Terror on Arrival: An Apocalyptic Science Fiction Novel

The tales I will tell. The nightmares my tales will produce. The horror you

Not a human alive knows their appointment with death. The second you were conceived, the countdown clock of your life expiring began. You know you’re going to die, just not when.

There was a planet in the Qragnix system—a system too far away for our most modern equipment to discover. Well, not discover. It had been in existence far longer than the Milky Way. The Qragnix inhabitants race’s teeth grew old in their skull before we even existed. They had established a society before our kind was hitting lizards with rocks. This story begins before we had the privilege to even have stories. And to think, cave paintings were masterpieces at that time.

I will have to augment my tale for your purpose. You wouldn’t know what a Chaelux was—that’s Chaesun for tribunal. The language of communication was a flowing ballet of sounds, gestures, and expressions; speech was just a minute element of communication. They never had, ands couldn’t use, something as primitive as a telephone. That would give you just a sliver of a conversation. They used what we called holographic omnicommunicators. It was called a Hotakt. It wirelessly accessed your sensory node, and transported you to a neutral location with the environment of your choosing. You would have communications in electri-holo oblivion.

The reason we never had to invent anything of that sort is because we never needed to. For humans, it was a luxury they would get bored with. For the Cheasu, it was a necessity for communication.

The Cheasu were not super beings; they were just older than us. They advanced naturally, through time. It would be like you showing up in a car, with a cellphone, in ancient Egypt. To them, you’d be a god. To you, it would be Tuesday. Time is the regulator.

In our eyes, they would be considered advanced. In their eyes, they would be considered temporally evolved, nothing more.

That was my brief synopsis on the Cheasu from the Qragnix system. It was meant to give you a taste of their race and culture. This tale is not about them. It begins here. This allegory is older than our existence. It comes to a head—a heightened apex—when I tell it. I’ll start at the beginning, because walking in at the middle of the tale would confuse you. Have you ever watched a complicated movie from the middle, until the credits rolled, without someone catching you up? You’d think that masterpiece would be stupid, because you didn’t get the whole story. That is why the beginning is paramount. Let’s begin.

My name is... a human doesn’t have the oral capacity to pronounce it. You can call me Cheauflux in your language. I will be your chronicler, your storyteller. I have acquired every language from human history. Everything is singular in the concept of speech. That one integer made every language effortless.

My story uses feeling, as well as words. Think of me as a fly on the wall of an epic. I am about that significant in this scheme. Don’t swat me. I’m a very powerful fly.

All you have to do is listen, and feel. This apologue is accurate. There is no stretching of the truth. It wouldn’t be worthy to be called a story if you had to add deception. It truly happened that way. If there were villains, they were villainous. If there were heroes, they were heroic, hence the name villain and hero.

I know you’re frothing to hear this story. I was preparing myself, as well as preparing you. Remember what I said about coming in at the middle of a complex movie, without a friend to fill you in. Consider me the friend filler. All right, Ravenous, I believe you’re prepared.

“Have you captured all of them?” the Cheacorin (pronounced shey-KOO-rin) asked.

“They all have been apprehended, Your Eminence, all of them,” a member of the Terex Guard said.

“They would have reduced Valan-Cheanaus to a dead rock, not the flourishing planet we inhabit,” the leader said. “Recant me on your accomplishments.”

“The Chauzek are adaptable, abstract creatures. Their entire existence is designed to consume... everything. Their brains were designed for one thing, survival. They have no conscious or compassion. They were born to do one job. Until death, survive,” the guard began. “They were easy to capture, just impossible to kill.”

“Why would we kill a race bred to do what it does?” the leader asked. “We discovered how senseless murder was after the Chaeden Wars. The casualty count almost destroyed the entire planet. We learned that you never kill over opinions. It’s too taxing. We don’t kill. However, we do banish. Have you found an uninhabited planet for us to dump our deadly refuse?”

“We are calculating a location, as we speak,” the guard said. “This universe is vast, with one problem. There’s nothing here that can sustain life far enough away from us.”

“You mean uninhabited,” the leader confirmed. “All those planets have residences.”

“I hate to say it, Your Eminence, but the benefactors have taken all the survivable seats,” the guard said.

“This is a paradox. We don’t kill, but how do you manage mindless killers, in which killing is their nature?” the leader asked rhetorically. “They haven’t escaped the containment area, have they?”

The containment field is contrived from Cheanerex. An impenetrable material,” the guard said. “It takes several generations to forge, and the most advanced Cheasu couldn’t escape before expiration through tele-migration. Or any other forms of movement.”

“It is secure, good,” the leader said. “I’ve only heard of their legend. I know they are insatiable, past dialectics. That they would rather consume each other, than extinguish. Although, I have never seen them.”

“They are evolutionarily simplistic, and perfect, Your Excellency. They have no weaknesses, physically or environmentally,” the guard reported.

“Your description is an admirable delineation, except viewing them would quash all my speculations,” the leader said.

“Your Excellency, although they have been captured, they are still dangerous,” the guard informed.

“They are more dangerous to themselves than to me. We must sustain life, until natural expiration of our physical bodies. We shall see them,” the leader declared.

“Allow me to set safety protocols, Your Excellence. When they are in place, I will escort you to peruse the butchers,” the guard said.

The Terex Warrior exited the chamber to place safety protocols, commandeer a platoon of guardians, and to escort the Excellent One to holding.

Oyryanek, the leader, was requited with its soldier’s efficiency. The word ‘soldier’ was an oxymoron in a society of serenity. ‘Tending conservators’ were more accurate. They didn’t have to protect their royalty or country anymore. The name ‘Warrior’ was just that, a name. There hasn’t been a war since the Chaeden War. Most Cheasu only knew of that war from history implants. They only witnessed it in their minds. Granted, it was like being there without being hurt, but it was just a mental, historical document that passed through implanting. The Cheasu never personally recorded carnage.

Since everyone witnessed the carnage of war, every Cheasu committed themselves to peace. They had the technology for the obliteration to always be fresh. The devastation would never wane.

They vowed never to kill, not even to eat. There was abundant manna everywhere to consume. It kept you sustained for quite some time. Consumption was never a problem, until the Chauzek appeared.

Their devastation began subtly. It started in an unexplored forest. Certain plants began to disappear. Then, the insects. All were insignificant, until a tree fell.

Environmental engineers scheduled a maintenance cleaning for the tree, however, upon arrival, the tree wasn’t there! The engineers thought it was a computer glitch. They never maintained surveillance equipment in an uninhabited forest.

Shockingly, it wasn’t a glitch. One engineer oversaw every uncharted forest. It was meticulous. All of its equipment was pristine. The riddle posed upon the engineers was where did the tree go? It was obvious it wasn’t there. It was confirmed it fell. Where was it?

Their mysticism was answered when a Megacosm team began to explore the forest.

They found foreign plants, and insects. They also found never before seen deciduous trees. These trees were named after the scientists that found them. There was another entity the team found. One they wished they wouldn’t have.

It was a creature that ate voraciously. It had an endless appetite, and what seemed like a bottomless pit for a stomach. It possessed no fear of flight. It was relentless in its goal.

It was studied, and it was found out to be a primitive cleaning system for the forest. When the Cheasu became evolved and began to manicure their own forestry needs, these creatures weren’t needed anymore.

They began to starve. They only had one purpose in life. They were bred to clean up. When the Cheasu decided their job in life wasn’t necessary, they didn’t even know they were starving off a race.

The Chauzek, named after the Megacosm team, didn’t die off. They became more ravenous. They didn’t die, they multiplied.

They were still a scientific enigma. No one knew who, or what they were. They knew not of their purpose, or their goal. They only knew the voracious creatures were knocking on civilization’s door.

The creatures were speculated to have been there since the ebb of existence, yet they had no carcass of a deceased creature. It was inherent that they devoured their dead. They were cleaners.

Then, the science team found a fatally injured cadaver lying on the floor of the forest. Either they didn’t see the demise, or they were too busy cleaning to notice. The team gathered it, and whisked it away to a biological autopsy facility. What they found was genetic perfection.

The creature was amphibian based. The bone structure consisted of silicone threaded with titanium. The skeleton could resist heat and cold, to extreme temperatures. The digestive system baffled many biologists. The stomach area wasn’t encased. It wasn’t even surrounded. Although, the creature was dead, the digestion was still active. The stomach area was not only a housing for nutrients, it was a matter deleter! The digestive system was the reason it was voracious. It had the hole that couldn’t be filled.

Death of the creature was inconclusive. No one knew their sustenance system, so they never knew what it needed to survive. The creature was known with deeper acumen, yet, it still was ambiguous.

It was an indestructible waste destroyer. It was excellent, until there was no waste to destroy.

Their minds were rudimentary. They were never equipped with the gift of separation. When the creatures fell, and consumed their first building, the Terex guard sprang to action.

They were easy to capture. They were communal, not individualistic. They could be categorized as Hunter Sycophants, followers, not leaders. If you captured one, the rest would follow. They walked right into a detainment area.

The main problem was not containment, it was maintenance. Even if they accumulated all the waste on Valan-Cheanaus, it would never be enough. Their forced famine augmented their ecosystem. Once there wasn’t enough waste, they automatically compensated in numbers, to maintain their existence in the ecosystem. They became the push-broom, with a wider sweeping surface.

Since the Cheasu didn’t kill, they had to transport. It couldn’t be an inhabited planet. That would be blatantly dumping their problems on an unsuspecting, possibly hostile being. That was out of the question. They couldn’t transport them to a caustic planet. That would be a cumbersome, cruel killing. Oyryanek had to find a solution.

The guard entered, bowed, and gestured out the door. “Your accompaniment awaits you, Your Excellency.”

Oyryanek raised, and began to walk out the chamber. “Are the protocols in place?”

“Everything is secure, Your Excellency. There were no discrepancies,” the guard reported.

Oyryanek joined the platoon of the Terex guard. They all fell into step, immediately, and escorted Its Excellence to the holding facility.

“You’ve seen these things, Ehyrnok. What do they look like?” Oyryanek asked.

“All I can say, Your Excellency, is their legend pales in the midst of their actuality. I hope your decision has been finalized, because their appearance can augment that,” Ehyrnok said.

“I am secure, Ehyrnok. They won’t change my mind,” Oyryanek said.

They walked towards the holding area. It was embedded in the onyx of the mountain. It had a shiny shale look to it; roughly polished, over a crude, jagged, surface. Black was the shine, and nature was the polisher.

They walked into the room where the ravagers were kept. Oyryanek finally saw them.

They looked like spiked Gila monsters, with overexposed, razor sharp teeth. They were chameleon-like. Their color changed with the atmospheric color pallet. They were aggressive, charging the invisible, atmospheric barrier holding them back. They were getting electrocuted, but they could absorb the shock. They were built to live on the sun, so electricity didn’t even tickle them.

“We must transport these demons away from us,” Oyryanek said.

“I am happy you didn’t augment your decision to kill, your Excellency,” Ehyrnok said. “Most leaders would do it out of fear.”

“I wasn’t bequeathed my title through royalty. The patrons chose me in my first physical existences. I hope I can see them through this crisis,” Oyryanek said.

Just then, an apprehensive, sweaty scientist started a commotion with one of the guards.

“I have Its Excellency’s answer! Let me through!” the scientist yelled.

“We are under a strict protocol,” the guard said.

“I’m not a criminal!” the scientist yelled. “Its Excellency needs this information!”

“Let him through,” Oyryanek said.

The guard stepped aside and let the frantic scientist access Its Excellency.

The scientist ran to Oyryanek, and immediately bowed. “Your Excellency!”

“Get up. We can do formalities later. You have something for me,” Oyryanek said.

“I have an organic, life sustaining, uninhabited planet, Your Excellency!” the scientist said, with glee.

“How far away?” Oyryanek asked.

“It’s so far away, the Chauzek can never find their way back!” the scientist said.

“They are rudimentary beings, but they do adapt,” Oyryanek said.

“Physically, not mentally, Your Excellence. They have reached their peak intelligence,” the scientist confirmed.

“This planet will be a haven for their appetite?” Oyryanek asked.

“The planet consists of primordial matter, at this point. It can be aggressive in construction, like us, or benign, like the Arclunds,” the scientist explained.

Oyryanek pondered. “Silicone, or organic based. Whatever it is, they will survive?”

“They are masters at adaptation, Your Excellency. They can become comfortable with any environment that is life sustainable ever imagined,” the scientist said.

Oyryanek weighed the pros and cons. It was an uninhabited planet. It was existence sustainable. It was very far away. Those were the pros. It was an existence sustaining new planet. That meant there would be future life forms. The Chauzek were always going to be a threat to whatever they encountered. They could render the planet barren, before it grew to fruition, and there weren’t many inhabited planets in this universe.

“Can you put the Chauzek in suspended animation?” Oyryanek asked the scientist.

“It can be accomplished, however, not indefinitely,” the scientist said.

“All I want to know is, can the planet grow?” Oyryanek asked.

“They can be suspended until the planet and any inhabitants are evolved enough for them to be able to deal with the Chauzek,” the scientist concluded.

Oyryanek had to make the decision. “Put them in a suspended gravitas. I don’t want them to revive until whatever inhabitants discover space travel. I want them to be able to leave, or evict. Whoever they are going to be, they at least deserve a chance. Once they are deeply elsewhere, send them to their new home.”

“It will be written as history, Your Excellency,” the scientist said, and quickly left for the laboratory and transportation.

Oyryanek looked at the platoon of Terex guards. Most were stoic. The newer guards were smiling. They were in awe at their leader. They didn’t have enough discipline to remain emotionless. That would come in time. Oyryanek knew one thing. If the Guard was satisfied, the people would be satisfied.

Oyryanek turned to look at one of the twelve moons floating around Valan-Cheanaus. “I hope my decision was an admirable one. Please save the lives of whatever exists.”