented the creature from coming back to life. There was something on the edge of the sword, stolen from an Airlia armory, that cauterized the wound and prevented the cells from regenerating as they would from the wound caused by a human-made weapon.

Looking left and right, Donnchadh could see that there were other holes blown in the wall, and more God-killer teams were pouring through them. The prize of the mothership was directly ahead.

The man with the rifle was hit by a golden bolt from an Airlia standing near one of the cradle’s legs. He was knocked backward and went down hard. Donnchadh darted forward and scooped up the rifle. She put the stock to her shoulder and fired as she’d been trained. The recoil of the gun felt satisfying, almost as much as watching the Airlia stagger as the rounds tore into its flesh.

The aliens were trapped. The mothership could not take off because the humans had already taken over the Master Guardian and isolated the ship’s controls. They had destroyed the mothership’s warships, the Talons, one by one over the course of the Revolution. It had cost billions of lives to get to this point. The planet was ravaged, the environment destroyed. Better that than slavery. But Donnchadh believed they had once last chance to make things right, to save her people.

Donnchadh reached the cradle leg and pressed her body tight against the metal. The arc was ten feet wide and deep, towering overhead to the bottom of the starship. The God-killer with the sword met her there, pausing to finish off the alien she had shot. He was a large man, solidly built, with long black hair that hung down almost to his shoulders. His face was like a block of granite, marred only by the fracture of a scar that ran from the corner of his right eye down to his chin.

“Gwalcmai,” he said, introducing himself as he searched the metal with his free hand.

She was doing the same. “Donnchadh.” She found an indentation. “Here.” She grabbed the medallion around her neck and pressed it against the spot. The outline of a door appeared, eight feet high by four wide. It slid open and an elevator beckoned.

“Wait for help,” Gwalcmai advised.

Donnchadh shook her head. “We cannot wait. They may destroy the ship. If it explodes, it will take the continent with it. We have to find out the truth. And the Grail should be inside.” She went into the elevator. Gwalcmai followed without hesitation. The door slid shut and they began to move up the massive strut.

“Too slow,” Donnchadh muttered.

“Be ready.” Gwalcmai nodded toward the door.

They came to a halt. Gwalcmai cursed as the wall behind them opened, catching them by surprise. Both whirled about to face an empty corridor. They edged forward cautiously. The corridor curved slightly to the left and they could only see about fifty feet.

Donnchadh kept the stock of the rifle tight against her shoulder as they moved ahead. The corridor straightened out and they both paused. The corridor extended as far as they could see, apparently running the entire length of the mothership. There was nothing moving. They could also see cross corridors intersecting at regular intervals.

Having been at the lead of a massive army, the two suddenly felt quite isolated. Donnchadh reached into her shirt and pulled out a rolled-up piece of paper. Gwalcmai watched the move, then hurriedly shifted his gaze when she noted him watching. To her surprise, after so much battling and death, she found herself blushing. She brushed away the feeling quickly.

“One of your kind died getting this information,” she said as she unrolled it.

“Many of my kind have died,” Gwalcmai said as he knelt next to her. There were not many God-killers left, so many having been killed in the line of duty. Fighting at the forefront of every attack, as they did, most God-Killers did not expect to live long lives. Either Gwalcmai was very good at what he did or very lucky; most likely both, in order to be alive.

“The engines are centrally located and below,” Donnchadh said as she ran her finger along the map they had captured from an Airlia outpost. “The control room forward.”

Both knew that any surviving Airlia would set some sort of self-destruct, taking out not only the ship but all the humans around it.

“Since we cut off the control room,” Gwalcmai said, “any destruct would have to be done manually.”

Donnchadh stood. “The engine room.”

They ran forward, both slightly hunched over, expecting to be ambushed from one of the side corridors that in their haste they could not take the time to clear. Donnchadh was counting the passageways, trying to stay oriented.

She skidded to a halt and pointed right. “Here.” A short corridor came to a dead end.

“Where—” Gwalcmai began as they moved forward, but he cut off whatever else he was going to say as the section of floor beneath them suddenly began to descend.

Unlike their trip up the strut, this elevator moved swiftly, straight down into the bowels of the ship. Black walls on all four sides sped past. Without a word the two went back-to-back in the center of the platform. Through her sweat-soaked combat uniform Donnchadh could feel the heat of Gwalcmai’s body. A drop of sweat from a strand of his long hair dripped onto her neck.

Their knees flexed as the platform suddenly decelerated. The surrounding walls disappeared as they entered a large open area. The curving bottom of the ship was below them. The chamber was almost a half mile long by a third wide, the bottom slice of the ship. All along the inner edge of the hull running the length of the chamber were long machines — the engines, they had to assume. The surfaces of the machines were striated, composed of long metal strings that had been twisted together.

“There.” Even as she said it, Donnchadh aimed the rifle.

About a hundred meters in front of her, an Airlia stood atop one of the strands, a hatch open in front of it. Donnchadh fired a burst, but her aim was low, the rounds ricocheting off the metal. The creature acted as if nothing had happened, continuing to do whatever it was focused on. Donnchadh pulled the trigger again, but the weapon was empty. In her haste she had forgotten to take extra ammunition from the body.

Gwalcmai didn’t hesitate, rushing past her toward the Airlia. Donnchadh followed, tossing aside the useless weapon and drawing the short black dagger with which she had originally been armed. A ladder was built into the side of the engine strand about halfway between them and the creature and Gwalcmai bounded up it, Donnchadh right behind. Once on top, they had to leap from strand to strand.

The Airlia glanced up and saw them coming. It was not dressed like one of the Airlia soldiers. It wore a white linen robe over which there was a sleeveless shirt of blue and on top of that a long cloak of many colors. The shoulders of the cloak were fastened with what appeared to be glittering stones. Over it was a breastplate covered with more precious stones. On the creature’s head was a crown consisting of three bands.

A gasp escaped Donnchadh’s lips as the Airlia lifted up a chalice-shaped golden object. “The Grail,” she cried out.

Gwalcmai needed no further urging. Every human on the planet knew it was their only hope. The Airlia’s lips were moving as if it were saying some sort of prayer. It set the Grail down on the metal in front of it and reached into the shoulders of the breastplate, removing two glowing stones.

Donnchadh and Gwalcmai were now within twenty meters of the creature. They could clearly see one end of the Grail iris open and the creature place a stone inside. It then flipped the Grail over and did the same on the other side.

Gwalcmai lifted his sword high as he leapt from the last strand to the one on which the Airlia stood. The alien was now holding the Grail out over the open hatch. Gwalcmai swung the sword even as he was still airborne, the blade horizontal, slicing through the Airlia’s neck. As the head toppled from the body, Donnchadh dived low from the last strand, hands outstretched, reaching for the Grail.

Even in the moment of final death, the Airlia’s body did its duty. Its fingers separated, letting go of the Grail. Donnchadh was a fraction of a second too late as the golden object tumbled down into the open hatch. She landed hard, almost falling into the opening herself.

She looked down. There was a pulsing stream of golden power about five meters below. She watched with wide eyes as the Grail hit the stream. There was a flash and the entire ship shook for several moments.

The Grail was gone.

The skin on Donnchadh’s face was red and blistered from the surge in power she had witnessed when the Grail was destroyed. She was in the control room of the mothership, the room filled with other God-killers and scientists. The sense of victory in killing the last of the Airlia was muted by the loss of the Grail, and many a glance was directed at her, accompanied by muttered words.

“It was my fault,” Gwalcmai said, loud enough to be heard not only by Donnchadh but by most in the control room. “I should not have struck as quickly.”

“If you had not, it would have dropped it anyway,” Donnchadh said. “I was too late in—”

A new voice cut him off. “It was no one’s fault.”

A wheelchair-bound woman in a black robe tinged with silver was wheeled into the control room. Everyone inclined their heads toward her as a sign of respect. Her name was Enan and she was the leader of the humans. Her legs and arms were gone, amputated many years ago. She had survived the X-cross and leather bands long enough to be rescued after the Airlia who had put her there thought she was dead and left her body to be picked apart by scavenger birds. Rebels had sneaked up to the cross just after dark and cut her loose. Her limbs, broken and dead from lack of blood, had been removed by a surgeon, and she’d been nursed back to health.

Enan looked slowly back and forth, taking in everyone in the room. “We have done what we did not think we coulddo — we’ve defeated the Airlia. We are free.” With the slightest inclination of her head she indicated for the young woman who pushed her wheelchair to move her to the front of the room. “I have just come from science headquarters. They’ve finally managed to access the history banks of the Master Guardian.”

The room went silent as they waited to hear the truth. Donnchadh felt both fear and anticipation. No one knew when the Airlia had come to this planet and taken over— that was lost in the fog beyond recorded human history. Some said the Airlia had always been here, but Donnchadh and the other scientists did not believe that — the small numbers, the single mothership, and other factors pointed to an occupying force, although why the Airlia had occupied their planet was also a mystery.

Enan closed her eyes and her head drooped slightly as if bearing some terrible weight. With great effort she opened her eyes and lifted her head. “We are not native to this planet as we always thought we were, and the Airlia are not alien invaders who conquered our species long ago in the past.”

A long silence followed this statement, which Enan broke with another startling piece of information. “The Airlia brought us here with them.”

Without even thinking about it, Donnchadh found her hand reaching out and taking Gwalcmai’s as they listened. She was stunned, having never considered the possibility that humans were not native to this planet.

“We always knew that we had certain genetic similarities to the Airlia, given that we breathe the same air and can eat the same food and even appear to be very similar. We thought that was what brought them to this planet and to us. But it is not so. We are similar because we are genetic cousins to them, developed by them. The first humans were grown bythe Airlia through manipulation of their own genetic mapping.”

“Why?” the word escaped someone’s lips.

Enan nodded. “That is the key question and the answer is not a good one. The Airlia have been engaged in an interstellar war against another alien species officially called the Swarm and unofficially the Ancient Enemy. This war has been going on for such a long time that those of our scientists who accessed these data from the Master Guardian could not quantify it. Spread over galaxies, this war seems to have been going on forever as far as we are concerned. At the very least beyond the scope of what we can imagine.

“We are part of a long-range Airlia plan to take part in this war. We were designed to be what we became, rather ironic in a way — soldiers. Except we were supposed to be used against the Swarm, not revolt against the Airlia. When the time came that they needed us, they would have given that generation access to the Grail so we could be better soldiers. Until that time, they kept us mortal, with short life spans. They taught us to worship them as Gods while they bred us like cattle.”

Enan smile grimly. “Except as everyone in this room knows it did not work as they planned. We became more than cannon fodder to be used by them.”

She fell silent, allowing everyone to assimilate this startling and unexpected information.

“That is not all,” Enan finally said. One of the scientists who had entered the room with her went over to the large curving control console for the mothership. He seemed to know what he was doing and Donnchadh had to assume he’d been in physical contact with the Master Guardian and directly learned information about the mothership from the alien computer. How he had done that without being takenover by the alien computer she didn’t know, but Enan had indicated it had been done safely.

They’d captured the Master Guardian two days ago,an assault on a massive underground Airlia outpost that had cost the humans over two hundred thousand casualties. Donnchadh, along with a large force of God-killers and scientists, had immediately been sent to this location to secure the mothership. Donnchadh had been glad to be detached as she had no desire to come into physical contact, which led to mind-to-computer interface, with the alien machine.

The scientist ran his hands over the panel of glowing hexagonal images. They were marked with the Airlia High Runes. The lights in the control room dimmed and the curving display on the front wall flickered, then came alive with images of a star field.

“We are here,” the scientist announced. A star glowed red. “According to the Master Guardian we were not the only planet seeded by the Airlia.” He touched a control. A dozen stars, spread out across the star map also glowed red. “By the time they came here, they had already seeded twelve other worlds. And we don’t know how many were seeded with humans after us.”

Donnchadh had assumed that the Airlia Empire stretched over vast reaches of space, but the spectrum displayed before them was staggering.

“We have won the war,” Enan continued. “But in doing so we have lost much. We may have lost our planet. I will not lie to you. Our initial environmental assessments are not promising. We do have access to the Master Guardian and the knowledge it holds. The hope is that we will find in there the scientific means to reverse what has happened. However”—Enan let the word float through the control room— “we cannot count on that. And we cannot allow our cousinson these other worlds”—she nodded toward the display—“to suffer our fate or the even worse fate of staying under Airlia control.”

Donnchadh’s fingers intertwined with Gwalcmai’s and squeezed tight.

“Therefore,” Enan said, “I propose that we get this mothership in operational condition. We bring in the ruby sphere power source that we captured over a year ago. We select and train as many God-killers and scientists as this ship can hold. Since we destroyed the Talons, we will develop our own spaceships to launch from this mothership to these worlds, with teams on board to help them defeat the Airlia in a safer manner.”

It was time.

The battle for the environment had not gone well. Since the end of the Revolution, the amount of arable land had shrunk to an acreage that could not even sustain a population severely reduced by war. Despite this, scarce resources had been allocated to developing spacecraft to be launched from the mothership.

It had not been easy. The design finally settled upon was much smaller than desired, capable of carrying only two people with their supplies, and having a maximum velocity well short of light speed. They built fifteen of the ships before the deteriorating economy could no longer support the project. The ships were loaded into one of the mothership’s holds.

Other changes had occurred.

Armed guards patrolled the rebuilt wall around the mothership. On the inside were the chosen. On the outside the rest of the survivors. Donnchadh and Gwalcmai were on the inside, paired together by Enan’s council and by their own choice. The result of their personal union was their son, who was on the outside.

They had both seen so much death that despite the condition of the planet the decision to bring forth a life had been mutual. They had held on to the hope that the scientists would find a way to reverse the damage; or that their son would be allowed to come with them when they departed on their mission. Both hopes were now as dry and fruitless as the ash that covered most of the planet.

The parting had been brutal. They left their son in the care of Gwalcmai’s sister, having said their final farewells the previous evening, all knowing they would never see each other again.

As the final countdown for liftoff began, the troops were needed to encircle the launch site to keep out protestors who wanted to stop the launch and those not chosen in the last selection, who desperately fought to be on the ship.

Donnchadh and Gwalcmai were in one of the holds, which were full of others like them and supplies.

“Ten years,” Donnchadh said.

Gwalcmai knew what she was referring to — the best estimate by the scientists for how much longer the planet they were leaving could sustain life.

“At least it will be ten free years,” Gwalcmai said.

Both had argued long and hard with Enan to have their son allowed on board, but the leader had denied them every time. Where they were going and the mission they had been assigned was not amenable to having a child along. Once they deployed from the mothership, there was no room in the smaller spacecraft for a third person. It had been their choice to have a child, knowing their ultimate fate, and Enanhad declared they must accept the consequences of that choice.

The cargo door slowly began to close, cutting off their view of the distant crowd held at bay by the soldiers. Tears streamed down Donnchadh’s face. She knew no matter what her destiny, she would never see her child again.

She had had many discussions with her husband about the future of both the mission and their planet. He had been blunt and honest, as was his nature, hiding any emotions with a focus on preparing for the upcoming mission and the practical matters that had to be dealt with in doing so. But she noted his chest moving rapidly as the cargo door shut and their world disappeared from sight. He kept his face averted from hers as he reached out and put his arm around her shoulders. All on board had left loved ones behind; they were merely an island of misery amid a sea of pain. Large as the ship was, the five thousand chosen were tightly packed on board along with their supplies. Although only thirty would be deployed in teams of two on the fifteen spacecraft, the rest were put on board to populate any unoccupied planet amenable to human life that the craft found on its journey. In this way the line of their people could go on. If such a planet could be found quickly, perhaps the ship could be sent back to get more.

At the appointed moment, the ship lifted out of its cradle without a sound. It moved upward, accelerating through the planet’s polluted atmosphere until it was in the vacuum of space and out of sight of the millions of eyes on the planet’s surface who watched it with mixed emotions. It continued to accelerate conventionally away from the planet and the system star’s gravitational field.

After two years of travel, the star’s field was negligible and the mothership was moving at three-quarters of the speed of light. It was also far enough away that those on board hopedany sign of its passage would not be linked back to their home world and bring the Swarm.

At that point the mothership’s interstellar drive was engaged. With a massive surge of power as great as that of a brief supernova, the ship shifted into faster-than-light travel and snapped into warp speed.