Genetic Dust

  By E. L. Strife

  elstrife.com

  Hybrid Genesis

  Genetic Dust is a side story to this series, taking place before the third book: Renascent - Starborn Blood.

  You can get the prequel: Reclamation - Mind Jack for free from Amazon here.

  Or you can subscribe and get it from BookFunnel.

  A rescue mission leaves a security officer stranded and unveils a secret that could turn the tide of an ancient war.

  Hybrid Genesis

  Reclamation: Mind Jack #0

  Zedger: Edge of Zion #1

  Oblivion: Fractured Empire #2

  Renascent: Starborn Blood #3

  Genetic Dust: Side Story

  Envoy

  I usher Earth’s frantic representatives and military leaders to escape pods as red light drenches the halls of Envoy. Sirens warble at ear-throbbing volume amid pelting explosions and groans of failing metal. Pods race out into space. General Abernathy fights me, trying to push me into the last escape pod.

  “Your father will kill me if I show and you don’t,” he says.

  “You are my responsibility.” I’m younger and stronger and shove him into his seat. The automatic belting system straps him in tightly, despite his protests. I guard commanding officers and dignitaries. My duty is to protect him at any cost. “My father has another daughter, one of blood. Your knowledge is critical to winning this war.”

  “Netti, let me out!”

  “Can’t do that, sir.” I slap the blinking release button. The hatch seals.

  “You don't know what you're doing!” He bangs on the glass between us, his voice muffled. “Netti, please! I found you in a re-gen tank on Keppler-22B. You’re the only life form we recovered! You’re hundreds of years old. You have to save yourse—”

  He’s cut off by the pod’s launch. There’s pity in his sun-spotted eyes. He knows I’m going to die with the others. I don’t think about it. I can’t let go of how backward the ambush feels.

  His confession startles me. No one’s talked about my origins before. Earth’s Intergalactic Defense Force took me in, trained me, and built me to fight. They gave me two years I can remember. I owe them my life. I would gladly give it in their name.

  I brace myself on the transparent airlock and look down the chute after him, but his pod has vanished. Now I want answers. How long and why was I in stasis? Why wait until now to tell me?

  “All remaining personnel, report to the bridge!” Captain Shaw commands over the intercoms that work.

  I bolt out of the room and into the main starboard corridor. On the hallway screens, compartments within the ship’s schematic are saturated red. Others flash as they depressurize. Too many are gone.

  Our guns are inoperable. Main engines are offline. Orbit's decaying. We will soon crash on the planet we came to protect.

  One display catches my attention. Someone pulled up the starboard scanners of planet Javra. The Klésut on the surface need protection from colony ravagers. Our mothership needs supplies.

  Klésut ships sprout opalescent wings of flares that arc toward Envoy and shower our battered hull like lead rain. There’s no reason for them to fire on us.

  Unless the Klésut lied.

  The ship tilts and gravity shifts. I tumble to the ceiling, get to my feet, and tap the communicator in my ear. “Lorence, what’s our status?”

  My cousin’s voice is tight and panicked. “Most of the pods are out of battle range. We have three . . . two Flarestar fighters inbound from Sol de Gaia, protecting our leaders.”

  I race toward the bridge. The schematics show shields are down. The Klésut knew where to hit us, how, and when. They know us, or someone’s a traitor.

  The door to the bridge opens when I arrive. Flames erupt. An invisible force rams into my chest, slinging me back. Envoy jolts sideways.

  I careen into a wall. My body pounds from the hit as I crumple to the floor.

  “Fifteen minutes to impact,” a nearby computer states.

  In my disorientation, I squint at where the bridge should be. It's a gaping, shredded hole exposing the first hints of atmosphere. I gasp in the lowered oxygen, heart wrenching over the loss of so many good people.

  This isn't right. It doesn't make sense.

  “Life form report, Envoy,” I wheeze. I fear I already know the answer.

  “One.”

  My heart stings from the truth. I hang my head and wipe my eyes on the back of a sleeve. “Transports remaining?”

  “Voidborn, classified hangar, deck three.”

  Voidborn? My insides churn. I don’t know what we’re doing with an enemy ship or how I was not informed of its presence.

  The Voidborn name holds powerful weight. They are the worst ravagers, malicious to the core. I don't want anything to do with them or their things, but instinct compels me on.

  I climb through the death-diving ship to the hangar. The door opens for me, revealing an inky V-shaped transport locked into the deck.

  The floor tilts. I topple into a slide across the floor. Cursing, I scramble toward the alien ship and manage to catch the edge of the dropped ramp. I pull myself inside.

  The pilot’s seat is too big, the straps loose, and the controls unfamiliar. A panel pulses in the dash. Not knowing what else to do, I tap it.

  Blue lights zip around the ship. Thrusters kick on, then engines with unreal power.

  Outside, Envoy’s hull caves and peels away. Javra’s land features become visible. I mash my security code into my wristband. The locks release, and the Voidborn ship is sucked out.

  My stomach greets my throat, then sinks into my feet. The computer cycles through charts as I plummet to the surface. In the turbulence, I screech, clutch my harness, and frantically try to make sense of the reports, but my vision won’t focus.

  I close my eyes and feel my position. After a deep breath, I study the controls again. I make my best guess based on what I know of their symbols.

  When I pulse the rear hover pads, my rotation slows. I’m still falling fast. The surface of Javra closes in. I grasp the dual joystick controls and pull up hard.

  The ship levels out, but I’m too slow in my corrections. I slam into the ground. The ship cuts a trough in the dirt, then tumbles into a barrel roll.

  Windows fracture. Glass fills the air. I’m flung chaotically in my seat. I shield my face on instinct. The ship hits something hard and whips around, then rocks to a groaning stop.

  Captives

  I cough in the settling dust. My body throbs. I release my harness. The ground is a short fall. My neck aches. Hot pangs fill my left side. I crawl to the light in hopes of getting a better view of my injury.

  Leaning back against the hull, I catch my breath and discover a shard of metal buried just beneath my ribs. I wince as I wrap my fingers around it. I need to free it in case it’s toxic. I don’t know what Voidborn tech will do to me. But every Voidborn is sick in some way.

  After flinging it aside, I tear a strip from my uniform and press it against my oozing wound to slow my blood loss. I refocus on ridding my body of the dust, but it’s everywhere. I breathe it. I lie in it. It coats my clothes.

  The cloud from my crash shimmers in the sunlight. Envoy’s bones burn among the distant hills. I shake my head in defeat and swallow the ache in my throat.

  It’s too late to save the crew. I hope the delegates are safe. I’m on my own now.

  The iridescence of Javra’s land recaptures my attention. It is an ancient planet, one of the oldest on record. I wave a hand through the haze in awe and partly from shock. I need medical supplies before I bleed out. When I plant my good hand in the dirt to get up, I notice particles disappearing into my skin.

  I think of mercury and lurch back, ripping my hand out and shaking it. It’s no use.

  A familiar peep and whir behind me makes me freeze. A Voidborn gun barrel presses against the back of my head.

  I haven’t survived this long to die now. I dig my fingers into the powdery dirt and sling a fistful behind me as I dive aside. A shot punches into the ground, launching a wave of soil into the air.

  A multitude of beeps form a ring around me, and I know my escape attempt has failed.

  “Hold your fire!” a mask-filtered voice says. The individual turns to me. “Get up!”

  I stand and lift my free hand. The other holds the makeshift bandage against my side. Voidborn surround me, dressed in pitchy suits. They have body shields, so they could all shoot me and be immune to the crossfire. They are more machine than the biological beings they once were.

  In the distance, Voidborn exit a Klésut ship. I sag in defeat. There was no traitor. Gaians arrived too late.

  The Voidborn have taken control of Javra.

  “Are there any left? Or did you kill them all?” I ask.

  “Do not speak!” the leader hisses at me.

  Another Void soldier joins the leader. They talk quietly. The others stand still as drones around me. It’s the benefit of augmented bodies—precision.

  “Dosk, guard her,” the leader commands.

  A smaller guard, closer to human height, walks up and stands close but doesn’t touch me. He’s smart. I try to see inside the leader’s visor, wanting to know what his eyes look like, and his face. Few have ever seen a Voidborn in the flesh.

  My adrenaline makes me daring. “What's it like to have to live in that protective shell, afraid the outside world will kill you?”

  Dosk points his gun at my face. “I’m about to kill you.”
<

br />   “Why don't you?” I ask. Someone wants me alive.

  A warped ticking noise grows faster and louder nearby. The others don’t seem to notice. I look around but can’t see anything I deem responsible.

  Dosk, the short one, motions me toward the leader with the barrel of his gun.

  Someone kicks me in the back. I fall and Dosk picks me back up by the collar of my shirt. Two squads form up behind us, and we ascend the hillside.

  The ticking grows louder.

  A Voidborn ship uncloaks ahead of me. Rumbles of engines thunder out the moment the cloak drops. The ticking stops.

  We leave the landing field behind and pass through the archway of a tall stone wall. The city inside is quiet. There's no one inside except Voidborn.

  We march up the main road and climb broad, white steps which lead to a building surrounded by pillars. The ceilings are high, and guards line the grand hall inside like flies on a hot corpse. They’re the only decoration in this place.

  I expected to see Klésut, or at least one. I see none—a very bad sign.

  A Voidborn soldier paces before a stone throne. From his shoulders hangs a cloak adorned with metallic-blue chevrons. I’m stopped and forced to my knees before him.

  “How did you acquire a Voidborn ship?” the man asks. His suit is different, darker. His voice is deeper with a hint of a rasp as if he’s spent many years shouting. Blue lights gleam from the seams near his suit’s joints.

  “It was in a hangar of Envoy,” I reply.

  A fist hits my cheek, knocking me sideways. Pain explodes in my face and side. I grunt and breathe through it.

  Dosk tugs me upright, then rolls his shoulder.

  “I don’t know how they acquired it,” I admit.

  The man taps a device on a nearby table. A hologram of Sol de Gaia appears. “Their lives depend on your answer.”

  I know this game. Voidborn never do as they say. If they found Sol de Gaia, it’s already gone. “I don’t know how Envoy got it, but I wager it’s from the Larisian Nebula battle. That’s all I know.”

  “How did you know how to fly it?” the Voidborn commander asks.

  “I didn’t.”

  “But you did.” He flicks a hand at a soldier who taps something on the table. Sol de Gaia explodes onscreen.

  Panic grips my heart. I swallow it and my surging anger. I remind myself they’re trying to break me—make me think I’m alone and that I must save my own hide. Voidborn play every dirty trick and invent their own.

  Sol de Gaia could be safe. I’m less certain about the delegates. One thing has never changed; I have always worked alone.

  “What do you want with me?” I ask, looking away from the screen as if the lives of my friends and family don’t matter.

  They do. I have to find out if they died. First, I must survive to have a chance to know for certain. These soldiers are Voidborn. No one and nothing is immune to their touch.

  “You are not Gaian,” the man before me states.

  “Nope.”

  “You speak our language well.”

  “I’m not Voidborn if that’s what you’re implying.” I hardly notice when I switch languages anymore.

  “I want to offer you a deal,” he says.

  I scowl. “No.”

  “Tell me where your terran colony is.”

  “No.”

  “And I’ll tell you where you’re really from.”

  I pause to give him time to think I’m reconsidering. But I don’t care where I come from. I care about those who fought and died beside me.

  A warped ticking sound begins again. It moves toward me from behind. The reflection I see on the soldiers’ visors exposes nothing. But someone, or perhaps a drone, closes in. I think it's a cloaked soldier.

  “Still no,” I finally say.

  “I hoped for more cooperation.” He jerks his head to a side. The ticking grows.

  I anticipate an attack and swivel. A soldier uncloaks as they swing a crackling baton down over my head. I block their arm, ram a knee into their stomach, and huddle under their caving body as bullets riddle them from the other soldiers in the room. Their shield protects us both as we’re knocked back into the wall behind the throne by the power of the blasts.

  In our struggle, I free the gun from their belt. I kick them off of me, fire at the two with sights on me, and dart down a nearby hallway. A shot skips off a wall, taking out a chunk of stone and roasting a braid from my bun. I duck and sprint faster through the corridors, doing my best to hold the blood-soaked cloth against my injury.

  The walls vibrate like the air. My vision hyperfocuses on searching for an exit. I end up in a storage room with no way out. Soldiers’ footsteps pass in the hallway, and I slink back into a shadow.

  A cool breeze passes over my hand. Behind a rack is a crack in the rocky cellar wide enough for me to fit. Perhaps there is another way out. I slip behind the rack and into the opening, glancing back to ensure I haven’t left a trail of blood. The floor is clean.

  It’s dark and dank inside the deepening crevice with a scent like hot moss and metal slag. I know the Voidborn won’t come after me here. I’m soft and malleable. Their suits are large and unyielding.

  I weave through the caverns until I discover a larger opening. Peering out, I find it leads to an underground river with a narrow, metal walkway along one side.

  Doors of iron bars line the path. People crowd the doors. They whisper among themselves.

  I climb down the rocks until I set foot on the metal.

  An older woman comes forward. She looks me over as she steadies herself against the bars. “You escaped the night soldiers?”

  I count ten cells, each with at least five prisoners. They are all different life forms. I see no Klesút. Some are teenagers. None strike me as threatening. Envoy’s crew is gone, but these people still have a chance. “Voidborn? Yes, as far as I can tell. How do I free you?”

  I hear voices and the ticking of what I assume is a cloak. It grows and fades. I’m running out of time to help these people and get to Sol de Gaia. I check the walkway, but it’s still empty. They haven’t found me yet.

  The woman points to the entrance. “Levers are by the doorway. There’s an exit beyond the mines. That’s our way out.”

  I hustle over and pull every lever. People flood out of the cells. Everyone follows the woman into the mines. I stay at the back, gun drawn, igniter whirring softly.

  “Javra is out of their usual path,” I say to a man who hangs back with me. “Why do you think they came here? What did they want?”

  “Ore for ships and to set a trap.” He picks up a rock as a weapon. “They worked the Klésut to death, all but one. Just a baby. She is cared for by Anari who lost hers during the final battle. Anari’s people were the first to respond. That was three months ago.”

  We snake through tunnel after tunnel.

  “I understand the need for ore but not their bloodlust,” I say.

  “They envy all descendants of the Starborn. Some people just have a greater connection to the ancestors. That’s who they’re searching for.”

  “Ancients?” I ask.

  “Legends.”

  Legends

  I want to know why the Voidborn wanted me, but I have to find a way out. I must warn the Gaians that Javra is already lost.

  The man beside me points to a painting of a battle scene on the rocky walls. One wave of soldiers is made of stars. The other is a black tide. “Legend says our ancestors used to protect all others from the Voidborn, the ones who captured my home planet weeks ago.”

  “Each of us came with a crew from a nearby system, responding to the distress call,” a woman says. “I’m Kas, a pilot from Dibrus. That’s Sorveu, he’s a medic from Woske Marhite.”

  “We are all the last of our kinds,” a young man adds. “They killed everyone except those they deem the strongest.”

  “I’m Netti of Sol de Gaia,” I say, adjusting my grip on my makeshift bandage. “I’m a security officer. I was just lucky, not the strongest.”

  “You’re hurt?” Sorveu asks, noticing my side.

  I peel back my bandage as we hustle along the mine shafts. An iridescent ring with hues similar to the dust of the planet has formed on the border of the wound, pulling inward. It's already healing? I wonder if it's something about Javra, like a unique environmental influence. Then I remember the dust absorbing into my skin after the crash. I can't think of another explanation.

 

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