Combat Module Carrier 539-Aloga
Varadah System
“ ‘Your duty honors all of us,’ ” Connolly read from the message Kormagan had introduced onto his interface. “Who was Eudah again?”
“One of my greatmothers—female ancestors.” Kormagan gestured. “She lived long ago, in a place I have never been. But we all remember.”
The words disappeared from before Connolly’s face—and, in their place, he saw the nebula rotate and move, expanding around him as if he were traveling. All along the way, Rengru symbols infested the clouds. At last, an opaque bank swelled to consume Connolly’s platform, revealing what lay beyond: a single white star and a multicolored world.
Kormagan spoke with reverence. “You wish to know the meaning. There it is: K’davu.”
So that’s it. The planet looked huge, with several colossal supercontinents divided by narrow oceans. “I’ve heard the name. I thought it belonged to a person, a god.”
“Some see it as such. In a sense, they’re right. We are its creations.”
“It’s vast.”
“Not large enough. Six sentient species arose on K’davu. The Rengru rose first, on the Northern Mass. They had already developed advanced technology by the time the other peoples of the world achieved intelligence.”
Connolly noticed something in his peripheral vision. Turning, he saw five figures approach him from the darkness, walking on nothing. One resembled Kormagan without her headgear; another, the armorer Jayko. Two of the others represented species he had seen while with the Boundless. But the fifth, a nearly transparent bipedal being with a glowing heart, was unfamiliar. “Who is that one?”
“She is of the Taaya, whose domain was the oceans.”
“I’ve seen the others with the Boundless, but none like that.”
“They are with us. Dreston is one. The Taaya cannot remove their headgear. You must have noticed he communicates over his armor’s public-address system in person.”
Connolly nodded—and wondered. As trapped as he had felt in his armor during the year, at least he could come out of his shell for a breath once in a while. Dreston and those like him were entombed.
“The other species ruled the southern lands,” Kormagan said, directing attention back to the globe. “And not very well. We five developed technology for one purpose: to fight with one another. We did so for millennia, while the Rengru watched and did nothing.” She paused. “It turned out they were waiting.”
“For what?”
“For their chance, I suppose. One day they left their domain and attacked. Not just my kind, who lived nearest in the tropical zones. But under the seas too—and as far away as the polar icecap. And in all cases, they acted as they do now. I will not show you images of that.”
Connolly didn’t need to see any. “The same thing? Enveloping—and the stab to the back of the neck?”
“Only our people were not armored. Not yet.”
Connolly’s eyes narrowed. “I always wondered—after they envelop their victims, what happens after that?”
“There is no after that.”
“Do they devour them? Take their knowledge somehow? Use them for—”
He stopped as he saw Kormagan step away, offended. “Don’t be obscene. We don’t care what they do. They end our people’s lives. That’s enough.”
Connolly understood. He’d had to fire on a number of Rengru-compromised warriors himself during his service. He could only imagine the carnage the creatures could wreak on so large a world of civilians.
“The conflict united the Five. We collaborated, shared what we knew—using a new language, created to honor our shared love for K’davu. We stole technology from the Rengru, to modify our own.”
So that’s where that habit started, Connolly thought.
“But there was only so much we could take—or invent for ourselves. The situation reached a stalemate. Our past intramural squabbles had never threatened to destroy the beauty of K’davu before; against the Rengru, they did. And so began the Great Project.”
“The one Eudah talks about in her message.”
“Correct. The Rengru had both spacefaring and warp technology, but had never used it for some reason,” Kormagan said. “If you ask me, they were waiting until they had finished us off. But our people acted first. We stole that tech—and set off in search of more.”
Connolly watched as five starships launched from various locations on K’davu. They did not resemble the current Boundless carriers, but he could see some similar influences. “Wave One,” he said.
“Wave One,” she said, voice full of pride. “Eudah’s daughter—and so many more of K’davu’s children—set out looking for an edge, something that would vanquish the Rengru without destroying the homeworld. But, of course, the menace followed.” Rengru vessels, large and small, lifted off from the northern continent in pursuit.
Connolly’s view followed them—and as K’davu grew smaller, he now saw something that hadn’t been there earlier: masses of Rengru orbital shipyards with armed space fortresses.
“The Nest began as a Rengru attempt to bar Wave One from returning. The blockade has grown and grown. But so have we, replenishing our numbers through childbirth and recruiting, building ships and dividing into new waves.”
“You became the Boundless.”
“And we bound our enemies. Over the years, we’ve contained the Rengru to the inner regions of the nebula, surrounding K’davu. We may never retake our world, but we will see that the Rengru are never unleashed upon the universe.”
Connolly took a deep breath as he gazed again on the sea of markers indicating the current positions of the Boundless waves and the Rengru emplacements. Would this be what became of the Federation, if the Klingon War continued and metastasized? Surely there was another way. But he could not help but feel that if there was a correct side, the Boundless were it.
She looked to him. “You understand now.”
“I do.”
“Would your Starfleet be willing to help our crusade?”
He flinched. “They’re not big on crusades. It’s not really a good word in our culture. Bad history.”
“We live with our bad history every day.” She took her seat and pointed to the deck below. “An opmaster should be able to find his own way down. Report to Baladon and join Urdoh.”
Connolly looked at the star map one more time before jetting gingerly to a soft touchdown. Before he left, he asked another question. “What happens if you win?”
“What?”
“If you exterminate the Rengru, take K’davu back. Will you release us all then?”
Atop her platform, Kormagan sat motionless. At last, she responded, “Ask us then.”