To my right, a small cargo bay door opens, inviting me in. I zip inside, and the cargo door snaps shut.
The ship is completely silent. Even the normal hum of electricity you would expect from something this large is absent. It feels eerie.
The interior is a highly polished silvery metal, nearly identical to the exterior. The walls and ceilings are rounded, and the floor is black and cushiony. It feels nice to walk on.
A doorway opens to my left. The seamless walls made the door totally invisible until it opened. I push myself up against the wall, fearing someone triggered the opening from the other side.
I wait ten seconds before feeling brave enough to peek around the corner. The door simply leads to another hallway.
Iris. She must have opened the door for me. If she took the shields down, then she can probably see me too. I look at the ceiling for surveillance cameras, but I can’t find any in the unadorned ceiling. I’ll just have to trust that Iris is helping me.
I step through the doorway and continue down the hall. On my right, another door opens, and I enter through it. The door snaps shut behind me. Once it’s closed, it’s impossible to find where the doorframe is. It’d be very easy to get lost in here.
Doorways continue to open, and I follow them into identical-looking halls. Is Iris just keeping me busy while preparations remain underway?
Another door opens, and through it is the first room that looks different from the rest.
Inside are two large metallic pillars, one rising from the floor and the other hanging above it from the ceiling. They do not meet. Instead, a large brass-colored ball hovers in the air between them. The ball looks perfectly still, but upon closer inspection, it’s actually spinning so fast it only appears unmoving. Red bolts of electricity dance between the ends of the two pillars and touches the brass ball.
This must be the transmitter.
“Iris, are you there?” I ask into my earpiece.
“Yes,” she says.
But the answer doesn’t come from my earpiece. It comes from behind me.
Iris steps through a seam in the room, which closes behind her.
“I knew it. I always knew it,” I say and step forward to hug her.
She puts up her hands to stop me. “We don’t have much time, and if you can’t destroy this thing, then everything will have been for nothing.”
“Everything?”
“This!” She raises her voice. “Pretending to align myself with Violet, turning on you, getting myself a seat on the ship—it was all so I could disable to shields from the inside and find a way to destroy the transmitter.”
“I knew you had a plan up your sleeve.”
“Yeah, well, it took you much longer to figure that out than I’d imagined. The ship’s shields have been down for almost ten minutes, and someone is bound to notice. You need to destroy the transmitter and get out of here.”
“How do I do it?” I ask.
“See that ball suspended in midair? You just need to pull it out from between those two columns. Then you should be able to destroy it and stop all transmissions coming from this ship.”
“That’s it? That’s a piece of cake.”
“Don’t let looks deceive you. The energy running between those columns is equal to half the electricity the US uses in a year. That’s what you’ll be pulling against to get it out of there. It’s not going to feel great, but if you can get the sphere out of there, then destroying it will be the easy part.”
“At least there’s one easy part.”
“I would do it, but I can’t withstand the current.”
“How do you know I’m strong enough?”
“I don’t, but I figured if you found a way back to Earth, you’d find a way. Nice suit, by the way.”
“Thanks, you’ll never believe who I got it from.”
“Who?”
“My mom?”
Iris cocks her head and squints.
“A lot happened after you pretended to flip,” I say. “I’ll fill you in later. Meanwhile, you should get out of here.”
“No, I can’t leave.”
“Yes, you can. I’ll handle this.”
“If this doesn’t work, I need to be on the ship while we come up with another plan.”
“It’ll work.”
“You haven’t even tried yet. How could you possibly know that?”
I place my hand on the sphere to get a feel for it. The shock it sends through my arm is unlike anything I’ve felt before. Even with my powers maxed out, the pain is excruciating. My entire body feels like it’s on fire. My hand pulls back reflexively, like when you accidentally touch a hot stove.
“See,” Iris says.
“I wasn’t expecting it, that’s all. I can keep hold of it, but I should take it far from the ship before I destroy it. What’s the quickest way out?” I ask.
Iris reaches into her pocket and unfolds a futuristic-looking tablet device. She types a few things on the screen, and a doorway appears in the wall behind her, then another behind that, and another behind that.
Seven doorways open before I see a hint of Earth’s blue sky.
The ship shakes under our feet, threatening to send us toppling over. A deep electric hum follows the shaking.
“The shields are coming back online. We’re out of time. You’ve got to do it now.”
“You’re right. Sorry about this.”
“Sorry about what?”
I take an extra nanosecond to gaze at Iris and memorize her face in case it’s the last time I see it. My eyes light up red as I focus. I hope this is enough power to work without hurting her. One last look, then I release.
My eyes emit a massive blast of heat at Iris. She falls back, her arms reaching out for balance. I apply my energy to the blast, pushing her harder. She’s pushed through all seven open doorways before she can react. Even though everything happened in a fraction of a second, I can still see the anger on her face. The doorways cascade shut like dominos.
If this machine is strong enough to hurt me when my powers are at their peak, then it would kill Iris. She would never admit it, but it wasn’t hard to figure out.
Outside this room, the electric hum grows louder. The shields may have already fully activated, trapping me inside this ship, but that’s a problem for later.
I turn my attention to the copper sphere, and before I can second guess myself, I thrust my hands into the electrical field and grab hold.
The electricity flows from each column and runs through my arms and across my chest. I feel as though I’m about to blackout, but I can’t yet.
I square my feet and adjust my grip, spreading my fingers as wide as possible to get the best hold. With the sphere firmly in my grasp, I pull it backward with all my might.
It barely budges. I can feel it fighting to return to its position in the center of the base, but I don’t give an inch. I sink my heels in and pull even harder.
The sphere moves slightly more. Its pull weakens as it gains distance from the columns. I grunt and plant my right foot behind the left, slowly making progress. More electricity arcs out of the columns as they work to keep the brass sphere in place.
My grip is slipping. In a desperate move, I swing my body around, putting myself between the sphere and the columns.
This weakens the hold, but now the electricity has nowhere to go but through my body. I’m in unbearable pair, my vision begins to fade. Before all is lost, I push with my last bit of strength, taking a step forward with the ball pushed out in front of me.
And then I take another step and another.
On the fourth step, there’s an explosion of light and noise. The columns lose their grip, and I tumble to the ground, the copper ball against my chest. Without pausing to catch my breath, I crush the sphere like it’s an aluminum can, squeezing it until it’s the size of a marble.
The transmission is dead, and Earth is saved. I can finally breathe.
And then Violet walks in.
> Forty-Nine
“Not bad,” Violet says. “Not bad at all.”
“It’s over, Violet,” I say. “Stand down. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Yes, you do,” Violet replies. “Of course you want to hurt me. Because of me, your mother is marooned on a forgotten alien planet. Because of me, you thought Iris had turned against you. And because of me, Earth will be destroyed.”
“I don’t think so. We figured out your plan.” I hold up the marble-sized copper ball. “The transmitter is dead, Violet. The metahuman dampeners are destroyed, and Iris is safe. You’ve lost. You can either come with me, or you can wait until other metahumans make their way onto the ship and see what they’d like to do with you.”
Violet laughs manically. “You really are your parents’ son, aren’t you? You’ve got the metabands, the ridiculous hero posturing, and a complete inability to see the truth.”
I stare at her, waiting, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of a reply.
“Well, if you’re not going to ask what I’m referring to, I guess I’ll have to spell it out for you. This isn’t the transmitter.”
“You’re lying.”
“Not this time. I suspected Iris might turn on me. I might be her mother, but I was under no illusions. She doesn’t remember me. I knew she wouldn’t ignore all the nonsense you people put in her head. For better or worse, Earth is her home, and no one wants to see their home destroyed.”
“Then why did you?”
“I never wanted it to be destroyed either, but I knew it was necessary. It took me years to realize there was no other way, so I was suspicious when it happened overnight for Iris. She knows nothing that is integral to the mission. You destroyed the ship’s artificial gravity generator.”
“Why would you need that?”
“That’s the best part.” Violet laughs. “We don’t. It was a backup. In my time, anyone with a third-grade education could have seen that. I could have pointed at the coffee machine and she would have believed me. Did you notice the sound all around us?”
“The shields are coming back online.”
She laughs again. “I didn’t expect her to believe that one too! No, that’s not what that sound is, and Iris never took the shields offline, I did.”
“You what?”
“I disabled them, just temporarily of course. I wanted you on board this ship. I needed to see whether Iris was truly trustworthy. Unfortunately, she is not. I’m not surprised, but it does alleviate any remaining guilt I had about leaving her to fend for herself all those years ago.”
“You’re disgusting.”
She shrugs. “And you’re out of time. The transmission system is sending the final instructions to open up the wormhole. These things take a while to grow, so it’s best we start now in case you accidentally find a way to stop us. I know about the little trick you pulled with your nanosuit back on Volaris. We’ve taken precautions against that working again, not that you could find and reprogram magtonium in time. But don’t think this is goodbye. No, we’ll be spending a few more months reaping our harvest on Earth and ensuring we have what we need for our new home world.”
My heart is racing. I don’t know what to do. I can feel the massive amount of power surging through my body from the gold metabands. They’re reacting to my panic and drawing in more power, supercharging themselves for one last Hail Mary. Even with all this power, I wouldn’t know where to begin. The real transmitter is hidden elsewhere on the ship, and there’s not enough time to find it. The only way to destroy it is to destroy the entire ship. Doing so would save Earth, but condemn thousands of sleeping Volarians to death.
I weigh the moral decision. Is it worth trading their lives for the lives of everyone on Earth? After all, they had no problem with the idea of stripping Earth of its resources to save themselves. Why should they be treated any differently?
They shouldn’t be, but I couldn’t live with that many deaths on my hands. Humanity would always fear me after seeing I was capable of genocide. And that’s what it would be, genocide.
There has to be another way.
My senses heighten as I desperately look for another solution. It’s then that I hear a faint robotic voice announce, “Locked on target,” somewhere on the other side of the ship. It must have come from the actual transmission system.
“You should have done a better job of soundproofing this ship,” I tell Violet.
I take off running down the hallway at hypersonic speed. The polished silver walls blur by as I rely only on my hearing. I zero in on where the computerized voice came from and break through three walls to find it. The walls instantly seal up behind me. The ship is reacting to my presence. It won’t be long before it expels me.
“It’s too late, Connor,” Violet says.
She’s hundreds of yards away with multiple walls between us, but she knows I can hear her.
“The transmitter is made from quantum crystal. It’s unbreakable. Even if you’ve managed to keep a few of your nanobots, they won’t be able to damage the system in time.”
I reply, even though she can’t hear me, “I’m not looking to damage your system, just break its connection with Kaldonia.”
The actual transmitter is much less exotic looking than the fake one. It consists of a large computer terminal with a holographic display in the middle of the room. It’s also not autonomous. The room contains a team of six Volarians, who were very busy working before I surprised them.
“Stop him,” Violet says over an intercom hidden in the ceiling.
The scientists look confused but quickly realize a metahuman isn’t supposed to be inside the transmitter room. None of them are sure what to do.
I study the hologram, which looks like a representation of the galaxy. There are thousands of stars, with nearly microscopic planets orbiting around them. The hologram displays text as well, but it isn’t in English. This must be what native Volarian language looks like. It’s completely indecipherable to me, but three objects have more text around them than any of the others.
I recognize the object in the center as Earth. The green, blue, and white coloring is unmistakable. A line from Earth connects it to another planet I also recognize. The pastel hues and placement relative to Earth tells me that it’s Volaris.
A second line runs from Earth to an unrecognizable planet far away. Its surface is gray and brown with scattered dots of deep blue. This planet has the most text surrounding it. The symbols are unrecognizable, but the large blue triangle it’s inside of isn’t.
It’s a target. This is the planet they’re opening a wormhole to.
I’m so focused that I don’t notice the six scientists desperately trying to subdue me. One smashes a tablet computer against my head, shattering it into a hundred pieces. Another has his arm wrapped around my throat and both feet against my back as he tries to choke me. I turn to acknowledge them, and they stop in their tracks. There’s fear on all their faces. Once the first one turns and runs out of the room, the rest follow.
I’m alone, and this is my last chance to save Earth from guaranteed destruction. No pressure.
With my attention on the hologram, I try to get my bearings of the galaxy.
I’ve made the trip from Earth to Volaris and back twice now, and it’s given me a feel for unimaginable distances. If Robin could get us to an alien planet she’d never seen before using just a hologram, then there’s a chance I can too.
The bigger question is if I’m strong enough to pull this off.
I’m as confident as I’ll ever be that I have a good idea of where their destination planet lies within the galaxy.
I grip the transmission console and summon all the excess quantum energy left inside my metabands. The bands glow bright white as their energy enters my body.
I take one last look at the hologram, close my eyes, and teleport.
Fifty
I open my eyes. The back of my head is killing me, and my ears are ringing. The holographic di
splay is off, along with almost everything else in the room. Only the red emergency lights are on.
I listen for other sounds within the ship, but it makes my head feel worse.
My gold metabands are around my wrists and active. I swipe across the one on my left wrist to check the battery status. There’s plenty of energy left, and I worry that my last-minute gambit failed. Surely teleporting an object this large across an entire galaxy would take an unfathomable amount of energy.
Now isn’t the time to stay down and wonder what happened, though. I need to get up and find out for myself. I rise to my feet and exit the transmission room. I consider punching my way through the walls until I find myself outside, but it isn’t worth the risk. If I missed and we’re floating in outer space, then punching a hole in the ship will create more problems than it potentially solves.
To my surprise, a doorway leading outside opens right in front of me. I can’t see what lies on the other side, but not getting sucked out into space right away is a promising sign. Cautiously, I approach the door and peer outside.
Before me is a landscape I’ve never seen before, and I immediately know we’re not on Earth anymore. Beneath my feet is gray, slate-like rock. Different shades run throughout the stone, but aside from the coloring, it is astoundingly uniform. The surface is smooth with no blemishes, and it extends past the horizon.
“What have you done?” Violet asks, her voice cracking.
I pivot to face her. “I broke the connection with the transmitter the only way I knew how—by putting distance between it and the receiver. But I’ll be sure to disassemble the receiver as soon as I get back, just to be safe.”
There’s a hiss of escaping gases as other portals along the wall of the massive ship open. Ramps extend from the ship to meet the stone surface below.
A passenger carefully sticks their head outside the opening nearest me. They look confused by what they find.
“Look at what you’ve done,” Violet seethes. “When you broke the connection between the ship and the wormhole generator, you took all the other systems offline, including the cryosleep chambers.”
Meta (Book 5): New Empire Page 21
