The Outcasts: The Evolved, #3

By Richard Quarry

When Captain Brenda Valkonen leads the first joint Earth-Peregrine Alliance into remote space to examine the wreck of an alien vessel, she does not know the fate of humanity may hang in the balance.

Though only several generations removed from Earth, the Peregrines make much more use of brain implants adapted from animals to broaden their range of sensory inputs. These implants create widespread hostility on Earth, where many accuse the Peregrines of trying to create a super-race. Hopefully the Geniah expedition will serve as a model for future cooperation.

They find the alien vessel lifeless. Except, of course, for the weird-looking creatures suspended in cryo. Though human in origin, they bear a distinctly skeletal, almost insectoid look, along with oversize jaws and teeth that can only serve as weapons.

Who are these people? Who built this ship, and to what purpose? As the crew of the Geniah probe deeper into the vessel, Valkonen comes to suspect that they are less the observers than the observed.

And as her fears of an alien invasion grow, Valkonen reluctantly draws closer to a secret that could shatter relations between Earth and the Peregrines forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Quarry
• Release date: Mar 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201959920

Book preview

Chapter 1

I mention this one last time, said Noreem Jaray, disdaining a handhold as he floated before her. But before we power on the ship’s systems I think we would do well to take one of these creatures out of cryo and make absolutely sure we know how to turn them off before we risk turning them on. Since they were so obviously designed to kill.

Captain Brenda Valkonen hooked her foot to the wheel-lock door, reluctant to acknowledge that her facility in zero-g was not the equal of Noreem’s. Tilting sideways she stared through the glass into the cryo compartment. The lids of the forty metal coffins, as the Earth crew called them, shot back the glare from an array of lights brought over from the Geniah. The alien derelict itself had lost all power beyond the backup system that kept the cryo units and who or whatever lay inside functioning.

Turning them on is not part of the plan, she said.

All the same.

"However these people look," she said, emphasizing people as much to convince herself as Noreem, they are still fundamentally human. Like you, she thought with a certain petty satisfaction. Fundamentally human. Their DNA proves it. Scans through the alloy containers had proved difficult and less than complete, but sufficient sequences had been charted to settle that question, at least. And since they are human, the gas will stop them should they begin to decant.

But we don’t in actual fact know that, do we? Still floating free, Noreem glided to her side with subtle pulses from the jetpac belted to his blue skin-tight Peregrine suit. His voice, usually a rich baritone, bore a tinny quality through her helmet receivers. Just because the gas would stop us, is not infallible proof that it will stop them. We know virtually nothing about their lungs or their brains.

So what would you have me do? Take one out and dissect him?

Take one out and test the gas. And if it doesn’t incapacitate him within a reasonable amount of time, say four seconds, test other substances until we find one that does.

Under United Systems’ guidelines, that would constitute torture.

Then let the Peregrines do it.

"Noreem, though this is a joint venture, I would remind you that the Geniah is still a United Systems ship. And I am her Captain. Under United Systems regulations."

Captain? came the voice of Glenn Davis, chief engineer, on another channel. Everything’s hooked up and ready to go on your command.

Stand by. She checked the corridor to either side to be sure the guards in their mix of tight blue Peregrine and more bulky white Earth suits were suitably poised. Each clutched a rocket launcher, flechette rifle, or flamethrower.

She and Noreem gave each other one last look, partially blurred by the glint off their facemasks from the cryo compartment. He still kept himself in place with occasional whispers from his pulse jets. Watching Peregrines move in zero-g always reminded Brenda Valkonen of seals, or maybe dolphins. His sharp-edged, intelligent face bore an ironic, perhaps slightly patronizing smile.

For all his cautions, he did not appear worried. More like amused. She wondered just what, if anything, it would take to make him look alarmed. She hoped her own visage reflected even half his calm.

Probably. Assume so, anyway. Brenda Valkonen had spent much of her career with butterflies in her stomach and iron in her voice.

But was she right to ignore his warnings? The creatures slumbering in the cryo bins might be humanoid, but they were also clearly designed for war. And nothing but.

Noreem might find the situation amusing, but she was the one in command.

Captain? came Davis’ voice.

Power on.

***

Nothing happened.

After one tense moment of frustrated expectation, Brenda Valkonen twisted around to stare up and down the hallway, looking for any flickering light, any slight stirring of the levers and wheels at the couplings joining the racks of pipes running all through the ship. In her urgency she pulled herself loose from her foothold on the wheel-lock and had to grab one of the handholds below the glass front of the cryo chamber. 

Noreem Jaray also grabbed a handhold. He pulled himself close to the glass and peered into the chamber. Still nothing.

Talk about your basic anti-climax.

Glenn? Valkonen called into her helmet speakers.

Checking the readings now, Captain.

Valkonen bit down on her frustration. Once, just once, couldn’t everything just go right?

The Engineer came back on. Captain, the alien ship’s relevant systems look to be powered on. I mean, there is definitely juice flowing where we are feeding it in. That’s what shows on our screens, anyway. Can you get a hands-on check down there?

One of the blue-suited Peregrines was already on it, holding a meter to a cluster of pipes from which trailed the feeds from the Geniah. Turning toward Valkonen, he nodded.

Yes, Glenn, we have power. But nothing to show for it. She saw Noreem still staring fixedly at the cryo chamber. Sometimes no news was good news. Is there some slave system somewhere that needs to be enabled? Or a switch we haven’t found?

Could be, I suppose. I thought I had these schematics traced out pretty well.

We may have to resort to a manual — hold on, Glen. A new call was signaling on her priority line.

Captain, this is Hypatia Wren, at the main computer. It’s still dead. Like everything else. There’s power available, but it hasn’t been accepted.

Hasn’t been accepted.

That struck Valkonen as odd phrasing: to her at least it implied a sense of will. But ignoring the epistemological question of whether or not a computer could have will, a dead one most certainly didn’t. But who knew what it might mean to Hypatia Wren? Among the Earth crew the lanky, often disheveled Peregrine science officer had already acquired an alliterative nickname: Wacky. But Noreem, who’d insisted she come on this voyage, assured Valkonen Hypatia Wren was here for a reason.

This is essentially a first contact mission, he had told her. Even if there’s no one to talk to. For that you want imagination. And imagination is Hypatia’s— He paused, searching for the meaning he wanted to convey. Her strength, he concluded. Valkonen had hoped for something more colorful, and inspiring.

We could use some of that imagination right about now, she thought. Everyone, this is the Captain. Stand by your positions. And cut the chatter! she added sharply. Unfortunately, it was her people speculating over an open channel about what might be going on, while the Peregrines spoke when spoken to.

She pulled herself next to Noreem, still intent upon the cryo chamber. Valkonen understood his fixation all too well. When even a relatively small part of some process went wrong in space, your mind immediately jumped to what larger, critical aspect it might be trying to warn you of.

Probably whoever trained Noreem tried just as hard to pound it into his skull as the Academy tried to pound it into hers that you always, unfailingly, even obsessively focused on the problem at hand, rather than go searching for trouble. But there were an awful lot of unpleasant ways to die in space, and few threatened Academy classrooms. She felt one of those moments of affection toward Noreem that occurred whenever he did something that emphasized their similarities rather than their differences.

I’m going in, he said. Quickly adding, With your permission, Captain.

We’re both going in.

A slight sensation like the tiniest of electric sparks going off in the middle of her head told her he was switching to a private channel; normally they would be monitored from the bridge of the Geniah.

Captain? Shouldn’t you stay here? In case unlocking the door triggers—

She issued a mental command to follow him to the private channel. "First of all, the ‘with permission’ comes before you make a declaration about what you are going to do. Second, we are both going in. Follow me."

Smiling in appreciation of the rebuke, he switched back to open channel. Yes, Captain.

She unlocked the flechette rifle fixed to her shoulder swivel, then waved over one of the crew standing guard and told him to open the door. Noreem unholstered a battle-saw; a high-vibration disc mounted on a three-foot handle. A gruesome weapon that demanded you fight hand-to-hand. But one of immediate and graphic effect. And shipboard combat, though rare in recent decades following the formation of the United Systems from the scattered Earth colonies, tended to take place at very close range.

Lock it behind us, she told the guard.

Yes, Captain. This close she could see through the helmet glare that it was Dara Rheingold. A good person to have at your back if things went wrong.

As the door swung back Valkonen sailed into the chamber with Noreem close behind. Light from the imported lamps was dim and full of shadows, unnerving in this place of the living dead.

The first thing she did was transmit a visual of the gauges on three of the chambers. She’d had monitors installed, but monitors had been fooled before if someone wanted to fool them. For this she wanted to get up close and personal.

Noreem was doing the same thing along an adjacent row. The numbers check, he reported.

It took her a few seconds longer to activate her computer, call up the relevant screen, give the order to compare, and see the results on the red diagram superimposed on her facemask. Earth suits did provide thought command for those conditioned to use it, but the system was slow and clunky next to that of the Peregrines, who were raised with the technology. And who from an early age received specialized neural nets transplanted into their skulls.

Confirm, she said.

Overall, the compartment did not look so very alien. There were only so many ways you could lay out cryogenic units. Pipes and cables crowded the gutters between individual units. More, presumably backup feeds because of their lesser number, ran down from the ceiling into bulbous receptors on the lids. The effect reminded Valkonen, an avid diver when she got the chance, of swimming through a Sargasso forest. Except that here everything was unadorned metal. The aliens were not high on decorative flourishes.

She pulled herself close to the lid of one of the compartments. The expedition members called them glass because they were partially translucent, though blurred. But the actual material was a tough alloy that absorbed and bounced back most hostile radiation.

Which, seeing how the chamber was also fitted with explosive charges to blow the units into space like so much pollen, could come in handy. Thankfully, the crew of the Geniah had removed the explosives. How the ship would provide an opening or dismantle itself around the chamber was as yet unknown. The expedition just didn’t have the manpower to pull apart every panel.

The first expedition, the one that had actually discovered the alien, had managed to get a patchy DNA reading through the glass, enough to assure that the creatures were human in origin. That had basically been a scout ship, without the Geniah’s resources. Their DNA readings garnered no more than conditional acceptance.

Pulling herself close to one of the units, Valkonen could understand the skeptics’ doubts. The glass reflected much of the light, distorting the image so that she had to rotate her external sensors repeatedly to get the clearest angle.

The sleeper inside bore an inescapably skeletal look, though fleshed out. The effect came largely from an external chitinous layer that gave the skin, a sleek green glinting yellow under the lights, a hard, reflexive appearance . Bug-like, in point of fact, and United Systems protocols be damned . The eyes, though closed, were over-sized, oriented up and down rather than crossways, and slightly sunken.

The feature that was hardest to get used to, though, was the teeth sprouting from the protruding mouth and jaw. These were plainly visible even though the mouth was clearly meant to be closed. If they were natural instead of implanted, someone had dug way down deep into the DNA. The teeth grew big and blocky. And the mouth itself extended way back along the hollow cheeks, suggesting that the creatures could swing their jaws open wide as a cat.

That such a teeth had been deliberately created as a weapon was reinforced by the suits that Valkonen had sent over to the Geniah. Space helmets had no need for a mouth. Yet these all had one, or rather a simulacrum of one: ferocious alloy extensions with motorized power enhancement. Tests showed that given fifteen seconds, they could chew through the exoskeleton of both Earth and Peregrine battle suits. While that was a long time should you choose to do something about it, the very idea was unsettling.

Like carrying a battle-saw in your mouth, Noreem had remarked as they observed the tests.

But for all the dread churning up through her efforts to suppress it, everything in the chamber was just as it had been before she gave the order to power on.

Valkonen wanted to get out of here. She could not help imagining the creatures decanting all around her. Perhaps after the whole chamber exploded into space. Yes, the explosives had been removed — probably. But they thought they’d traced out ever millimeter of the schematics, too.

So nothing’s changed, she told Noreem, as though that was a point in her favor.

Not yet, he acknowledged. But of course, there might be some sort of delay mechanism. Or, should the alien ship somehow grasp that it is receiving electricity from a foreign source, it might take some time to make certain that power source won’t harm it. Nor have we actually powered on most of the ship. There might be fail-safes, which the ship will take offline at a time of its own choosing. Or—

Enough, enough. Against that, we don’t even know if these ... if this race, sees itself as our enemy.

"Look at them! The suits. The teeth! Captain, they are everyone’s enemy. And—" He broke off.

Yes?

"And they are not a race. They are the creation of another race. Genetically transformed for the sole purpose of combat. The only true race involved was the one that did this."

The moment hung heavy as Valkonen only slowly grasped what he was saying. You have some race in mind?

Ours, he said, spitting it out. "Yours and mine. Those who rebelled against Earth. The ones we still call the Riggers. The ones who headed into space aboard the Stephen Hawking."

People of Earth. Yet how could any people with Earth sensibilities create such ... monsters, yes, as these? The Riggers especially. They had always been her heroes. Bold space-faring pioneers who risked all to free themselves from Earth’s tyranny.

True, many thought their voyage into the unknown aboard the cylinder Hawking, with its primitive technology, was doomed from the start, and they had probably all perished ages ago. Except for the group that splintered off at what was now called Harrar’s Reach to form the Peregrines

But if the Riggers hadn’t died gasping ... could her heroes possibly have done this?

I can see you are shocked, Captain, said Noreem. But at least you have the heritage of Earth, rather than the Riggers, to use to distance yourself. The Peregrines, on the other hand....

Staring down through the glass at the toothy, hard-skinned mutation before him, he gave a bitter shake of his head.

"Those aboard the Stephen Hawking were, not to put too fine a point on it, us. Our direct progenitors. We left the ship before this. If they were indeed responsible. But your people will still blame the Peregrines. Because we are the only ones here to be blamed."

And Valkonen had one of those thoughts that came out of nowhere, with no reason behind them, yet proved loathe to depart:

I hope you’re the only ones here to be blamed.

Chapter 2

"So you do believe these ... let us call them soldiers, were definitely created by the voyagers aboard the Stephen Hawking?" Brenda Valkonen asked Noreem Jarray.

He stared down at the glass-blurred countenance of the creature in its cryogenic coffin. "I was convinced when I first saw the DNA readouts from the initial exploration. I hoped their data was in error. Very well, it wasn’t. Sometime long ago, the ancestors of these jolly fellows we see here were human. Unaltered and unadorned. So who changed them to this?"

Who indeed, with human DNA? The Peregrines, whose very name meant wanderer, might have pushed their explorations into unknown regions of the galaxy without bothering to tell the United Systems about it, but all voyages of the Earth-centered systems and habitats were charted and regulated by the organization. There were no rogue Earth colonies lurking out there cooking up diabolical weapons.

An alien race? Valkonen suggested. "Perhaps they took the