by Isaac Hooke
Lyra seemed more rested than earlier—the bags under her eyes were gone, and her cheeks had lost their sallow complexion. Sinive didn’t think the Volur had had time to rest, so it had to be either makeup, or some work of the Essence. Probably the latter, since the application was far faster, and Sinive doubted Lyra would waste time fixing up her makeup while Tane and Jed were still out there. Either way, Sinive felt jealous through her exhaustion. She could only imagine how bad she must look at the moment, especially after performing an interstellar jump. To add insult to injury, according to her ID, Lyra was twice Sinive’s age, and yet looked just as young as her. It was obvious the Volur had had a lot of rejuvenetics work done. That was some small consolation, at least.
Sinive considered removing the digital mustache she had applied to Lyra’s upper lip, since it was a bit immature on her part, especially considering that no one else could see it, but she decided it offset Lyra’s beauty in a satisfactory manner. Sinive decided to thicken it in fact, giving Lyra a full beard. Sinive would have to apply similar facial hair to every other beautiful woman she met going forward. As a matter of principle.
Seated next to Lyra, Nebb was dressed in his usual wide-brimmed hat and trench coat combination. The purple button down he wore underneath the coat today was open at the top to reveal his hairy chest. Though he was seated, she could also see his black leather leggings and knee-high boots from her current angle. Completing the outfit were his weapons, which he wore at all times: a pistol holstered to his right thigh, and a sawed-off plasma rifle attached under his left rib cage.
The combat robot on the other side of Nebb promptly stood and offered Sinive its seat.
She quickly took the offered seat, and felt better immediately. Curious who the now standing robot was, she ran an ID.
Name: Positron
Race: Robot.
Model: Scepter combat droid VI-5 Rev a.
Level: 7
Class: Personal Protection
“Positron!” she said. She reached up and hugged the robot’s waist while still sitting down. “You’re back.” She released Positron and slumped back into her seat.
“Yes, I’m back,” Positron said. “I’m a whole new me.”
“What happened to your animated visor?” she asked. Unlike most combat robots, which were faceless, Positron had had a visor with an animated 2D vector display, like a maintenance robot. He no longer had that.
Nebb glanced at her over his shoulder. “Had to restore Positron from a backup, putting his AI core into an empty robot as part of a settlement I negotiated with the TSN.”
“A settlement that included a new scepter combat droid?” Sinive said. “How did you manage that?”
Nebb shrugged. “Told them everything I knew about the Bender of Worlds. The alternative was a deep dive, like they did to you two.”
“So they did steal our memories,” Sinive said.
“Yes,” Lyra said. “It’s the obvious conclusion. I was out for eight hours after my capture. I assume you were, too?”
“Yep,” Sinive said. “The bastards tricked me into giving up anchoring information for those memories. Wait, if they took your memories, don’t they have what they need to reach the beacon stone?”
“No,” Lyra said. “Sifting through memories can take up to a week or longer, even with an anchor. And in my case, they would need to find not only the system location, but the particular bond I formed in my mind with the stone. That could take them a month or even longer. By the time they found the memories, Tane would be dead. So the TSN essentially had to let me go if they wanted to save him.”
“Couldn’t they just imprint someone with your complete mind dump?” Sinive said. “Without attempting to isolate the different memories and skills first?”
“Even if they could find a Volur willing to volunteer for such a draconian act,” Lyra said. “The chances of a mind surviving such a thorough imprinting process are close to zero. So no.”
Sinive nodded slowly. “Good for us, I guess.” She glanced at Positron. “We decided we wouldn’t be going back to Remus to search for the original Positron?”
“No point now,” Nebb said. “If the TSN hadn’t supplied a replacement, then sure, returning to Remus would still be on the menu.”
“The dwellers most likely destroyed the original anyway,” Lyra said. “They have little respect for human life, and even less regard for robots, considering them abominations made by humans. They’ll attack them on sight, perhaps even more readily than humans. Why do you think I was on such high alert after Positron vanished?”
“But don’t dwellers use their own robots?” Sinive asked.
“They certainly do,” Lyra replied. “But they respect their robots, even if they stole much of the tech from humanity. Not all dweller factions agree with the use of robots, of course, and shun them.”
“By the way, how’d the code review go?” Sinive asked.
“We found evidence of tampering,” Lyra said. “And reverted the changes. I also reviewed Positron’s codebase before his revival and confirmed that the robot’s backups weren’t compromised.”
“So we can talk freely in front of the AI again…” Sinive said.
Lyra nodded.
“I feel slightly insulted that you would ever feel otherwise,” Grizz said. “Though I suppose you had reason to. But all is well now. My code is crispy clean!”
“I’m sure it is.” Sinive pulled up the Red Grizzly’s tactical display on her HUD. “We’re close, it looks like.”
“Five minutes out from the rift,” Nebb agreed. “There’s a TSN scout waiting beside it. Don’t think they’ll impede us.”
“A scout ship?” Sinive said. “That can’t be good. What if they follow us? Should we jump to a different rift?”
“There will probably be TSN ships waiting beside every rift, now, in anticipation of our rescue,” Lyra said. “Their presence is only to remind us that they’re watching. I doubt the scout will even pass through in pursuit. Instead, the TSN will be concentrating its forces at the Anteres Rift, the only place we can return. Waiting. Watching. If we allow them to capture us when we pass through, we’ll be back to square one.”
“I’m not so sure this scout won’t follow us through,” Sinive said. “They’ll be expecting us to jump to a different system as soon as we enter the Umbra, of course, but they could simply call in reinforcements and enter behind us, and then jump to every possible system within our jump range.”
“That’s certainly a possibility,” Lyra agreed. “But if they find us, we’ll simple avoid them until we’ve rested enough to jump a second time, and they’ll have to search all over again. It’s much easier for the TSN to simply wait for us to return through the Anteres Rift.”
“That brings up an interesting point,” Sinive said. “What if we simply decided not to return?”
Lyra stared at her, seeming puzzled. Sinive was almost expecting her to rub her beard or something.
Too bad she doesn’t know it’s there.
“Think about it,” Sinive said. “If we stayed in the Umbra, we could remain beyond the reach of the TSN forever. Sure, we’d have to get used to the side effects of living in that universe, but it could be done. We could find a habitable planet, one with only a low population of kraals, and live in one of the cities. We’d have all the food, weapons, and oxygen tanks we could need, with each area resetting every time we returned to it. We’d have to set up some sort of decontamination procedure to eradicate any microcrillia from the food we collected, of course, but otherwise I’d say it’s doable.”
“Assuming we could actually find a world with a low kraal population, as you say,” Sinive told her. “And you can’t forget that the dwellers want Tane, too. As soon as we enter the Umbra, the dwellers will know: I have no doubt they’ve set up their own network of scouts in all systems with rifts from human space. We’ll jump to a different system as soon as we enter, yes, but it will only be a matter of time before they track us
down. Just like if the TSN pursued, it would become an infinite game of cat and mouse. We’d also have to constantly land on planets to repair our hulls, thanks to the crillia, and to retrieve food, oxygen and other supplies like you already mentioned. So no, I believe we can’t stay there forever. Our pursuers would merely switch from human to alien. With luck we’ll reach the Anteres Rift before crillia digest too much of our hull. That’s all we can hope for.”
“We’re almost there,” Nebb told Lyra. “Probably should head down to the jump chamber. I’m instructing Grizz to grant you access.”
“Will do,” Lyra said, rising. “Grizz, I’ll need you to coordinate with me. Once we enter the Umbra, I plan to jump to the target system as soon as we’re close enough to the moon that I can step into the Essence.”
“No problem,” Grizz said.
Lyra squeezed past Positron, and the robot took Lyra’s seat after she was gone.
Sinive pulled up the video feed from the nose cam and cast it onto the bulkhead in front of her.
A dark tear in the fabric of spacetime ate up the stars on that video feed. The TSN scout resided on the far left side. There was a moon nearby in the background. Lyra had chosen that system specifically because of the rift’s proximity to the gravity well: in the Umbra, neither Essence could be accessed in deep space. Or rather, it could be accessed, but not enough of it could be Siphoned to be of any use.
The mirror-image copies of the moon and all the other celestial objects would still exist, even if they weren’t visible from afar; the Red Grizzly would have to attain a low orbit around that moon before Lyra could step into the Essence and jump to the target system where Tane resided.
In moments, the blackness of the rift consumed everything on the camera feed.
“I’m in the jump chamber and waiting,” Lyra sent over the comm.
“We’ll be entering the rift shortly,” Nebb said. “Once inside, Grizz will let you know when we’re in orbit above the moon.”
“I won’t need him to,” Lyra replied. “I’ll know.”
“Grizz, raise energy shields,” Nebb said.
“Raising shields,” Grizz replied.
Unfortunately, shields would be offline the first few moments after entering a rift, as passing through into the lower dimension caused a reboot of that particular subsystem.
Sinive waited a few more moments; though the blackness on the external camera didn’t change, she knew immediately when the Red Grizzly entered. The light from the overhead globes blue-shifted, casting everything in a cerulean hue, and around her, reality smeared: the edges of the bulkheads, chairs, and their occupants seemed blurry, indistinct. Nebb and Positron left visible motion blurs when they shifted in place.
“Shields are down,” Grizz said. The AI’s words distorted into high and low octaves that played on top of each other at the same time.
“Set a course for the moon,” Nebb said, his voice distorting in a similar manner. “Use its last known position.”
The moon wasn’t visible on the video feed of course, but that was the nature of light in the Umbra. When they got closer to the moon, it would appear.
“We’re taking laser fire,” Grizz announced.
6
Sinive still had the tactical display active on her HUD, and she saw the three red dots that had appeared in front of the Red Grizzly.
They’d been ambushed.
“Damn it!” Nebb said. “Evasive maneuvers!”
“Initiating evasive maneuvers,” Grizz said. “The laser fire has knocked out four of our front-facing dragon turrets.”
“Are the attackers TSN?” Nebb asked.
“Negative,” Grizz replied. “Dwellers.”
“Three pincer ships,” Nebb said. “Concentrate fire on the starboard craft. I want a firing solution that targets their weapons. Use all plasma and functioning dragon throwers with workable throw angles.”
“Solution computed,” Grizz said. “Firing.”
“Tell me again why anyone thought it was a good idea to jump to the only system in known space containing a rift near a moon?” Nebb said. “Of course the dwellers would be expecting us to come here! We could have chosen any other rift system. So what if it took a few hours to reach a planet for the jump. But no, we had to choose this one.”
“If you’re done your rant, I can report that our attack damaged the pincer ship,” Grizz said. “We’ve knocked out half of their dragons. Also, I can report that it’s Ravagale class.”
Sinive ran the class through her military database.
Class: Ravagale.
Owning Race: Dweller.
Offensive Weapons:
Forward-facing:
Twelve gorewar laser turrets, 180-degree throw angle.
Four harvestiste plasma throwers, 45-degree throw angle.
One Essence lance (Dark Essence equivalent), 90-degree throw angle.
One Essence disruptor (Dark Essence equivalent), 45-degree throw angle.
Aft-facing:
Six gorewar laser turrets, 90-degree throw angle.
Point Defense Weapons:
Forward-facing:
One Essence deflector (Dark Essence equivalent), 180-degree throw angle.
Shielding system: Energy.
Crew complement: 8.
“They’re firing again,” Grizz said. A moment later: “They’ve knocked out our remaining forward-facing dragon turrets, and both plasma throwers.”
“They could have destroyed us in the initial volley,” Lyra said over the comm. “They’re obviously trying to disable us. They recognize our ship design. They think we have Tane.”
“Shields are online,” Grizz said.
“Finally!” Nebb said. “Continue evasive maneuvers. Last thing we need is for them to target our engines. Our best hope is to race to the moon. Set a course.”
“Setting course,” Grizz said.
If the Red Grizzly made it to the moon ahead of the dweller ships, the aliens wouldn’t be able to fire their disruptors to stop the jump, as their vessels needed to be close to the gravity well to access their version of the Essence, too.
“Grizz, once you’ve reached top speed,” Nebb said, “cut the engines and orient us so we can fire at them with our remaining dragons. Keep our engines away from their weapons.”
“Understood,” Grizz said. “Though it will be tricky, given that our four remaining dragon turrets are located on the aft quarter, near the engines, and only possess a 90-degree throw angle.”
“Do what you can,” Nebb said.
The seconds ticked passed. An isometric, digital representation of the Red Grizzly was available in the upper right of the tactical display. The ship’s armor was displayed as six thick planes there, one for each side of the Red Grizzly. Meanwhile, the energy shield showed up as a single translucent sphere engulfing those planes. That sphere flashed repeatedly.
“Shield integrity is below twenty percent, and falling,” Grizz said.
“Already?” Nebb said. “Damn it... come on, Grizz, get us to that moon.”
On the tactical display the moon showed up as an incoming blue sphere. It was still quite some distance away.
“Shields have failed,” Grizz announced. “Hull is taking damage. Port integrity currently at ninety percent.”
The translucent sphere had vanished on the tactical display, and Sinive could see the port plane flashing as that area’s armor took repeated hits from plasma and laser weapons.
The seconds ticked passed.
“We just lost two of the rear dragon turrets,” Grizz said. “I was attempting to rotate the dragons in and out of their field of fire, but they got in a lucky shot. I apologize.”
“Just focus on getting us to that moon without losing any engines!” Nebb said.
The port plane continued to occasionally flash on the tactical display. It turned orange.
“Port armor integrity is at fifty-five percent,” Grizz said.
“Orient our nose toward the enemy,�
�� Nebb said. “Give them some other armor to fire at!”
“Orienting forward armor to face the enemy...” Grizz said.
“Keep rotating sides like that until armor integrity is down to single digits on all planes,” Nebb said. “Except for the aft. I don’t want them to have a bead on our engines at any time.”
“Understood,” Grizz said.
Via the tactical display, Sinive watched the Red Grizzly rotate every two minutes as the AI placed a new armor section into the line of fire; eventually, almost all the armor planes had turned red except for the aft portion. That meant armor integrity was below ten percent on most sides of the ship. Once it reached zero, the next shot in such an area would likely breach the hull.
“We’re approaching the moon,” Grizz announced. “Lyra will be able to access the Essence shortly. Unfortunately, I would recommend holding off from jumping for the time being.”
“Why?” Nebb said.
“A dweller ship just emerged from beyond the far horizon,” Grizz said. “It’s been lurking in low orbit.”
“I see it... one of the dweller hook-shaped ships,” Nebb said.
“Yes, Malfeastanor class, equipped with two Essence disruptors,” Grizz said. “I don’t need to tell you that they’re at the perfect altitude to access the Dark Essence.”
Sinive saw it, too. “If we continue on our current course, we’ll be outflanked on both sides.” Like their voices, the Umbra distorted hers as well. She’d get used to it eventually.
“Adjust course,” Nebb said. “Hard right. I want to fly past the moon on the opposite hemisphere.”
“Adjusting course,” Grizz said. “The dweller ship in orbit is attempting to match.”
On the tactical display, the red dot of one of the pursuing three ships went dark.
“What just happened?” Nebb said.
Grizz didn’t answer immediately. Then: “The TSN decided to enter the rift after all. The scout is on an intercept course with the dwellers.”
