Nopileos: A novel from the X-Universe: (X4: Foundations Edition 2018) (X Series) Read online

  Nopileos

  A Saurian on the Way to the Stars

  A novel from the X2-Universe

  Helge T. Kautz

  Translated by

  Nathan Haines

  © 2003 Helge T. Kautz

  © 2018 Egosoft GmbH

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Afterword and Acknowledgments

  Translator's Notes

  Chapter 1

  Nif-Nakh (“festering wound”) is a gorgeous world. Wildly sprawling, planetwide jungle a rich, verdant green, thousands and thousands of small ponds and lakes the color of blood, all covered by an exceedingly clear, royal blue sky. Every now and then, burning meteorites trace their gleaming trails across the firmament. The Split, rulers of this place, may be cruel and intolerant. But somewhere, deep beneath their ferocious exteriors, there must remain a spark of admiration and respect for beauty, of that I am certain.

  Melissa Banks,

  Corridor of the Stars

  It all happened so quickly that he didn’t even find the time to cry out “egg salad,” one of the most indecent curses a race of surly hatchers could possibly think of. One moment he was sitting on the bridge of his ship, the beautiful Nyana’s Fortune, both arms plunged elbow-deep into the navigation controls, with flames everywhere around him, knowing his last sezura was at hand. The next, the command chair’s gimbal mount swung downward with a vertiginous jolt, to where a hatch in the deck, which he had never noticed before, gaped open. For just one moment he saw the reddish illumination of the spherical boarding elevator glowing behind the opening. How strange, he thought. Then a painful kick catapulted him into the elevator, where a foaming substance abruptly yet almost gently slowed and caught him. Before he could begin to process that, he was rocked by another jolt accompanied by a half-sezura rumbling whose low-frequency vibration did not bode well. Then it became suddenly quiet, almost frighteningly calm, with only the occasional ghostly susurration from outside.

  The young Teladi—his irises were still completely yellow and the hexagonal scales of his leathery skin still small like a hatchling’s—lay there with his head ridges pale from fear. He was half-sunken in some kind of light-blue rescue foam that nestled tightly around him, all the better to cushion shocks. His breath was nightmarishly shallow and he worried as his three hearts strained for each leaden beat. His body had fallen into an involuntary, protective catalepsy. It was a legacy of his distant ancestors that had long since become inadequate.

  Nopileos—that was the informal name of the hatchling saurian—tried to say something, but his body’s rigidity compressed his throat and it only made an inarticulate hissing sound.

  “Gsshhh!” came out when he called for Inanias, the Nyana’s Fortune’s onboard computer. Ice-cold fear crawled up his dorsal fin and settled at the nape of his neck. What had happened? Shouldn’t his ship’s powerful shields have survived this collision? The futile horror of this terrible injustice gave him extra strength for a moment, enabling him to move his right arm against the resistance of paralysis and foam. Perhaps the crash wasn’t so minor after all, he assumed, while laboriously testing the webs of his right claw by spreading and closing it over again. After all, the energy shields of his egg-shaped yacht had already been stretched to the limits of their capacity by the maddening descent through the planetary atmosphere that preceded the collision! Another chill ran through him as he thought of his friends, the starwarrior Elena Kho and the ever-joking Kyle Brennan, the two human beings from the legend-shrouded Earth, the lost planet of the Argons. Did they survive?

  “Ohg! Please!” he quietly sobbed. If there was something more important to him than the Nyana’s Fortune, it was these two marvelous people! He had wanted to protect their ships from the attacks of the Split warrior Cho t’Nnt; he had rammed Cho’s interceptors. Rammed? No, that sounded too much like an accident! In reality, he had deliberately hurled his yacht into Cho’s machine. What else could he have done? After all, the Nyana’s Fortune bore no weapons!

  “Ishanshniashh!”, Nopileos mumbled again and tried to completely shake off his rigor through sheer force of despair. The onboard computer still didn’t respond. Clearly, Inanias had deliberately catapulted him into the boarding elevator, which had also been conceived by the ship’s designers as an impact cage for the pilot in the event of an emergency landing. This presumably meant that the Nyana’s Fortune was falling uncontrollably at that very moment, and he with her. At the thought of this, he started to slip back into a state of protective catalepsy. But with a determined hiss that proclaimed his rebellion against the alleged inevitability of fate, the Teladi wiped these disturbing thoughts aside and tore free both arms, plowing his webbed claws through the rescue foam with the spraying sound of a million soap bubbles.

  “Inaniasssshh, pleassssh reshpond now! Tshhhh,” he cried, already articulating more clearly than before now that he was getting a grip on the catalepsy. But the ship’s computer still remained silent, as if it could hear nothing. But that’s just impossible, Nopileos thought desperately, Inanias always receives everything that is spoken aboard! Where is he when you really need him?

  With an unpleasant cracking that suddenly went through the frame of the elevator car and set the Teladi’s teeth on edge, gravity changed. Not only did it increase significantly, making the blue foam appear to collapse, it also changed orientation so that Nopileos would have fallen if the rescue foam hadn’t held him. He forced his legs searchingly into the porous material until his claws touched the metallic floor. He had to get out of here at any cost! As a Teladi he was certainly not claustrophobic, but if there was anything he could do to improve his situation—well, he would not be able to do it here!

  Now the elevator swayed a little, dropped downwards and then ascended again. Damn Debitor! What was going on?

  The foam offered considerable resistance to all movement—almost as if it had a stubborn will of its own—but eventually Nopileos was able to fight his way forward to the point where his left clawed foot could reach the manual opening mechanism. Like all Teladian light and door switches, it was at ground level. He had to grope around a little to find the opener at the bottom of the foam, but he finally felt the small pr
ojection between his claws. He paused for a moment. Was it really wise to open the door manually? He wiggled his ears. Yes—it was not only clever, it was actually the only sensible alternative! Determined, he pressed the button into the frame. Nothing happened for sezuras. Unsettled, Nopileos pressed the switch again, then again, but the door followed its own schedule. Somewhere in the bowels of the elevator compartment a dull whir began. Shortly after that a shrill alarm signal sounded, which made the Teladi’s head ridges fade another shade paler. With a burbling sound, similar to two Yalfur foam puddings being pressed together, the consistency of the rescue foam changed abruptly from a solid to a liquid. The light blue substance warmed slightly from the transformation process and in its new liquefied form reached only to Nopileos’s ankles. All at once, the elevator car was filled with the intense, sweet scent of flowers; however, the surprised Teladi didn’t have time to register this, for the door of the elevator car exploded with an unexpected, violent bang and flew outwards in a high arc. Bright daylight fell through the newly created opening for a moment.

  Nopileos had no time to wonder that the door that had been blown away did not afford a view of Deck A of Nyana’s Fortune, as expected. Instead, a mighty surge of red water sprayed inside the sphere, mixed with the blue liquid, and rose unstoppably and furiously. The completely perplexed Teladi was dragged off his clawed feet by the force of the water flooding in and washed up against the opposite wall. There, disoriented and helplessly flailing his arms, he instinctively prepared for the water to collapse over his head in a few moments. He took an involuntary, deep breath of the stale, flower-scented cabin air before his nostrils closed tight. Teladi were excellent swimmers and divers; the idea of being completely underwater in a few split sezura was the least of Nopileos’s worries. He found it much more oppressive that it got darker and darker inside the elevator car the deeper the sphere sank. Now the artificial lighting began to flicker unsteadily; and it soon failed completely with an electric crackle.

  Eerie twilight spread. The water also felt strange—it seemed much thinner than it should have been! It would soon creep under his scales like alcohol and transform him into a bloated corpse… Nonsense! Nopileos immediately shook off the frightening vision of horror. Such a thing could not happen at all. His scales were still firmly joined together thanks to his youth. Nothing could creep underneath!

  Now that the night-dark interior of the car was completely filled with liquid except for a small air bubble on the ceiling, the pressure of the incoming water quickly dropped. Nopileos took the opportunity without delay: he forced himself away from the wall with a powerful push and headed for the opening. Here in the water he could move much more elegantly than on land, because for many eons the ancestors of his people had lived in the vast swamps and rivers of Ianamus Zura and ultimately they still passed this legacy on to their spacefaring brood. The Teladi’s sensitive eyes quickly adapted to the prevailing twilight and finally allowed him to get an overview of the situation. He looked back. The elevator, dimly visible as a spherical silhouette, just touched down at the bottom of the murky water that was permeated with dense suspended matter. The car rolled a ponderous half turn and spun up mud that further clouded the already poor visibility. Then it came to a stop with the doorway facing down.

  Nopileos’s pupils widened in retrospective horror—he could never have freed himself from this prison if he had not gotten out in time! A few air bubbles broke loose from his snout and spun purposefully towards the water’s surface. Great egg, what had that oversized calculator Inanias just done? Had he perhaps catapulted the escape pod out of Nyana’s Fortune in order to save him from an inevitable crash? He had to make certain, had to find out what had happened!

  Nopileos hastily paddled up towards the light. The first thing he noticed when his head broke through the surface of the water was the hot air, which didn’t match the comparatively cold water. Blinking, he drew a cautious breath, shaking off the bitter-smelling and tasting water, and treaded water while looking all around. Tall trees with thin trunks and green tops crowded tightly around a medium-sized lake whose red surface sent dazzling reflections everywhere under the light of a wintry-looking sun. His gaze wandered upward. A frayed streak of dirty yellow smoke spilled over the tops of the trees and spread across the deep blue, cloudless sky, only to disappear again over the treetops at the other edge of his field of vision. The smoke trail seemed to float very high in the air, certainly several thousand Teladian lengths!

  The realization only came over him reluctantly at first, but finally jumped in front of his face with alarming suddenness: this had to be the trail that the Nyana’s Fortune’s burning ion engine had traced across the sky!

  Obviously, considerable winds pulled on the artificial cloud at that altitude, because it fanned out quickly and thinned out even further. In a few mizuras probably not much more of it would be seen and in just an inzura the sky above the lake would once again shine an immaculate blue. The Teladi looked motionlessly at the dissolving cloud for a long time. He felt a sinking feeling rise in his stomach. It simply could not be that his yacht had crashed on this planet! No, he didn’t want to believe that! The onboard computer had merely ejected him from the ship as a precaution, just in case! Inanias had safely landed his beautiful ship somewhere at the end of this trail of smoke, behind the horizon. It was certain!

  Behind him, something splashed softly—a sound he hadn’t really noticed before, gurgling against the strange soundscape of the nearby jungle. Startled, he wanted to turn around, but something hard and cold roughly hit his head before her could do so. Reflexively he made himself heavy and let himself sink a few lengths beneath the water. The view back showed a dark surface, one and a half lengths deep and wide, which was rocked slightly by the water, but otherwise showed no proper movement. Eggs be praised, not an animal! But what else could it be? A log? A piece of wreckage? Carefully, he approached the thing from below. The closer he came, the more it looked like an artificially made object. Finally, Nopileos saw something he thought at first to be a written character, but the thin water was full of rust-red suspended particles, which did not exactly make it easy to recognize. The second look deepened the impression: should there really be Old Teladian hieroglyphics there? Now he was close enough beneath the structure to determine that the thing was made of artificial metal. He stroked the character with his right claw; less to be able to recognize it better than to wipe away his own disbelief. This was the wordmark of the CEO, his grandfather! He blew a little bubbling air through his nostrils. This had to be the hull of a Teladi vehicle, a boat! Nopileos’s hearts almost flipped over with relief. Someone sent by his grandfather had found him and rushed to his rescue!

  With a well-measured thrust of his rudimentarily webbed claws, the Teladi returned to the surface, which resembled a wavering mirror from below. He looked around in joyful anticipation, blinking. At first he didn’t want to believe what he saw. He wanted to say something, stopped himself, then made a hasty paddle movement around his own axis to get an overview of the entire lake.

  “But…” he stammered and forgot to shut his mouth. He stared with infinite disappointment at the object bobbing in the water, which was in no way the vehicle of a rescue squad. How could it be? he scolded himself. Many light-jazuras and enormous diplomatic hurdles would stand between a Teladian rescue squad on Nif-Nakh and him. Moreover, the crash was hardly an inzura ago!

  “Stupid saurian!” he shouted hissing. “Stubborn saurian, naive saurian! Stupid idea!” He slapped the water with his stretched claw. He should have known—no, he had to! As a human, he would have felt like laughing and crying at the same time. Teladi could do neither, so only nameless frustration seethed him. He had let his own wishful thinking fool him! What was floating on the lake in front of him was nothing more than the elevator door that had blown off! An air hose had deployed, which stretched around it and gave it the necessary buoyancy. The structure was not so much intended as a life raft, since Ianamus Zu
ra’s water-accustomed saurians could survive in, above and under water for almost as long as they wanted, even under rough conditions. Rather, the purpose of such a raft was to carry a radio beacon and emergency equipment.

  “Eggs… radio beacon, not good at all,” Nopileos muttered at this thought. The beacon would inevitably lead the Patriarch of Chin’s bloodhounds straight to him. He had to shut it down now! He grabbed the raft and began to pull himself up. The side he was holding on to was pushed a little deeper into the water, the other side lifted up a little. His claw-equipped hands found it difficult to hold the slippery rubber of the air hose; they scraped over it with a ripping sound and slipped off. After several attempts, he finally managed to pull himself up onto the floating door with curses in at least three different languages. Panting, he remained there on his back and stared into the deep blue sky. Slowly the very last remains of the smoke cloud frayed far above him. His thoughts drifted for a while, but he finally managed to shake off the dull brooding and form coherent thoughts. There was only one remaining thing for him to do if he did not want the Split to “save” him, he knew that now. He had to follow the path of the smoke trail until it either led him to the landing site of the Nyana’s Fortune, or to her crash site. And I must find Elena and make sure she is all right, no matter where she is! Of course, the same went for Kyle-William Brennan. Brennan was something like Elena’s clutch-elder. He meant a lot to her, and so he meant a lot to Nopileos—quite a lot!

  After a few more sezuras, he finally turned on his stomach and got up on his knees. He supported himself on the artificial metal surface with his claws, just like a sprinter before the starting gun. The surface was slick and rickety. He had to be careful not to inadvertently slip back into the water! He didn’t have to search for long before he discovered the garish green outline of a hatch, which he opened by carefully sliding it back. Underneath was an approximately eight-by-eight fist compartment, where he found a backpack with mud-colored camouflage lying inside. He strapped it to his back without looking inside first. To the left, under where the backpack had been, rose a fist-sized, square metal glass cover, which stuck out a few claws widths. Beneath the cover, Nopileos saw a greenish light flashing at a hypnotic, half-sezura interval: the transmitter! The cover’s locking mechanism was disengaged with a single handle, and the Teladi held the flat device in its hand. Apart from the indicator lamp, it bore only one other control: a push button labeled with the word for “off” in Argono-Teladian. The switch was secured with a narrow pin, which had to be pulled out if you wanted to deactivate the radio beacon. Nopileos did this and pressed the button. The little green light went out instantly; the transmitter fell silent. For a few sezuras, the Teladi fought against the impulse to throw the device far away from him and let it sink it in the lake. But then he thought better of it, took the backpack from his back, and carefully stowed the transmitter inside. He didn’t know if or why he could need it later.