Lost Systems: Legacy War Book 2 Read online

  Lost Systems

  Legacy War

  Book 2

  John Walker

  Copyright © 2018 John Walker

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  DISCLAIMER

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This story contains explicit language and violence.

  Blurb

  After uncovering a plot set in motion by an intergalactic terrorist organization, humanity races to discover the motivation behind their hunt for advanced technology. They deploy the spaceship Gnosis to investigate. Why are these criminals attempting to unite the most powerful technology in the universe? What is it they fear is going to happen? These questions and more lead the spaceship Gnosis on a hunt for answers.

  With their ally in tow, they visit a neutral space station to find a scientist who may be able to assist their investigation. Little do they know this man is pursued by a ruthless corporation bent on salvaging technology which can be turned into weapons. Pitted against this new foe, the Gnosis finds itself against flesh eating mutants, wild weather patterns and advanced warships, all poised to take them down. Every step they draw closer to the answers they seek, the stakes rise along with the dangers, until the prospects of returning home alive seem like a fleeting hope.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Cassie had never stood so close to the Orb on Earth before. They kept it in a special chamber, locked up but visible through various windows where they might study it in safety. The power radiating from the device gave it a sense of danger though it never caused any harmful accidents. The mantra of better safe than sorry governed protocol.

  Aboard the Gnosis in the middle of a ten-hour hyperspace jump back to Earth, a small team was allowed to really examine their new Orb. The alien device, found on a remote world far from home, had been the target for a radical group intent on stealing several of them. Their intent was not entirely clear, but they believed they might prevent a catastrophe with the tech.

  Perhaps when the humans put the two Orbs in a room and connected them up, they could determine if the impending doom might be true. Cassie believed they would unlock wondrous information obscured to them before. There was no limit to how far they might advance their technology and understanding of the universe.

  And for a few short hours, it belonged only to her and a small team.

  Doctor Thayne Rindala assisted nearby. He’d come on board after being freed from the enemy group, one of their race but not part of their scheme that took them raiding across the universe. He squinted up at the orb while his scanner performed some type of operation. His entire body was illuminated, making his black hair look almost navy, and his blue eyes glistened.

  Chief Engineer Nathaniel Webber also stood nearby though he was not studying the object. He manned the controls to seal the area should anything untoward happen. Sweat made his bald head shine in the light and he glared with his brown eyes. He’d made it quite clear he didn’t think anyone should be messing with the new Orb but the captain overrode his concerns.

  Cassie understood why he worried. The thing was an unknown, a strange piece of alien technology that they did not fully comprehend. Even the one they had under their influence for years hadn’t been fully explored. Many thought they were merely scratching the surface of what they had and as with most things, they knew that what they had discovered may have explosive consequences.

  Interfacing with the new Orb proved particularly challenging. When they removed it from the planet, it seemed to shut off until they brought it on board the Gnosis. Once there, it sparked back to life as if it needed to be in the company of a certain amount of technology before it turned back on. Thayne suggested a certain sentience, but Nathaniel disagreed.

  The engineer offered an alternative theory. He figured it simply needed residual power to be enabled though they couldn’t prove it. It did not put any particular drain on their energy and didn’t tap any of the generators. Whatever it did was another mystery, another question to be answered. Likely back on Earth.

  Lieutenant Salina Gold arrived to help. She acted as the ship’s science officer and likely performed her other duties with no small amount of frustration. Knowing what she had at her disposal, and for so short a time, had to be maddening. She’d helped them explore the alien technology when they attacked Earth and having the chance to research this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

  She wore her darker blond hair in a messy bun, likely made so by the rush down to the cargo hold. Brown eyes immediately became buried in her scanner and she didn’t so much as greet anyone around her. Apparently, social niceties took a back seat to what she intended to get out of the device.

  Cassie got it. Whatever they pulled from the device before they arrived at Earth would be usable data for them while high command worked out the next move. Between taking orbit at home and leaving again, they had a lot of time to kill. What better way to do so than with some new facts and potential answers to age old problems?

  Providing we pull anything usable from the device in such a short period of time.

  The thought dampened some of Cassie’s enthusiasm. Ten hours didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. People spent years studying the other Orb before they found anything useful. They had two advantages over their colleagues back home: standing on the shoulders of previous research gave them an edge and Doctor Rindala.

  Thayne came to them as an expert on the Orbs or at least, he knew more about their origins than the humans did. He admitted his own studies of the Orbs themselves remained somewhat limited by comparison. His race, the Pahxin, called the devices Trindisha. They all agreed to stick with common Earth parlance for the time being.

  Cassie’s scanner came back with another error and she let out a sigh, brushing a hand through her dark brown hair. Frustration threatened to overwhelm her heart and she steadied herself before trying another approach. A deeper scan of the Orb might warrant some results, or at least she’d get some decent readings of the power output.

  In speaking with Thayne, they discovered that the original designers of the Orbs probably used them as energy sources. Unlimited, clean energy to boot. Cassie figured she might be able to find some trace elements of how one might tap into it. A simple breadcrumb leading toward that conclusion may well grant humanity a leg up in stepping into a larger world.

  So to speak.

  A sound to her left caught her attention, like a scrape of metal against stone. Cassie glanced but only saw Lieutenant Gold. No one else seemed to notice the noise so she returned her attention to the scanner. It found something, and the feedback was on its way. Her heart hammered in her chest.

  “Guys,” Cassie spoke up but when she looked back at her team, they were gone. She turned back to the Orb but it was no longer there either. Ground vehicles s
urrounded her on a busy street. People shouted in some foreign tongue she couldn’t understand. Above her, a blue-green sky was covered in thick, roiling clouds.

  A breeze caught her from behind and she turned wide eyed. Massive buildings surrounded her, stretching dozens of stories into the air. Heat beat down on the area, pushing at least ninety degrees Fahrenheit. It became worse every moment and suddenly, the angry shouts from the commuters around her turned to screams.

  Cassie spun in place, trying to see what bothered them so much but she didn’t see anything right away. The ground shook and she nearly fell, stumbling away from the street and to a nearby sidewalk. Stone began to crumble, crunching with such violence, it seemed as if the entire area might collapse upon itself.

  Fires broke out around her and a sinkhole appeared where she’d been a few moments before, swallowing several of the vehicles. People got out and made a mad dash down the street but in their terror, they were guided only by the mob mentality to move in a single, unified direction.

  Cassie found herself compelled to go with them, but she remained in place. What is happening? This doesn’t make any sense! How am I here?

  Winds rushed through the street and she had to grab a nearby metal pole to remain standing. One of the vehicles flipped and the sky turned red. A shadow descended over the scene, but it did nothing to lower the temperature. If anything, it became hotter until she was covered in sweat.

  Cassie turned to look at the people fleeing only to see most of them fell, dropping dead from whatever went on around her. She looked up, hoping to see what might be causing the damage and while she expected to see some kind of space ship, all she noted was a strange eclipse blocking out the sun.

  Buildings collapsed across the street, their fall accompanied by the deafening roar of debris pounding the ground. She fell from the shockwave, hitting the cement hard. If she remained there, she’d die. There was no doubt in her mind and when she looked up, she saw more pieces of building dropping toward her. She had half a second to get out of the way but there was nowhere to go.

  The sinkhole beside her dipped into glowing magma. The street around her had crumbled. She was jostled with considerable force, her head flopping back. She closed her eyes and when she opened them, she saw Nathaniel’s face close to hers. He shouted her name and she realized he’d been doing so for several moments.

  “What happened to you?” He asked. “Are you okay?”

  The others surrounded him. Thayne, Salina and a technician she didn’t recognize. She was back on the Gnosis, far from whatever catastrophe she just witnessed. The waking dream felt so intensely real, so incredibly lifelike that she could barely believe she’d seen it. Half of her wondered if it had even happened.

  “I …” Cassie looked around and gestured for her scanner lying on the floor nearby. “I picked up a reading. We have to see what it was!”

  Salina grabbed it and peered at the screen, her brows lifting. “You did indeed. There was a power surge for a brief moment. Just before you called out guys to us. It’s no longer happening.”

  “Fascinating!” Thayne clapped his hands. “Did you see something? Did anything happen?”

  Cassie hesitated to reply but keeping the information from them made no sense. She drew a deep breath and explained her vision, what she saw. The details were still fresh in her mind and she was able to give them a clear picture of the horrors brought about on that planet. Additional facts came to her head: those she saw dying were definitely not human.

  And it very likely happened a long time ago.

  “What do you make of it, Thayne?” Salina asked. “Does this coincide with any of your studies in regards to the Orbs?”

  Thayne rubbed his chin, brows furrowed. “Yes, it touches on some of my theories about how the creators of these devices used them. Their interfaces were unlikely to be in the form of wires or direct connections of any sort. They may well have implanted technology in their heads to receive the data directly. Either that … or they actually were telepathic.”

  “We’ve only brushed the surface of such mental powers,” Cassie said. “Do you think they were really able to tap into something like that?”

  Thayne shrugged, a new gesture he’d learned from the humans in the short time he’d been with them. “Who knows? They could have discovered anything. The vast, untapped wealth of information in these things can literally be anything. After all, your own culture proves that. Look at how far you’ve come in such a short period of time. Faster than light travel is not trivial.”

  “If that thing interfaced directly with your head,” Nathaniel said, “and it did so without you telling it to directly, it’s pretty damn dangerous to be on a ship. Imagine if it did this to one of the pilots? We’d be in a lot of trouble.”

  “I initiated it,” Cassie replied. “Just inadvertently. I might be able to replicate the process now that I’ve done it once. The settings on my scanner should give us another shot at … whatever that was.”

  Salina held up her hand. “I think we need to try any further experiments like that back on Earth under a controlled environment. Nathaniel’s right that we could cause ourselves a lot more grief if we do something incorrectly.”

  “Agreed.” Cassie said the word but she didn’t necessarily believe they should stop. She wanted to take the experiment to a logical conclusion, to really test whether or not they had found some hidden data store which allowed them to assimilate information directly with their minds. Such a revelation could change everything about how they interacted with the Orb.

  “We’ll be home soon,” Salina said. “Then we can really dive into this.”

  Nathaniel nodded. “Yes, for now, I recommend you get to the sick bay, Cassie. God knows what that might’ve done to your noggin.”

  “Probably a good idea,” Thayne agreed. “It might prove revelatory as well. I personally look forward to the results but not at the expense of your faculties.”

  “I appreciate that.” Cassie accepted Nathaniel’s help to get up. “I’ll head up there now, but you guys might want to slow down on the research as well. Lord knows what else we’ll find, and whether or not it is something we want to discover while blasting through space.”

  Chapter 1

  Captain Desmond Bradford sat forward on the bridge of the Gnosis, watching a countdown tick by on the main view screen. They would be leaving hyperspace in less than five minutes, returning from the longest journey in human history. Everyone on board, each man and woman, became pioneers for the most impressive trip ever taken by mankind.

  I led an expedition our people will talk about for generations. Even if we do nothing else from this point forward, students will talk about our deeds long after we’re gone.

  And they didn’t simply leave the solar system and visit another world. No, they engaged in combat with an alien race and traversed the strange topography of the planet. They plunged into an automated facility and reclaimed ancient technology hidden away beneath the sands of time.

  The Gnosis went well beyond the original intention of being an exploratory vessel and earned itself a place in military history as well. The marines and fighter pilots made names for themselves. Even though they lost soldiers during the fighting, they came back with experience which would be useful to them as they entered the larger arena of intergalactic politics.

  A thing we didn’t even know existed before the attack.

  The maiden voyage of the Gnosis involved an alien race launching an assault on Earth during their absence. They attempted to steal the Orb, the source of all advanced human technology. Though they had to rush back, the crew of the Gnosis was able to intervene and prevent the theft, driving the invaders off and destroying much of their fleet.

  Afterward, they learned of other Orbs throughout the galaxy and determined that they must stop their enemies from acquiring another. The Gnosis was sent beyond the borders of Earth’s solar system, cementing the event in history while protecting the interests of humanity at
the same time.

  Two minutes.

  The countdown made Desmond nervous as he watched it. They had already emerged from hyperspace once from such a lengthy trip when they had visited the other system. However, their first trip had been before they entered combat. While the damage they experienced was minor, they did need to hole up for a couple days while the engineering team patched them back up.

  Entering hyperspace made everyone hold their breath. Though all tests and checks suggested they had done their due diligence, a small tinge of fear hovered on the repairs. If something was missed, if anyone made a mistake, they may well not get back to Earth at all or worse, find themselves in some uncharted part of the galaxy.

  No one wants to find out what it’s like to be lost in space.

  Hyperspace required reliable coordinates to travel to a new section of space. They needed to know where they were going and have some long-range scans of the system for predictive analysis. This would allow them to ensure they didn’t emerge too close to a space body like a moon or planet. The wake of arrival was enough to shove small debris aside, but the larger obstacles would be a problem.

  As they drew closer to Earth, Desmond wondered just how far out they would be when they arrived. Lieutenant Commander Zachary Caplan, their head pilot, worked closely with Salina to ensure they had a solid emersion point close to the moon. When they emerged, they expected between five and six hours to attain orbit.

  They sounded pretty optimistic to me. Desmond thought. He didn’t want to give them grief over their work, especially since the only thing telling him they would be wrong was his gut. I refuse to listen to something that’s being pessimistic for no reason. Still, I’m putting my money on a ten-hour flight back to Earth.

  “One minute,” Zachary called out. “All systems are prepared. Thrusters are online.”