“It has only a single weapon. The omniclast. And that is the only weapon we shall need.”
Thirty-One
The Omniclast
Aaron and Donovan were no more militarily minded than Cyrith, but the longer they worked on the chronotrace, the more it was starting to look like a long shot at best. The Nebula’s weapon systems were probably their only means of salvation from the coming Delegation onslaught.
“In what part of the ship is the omniclast located?” Aaron asked, expecting Cyrith to mention one of the sections which was still under construction. He had been in most of the other ones.
“You have the wrong concept,” Cyrith answered. “It is not that the omniclast is part of the ship, it is that the omniclast is the ship.”
“The entire structure serves as a weapon?” Donovan asked, his mind immediately going to work to conceive of what he was being told. Neither of them had heard of a weapon that large. The Nebula could have accommodated close to five thousand people if it had been completely built out. Even in its present condition it could hold close to three thousand.
“Essentially,” Cyrith replied. “The ship’s exterior panels harness galactic sub matter and focus it into a paroxysm. The ship’s enormous size allows it to gather enough matter for a planetary class attack.”
“A planetary class attack?” Aaron asked. No wonder the Delegation was after them. An organization like theirs would seek to possess such power, whatever the cost.
“If it utilizes sub matter, I see why we need to clear the atmosphere. Even then it will take some time to charge,” Donovan observed. “But aren’t paroxysms inherently unstable outside of a controlled environment?”
“That’s the point,” Cyrith replied. “If enough sub matter is focused on a single point, it quickly converts into locus energy and from there into an entropic feedback rift, literally tearing a hole in the fabric of the universe. It spreads out in all directions, consuming all it touches. Hence the reason for the weapon’s other name, ‘the world breaker.’”
“I believe the process of consumption is called excoriation. But how do you stop it once it starts? That is the problem with paroxysms, isn’t it—stopping them?” Donovan asked.
“The reaction will eventually collapse in on itself,” Cyrith stated.
“Yes, but the magnitude of such an attack might take out the Nebula itself if it’s too close to the blast,” Donovan conjectured.
“True. It’s not really designed for ship to ship combat. Which is why we must engage them at long range. And that brings me back to the reason for my visit. What are the barriers keeping you from completing a working prototype?”
“All the algorithms from Gavin’s archives have failed,” Donovan reported.
Cyrith’s shoulders dropped slightly. “I suspected as much. You must forge ahead on your own then. We need a breakthrough. Other than preparing for launch, this project is our highest priority. As powerful as the omniclast is, If we can stop the scout from creating the sidereal portal, we can avoid this conflict altogether.”
The pressure of time, multiplied by ignorance built up inside Aaron to the point of bursting. There was no way they would be able to finish the chronotrace in time.
“Thank you for informing us of the situation,” Donovan replied.
Cyrith exhaled quietly as if to mark the completion of his task there in the lab. “I have every confidence that you will get the job done. Inform me the moment you have a working device.”
Then, with a barely perceptible nod, he left the room, leaving the two recently-appointed Developers to wonder how they were ever going to complete the project on time.
The madman scratched at the door with his long, ragged nails, but the metal surface refused to give way. He gave the door one last punch for good measure and abandoned it in search of another. He would try them all if he had to. Surely one of them had been left unlocked. Surely his enemy had made one mistake.
The winds whipping past him obscured everything except the outer walls of the ship. He was forced to feel his way around. He pawed along the paneling, mumbling to himself as he went. “The beast can’t fly. No, no, no, its wings are broken. But, but…what if they fix it, what then? They’ll use it against me, yes, yes, they’ll purge me from this world. No. I must purge them first. Then I’ll have peace. Peace at last.”
He fought the wind and his fears, babbling to himself all the while, slipping in and out of the awareness of his surroundings. At times he thought he was in this world, at times back on his home world, a respected leader, a man coming into his own, longing to right the wrongs he saw in a corrupt and dying civilization. And still at other moments he wandered in the dark fearing he had passed from this world into the next.
In the midst of his wandering between worlds, the wall along which he was groping ended. Empty space greeted his probing fingers. His body shook, half from anger half from fear. Was he back out in the open desert again? Perhaps. But no, he remembered that the Nebula was a round thing and that circles did not end. He ventured forward determined to find something solid. He shuffled ahead, step by cautious step, suspecting a trap, or thinking that his mind was playing tricks on him again. A few moments later, however, his perseverance paid off when his fingers brushed up against another metal wall.
His hands quivered in anticipation as he pressed his way along the new surface. He noticed a gradual change as he went. The winds were dying down. The sand chafed his exposed skin less and less. And then something even more strange happened; a light shone up ahead. He went more quickly now, scurrying towards the light, though he had no idea why it seemed so promising. But his faith was rewarded when he reached it at last. A glowing orb hung from the ceiling, a miniature star pulling him into orbit. But no, it wasn’t a natural light. It was artificial. That was a good sign. He must be in some sort of corridor, but it was either unfinished or badly in need of repair. Half the paneling was missing from the walls and several struts extended out into nothing.
The madman pressed on, soon seeing another light, and then another. He was in a nearly finished section of corridor now. Because of that, the storm all but died away. A few steps later and he came upon an abandoned maintenance lev with a fabricator on top of it. His heart warmed at the sight. He now knew two important things: he was inside the ship, and they had not finished building it.
His ever wandering gaze fell upon a maintenance hatch above him. He licked his lips in rapt anticipation. The black lines around the edge of the hatch told him he was in one of the northern corridors of the Nebula. He hopped deftly onto the lev and vaulted towards the ceiling, catching onto the indented lip around the metal hatch. Dangling from the ceiling with one hand, he pounded the hatch with his other and it flipped upward.
His hands quivered in anticipation so that he nearly lost his grip, but he was too close now to be denied. Driven by desperation, he yanked himself up until his head was almost level with his hands. Then, with one last maniacal surge, he slipped an arm over the edge and dragged his emaciated body up and into the maintenance shaft which ran above the corridor.
He had made it at last. He was inside the Nebula. He was inside the belly of the whale. Now all he had to do was find a way to destroy it.
Despite everything Aaron and Donovan tried, they could not get the chronotrace to work. They were fairly certain they had perfected the time-mapping algorithm as it pertained to inorganic matter, but organic substances blew up the trace every single time. Such entities were simply too complicated for the device to handle all of the possible permutations. The mapping algorithm demanded an ordered universe and life was the chaos which tore all of their calculations asunder.
Aaron’s mind turned from the useless prototype to the impending launch as he and Donovan stood beside each other, carried along by the circular lev on their way towards the bridge. All of the Developers were to report there to witness the launch.
About half way there the surrounding corridor quivered, telltale signs of
another quake. The corridor walls rippled threateningly, as if some terrible worms were burrowing beneath the surface, but the lev floated safely above the turbulence and they quickly passed into a safer area. Hopefully it was only an aftershock.
The night before a much stronger quake had nearly taken out the main fuel well, endangering the launch. They only saved it by pulling the celerium core out before the fuel chamber collapsed. The technicians couldn’t salvage much of the primary bismine cores, but they still had enough left in the reserves for launch and they could recharge the energy supply fairly quickly once they reached space.
“I know you’re worried,” Donovan observed. “But you didn’t come to the Developer meeting last night. We have a plan in place if the Delegation gets the jump on us.”
“What is that?” Aaron asked.
“They have set up a secondary bridge. If the Delegation boards us and manages to seize the Command Center, we can retreat there and still maintain control of the ship for some time, hopefully long enough to charge up the omniclast and wipe out the enemy fleet.”
Aaron had missed the meeting because he stayed working through the night on the chronotrace. Not that it had done any good.
The disc zipped down one final corridor, up a ramp, and through a wide metal doorway onto the bridge. Seven men in silver lab coats were already there, five other new Developers plus Cyrith and Xander. Cyrith had been informed about the failure of the chronotrace project earlier that morning, but had shown no reaction one way or the other. The ship’s launch was all that mattered now.
The circular bridge rose slightly above the rest of the ship. Metal panels covered the walls, most of them overlaid with screens displaying information about the ship’s operation: fuel levels, navigational charts, and equipment status. The Nebula’s esolace was not powerful enough to stream all of the information simultaneously, making it necessary to utilize visual representations. Some of the panels had transflex windows. These afforded a view of the ship and the endless desert from which they sought to escape.
The Nebula spread out in every direction, a giant, spoked wheel with multiple connections between the spokes. Many of the spokes were still broken and unfinished. Except where the ship was damaged beyond repair, the sub matter intensifiers dotted the top of the Nebula like insects pollenating a giant flower. These devices had circular bases with giant funnels on top and rods radiating out around the edges. Sixteen of the twenty intensifiers were still intact and operational, lit by subtle guide lights on the ends of the rods. This meant that the omniclast would take slightly longer to power up, but once it did, it would be capable of wiping out whatever the Delegation threw at them.
“Everyone is present. It is time to engage the launch sequence,” Cyrith informed the group.
From all across the ship, the humming of the enormous thrusters beneath the Nebula ramped up.
The Developers showed no reaction, except perhaps to stare even more vacantly at the dozens of view screens. A massive dust storm raged on all fronts, but the Nebula’s sensors allowed them to see through the deluge of sand and debris.
“In space we can begin again, free of the shackles of this hollow world,” Cyrith declared, his eyes glinting with uncharacteristic anticipation.
Mixed emotions coursed through Aaron at the thought of leaving Nai. Though every stretch of this planet was a miserable, inhospitable wasteland, he regretted that he had not been able to see it first hand. He had traveled halfway across the galaxy to be a part of the colonization effort on this planet and now he was leaving without ever having set foot on its surface.
And what awaited them above the planet’s turbulent atmosphere? For all they knew the Delegation was waiting to shoot them down the moment they cleared the clouds. No one in the Collective was safe, not even inside the Nebula, not until the omniclast was charged or they found the Delegation scout. Aaron wondered if he might not be able to take one last stab at getting the chronotrace to work before they broke atmosphere. He vowed to run a few last tests if he got the opportunity.
The humming of the engines died down gradually and then, just as gradually, the patchwork scaffolding surrounding the ship fell away and the Nebula began to rise. They escaped the billowing dust below and rose towards the swirling clouds above, and beyond that, the endless expanse of space. Aaron felt that mysterious pull which the stars exert on every human being who leaves his terrestrial confines and mounts the unconquerable sky. Though he had been in space before, he could not shake a sense of nervous expectation. His heart stirred at the prospect of floating in the midst of that impossibly open expanse. He had not felt such powerful emotions since before going into cryo-sleep, and their intensity rose along with the Nebula as it slowly slipped its planetary bonds.
Thirty-Two
Ascent of the Nebula
The ascent of the Nebula was literally like lifting a small city off the ground. It took time to build up speed. The dark green clouds above remained impossibly far away and since the ground below was nothing more than swirling sand it hardly felt like they were moving at all, but the altimeter readings on the screen tracked their progress. Every moment brought them closer to their rendezvous with the stars.
A vague sea of impressions floated through the group, but the general mood was optimistic. Though the ship still needed repairs, it was for the most part fully functional. Achieving this status in such a short period of time had been a testimony to the technological prowess of the Collective. Their small team of Developers, coordinating with a few dozen assessors, several hundred Collectives, and the less capable, but far more numerous, force of somatarchs had achieved their goal of launching before the arrival of the Delegation.
Amidst the personal musings shared by the Devs, a thought from Trey, the chief navigator, surged to the forefront.
“Tracking three large objects descending out of the clouds,” he reported.
Aaron’s gaze went to several red dots which flashed onto the navigational screen. They were not far from the Nebula’s current position and were closing rapidly.
Another view screen flipped on, showing a visual of the ships. They were very large, about five times larger than a praxis cruiser, though less than a tenth of the size of the Nebula. Their hulls were covered in black and gray paneling arranged in chevron patterns which made them look more sleek than they actually were. The bodies of the ships flared out in the back, narrowing to a fine tip as if they were enormous, metallic droplets floating through the air, their tapered ends pointing straight at the Nebula. Two thin wings jutting out from either side were the only break in the otherwise smooth exteriors.
Cyrith stared, unflinching, at the screen, waiting for the diagnostic routines to identify the ships.
“They are derringer attack ships with interstellar capabilities,” the Nebula’s system conveyed the information directly into their minds.
Cyrith studied the tactical readouts. “We stand no chance against ships of that size.”
“Should we send out the fleet?” Xander suggested.
“It is the only choice we have. We must at least attempt to delay them, to buy us enough time to break the atmosphere,” Cyrith replied. Despite the dour admittance, he remained as calm as ever.
The moment Cyrith’s thought entered their minds half the team exited from the room. They needed no further instructions. This scenario had been prepared for. Even so, Aaron didn’t see that it would make any difference. The Nebula was barely half way to the lower reaches of the atmosphere. They would never break through in time.
“Trey, transfer all excess power to the shields,” Cyrith instructed. “When they cannot take any more, use what’s left to boost our ascent. We can’t hope to outrun them, but we have to be ready if they make a mistake.”
Trey kept the ship on course at the navigational column while Cyrith and Xander stared intently at the view screens. Aaron and Donovan waited for instructions from one of the two senior Developers. Since almost all of their time had been dev
oted to building the chronotrace, they had not been prepped for any specific role in case of attack.
“What should the two of us do?” Aaron asked.
Cyrith kept his eyes on the navigation charts and gave no reply. Dozens of smaller ships issued forth from the derringers.
One of the screens switched to a view of the half-built cargo bay where the assessors assigned to the fleet began pouring in, racing to their ships. The collection of vapors, lancers, and skiffs was frighteningly small compared to the Delegation fleet. And the praxis and the hovland cruisers were nothing compared to the massive derringers they would be going up against.
I’ve got to do something, Aaron thought to himself. I’m of no use here.
He looked to Donovan, but he was as wrapped up in the readouts as everyone else.
Aaron was about to repeat his question when Xander’s thought cut him off.
“We have an incoming audio transmission. It’s the leader of the Delegation fleet. Shall I accept?”
“Send it through,” Cyrith answered, immediately shifting his focus to the audio channel.
A husky, indignant voice filled the bridge.
“Attention. This is Sentinel Orin of the assault ship Torrent. You are in possession of a Delegation space station, seized in the year 2152 Sovereign Domain. We demand that you hand over the ship at once or face immediate boarding.”
Cyrith sent Xander an order over the Dev channel. “Stall him.”
Xander cleared his throat. “You have no jurisdiction on this planet, Sentinel Orin. This ship belongs to the Collective. We declared our independence from the Delegation years ago.”
“The Collective? Is that what you’re calling yourselves now? Fine. You can declare your independence all you want, but I’ve got three hundred venators headed your way that say otherwise. You know full well who created that ship and I did not jaunt six thousand steorra across the galaxy to jaw with one of the Doctor’s lackeys,” answered the sentinel gruffly.
The Chronotrace Sequence- The Complete Box Set Page 94
