Chris Randolph - Stars Rain Down

“Devour you?”

“That’s how the Nefrem operate. I’ll spare you the details.”

“Thanks. So… how did you survive?”

“I was placed in a bottle and set adrift on the sea of stars.”

“And you ended up where?”

“Other Sinits like me… infiltrators… they discovered which star systems the Nefrem were targeting, and the Archon’s dying wish was that I be sent to warn them.”

“And?”

“Five years later, my capsule arrived in the Oikeya system. The code be praised, Jack… You simply can’t imagine all the many strange wonders of that system. It was so rich and full of life. Three whole living worlds! Three, each with a completely unique ecosystem and collection of intelligent species. And that was only the beginning. Out among the asteroids were gargantuan membranous sacks full of water. Islands in space, each of them alive and intelligent, and full of yet more creatures. Life, free of the shackles of gravity. And all of it brought together, interconnected by living space ships that fly as naturally as a fish swims through water.”

“Sounds too good to be true.”

“I know. I thought the same thing every moment I was among them. I was sure I had died and gone to… heaven? The Oikeyans had no concept of war or hatred. No struggle or strife. They lived in peaceful harmony with one another, and they were all so very naive.” He was quiet for a long pause. “When I told them the destroyers were coming, they laughed. They actually laughed.”

“What’d you do?”

“Everything I could. I preached to whoever would listen, and trained whoever would learn. I traveled the system for eight years trying to build some kind of defense, until the Nefrem advance fleet finally arrived. The Oikeyans greeted them with open arms and paid dearly for the mistake. Millions died before my forces were able to turn the fleet away.”

“But they came back?”

“Of course. The destroyers returned in numbers that made a mockery of their assault on my homeworld, and they brought their living planet this time. The war was over before it ever began.”

“How many died?”

“Forty billion, Jack. Slaughtered, eaten and churned out into more Nefrem. The sixty million refugees here on Earth… they are all that remains.”

“But why come here, Kai? Why like this? You could’ve asked us for help.”

Kai looked him dead in the eyes. “Because you are Nefrem.”

“We look like them?”

“No, Jack. You are them, and there can be no mistake in this. You’re genetically identical. We only learned of this world from them. The location of your system was cleverly hidden in their databanks. It was heavily encrypted and obscured behind falsified information, and I believed the secrecy was to prevent enemies from discovering the location of their homeworld.”

“So you brought the Oikeyans here to strike back.”

“Yes. We came prepared to wage the final battle. To tear out the weed at its root. The plan was to take the Nefrem by surprise and wipe out their civilization before they could mount a counter-offensive, and in that, we were fairly successful.”

“Except we’re not the Nefrem,” Jack said while shaking his head. “This doesn’t make any sense. We’ve always been here. We evolved here, and until you arrived, we were pretty sure there wasn’t life out there at all. I mean, we’ve only just taken our first baby steps out onto other planets, for Christ’s sake.”

“I know that now. In fact, your people survived precisely because you’re not the Nefrem. They live in hives the size of your largest cities. They have no farmland or suburbs. If you lived like that, you would have already been destroyed.”

“I’m so glad this has been a learning experience for you, Kai. Really. I mean that.”

“Sarcasm aside, the truth is that I can’t turn back time, and I can’t undo what I’ve done, but we still have a choice about who to become in the wake of this.”

“Yeah, I know the guy who said that.”

“I do too, and he’s an amazing creature. After everything that’s been done to him… everything he’s seen and been through, he still refuses to kill innocents. He could have destroyed the entire city in a flash of light, but he chose not to. I subjected him to more pain than any living thing could be expected to endure, and yet he spared my life.”

“He must be a God damned idiot.”

“Not at all. You’re a better man than even you realize, Jack Hernandez, and there’s something noble inside of you that I don’t understand. Something luminous that I couldn’t snuff out no matter how hard I tried. I will never cultivate a soul like yours, but I can become a weapon of your will, and perhaps atone for some of my mistakes.”

“And if I prefer you dead?”

“Then I’ll die. I deserve no less, and I know it… but I don’t think you’ll make that decision. You know that I can do more good alive than dead.”

“We’ll see,” Jack said. “No offense, but this all seems a little too convenient. You’ll excuse me if I don’t lead you straight back to the resistance.”

“I understand your apprehension, but I’ve no reason to deceive you. Your people have gotten sloppy in recent months. Your primary installations have already been located and dealt with, and all that remains are the fortified shelters… Arks, I believe you call them. The Oikeyans are mounting a final offensive as we speak, with the intent of finishing the fight once and for all. Humanity doesn’t have much time left.”

They both sat there and listened to the falling rain. Then a motion in the distance caught Jack’s eye, and he struggled to focus. Months of captivity had left his vision less sharp than it once was, and with some effort, he made out a rhino and two jackrabbits moving down the hillside. His first instinct was panic. “We’ve got company!” he shouted and scrambled up from the ground.

“Relax,” Kai said. “They’re friends.”

“What?”

“There are objectors among the Oikeyans that still believe life is sacred above all else. They want to end the war. When I informed them I was going to free you, these three volunteered to accompany us.”

Every muscle in Jack’s body was rigid and his heart was racing. Kai might have spent months torturing Jack, but at least he looked human. The exterminators were a different story. They still had a profound effect on him, and the sight alone sent adrenaline surging through his blood.

“Fuck me. Okay. I can handle this. Accompany us where exactly, Kai?”

“Up to you.”

“Figures,” Jack said. With that, he dropped back down and laid himself out in the ground cover. The rain fell harder every minute, and he was wet like a river. “For the time being, can I just lie here? I just want to lie here in the rain for a while.”

“If that’s what you wish. Should I… go somewhere else?”

Jack thought about it for a second and then said, “No. I may not like you, but you’re all I have. I’ve already had my share of solitude.”

“As you wish.”

All told, fourteen months had passed since the beginning of the invasion, and Jack had spent four of them in captivity. Four months without sunshine. One hundred and eighteen days locked in a box, tortured and left to stew in his own despair while the world outside shambled on without him.

Now he was free. His flyer sliced through the air at more than two hundred kilometers an hour, racing northward over the vibrant green jungle.

Jack and the strange vehicle were intimately connected, but at the same time separate in a way that baffled him. The feeling of sheer, unbridled speed reminded him of riding a motorcycle, but taken to an unimaginable extreme, while the play between mount and master was more like riding a horse. Not that he’d ever ridden a horse, but he’d heard stories.