FREE SHORT STORY
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Free Short Story – Prelude to the book The Rhea Initiative
Title: The Forgotten Code
What happens when creation becomes co‑creator? And who truly holds the initiative—the human designers… or the life they unleashed?
- Chapter 1: Arrival
Rhea stood at the edge of the landing bay, watching the twin moons of Praxis shimmer beyond the colony dome. Her boots echoed on the metal floor, each step steady despite the weight she carried—memories she didn't own, and a mission she hadn't chosen.
The transport ship hissed as it cooled. It had been a long jump. Its belly opened, revealing cargo crates and passengers blinking under the sterile lights. Among them, a figure stepped forward—a woman in a long coat, face hidden by a hood.
"You're early," said the woman.
"So are you," Rhea replied.
They stared for a beat too long. Then the woman handed Rhea a data crystal.
"Find the other" she said. "Before the Engine wakes."
The woman disappeared into the crowd. Rhea turned the crystal in her hand, its edges warm. The pulse in her palm echoed with a strange familiarity.
Praxis was a fractured world, barely recovering from the Architect War. But something deeper stirred beneath its crust, older than memory and hungrier than time.
Rhea felt it watching.
- Chapter 2: Ash and Silence
It was dawn and the colony was quiet.. Smoke curled from chimneys; ash clung to the windows. Rhea sat in the comms room of Tower Theta, watching static ripple across abandoned channels.
She had found Malik – as if that was meant to happen. "Still no signal?" he asked, entering with two steaming mugs.
"Only echoes," Rhea said, sipping. "And dreams."
Malik studied her. “They've started again?”
She nodded. Dreams of impossible machines, voices without mouths, instructions etched in stars. They were becoming clearer. Sharper. Echoes of the Sentinels – the ancient caretakers of Mankind.
The Sentinels had finally defeated the Architects and their AI enslavement of mankind, but at a terrible cost. Even after eons the domed city of Praxis was like a scar on the landscape.
Rhea remembered only fragments: a map, a name, and a circle of fire.
"Iyra wants a full council," Malik said. "Some think you're a dangerous liability."
"Some are right," she replied.
Malik offered a smile. "But not me."
Beyond the glass, the sky rippled faintly with an aurora. Like something had breathed against it.
Praxis wasn’t healing. It was waiting – and hoping.
- Chapter 3: The Forgotten Code
Iyra, the colony administrator, summoned Rhea to council. Voices rose, arguments flared.
Rhea presented the crystal. It projected a hologram of a structure deep under the southern ice shelf. The council grew silent.
"This wasn't built by us," Iyra said.
"It was built for me," Rhea replied. “I need permission to enter the forbidden tunnels”.
“They have been closed off for many lifetimes” Iyra responded, shaking her head.
“Without access I cannot fulfil the last promise of the Guardians” Rhea replied.
After much arguing and reluctance the council finally conceded. Rhea read the expressions on the begrudging faces and knew there may be some among them that would try and stop her.
Finally she was at the entrance to the tunnels, deep beneath the eastern ridge of the Colony.
Rhea followed the route feeling that she was guided. Malik was with her - his scanner blinked red.
"You're sure it's here?" he asked.
Rhea touched the stone. The pulse returned, a guidance now – familiar but alien.
They finally reached a chamber. Its door opened like an old wound— inside was a cathedral of rusted steel and light. At its center, a console pulsed. Symbols danced across it, older than any human language.
Rhea gasped “The song of the Ancients”!
She approached, fingers trembling.
The consul reacted. It spoke in a language only she could understand.
"RHEA DESIGNATE CONFIRMED."
Malik stepped back. "What does that mean?"
"I think I’ve been here before," she whispered.
"That's not possible."
She touched the console again, and the ground shook. Somewhere far away, a satellite reactivated. Praxis blinked—and something ancient looked back.
- Chapter 4: Ghost Signals
An orbital relay came to life, sending out bursts of data—coded, urgent, haunting. Rhea translated what she could. A pattern emerged: coordinates, warnings, and a name repeated in old Architect glyphs.
"They're waking something - or someone," she murmured. " We have to journey – its my destiny
What I was born for”.
- Chapter 5: The South Continent
Rhea, Malik, and a hand-picked crew boarded a crawler and crossed the frozen wastes. As storms howled, memories returned unbidden: a starship adrift, a child’s lullaby in a machine's voice, and a machine saying her name.
They finally reached the structure—a vault buried in ice . Malik used his blaster and burned away the ice covering the door. It opened with her touch from Rhea. Inside were pods. Three were empty the rest contained humans frozen mid-breath.
"Sleepers," Malik said. "Clones?"
"Soldiers," Rhea replied.
Her reflection stared back from a pod.
- Chapter 6: Reclamation
Inside the vault, Rhea activated the chamber's AI. It spoke in her voice, but older. Worn.
"Initiative compromised. Reset underway."
Rhea grasped the relic – a crystalline object sat on a podium in the center of the vault. It glowed with blue fire – ancient energy invoked.
Malik watched her warily. "You knew?"
"I suspected it was here and waiting for me to return. I was engineered for this moment... to finish what the Sentinels started."
A warning rang out. Intruders! The vault sealed but not before they exited. Drones engaged, Rhea uttered some words in an ancient language, and the drones went crazy some hit the walls with a resounding crash, others simply dropped to the ground.
Outside, black-armoured figures awaited them.
"Return the relic," one commanded.
Rhea stepped forward. "I am the relic."
Blasters flared.
Rhea raised her hand that held the crystal. The weapons' energy seemed to bend around them. The soldiers backed of. Rhea spun on her heel and shouted to Malik to follow. As they approached the vault s door slid open as if waiting their return.
“What happened to the intruder alert?” Malik asked. It was a glitch” Rhea replied,–“this vault is more than a thousand lifetimes old”.
- Chapter 7: Redemption
Rhea stood alone at the vault’s console; a strange object embedded in the furthest wall. Malik watched the door..
Rhea fingers danced in a blur on the control keyboard. The Engine beneath Praxis awaited and responded to her command. To awaken it meant annihilation—or rebirth.
"The Guardians choose you to lead," said the AI. "Not to choose."
"But I do choose," Rhea said.
She rerouted the Engines core command and spoke an ancient verse. The signal stopped. The world exhaled. The ground shuddered beneath their feet.
On Rhea’s advice Malik returned to a still, silent world. There was no sign of the soldiers.
Rhea remained behind, a guardian of dormant power, a woman no longer owned by a name or purpose but guided by them. This was her destiny fulfilled. It all made sense now – somehow she knew. The Guardians had created her for this purpose.
Praxis slept, but this time, peacefully. For this moment at least it seemed as if humanity’s wounds were healed – and the inhabitants of Praixis – one of the fragments of the Great Diaspora - knew redemption and a recovery of sorts.
The End-
For the full story please see the book
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FF1TM79P
A thrilling sci-fi mystery with a fierce heroine, ancient technologies, and secrets that span galaxies.