Drake Glauco and Vernon are about to embark on their biggest adventure yet. They must get the information they need to help complete a new super weapon, a Solar Sound Tunnel, and fast. A weapon that will hopefully tip the balance of power to their side, able to destroy the awesome and impenetrable Citadels of Justice without risking too many more lives.
Unfortunately, four years have passed, and the war against the Herdsmen isn’t going well. What’s more, Priaxia has been destroyed…completely and utterly. The once great empire of the spiders now over. Humanity is their only hope. Something the Herdsmen know, stopping at nothing as they cast their gaze toward Earth and galaxy wide victory.
Against the backdrop of a war that seems lost by the alliance of spiders and mammals a new hope will rise, and from an unexpected source, too. Will Drake and Vernon be able to complete their latest mission to get the information they need for the weapon before the Herdsmen catch wind of their plans? Or will the hatchlings, now ready to be born, put things into a spin? It all becomes a race against time as the final chapter of the Borders of Worlds Saga comes to a close. Will humanity and Prixia endure? Or will the Herdsmen wipe out all in their path?
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The Incubator
Copyright © 2011 Mark Alders
ISBN: 978-1-55487-855-0
Cover art by Angela Waters
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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The Incubator
Borders of Worlds Saga Three
By
Mark Alders
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my Family.
The Unending War
Mother got us to Tombworld unscathed. The Citadel of Justice didn’t pursue the alliance fleet, and in a way I know why. The Herdsmen had revealed themselves and decimated our numbers. We were running scared and no more needed to be done…for now.
Those who survived the attack accessed the damage, contemplated the sheer power of the Herdsmen and speculated on what their next move would be. Some on board Mother had said the Citadel of Justice hadn’t even used its full strength, like a boxer pulling his punches. I had a feeling deep down those who spoke such words were right.
I just hoped I wasn’t present when the Herdsmen did unleash all of their might. Being able to rendezvous somewhere may not be an option next time. We must have been lucky to get away from the Citadel of Justice when we did.
Those events happened almost four years ago.
For four long years, the alliance of mammals and spiders fought as best we could. Sure, our strength came through because of our adversity, but we were fighting a losing battle. The Priory had gained so much power with the Herdsmen at their side, they turned on the Aurorans who had set up supply lines to help them in their war against humanity. A war which never eventuated. A war which would have been—all things now considered—the lesser of two evils. At least if we fought the wasps it would have been on a much fairer playing field. Not so with the Herdsmen. They seemed invincible. For a start we couldn’t even get close to one of their ships. Their shielding powered by something not unlike the magnosphere of stars—a force coming from the depths of the star itself. Absolutely impenetrable for ships made of living skin or steel like those we have used so far to fight them. Sometimes, I felt as though our forces were akin to mosquitoes being swatted away by giant hands. In effect, we probably were.
In the end, the Aurorans joined the alliance of mammals and spiders in an uneasy truce, one I cobbled together from their fear. Our fear, too. Their supply lines became ours as the Herdsmen turned their attention to Priaxia.
Priaxia never stood a chance.
Seven Citadels of Justice came out of heaven’s light in high orbit above the planet. Within a blink of an eye, the surface of the Priaxian homeworld became nothing more than a charred cinder in space. Every living thing wiped out. The planet became a floating, lifeless rock. No more would the nourishers of old whoop their calls through the jungle. No more would the spiders themselves spin their webs between the spires of their great cities, to be carried to their goal by the warm breeze coming off the equatorial desert.
Thank goodness there had been a warning, and most of the colony populations had time to get off the planet. Some have said the energy used to destroy Priaxia by the Citadels of Justice was so intense, observers from Earth—some hundreds of light years away—saw an explosion not unlike a supernova. Even during the day, for two weeks, there had been a bright glow in humanities sky, like two suns burned instead of one. When the light faded, so did all hope of ever returning to Priaxia. A place I had come to call home. A place now dead.
Fortunately, the alliance became stronger that day. Humanity extended out its arm to the Priaxians. They came to us as refugees, but were treated as equals. Technology had been shared, and in exchange, many, many men became nourishers to ensure the future of their great species. I suppose such a thing could be considered good by some. Pity the good of this war always seemed to be dimmed by the sheer scope and depth of the bad.
The Herdsmen grew tired of human meat. The Boldiens who supplied human cattle to them turned their attention to more profitable ventures. The Herdsmen now favoured other species for their dinner table, including Eldon and numerous other exotic animals. Their change in taste meant Earth would soon be on their list of planets to be wiped from the cosmos. There would be no reason to keep us in existence.
To make matters worse, all the Priaxian wave generating ships had been destroyed. All except Mother. Thank god. A ship I now called my home—a ship holding the alliance’s last hope within its hull.
Vernon and I did the best we could. We had Jankin and Taseem, Braken and Sern and the old soldier Mara, too. All the others had left us. Some had other duties to perform. Some went to fight the war in their own way. I never heard from Ryder again.
Which then brought us to Ranjay.
He was never found. Not once in the four long years we have endured of this great war. We organised a covert mission back into Herdsmen space, smuggling ourselves on one of the human cattle ships and pretended to be the Herdsmen’s next meal. We achieved nothing, and only managed to get out of Herdsmen space because one of the servants who served the Priory took a shine to Braken.
Braken paid him in kind. Sern didn’t mind. He understood during war, love had to be given out even more freely than in times of peace.
As I said, all these events happened over the last four years. While I stood on the bridge of Mother, Vernon, my protector and my lover, stood over me, running one of his hands along my back, as I watched the dark void of space outside. We had sighted a Citadel of Justice pass this way no more than two days ago. In its wake, dead worlds. Some were populated, but no more. One planet in particular was home to a species known as the Lartan. A curious race of beings who had only just begun to venture into the great unknown, gaining space flight technology through natural development. Now they had been wiped out, cleaned from the slate of history by the Herdsmen. All because they had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their first contact experience met with the wrath of the Herdsmen. I felt for the voices I never heard.
“Drake Glauco, sir! Drake Glauco, sir,” a voice screamed from behind as soon as the lift doors opened onto the bridge’s expanse.
I turned to see a servant caste Priaxian, covered in silver body paint—the colour all faithful servants now painted themselves to let others know they weren’t a part of the Priory—rush up to the vision bubble I had been gazing out of.
“What’s the matter, Noredon?” I asked.
“We are ready to test Mother’s latest enhancement.”
Vernon wasted no time. He plucked me up with graceful ease and placed me on his back. I chose to remain naked, mainly because our joining sessions became more frequent, the hatchlings demand for nourishment grew and grew as they came to maturity. They would hatch soon. Perhaps within days. Perhaps within a month.
I also chose to remain naked because it pleased Vernon to see me in my natural state. He liked to fondle me at any given chance. It pleased me, too. To tell the truth, being naked was my way of keeping things in perspective during these hard times. A reminder I’m human. Something I could never forget, especially with all the horror going on around me on a daily basis. Sure, Taseem painted me, but nevertheless, being naked meant my perspective remained on the important stuff—keeping the alliance strong.
While I was carried toward the lift, I thought about the hatchlings within Vernon. The hatchlings I had fed. Those hatchlings would ensure Priaxia had another generation. Some days Vernon demanded I provide my semen for them three or four times. By the end of such days, and with everything else going on, I was exhausted. I didn’t mind. When I had him on the coral atolls of Annaz VI, I was at peace.
We made love all ways. Every way. I loved it. Every time I did it with him, it was a new experience. He made it such. Sure, he knew what I liked and I knew what he liked, but somehow he always managed to do something different. Something would titillate me, make me think of how lucky I am. One time he would play with my nipples. Another time he would nibble on my foreskin, an act which drove me crazy. Once, he licked my rim for so long I orgasmed without the need for me to even touch myself. He’s a true master.
Soon we arrived in a sort of laboratory, surrounded by technology I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to its function. The room crammed with stuff, most pipes and tubes and containers filled with strange fluids. Jankin, Taseem, Braken and Sern waited for us.
Jankin smiled. “There you are, you big ‘ol naked ape. We’ve been waiting here for ages.”
Vernon plucked me off his back and placed me onto the steel grated floor with careful precision. “You love it now that you can see my dick twenty-four-seven, my dear ex-husband.” I came to slap him on his shoulder. He embraced me and I returned his gesture with the same enthusiasm. “Say, why don’t you take all your gear off so I can stare at you for a change?”
“Cause if I do, I’ll want to roll in the hay with you.” He looked up to Vernon. “And having a jealous Priaxian on my conscious isn’t my idea of fun.”
You can sleep with Drake, if you so choose to, Jankin.
“What’ya say, Drake? For old times’ sake, you and me get hot and heavy, hey?”
I smiled. “Jankin, you couldn’t handle me anymore. What I do know is called love, not just fucking. But if you think you can come to such a high level, I’m sure Vernon and I would welcome you.”
“I may just take you up on your offer. Haven’t had a good cock for ages, and I have to say, yours is one of the best I’ve seen.”
“Or ever had,” I added.
Jankin laughed. We verbally sparred with each other like this all the time. Everyone in the room knew it. Seemed such a thing was now our traditional greeting ritual. I think the tension of not having found Ranjay must have been getting to him and he needed this sort of light relief. He looked weary. Eyes weighed down with dark circles, skin pale. He got worse each day. I felt for him. I felt for Taseem.
Taseem rolled her eyes. “I have enough with these two fawning all over each other.” She gestured toward Braken and Sern. “Can you blokes give it a rest for a just a minute, please. What is it with men and their fascinations with their cocks…tell me?”
Braken stepped forward. Taseem had painted him silver. “Because we have them.”
Sern let out a roar of laugher. “And some have a lot more than others.” He was referring to Braken’s appendage. One blessed with both size and being attached to someone who knew how to use it.
Noredon coughed into his hand. “If you would permit, I think it’s time I showed you all the latest version of the Solar Sound Generator we’ve been working on.”
I cleared my throat. “Sorry, Noredon. Proceed.”
He pointed to a large engine thing, all strange shaped and looking like something an ancient steam ship on Earth would have instead of an energy wave generating starship as sophisticated as Mother.
Then again, seeing as Priaxia had fallen, all resources had come from Earth. In effect, the Priaxians tried cannibalising Earth technology and enhancing it to suit their needs. Although, I had to say, nothing I had ever heard of or seen compared to the sight of this contraption and what it looked like to me. Something totally unusable and abstract.
“So…what’s it do, again?” Jankin asked, taking my thoughts from my mind and verbalising them.
Noredon smiled, one proud and full. He gestured toward the engine. “As you are aware, a star uses nuclear fusion to generate its luminosity. What you might not know is reactions like that create a hell of a noise. The proof is in the fact the corona of stars is just as hot as the core, if not hotter. Only the energy from sound could maintain such an even temperature—”
Taseem said, “But stars don’t sound like anything. We’d hear them.” Jankin whispered into her ear. “Oh, I see. Space is a vacuum.”
“The generator creates a tunnel of particles sound can be transmitted down,” Noredon continued, his voice rising an octave. “In effect, when pointed at a star and then at an enemy target, it becomes a sonic weapon, but one more powerful than anything the universe has ever witnessed…except when a star goes supernova, of course. We could wipe out all of the Citadels of Justice in one foul swoop. Wouldn’t that be exciting?”
But it’s not tested yet, is it? Vernon asked.
Noredon’s face reflected a touch of annoyance at Vernon’s question. “No. It hasn’t been tested yet. But such a weapon could turn the tide of the war. I know it. And to tell the truth, what else do we have? Metal ships from humans which can’t stand any sort of attack because they are too brittle and living hull skin from Aurora that isn’t even compatible with our technology? No offence, Drake, but desperate times require novel ideas. Ideas which need to go beyond what we currently have, because what we currently have isn’t good enough.”
And how far away will Mother be when the weapon is activated?
Again Noredon’s expression dropped. “Mother will have to be the mediator between the chosen star and the target.”
That will destroy her, won’t it?
“Yes—no. I mean, I don’t know. It hasn’t been tested.”
Vernon shuffled his weight. He reached out to grab me. I came under him and scratched his thorax. Reassure him. Would we want to sacrifice our most successful active weapon in the vain hope this new one may work?
I looked up to him. “We may not have a choice.”
Tunnel Vision
“Thank you, Drake. If we don’t try and do something, then what good are we? We may as well fall down in front of the Herdsmen and die just like the Lartan. Do you want such a thing for Priaxia? For humanity and the alliance? Do you, Vernon?”
I came to reassure Noredon in the same way I did Vernon. I rubbed him under his thorax. He cooed. “No, we don’t want such a thing to happen. Proceed. I want to hear what you have to say.”
Noredon sighed. “Vernon is right. Without reinforced shielding, Mother would not stand a chance against the sonic weapon. She would have to be so far away, any targeting of the energy tunnel to have any effect would be impossible.”
Sern said, “Why don’t we just get the magnosphere shielding the Herdsmen use? From what I’ve seen it kicks arse, big time if you ask me.”
We all looked at him.
Braken came to embrace him. “You are so clever, my big strong, soldier.”
Sern returned the embrace. “Must be all the love juice you keep filling me with.”
Taseem rolled her eyes again, but diverted the conversation back on track. “Hang on, if we use the Herdsmen shielding, won’t it mean the Citadels themselves will be protected, too? I mean, if the magnoshpere thing protects us, won’t it protect them?”
“And we haven’t even considered the fact we don’t have that sort of technology,” Jankin added.