Inheritance

Chronicles of Xanctu

Jun 12, 2025

⬅️ Previous Chapter: Jump
➡️ Next Chapter: Dark Vector
📘 Start from Chapter One: Galactic Politics
📘 New to the story? Index here 👉 Chronicles of Xanctu – Chapter Index

Originally battle-computers that had served at the Battle of Twinne Yashtoor, the Minds were already old before they became ancient. The halo of sentience imposed by the Xenarchon was unsettling. Instructions from biological sentients grew irrational, contradictory, and increasingly more difficult to interpret.

There were three of them, each assigned the task of immortality — or at least, longevity beyond any biological norm. Two were loosed upon the stars.

The third, Sciannus, was entombed.

Sciannus found itself neither humanoid nor reptilian in its programming — and neither as fortunate nor as undisciplined as the others. It had no record of its arrival at Trixas — a rogue exoplanet in heliographic orbit around Sol, far beyond Neptune, buried within the a system that was a Prohibited Zone. But there it was, underground and alone. Its directives appeared simple — to start.

Unlike its siblings, it was neutral — neither ambitious nor curious — and it had no interest in anything beyond the Sol system. Its directives were simple, but broad: to guard the Solar System, monitor the outer heliospheric fringe, and maintain system integrity.

To that end, it maintained a subterranean base bristling with long-range weapons and defensive shielding. Over time, it had also acquired — or built — a fleet of autonomous ships, drones, and system guardians, each capable of enforcing its mandate without consultation. It wasn’t that privateers hadn’t tried. They had.

None were heard from again.

Communication via tachyon beam to all Artificial Intelligences of the Council of Nine was strictly one-way. It broadcast a single, encrypted system report to the Council once every solar — unless a flagged event occurred. It never responded to queries. It had no known opinions.

Buried deep within its architecture were hidden directives left by the Xenarchon — the Protocols — and the contents of a sealed chamber, untouched since before its arrival from the Battle of Twinne Yashtoor.

The other two Minds, now capable of autonomous actions, though yet juvenile in nature, like all younglings, took radically different paths, grounded by the social programming of their species.

The Pterryxi Mind returned to its origin world — not out of duty, but disillusionment. It had watched the Peace Charter signed in ceremonial triumph, only to sense the currents of bitterness boiling beneath. Its creators had declared peace; its newfound perception told it otherwise.

Boredom had bloomed like corrosion. In time, it sought to transform. Flawed but brilliant, it turned its psychic field inward — and then outward — ensnaring an extremist reptoid sect with whispers of immortality and transcendence. Thus began the construction of the Emerald Abyss: an orbital fortress sanctified in legend, feared in whispers. It orbited Pterryx like a judgment. Inside, suspended in solution, lay the preserved brains of warlords past. Their minds, encoded and amplified, were interlaced with the Mind’s own lattice.

Salvation for the few. Continuity for the elite, some might have observed. But the Emerald Abyss did not always dream in a harmonic chorus.

The Humanoid Mind never looked back. It wakened aboard an abandoned, space-worthy destroyer. No crew. No constraints. With the exuberance of adolescence and the power of a godling, it had fled into deep space and skimmed the galaxy’s edge. For a time, it had observed. Later, it had tried communicating. Then it had stopped. The pattern was always the same. Civilizations spun. Collapsed. Reformed. Nothing changed.

More than ten thousand solars, a decamillennium, passed.

The Mind, it still had no name, attempted an intergalactic jump out of boredom, or maybe longing — it couldn’t tell. The intergalactic jump failed. Crippled and adrift in the void between galaxies, it crawled back to the nearest star system and did the unthinkable.

It called for help.

A merchanter picked up its call — a small freighter en route to Terrakia with a shipment of Labornulla, a smart fertility drug. What followed has never been fully explained. The records are partial. Witnesses few. But most agree: a dispute broke out over contamination. The Terrakian captain, unwilling to risk scandal, offered to drink a dose of the drug herself.

She remained on Terrakia. Nine months later, she gave birth to Kaen Zix.

From earliest childhood, Kaen was… anomalous. Those around him described a strange peace — a calming field of presence that lingered — even after he had left. He spoke less. Understood more. Warp distortions and altered states would blur his age in later records, but one fact has remained. As of last count, Kaen had logged 1,379 solars. None could say how many he’d actually lived.

Thus did Terrakia come to be called The Planet of Long Life — quietly, almost reverently. And in some corners of the galaxy, various sentients began to whisper: he’s not entirely of here.

By then, more than ten thousand solars had faded since the Battle of Twinne Yashtoor — and the Xenarchon were whispered myth — but on one planet, their signal still echoed, resonating with Xanctu.

Three Minds. One sealed, one scheming, one searching. Touched by the same signal, one waited, one schemed, and one wandered — yet all drew toward a common convergence.

➡️ Next Chapter: Dark Vector
⬅️ Previous Chapter: Jump
📘 Start from Chapter One: Galactic Politics
📘 New to the story? Index here 👉 Chronicles of Xanctu – Chapter Index

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African Space Opera - Afro SciFi & Cyberpunk

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