by Tim C Taylor
“At the barest minimum,” he had told Grace under her questioning, “you must keep to an absolutely straight flight path.”
So any evasive maneuver at this point probably meant jumping into a hell dimension, or pissing off the ancient gods buried within time itself. Something epically perilous.
On the more mundane side, three anti-aircraft lasers were burning a hole through the stern of her ship, and if they ruptured the fuel lines – which could happen at any moment – it would all go kablooey within milliseconds.
Then there were the two Hardit fighter formations trying to shoot her out the sky.
Grace balanced the suicidal against the certain death and tried to decide which choice meant which.
Bugger what Greyhart tells us, she thought, and deployed the force keels at 30 degrees to their space-time trajectory.
Shoving a force field through the gaps in reality to arrive unannounced in the lower dimensions was not a simple process. Nor was it remotely gentle. Safe deployment took several seconds.
Grace slammed out the keels in just 200 milliseconds.
It was like skimming a stone off the surface of a lake. Karypsic bounced off hard, disappearing from conventional space-time and instantly reappearing half a klick away. The enemy fire stopped.
Four seconds.
One of the nacelles had bent at right angles, the deflector shield it carried turning off automatically. The other nacelle had snapped off altogether and was plummeting to the ground.
“No great loss,” Grace said, satisfying herself that Jackson had initiated the fire suppression systems and wrapped the craft in an emergency hull integrity force shield. “We stole that tech from the Hardits in the first place. They can have it back.”
——
The countdown reached zero and the downstream intercalator fired.
When they had jumped back in time from 2739, the journey had been an anticlimactic nonevent.
The return trip… not so much.
Karypsic screamed.
A wound ruptured along her port flank, armor screeching in protest as the hull was ripped apart with a curious popping sound, as if metallic surgical stitches being ripped asunder. Then the inertial compensators failed, and Grace felt a lurching jolt, bracing for a crushing weight through her chest that never came.
She was weightless.
Which meant the engines were no longer thrusting.
“I can’t get a fix on our position,” Jackson reported.
“Sensor diagnostics report full functionality,” said Francini. “But I can’t see a frakking thing.”
“Perhaps that’s because we aren’t actually anywhere,” said Grace. “We are nowhere. Literally.”
The wound along Karypsic’s flank had spread to the flight deck. Grace looked out through the gap in the hull at the absolute void beyond. There were no stars, no obscuring gas clouds. Just an absence.
“Look!” she shouted, pointing through the ship’s wound. “I saw something. Through the hole, a blue sparkle. Could that be a star?”
Jackson shook his head. “That will be the integrity field failing.”
His words were a cold kick in the gut because he was right. But there was something out there. A pattern of concentric circles cycling through every possible color and approaching them head on.
Or were they approaching it?
Grace felt herself squeezed and pulled down inside the object, which rapidly gained depth. A lot of depth. And breadth. Enough to swallow planets whole. She began to circle it, stretched impossibly thinly down this vortex throat.
For some reason, she thought of her father. They had to survive this, she reasoned to herself, so that when she saw him back in 2739, she would have a tale to tell. When she was a little girl, she’d made her mother endlessly repeat her stories about the crazy things Dad had done in his youth. Now she would have one better.
Karypsic fell through a hole in reality.
And was reborn.
— Chapter 12 —
Present day
Fleet Admiral Indiya
Admiral’s Quarters.
Legion flagship Holy Retribution
“An attack through time,” said Tawfiq’s image, which had carried the scars of old wounds Indiya was sure hadn’t been there before. “Thank you for making it so ineffectual that I am now well prepared to repulse any further attacks. I was impressed, actually. Not that you yourselves have the technology to move through time. Clearly you are the pawns of my more serious adversaries, but the way the prisoners I took from your time capsule destroyed themselves before my interrogators could prize information from them – that was impressive.”
Indiya tried hard to ignore the invader. “Our cyber-teams will deal with this,” she told Kreippil. “I’m coordinating with them now.”
“That attack on Cairo twenty years ago always smelled off,” said the Hardit. “An irritating worm of doubt remained, because I could never understand why you humans had gone to so much trouble to destroy the Cairo hub and then do absolutely nothing. Now I know. It was a feint.”
Indiya glanced up at the creature on the bulkhead screen and realized with a jolt of surprise that only two Hardit eyes were staring back at her. Tawfiq’s left eye was an unseeing orb of swirling pus clouds. And that snout… beneath its hair it was now puckered with old scar tissue. Years-old wounds that hadn’t been there days ago.
But the more urgent mystery was what Tawfiq was trying to achieve with this conversation. There was a security team outside trying and failing to get in. Tawfiq had sealed the doors, and if she had sufficient control to do that then she could presumably have killed them. What was it the Hardit wanted more than their deaths?
“The strangest thing about time war,” said Tawfiq, “is that for the lesser mortals not connected directly with the matter, your failed attempt to kill me in Victory City at the same time as your uprising in Cairo was an event that had always taken place. But we know differently. This was your big gamble, your one chance to outflank me, and it failed. I defeated you. And if you attempt another attack in the past, I will defeat you again, and again. My technical advisers are convinced that every time you try the same trick, it will be easier for me to detect your attack and prepare my ambush. Soon I will attack your past.”
The cyber team reported that the attack had been isolated to her quarters, but Indiya was more interested in Tawfiq’s words. The Hardit was talking as if she had no knowledge of Arun’s attack. But she could lie as easily as breathe.
“Oh, I perceive you are removing me from your computer systems. I have no doubt you will succeed, but that is of no concern. This is not an attack. I just called to suggest something.”
“I have no interest in your lies,” Indiya snarled.
Tawfiq’s eyes blinked in rotation. The chodding veck was laughing at her.
“I wasn’t speaking to you,” said Tawfiq. “Admiral Kreippil, you know better than most that the species name of ‘human’ has come to mean something far more to a diverse range of races. Even to those who have never seen a humanoid of Earthly heritage, the word human is a rallying cry for those who would throw off the shackles of oppression. The Legion fanatics need a leader to inspire them, an individual who embodies principles.”
“The Purple One has divine sanction,” Kreippil said without hesitation.
For once, Indiya was relieved for her friend to call her by that ridiculous title.
“Perhaps you are right,” said Indiya, “but there’s a difference between a special individual triggering a holy war and being its field commander. Deities set the agenda of the universe, but it is you mortals who implement the details. You need to be wise and strong. But this human freak with the purple hair has been emotionally stunted ever since the incident in her youth when she murdered thousands on the troopship Themistocles. Have you ever seen her happy? Has she ever taken a lover? Does she have a hobby, a friend?”
“I am her friend,” Kreippil said firmly.
; Indiya wanted to scream at him to stop listening, but that would only tell him that she didn’t trust his judgement, a sensitive point in their relationship.
Tawfiq blew through her long lips. “You are her friend, perhaps, but she has none amongst the humans except perhaps by force of habit with McEwan while he still lived. She runs from her own kind and hides with you because she knows she is a freak, an experiment in genetic engineering gone wrong.”
Tawfiq’s words spoke truths Indiya had acknowledged for a long time, so why could she feel them hollowing her out?
“Kreippil, your friend and leader, the mighty Purple One, is an emotionally stunted wreck, whose sanity is so fragile that you fear she will crack any day now. Is that not why you are inside her quarters? To watch over her in case she loses her mind?”
“With my physical presence, I seek to bolster her emotional strength,” Kreippil replied. “It is true that the years have placed a heavy burden about my leader’s heart.” He swam before her and bowed his head. “And yet I place my trust in you, Admiral Indiya, without condition or reservation.”
Relief flowed through Indiya. Pride too. Kreippil couldn’t have said that better. Tawfiq’s attempt to drive a wedge between them had achieved the exact opposite.
“Dear, dear Kreippil,” Tawfiq sneered. “And you have been known to call me a liar? If you trust your purple friend, why did you conceal from her the results of your investigations into my Faithful?”
“Kreippil?” Indiya queried. “What don’t I know?”
“Yes, what?” echoed Tawfiq gleefully. “Do you want to explain, or shall I?”
— Chapter 13 —
Present day
First Fleet Admiral Kreippil
Admiral’s Quarters.
Legion flagship Holy Retribution
Kreippil looked with disappointment upon his human friend. He had thought, briefly that she had recovered her wits when she had begun dealing with the return of the Karypsic as if her old self had returned. Yet how easily was her spirit broken by Tawfiq.
“The Abomination seeks to sow dissent with her lies,” Kreippil pointed out to her, the need to explain himself at all in front of the wretched creature a bitter humiliation.
“Go on,” said Indiya, imploring him to make everything all right.
“There is little to be said. Operational details that I did not trouble you with because they have no bearing upon the campaign.”
“Trouble me now,” she said. “Please.”
Kreippil hesitated, suspecting a trap. But he put that down to the deep suspicion of any dealings with the Abomination. He had acted with pride and honor on this matter. He had nothing to hide. “Very well,” he said. “I was tasked with understanding these so-called Faithful, the human collaborators who turned against their own kind and filled you and General McEwan with such revulsion. One of our earliest discoveries was the large number of Faithful casualties that seemed to be sustained not from wounds but from the stresses of combat. At first, we thought the cause was a very high incidence of congenital heart abnormalities and other severe organ weaknesses. We initially assumed this was a side effect of the drugs the Hardits gave their Faithful to control their minds, but then a researcher discovered the real cause.”
“If you speak to the human civilians on this planet,” said Tawfiq, “they will tell you dark rumors of the monsters the New Order brought with us. Monsters that snatch young children from their beds. We did bring monsters with us, but mostly those responsible for stealing infants from their beds are Janissary teams hunting for sport.”
“Sport?” Indiya’s voice trembled with horror. “I will enjoy your death, Hardit.”
“Although, it was sport with a practical purpose,” said Tawfiq. “To provide raw material.”
“Malice informs the Abomination’s words,” Kreippil said. “Nonetheless, they ring true. DNA methylation analysis showed the average biological age of the Faithful is four years. All other aging markers confirm this. The Faithful are young children fast grown to optimal age for combat duties and controlled by constant application of mind-control drugs. They are then frozen, to be thawed when needed. It is the fast growth that causes so many organ defects.”
When Indiya failed to snap out of her melancholy, Kreippil added, “I fail to see the significance. Other than the accelerated maturation, it is scarcely different from the upbringing experienced by Arun McEwan and the other Human Marines, and we fought both Imperial Marines and their Free Corps counterparts during the White Knight civil war.”
“On this matter we agree,” said Tawfiq. “Why, I even dosed my Faithful with the same drug cocktail we supplied to the rebels at the outbreak of the civil war. McEwan was the only one to develop an unfortunate immunity, but all the others had the exact same drugs coursing through the veins. And Indiya’s comrades aboard Beowulf felt the calming certainty brought about by those same drugs. Themistocles too, of course.”
Despite working alongside them for so many years, Kreippil found humans as incomprehensible as any other alien species, but he vaguely sensed a trap had been sprung. He searched Indiya’s face for her reaction to the Abomination’s poisonous words, but her face was utterly devoid of expression, as if her mind had retreated deep inside.
Of the Themistocles, she had often told him that she had perished in its destruction; that the Indiya he knew was but an echo of the young woman who had died that day. Perhaps her words had been more than hyperbole.
“When your purple friend authorized the strike that unleashed Lake Tanganyika,” said the wretched Hardit, “she murdered around three million children under the age of five. How do you feel about that, Indiya? All your life you’ve felt the crushing guilt of the three thousand you killed when you destroyed Themistocles. How do the deaths of three million young children compare?”
Indiya curled into a ball, tumbling slowly in the water. “Three million,” she repeated lifelessly. “Three million…”
Kreippil flicked his tail in anger. Why had the cyber teams not wiped away this disgusting creature? Tawfiq distorted the truth beyond recognition, and yet Kreippil had to face facts: the Abomination’s words had wounded Indiya. “You did not know,” he told his human friend.
“She does now,” said Tawfiq. “Goddess protect me, you said. Well, I am a goddess. I am immortal. I have demonstrated to you that I can walk through time to smite my enemies, and within days I shall unleash a new super race of fervent disciples. You may worship me as your personal goddess, Kreippil.”
“Blasphemer! I shall end you, Abomination, and the foul stain you have left upon creation. I will have your mutilated corpse stuffed and mounted.”
“That’s better. I wouldn’t want you to give up until I had my sport with you. Your purple human is useless now. That’s why I called, to suggest you take charge. Kreippil versus Tawfiq. What do you say? You know, if you conduct–”
The image of the accursed Hardit demon disappeared, to be replaced by a cyber engineer who reported the attack to have been fully repulsed. Although she kept her words professional, the way the specialist tilted her head was one of horrid fascination at the pitiful sight of the human fleet commander in whom they placed so much faith.
Kreippil held Indiya within his embrace, allowing her to sob in her human way. Between heaving gasps through her gills, she begged forgiveness of friends and rivals who had died long ago. Her second-in-command, Loobie, Kreippil remembered personally. Indiya also asked forgiveness from Petty Officer Lock, and others of whom she had never spoken to him before. Spasms wracked her body, and then the power of speech left, and she wailed like an infant.
Shielded within his embrace, Kreippil hoped to give her a little dignity, but the cyber defense team had seen everything.
“The Goddess has left Admiral Indiya,” Kreippil explained. “She is to be cared for, venerated, prayed for…” He hesitated. Was he about to do the right thing? He cast away such doubts. Indiya had been fragile for a long time. Her part was now over.
Kreippil waved away the cyber specialist and opened a link to Hood, Indiya’s most senior flag officer.
“Signal all fleet captains,” Kreippil ordered with a heavy heart, but this dark duty must not be prolonged. “I am relieving Admiral Indiya of command. I want their sanction within the hour.”
Hood saluted. “Yes, Admiral.”
“I have need of revenge,” Kreippil told Hood before he could disappear. “Tawfiq Woomer-Calix claims apotheosis. She calls herself a goddess.”
Hood was only human, but even he looked shocked at the hubris of the Hardit abomination.
And that gave Kreippil an idea. “Do we have recordings of what Tawfiq said?”
“Standby…” Hood’s image froze, but only for a few seconds. The officer was highly efficient. “Yes, Admiral. The transmission data from Tawfiq is heavily quarantined, but we have security footage showing the feed into your bulkhead view screen.”
Kreippil felt guilt rot his scales. What he was about to do would not help Indiya; it would cement her hurt. He pitied his friend, and hated to hurt her, but… this was war. Holy war.
“As you contact the captains, circulate the exchange with Tawfiq throughout the fleet. Let our warriors know the words of the false goddess who infests Earth. Let her own words condemn her. Let a new battle cry ring out throughout the fleet. Death to the blasphemer!”
The Littorane tracked the messages that began flying between the vessels of his First Fleet and beyond, a new fervor sweeping across space at near-lightspeed. It affected him too, the weariness of the years dropping away, invigorating him.
Then he remembered the husk of his friend, cast away by the Goddess in her infinite cruelty and majesty. Gently, so as not to alarm her, he used his new-found vitality to spiral his tail around her, as a young parent would do to calm their young. Her mind was gone, her usefulness at an end, but as her friend he would nurture her for as long as she needed him.
