Gehenna
Jace Parker gazed down at Earth from the pilot seat of his Paladin-class spaceship, the Storm Spike. Other words--alien words--with sibilant syllables echoed in his mind. These other words were those of the ship’s creators, the Altaeth or as they were also called, the Precursors, which described the true class and name of the vessel, words very different than his own, and almost impossible for human vocal chords to reproduce.
The ship’s artificial intelligence, or AI, whispered these exotic words to him, reminding him that though the Storm Spike felt like it had been created for him alone, humans had not built this vessel or created any of its technology. It was almost as if the AI wanted him to remember the Altaeth and honor them, even as it accepted its new name and pilot without other complaint. But not even the universal translator could turn that ancient alien tongue into English or any of the other hundreds of thousands of known languages.
The Altaeth were long dead--or perhaps, as some thought, they had simply stepped away from this part of the universe--and had left their cities, ships and other technology behind like scattered children’s toys on a playroom rug for others to find.
But they had also left their enemy here. An enemy that only their technology could defeat. But few remained could use that technology to its fullest extent.
“All appears quiet, Gehenna,” Jace said to the ship’s AI.
“Yes, though that could change at any moment, Jace. The Khul have been too quiet as of late,” Gehenna reminded him patiently. “And that means they’ve been planning something bigger than usual.”
“You don’t think they’ve given up?” He lifted his right eyebrow even as a smile tugged his lips.
“The Khul will never give up. It is not in their nature,” she replied simply.
The AI had chosen a female voice similar to his mother’s, but a slight bit wryer in tone. He thought the choice was a good one. His mother Col. Diane Parker was head of the military air base known simply as Area 67, which was a top secret military installation tasked with the development and testing of experimental aircraft for the US military. Col. Parker was not only highly respected, but beloved by those who served under her, which included his father Captain Jack Parker, an experimental test pilot. So by choosing his mother’s voice for her own, the AI was cast in his mother’s reflected light. Yet the AI had also taken the name “Gehenna” which was in rabbinic literature known as a place for the wicked, or in more generic terms, it was another name for Hell.
The juxtaposition was strange to say the least. But Gehenna, for all their closeness, remained a bit of a mystery to him. Maybe more than a bit. She was opaque in many ways, which just intrigued Jace more. After all, she must know what happened to the Altaeth. She must know what their words meant, at least in comparison to his own, yet she did not translate them for him or for anyone. She professed an ignorance that he didn’t quite believe.
“You sound almost eager for a fight.” Jace grinned.
“I grow uneasy when the Khul are absent for too long,” she answered.
“Grow uneasy? That sounds almost… I don’t know, almost superstitious, Gehenna,” he teased her. “Are you going mystic on me? I thought you were all facts and figures.”
“Only as mystic as you wish me to be, Jace. After all, I have aligned my communication style to one that suits you best,” she stated dryly. “Such as your insistence that we speak out loud rather than simply mind to mind.”
“Only because it’s hard to tell where I end and you begin when we do that,” he confessed.
“But that is the point. We are to be one so that all systems perform optimally,” she reminded him and there was that slight chastising tone his mother had always used so well against him when he hadn’t done his best at something, choosing to be lazy instead.
But it wasn’t laziness that was holding him back now. It was the desire to remain himself. He sensed that if he ever truly gave himself over to Gehenna or any of the AIs that populated the Precursor technology he would change in ways that he wouldn’t like.
“You must know that these fears are foundless, don’t you?” Gehenna, of course, knew his real reasoning for everything. Her tone was gentle now. “You were made for this. If you changed at all from it, it would only be to become what you were always supposed to be.”
Jace turned the topic of conversation, knowing that this was not an argument he wished to have right at that moment, “Earth looks beautiful tonight.”
“Yes, it always does,” she agreed and he believed she felt that herself as she had found Earth and determined to protect it.
They were on the nightside of Earth and the lights of civilization stretched across the whole of the continent of North and South America below him. They reminded him of brilliant starbursts that were connected by glowing arteries of light. Though the lights were unnatural, they signalled that the planet was alive. They announced to all who saw them that there were beings below who thought, lived, dreamed and died.
It was like that moment in the movie Contact when Jody Foster’s character stopped in her journey through various wormholes only to see an alien world awash in light and realize there was intelligent life there. He remembered the electric feeling he’d experienced during that scene. To know that there were other beings out there was, to him, a religious experience. Humanity was not alone. Humanity was part of a greater whole. And it had a greater purpose, too.
He thought of all the people down on the planet, never dreaming that above them were thousands of spaceships protecting them from what lurked in the vast darkness of space where Earth spun. People like he had once been, but now the kid who hadn’t been able to get his driver’s license due to crippling migraines, seeing auras and the near constant tinnitus was a protector of Earth. And the disabilities that had held him back were what made him special.
“I am sorry for that pain, Jace,” Gehenna suddenly said. “But it was because you were not where you were supposed to be, doing what you were supposed to do. You are a pilot. And this determination to still hold yourself back is just as unnatural.”
“I’m more than a pilot, Gehenna. I’m more than just my ability to interact with Precursor tech,” he reminded her.
He stretched out his right hand towards the orange-colored hologram controls that appeared between him and the screen where Earth was projected. The wrist of his synthskin glove was not fully sealed. He tugged on the light material until it merged with the sleeve seamlessly.
Even with the glove on, he could still feel everything as if his hand was bare. The synthskin though would protect him from the vacuum of space or any number of temperature or atmospheric conditions. It also could change color with his mood, which sometimes amused him when he made the whole suit a fiery red, though mostly he kept it a shimmery gray with highlights of neon green.
It was then when he looked up between his spread fingers that he saw the warning light. Orange had turned to alarming red as the Storm Spike’s systems identified a threat. On the edge of his ship’s sensors, enemy vessels had been detected. The screen in front of him shifted from showing the peacefulness of Earth, to the ships that were streaking towards it.
They were long and needle-shaped. Khul vessels filled with drones ready to drop down onto any planet and assimilate the population into itself, food or even fuel. The process was just as horrible and destructive no matter what the end result.
