Erupea

CHAPTER 1

 

Kalaire

 

Year 15,769 BCE

Planet Ezketuan
148 Light-Years from Home

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Kalaire massaged her temples, reciting in her head the unquestionable truth. Imszoranians never fail. She’d been raised on that dogma. On the belief that failure wasn’t just unacceptable, it was impossible. Any unexpected outcome called for embracing optimism and couldn’t be fathomed as a loss, but a gain.

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Always a gain.

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She leaned back, exhaling as she reviewed the data on her holographic display. Another a null result. It could only be viewed as one less hypothesis to test, moving her closer to a cure for the Mind Rift.

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“SID,” she said, barely able to muster up the energy to speak. “Log the results. We’ll move on to the next one.”

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“Logged,” said SID, the system AI.

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Fighting a yawn, she pulled a tray of specimen cups toward her, determination serving as the only fuel she had left. For the third night in a row, restlessness drove her out of bed, her head cluttered with ideas that just couldn’t wait for morning. The pattern had progressed, increasing until one night a week became two. Sustainable for a time. So, she pushed it to three, believing she could manage. After all, embracing optimism dictated she drag herself back into the lab countless nights, even though each one of those nights ended with a sunrise and every hypothesis she’d tested was exhausted.

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“What am I missing?” she muttered, sifting through the data from the last analysis, stubbornly refusing to let it go.

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The condition they called the Batasurna Mind Rift wasn’t a disease. Her race had long since eradicated any form of disease, along with the possibility of it. She sometimes wondered if the Mind Rift was a curse cast on them by the dioses as a way to prove themselves worthy of their natural-born abilities. But even curses had antidotes, she’d convinced herself.

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Whatever it was, it would some day be a triviality. One solid year of work behind her gave her confidence that the data would soon reveal the elusive solution. It had to. Because the ache in her gut only grew stronger every time she saw someone going through the Mind Rift. Every time she witnessed the decay of a lucid mind and the fraying of reality that followed.

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The bleak mental vision summoned a pensive sigh. Sitting alone in a quiet lab should have brought her clarity, but the lack of sleep had finally caught up with her. Silence punctuated her mind like an erratic pulsar, spinning up a swirl of betraying thoughts that threatened to upend her, asserting that false hope had beguiled her resolve.

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She couldn’t let that happen.

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One more, then bed, she thought, instantly losing her train of thought the moment her eyes centered on the display panel. She stared, unfocused on the data.

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Her eyes needed something else to land on. To help her regroup. To let her mind become still, allowing the swirl of negativity to settle like sediment at the bottom of an ocean. She raised her arms to stretch, surveying the lab as if expecting to find some invisible lab tech at a distant station churning through data and hoarding all the answers for himself.

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As always, the room was empty, except for the rows of worktables and analysis stations scattered throughout the vast space, each equipped with instruments connected to the galaxy’s foremost research and analysis system. An uninspired person might’ve been disconcerted that a system like that, in all its powerful glory, hadn’t yet discovered the solution.

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To Kalaire, that kind of thinking would only hinder the search for truth.

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“SID,” she said, unscrewing a lid on a specimen cup, “run a heavy metal screening on the next sample. Look for elevations in toxic compounds before passing the sample onto the next screening.”

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As she swiped her finger through the air, sliding to the next display panel, an alert popped up on the display. The facility alarm blared. She tensed, her eyes flicking to the exit.

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LOCKDOWN.

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Red warning lights flashed through the lab, glowing off workstation consoles and equipment. The automated system blasted an emergency message on repeat. “Attention. Facility breach. South entrance.”

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“What?” she muttered, opening a channel on her workstation console. “SID, what’s going on?”

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“Facility breach. South Entrance,” SID repeated.

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She lacked the patience to tolerate SID’s literal account. The AI system could at least embody a truer version of his name, Simulated Intelligent Design.

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“Yes, I heard that. Who?” she asked.

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“Field Medic Larmarrak Henthrond.”

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She stared through the floating panel, her mind blank. “He’s one of us. How’s this a breach?”

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“Henthrond has been identified as a Batasurna mate in the early stages of the Mind Rift.” SID’s emotionless response contradicted the severity of the words.

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Her head jerked back. “What? Where’s security?”

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“Already on the way.”

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One of us? The notion needed to ferment for a moment. From her peripheral vision, the lab’s black steel walls closed in, swelling with each red pulse of the emergency lights. “SID, turn off the alarm in here. I can’t think,” she said, her reflexive response slow to kick in.

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The siren from the corridor continued to wail, the muted discord filtering into the void of the lab. She set her sights on the security panel. “Bring up views of the South Entrance corridor.” The display split into four views, each showing a different angle of an empty hall. “How far did he make it inside?”

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“Almost to the habitat wing. He is currently being restrained.”

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“Show me.”

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The display switched to a view of five security officers, two of them binding an unconscious male flat on the floor. She watched as they lifted the male onto a hover gurney and steered him down the hallway.

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Henthrond, she thought. A young Imszoranian male who’d been eager to join the expedition team bound for Ezketuan to study Batasurna, an ancient sacred soul bond between two people that had appeared as far back as twenty of her home planet’s years, or universal years, as the Spiral’s inhabitants called them.

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In the beginning, little was known about Batasurna. As memories resurfaced between the reconnected mates over time, society came to understand it as a union of souls, or a balancing of energy, that was created while in physical form, transcending across lifetimes. At first, the bonds were peaceful, but something shifted, causing unimaginable violence in a mate after their partner died.

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The flashing panel by the exit flicked off, and a follow-up automated message sounded through the lab. “Attention. Station lockdown has been lifted.”

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“Kalaire,” boomed her boss’s voice over comms, his curt tone incongruous to his typical repose.

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She flinched, bracing against the desk. “Go ahead.”

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“Meet me at the Security Main Office.”

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Already on her feet, she straightened her fitted blue uniform, silently collecting herself. “On my way.”

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Ganix, the mission director responsible for all seven science facilities on the planet, designated the largest site, Eru 1—which studied mates sent from planet Erupea—as mission headquarters. Kalaire served under him as mission team director, running operations at the Eru 1 facility. This meant that when things went awry, she’d be held accountable.

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The security office was usually a good five-minute walk from her lab, however at her current pace, she’d make it in record time. Even though the morning shift wouldn’t begin for another four hours, the unexpected ruckus had roused people from their beds and into the halls, and the chatter was loud.

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Swift steps gained momentum down the corridor, her mind reeling the entire way as the thud of her footfalls pounded in her eardrums regardless of her soft-soled shoes. The jaunt left little time to appraise the situation. She couldn’t help but wonder how she’d missed a Batasurna match, although it wasn’t the right time to chastise herself for being so caught up in her trials that she could have passed over something obvious. Still, it didn’t stop her from filing through everything before she faced the situation head-on.

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As she reached the entrance of the main security office, the door swept open, and her eyes went straight to Ganix, his tall stature leaning against the front of a tidy ergo-desk, legs crossed at the ankles and arms folded over.

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“I know you’re angry,” she said, charging in. Her comment contradicted the reserve in his visage.

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“Chief, can you give us a minute?” Ganix asked, his innocuous question stifled by his clenched jaw, revealing her assertion was truer than he let on.

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Kalaire always thought the personality of the room matched its owner, Security Chief Vanraul Berano. Plain and uninteresting. The office, scarce of any adornments that might suggest a minuscule amount of charm, had a gray loveseat butted up to one wall and a holo-photos collection of antique weapons displayed on the other. Enough to declare occupancy. Not enough to draw anyone’s interest.

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She glanced at Berano, his dull ash brown hair uncharacteristically tousled.

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“What happened to you?” she asked, her eyes assessing the fresh scratches down his face.

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“What do you think?” Berano’s glare lingered on Kalaire, a mix of contempt and arrogance burning in his cold, dark eyes. She could never shake the feeling that his eyes brimmed with hints of untold secrets. He sauntered past her, close enough to use his tall, muscular frame to loom over her as he walked by.

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Drascker, she thought, as Berano slipped out of view. With the sound of the door swooshing closed behind her, she swallowed hard.

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“How’d this happen?” Ganix asked, his voice restored to a calm and familiar tone. Rarely rattled, he was the rock of the expedition—one thing she appreciated about him. While he often allowed a casual atmosphere in the facility, everybody knew who the boss was when he walked into a room.

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She shook her head. “I don’t know. Yet, anyway. But I’m on it. I’ll have the answer to you before sunrise.”

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He ran his hand over his sable brown hair, not a strand out of place despite the time of night. “Larmarrak could have killed someone. In fact, he may already have. I need you to call everyone in from the field.”

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“Of course. Right away.” Her fingernails dug into her palms, her grip tightening to strangle the unease. She’d convinced herself she had been thorough and attentive to her staff. Missing something like this threw her into disarray, causing both her words and thoughts to stumble over each other.

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“Kalaire,” he said, his baritone timbre lightening up a notch. “This can’t happen. Why wasn’t their Batasurna bond discovered? We have psychologists for this. And protocols.”

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The tension holding her body hostage should have eased in response to his subdued tone—an attempt that could be passed off as a comforting gesture from a man of steel—but she couldn’t stop beating herself up over the situation. “I’ll be checking with the psychologist first thing to find out. It should have been caught. Do we know what happened to his mate?”

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He shrugged, passive enough, yet the stiffness in his shoulders spoke a different language. “Not yet. We don’t know who she is. Or was, rather.”

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Was.

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That was a direct blow to her heart. Someone died on Kalaire’s watch. Someone she probably knew. She nodded, gulping down the bile burning her throat.

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“Understood. Is Larmarrak still lucid?”

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Ganix relaxed his arms, resting his palms on the edge of the desk behind him. “Barely.”

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“I want to talk to him.”

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He jerked his chin up. “Let’s see if we still can.”

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She spun around, heading out ahead of him. In the hallway, Berano casually leaned against the wall as if he were already bored.

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“We want to see him,” she said, her confident posture unaligned with her emotions.

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“M’all right. He’s in Cell 2,” Berano drawled. “Don’t think you’re going to get much out of him though.”

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“We’ll see,” she said, willing her voice to stay steady.

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Berano kicked off the wall and moseyed past her, his face pulled tight. She tipped her chin up, locking her eyes with his, refusing to let him think he intimidated her. Even if it were true at times.

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As they neared the brig, disjointed grunts and incoherent shouts echoed from inside. Berano stopped at the cell block door and touched his index finger against the DNA reader. Without acknowledging her or Ganix, he walked in ahead of them, disregarding the proper decorum to respect his superiors.

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Her blood boiled, but dealing with Berano’s transgressions would have to wait. Other than the two guards standing across from the occupied cell, the block was empty.

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Six cells made up the small brig, three on either side, each one only wide enough for a bed and a bio-receptacle. At the time of construction, it seemed sufficient, yet several times every cell had been full, and the overflow moved to the brig of their interstellar science ship, the zoomdo-lab.

​

As they entered the room, Larmarrak flew into a rage. He gripped the steel bars, pushing and pulling himself against them, his body writhing. With an echoing roar, he threw a double-fisted punch between the bars, his attempt to break through thwarted by the energy shield. Squealing, he yanked his arms back, his teeth clenched as he gurgled.

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Berano dismissed the guards, then made himself comfortable against the wall at the opposite end.

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Face distorted, Larmarrak staggered back. His pained expression made Kalaire’s stomach twist. Given his advanced state, communicating with him would be a challenge. She hoped to connect with him through telepatia, a thought exchange method intrinsic to her race, to understand what happened. Her mind reached out to him, unsure whether he’d receive the request. Both his wrists were bound by chacks, an energy device that not only restricted his movement but blocked any form of energy manipulation, including telepatia.

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Careful not to jar him, she gently brushed against his mind, and for a brief second, he revealed to her the breaking of the Batasurna bond.

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It had snapped.

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Hard.

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The flash of agony he revealed almost brought her to her knees. An unbearable yearning mixed with grief and rage. No matter how many times she’d seen a Batasurna mate going through the Mind Rift, she still couldn’t prepare herself for it.

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The young Imszoranian’s mind teetered at the brink of chaos. Thoughts knotted together to form one indecipherable tangle of frayed ends. He shot her a glare, instantly clamping down on the connection, though he’d let loose a tinge of shame shading the break. His eyes captured her, already beginning to change, as they did when Mind Rift set in. They became empty, as if the eyes were the first thing to be stolen from a life.

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She wanted so badly to help him. To take the pain away. To find a drascking cure.

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Their mission focused on understanding the fracturing of lucidity, leading to insanity in Batasurna mates. The cause was thought to be an imbalance of energy in the body, however methods of how to treat it were in dispute. Lack of progress stemmed from a source of contention among the scientists. Some scientists believed that studying the affected survivor was the only way to find a cure, while other scientists believed that studying the affected survivor violated their code of ethics.

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Torture, they called it.

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Kalaire argued for a middle ground. No one wanted to find a cure more than her, but she also couldn’t stand to see them suffering. She imagined it like a soul being twisted inside their body and then torn apart, one irrational thought at a time.

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The result? Predators. Vicious, indiscriminate killers.

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In the end, Ganix made the final call and decided that keeping a surviving mate awake couldn’t be a viable option. Unlike the other races living among the planets in their home star system, the Spiral, only Imszoranians could manipulate energy with their minds. Energy harnessing, they called it. And for reasons yet unknown, a surviving Batasurna mate’s ability to wield energy as a weapon from their fingertips had grown stronger than the average Imszoranian. Ganix considered it too much of a risk.

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“Henthrond,” she said softly. “Larmarrak Henthrond.”

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She remembered him as a gentle field medic with endearing qualities and a quirky personality, cracking jokes to distract patients. Once, while out in the field collecting samples, she’d broken her ankle, and he told her to look at the ground sometimes instead of wandering aimlessly. On the way back to the zoomdoer hovercraft to complete a healing cycle on her injury, she leaned on him while walking and laughed at her admission that she’d been daydreaming after all.

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Now, Kalaire looked at him through the bars of his cell, wondering if he was still inside his body somewhere or if something otherworldly had taken him hostage.

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His empty eyes grew into black globes, his grunts falling silent except for a low hum from between his tightly pressed lips. She wondered if he had gone still after recognizing her. Gripping the bars tighter, drool pinched out of the corners of his mouth and streamed down his chin. Purple circles had formed under his eyes, and dark blood vessels spider-webbed across his skin.

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“Who was your mate?” she asked, her voice unassuming.

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His eyes flicked to Berano. An unnatural screech pierced her eardrums. She flinched, taking half a step back.

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Larmarrak stuttered, as if the last remaining bits of his rational side were trying to force their way to the surface. “T-t-t-ddddd.”

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“Tadessi?” Kalaire asked.

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His eyes narrowed on Kalaire, baring his teeth at her like an animal ready to shred her apart for merely speaking his mate’s name. Tadessi Minradda, a microbiologist Kalaire had worked alongside many times.

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“What happened to her, Larmarrak?” she asked.

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He threw his head back with a blood-curdling scream, wrenching on the bars, his head shaking from front to back and cheek muscles twitching.

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“Larmarrak,” said Kalaire, pulling for his attention. “What happened to her?”

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“We’re never going to know,” Berano sneered. “All we definitively know is she’s dead.”

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He wasn’t wrong, but he didn’t have to be so callous about it.

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Larmarrak’s body started to convulse. His grip on the bars released, and he staggered backward, his head lolling across his shoulders until his eyes locked on the black steel wall. He lunged at it and slammed his forehead into it with an awful bang, the wall ringing like the clang of a pipe. Rivers of blood gushed down his face.

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“Stop him,” she said, turning to Berano. “He’s going to kill himself.”

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“He’ll be better off,” said Berano.

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She raised her voice. A rarity. “That’s an order!”

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Unfazed, Berano lackadaisically pulled the chacks control device from his pocket and pecked at the mini-screen. Larmarrak fell to his knees, his grunts softening as his eyelids turned heavy. Leaning forward, he landed on his palms, then slumped to the floor with a thud.

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A young man in his prime. A good medic. A solid future. Now only a shell of him remained.

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There was a time when Kalaire dreamed of finding her own eternal mate, though not everyone was guaranteed to have one. After the Mind Rift appeared and the massacre on Space Station 3 took the lives of too many, she prayed to be one of the lucky ones who had never bonded in a past lifetime.

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Kalaire glanced at Ganix, standing to her side, his arms crossed as he brooded at Larmarrak crumpled up in a heap.

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“I’ll see if we can find her body and determine how she died,” she said, the ache in her chest somehow deeper than the scowl on his face. It had to have affected him too, though she’d be the first to argue he’d never admit it. Ganix was solid. He had to be.

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The whole situation felt like a gut punch. Not only had she lost two of her own scientists, but she’d hoped no more Batasurna pairings would show up. To her dismay, the arrival of fully loaded passenger ships transported from the Spiral every month supported evidence that the pairings were only increasing.

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Ganix gave her the side-eye. “You’ll have to work fast.” His stance suggested there was something behind the urgency in his voice.

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“What’s going on?” she asked.

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“Let’s go to my office and talk,” he said, waving her toward the exit.

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***

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The door to Ganix’s office had barely shut behind her before he started to speak. “We’re being recalled.” He rounded the other side of his desk and sank into the dark plum upholstered chair.

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The comment nearly swept her off her feet. She anchored them in place between two plush gray armchairs facing his desk. “Recalled?”

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He frowned, the grooves between his brows pronounced as he gestured for her to sit. “I found out a few hours ago and was going to have a meeting about it in the morning.”

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She balanced on the edge of the cushion, her body rigid as she tried to process his words. “Why? Is it because of the war?”

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“That’s just it. There was no why. The order came over the emergency alert system through SID directly to me. Text only.”

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None of it made sense. They’d never received orders through the emergency alert system. “Who issued it?” she asked.

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“Empress Azkeena herself.”

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Her eyes bulged. “Azkeena? Since when does she involve herself in menial tasks like that?”

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“Good question.”

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“Did you try to contact the mission command center at the Royal Science Headquarters?” She knew the question was ridiculous. Ganix never missed a beat, but that didn’t stop her from asking anyway.

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“Yes. The orders are authentic.”

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She eased out a long, unsettled breath. “I don’t get it. We are making progress here. The biology department just discovered an amino acid that could be a key in figuring out what’s wrong.”

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“Do you really believe that?” he asked, discounting the claim with a question. Ganix wasn’t exactly the pessimistic type. His propensities leaned heavily toward pragmatism, which was why she had so much respect for him. If he doubted the study, there was good reason to agree with him.

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“Well…” She twisted her lips. “No, I guess I—I don’t know.”

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“Cleansing would fix any amino acid deficiency.”

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She couldn’t argue with that. Like most Imszoranians, Kalaire used a cleansing stall every day to remove impurities both internally and externally from her body. While the Imszoranians could do it naturally, most opted for the stall to preserve their energy. Not to mention, the final cycle left a refreshing scent on the skin that natural energy cleansing couldn’t do.

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Halfheartedly, she still tried to make an argument for it, realizing the effort might be fruitless. “If the person is cleansing, yes.”

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“It’s another dead end.” His chair swiveled to the side, his expression pensive. A rare reveal for him. “You know, this recall might have something to do with the war. It’s six months in, and it’s been tough on them. It seems to have escalated to a level that has set Azkeena off. There was an odd remark in the orders. It appears she’s cutting ties with the other planets.”

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Kalaire stiffened. “Cutting ties?”

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“Yes. As in, no contact allowed. We’re to go directly home to Imsz-Ordena.”

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Her mind reeled at the directive. The Imszoranians had spent decades fostering friendships and trade agreements with the other seven planets in the Spiral system. In fact, Empress Azkeena herself had claimed that some of her proudest accomplishments were the laboring efforts to support those diplomatic affairs.

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Despite the immense progress, dissenting voices expressed disdain for Azkeena, especially in her handling of the Batasurna epidemic. Yet, the empress had never faltered in the face of the criticism.

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“What about the ones who are with us?” she asked, still stunned. “We have people from all eight planets on this expedition.”

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Sighing, he leaned back and scrubbed his face as if to rub away fatigue. “I guess I’ll have to figure that out.”

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Kalaire couldn’t imagine how they could even accomplish a no-contact order. Imszoranians had weaved into the other societies so intricately that a recall would be a logistical nightmare. Not to mention, there were interracial marriage unions with children. It lacked all common sense. Unusual for the empress.

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Azkeena had been a staunch advocate of diplomacy among all eight planets. She’d worked on the trade accords for two universal years to make life as balanced and fair as possible. To now sever ties?

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“Why not leave them here? I’ll stay behind too.”

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He shook his head. “No one is staying. The entire expedition team is being recalled. All seven facilities on the planet.”

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She blinked. “When?”

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“As soon as possible.”

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Closing her eyes, she slouched into her chair. “What about the settlers? We can’t just leave them.”

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“They don’t even know we’re here. They won’t miss us.”

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Some did. She sat up straight, hope reemerging. “What about the control group? They know we’re here.”

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“We’ll thank them for volunteering and release them to the settlements.”

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“Ganix,” she pleaded. “We need to find a cure. Someone has to stay. This is madness.”

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“Maybe the empress thinks a u-year here is enough time, and since we haven’t solved it, she’s calling us home. Whatever the reason, when orders come from the empress, there’s nothing we can do.”

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Though she could sense the tiniest hint of frustration building in him, she couldn’t let it go. “But they’re still sending mates here every month.”

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“We don’t know if the shipments will continue,” he argued.

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Her eyes roamed the room, noting an L-shaped desk, seating area, and table along the wall where they held most of their meetings. Ganix occupied the most spacious and functional office in the facility.

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Matte black walls constructed of the Imszoranian indestructible betierekoa steel made the room close in, and claustrophobia struck Kalaire. Just behind Ganix, a gold filigree-bordered screen mimicked a window to the outside world that offset the gloomy dark interior. The fancy frame didn’t match anything else in the room, but Ganix had always asserted that it brightened up the space, or at least it added character to the otherwise utilitarian design.

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She studied the display showing a scene from outside the underground facility of large-leafed oak trees bordering a field of yellow blooms, the lush grass swaying. The imagery brought with it a memory of the fresh spring scent of those blooms. Her favorite.

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None of it was comforting.

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“And what about him?” she asked, waving her hand through the air. “What about Larmarrak? And the others?”

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“What about him? He goes into stasis like everyone else. When we find a cure, we’ll take them out.”

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The inexorable decision pressured her sense of morality. “So just leave them here? In stasis? With no one here?”

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Of course, Kalaire couldn’t blame Ganix. He was being forced into an impossible situation, null of choices. Still, she’d never niggled him enough to conjure up the exasperation on his face. Unfortunately, the circumstances called for it.

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“No mates are allowed to leave,” he said. “And none of us are allowed to stay. The Batasurna settlements don’t know we’re here.” He recited the options out loud, as though trying to convince himself. “The only choice is to leave them here in stasis. We’ll report it to command before we leave.”

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As one of her closest friends, she knew Ganix well enough to know he wouldn’t acquiesce, but her persistence couldn’t be dissuaded. “What about the rontillum miners? Are they staying?”

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“I don’t know. They have a different directive. I imagine they will stay.”

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“And what if there’s another issue with an insane mate?”

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“The miners will just shoot them. They don’t care.”

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Her shoulders slumped.

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“I know,” he said, his voice conveying more empathy than she suspected he meant to reveal. “We have no choice. Prepare yourself and your team for a u-year in stasis. We’re going home. I just hope the war is over by the time we get there.”

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Click NEXT for Chapter 2.

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