by A. K. DuBoff
As crazy as it sounded, all of the questions that had been floating in my head for the past two weeks were slowly getting answered. Colren had been telling the truth earlier when he said he’d told us everything, just not enough details for us to understand the full extent of his statements.
“Okay, so, this device doesn’t work now that the Archive is sealed,” I said. “You said there was some strange activity with it earlier. What happened?”
“We received a momentary data feed, but it was jumbled—like data had been overwritten multiple times on the same file, so only fragments were readable.”
“What did they say?” Toran asked.
Colren turned around to access the workstation behind him. “It was only a few minutes ago, so we haven’t run a full analysis. What little information the techs could make out looked like code snippets.”
Toran joined him by the monitor integrated in the wall. “These look similar to the waveforms I was analyzing, actually.”
The commander perked up. “Can you plot them?”
“Maybe.” Toran took over the controls. After a minute of entering commands, he shook his head and frowned. “No, these are too incomplete for the results to be accurate. I could easily extrapolate and plot something, but there’d be too much guesswork involved to trust the result.”
I drummed my fingers pensively. “It’s strange… this seems to be the origin point for the signal, but there isn’t a crystal here. I don’t know how it would interface at all.”
“We assume there’s not a crystal here,” Toran interjected. “What if there’s one inside that anomaly?”
“I guess there could be, since it’s all… anomalous,” I stated awkwardly.
“But what about everything else going on here?” Colren prompted. “Why would the aliens have interest in this place if there’s no world to consume?”
I thought through everything I had learned about the crystalline network over the past two weeks and how everything operated. It didn’t make sense that the aliens would select this as a staging ground for their fleet when there were more than a dozen worlds they had already shaped to their specifications using the Darkness. But, when I failed to rationalize the actions using my conventional understanding, I flipped it around. Suddenly, the pieces started to fall into place. “You said the gravity was high here—meaning there could be dense mass we can’t see?” I asked, breaking the silence in the room.
Colren nodded.
“So, what if the signals we keep picking up are instructions for that matter? On the other planets, the crystals were used to rearrange matter to create whatever environment the aliens want for their bio…”
“Bio-optimization,” Kaiden supplied for me.
“Right. And that process could be done anywhere there’s sufficient raw material, correct?” I asked, and Toran nodded. “So, what if the ships aren’t coming through that anomaly, but that they’re being manufactured in it?”
Toran paled. “That’s all the crystals do—follow a set of instructions and use whatever is at their disposal to complete the structures.”
“Stars! If that really is what’s going on…” Colren raced to the door. “We need to shut it down!”
14
“Commander! Additional alien craft inbound,” the helm officer announced as soon as Colren returned to the bridge with my team following close behind.
“It might not be inbound at all,” Colren muttered.
“Sir?”
He shook his head. “Set ship to combat-ready. Move into high-precision firing range of the anomaly.”
“Aye!” the helm officer acknowledged.
“This could totally backfire,” I whispered to Kaiden.
“If your idea is correct, then there aren’t a lot of other options. The longer that thing is active, the bigger the enemy fleet we’ll be up against.”
“What’s the ETA on our backup?” Colren barked.
“Jump logs indicate they should arrive in six minutes, sir,” the comm tech replied from one of the rear stations near where I was standing. She was the most composed of the support staff, but I could still plainly see the worry in her eyes.
“Ten kilometers to engagement range,” the helm officer announced.
“When you have a lock, fire a Class I barrage at the anomaly,” Colren ordered.
My hand found Kaiden’s, and we entwined our fingers. The warmth of his presence took the edge off my worry as we braced for combat.
“Target in range. Commencing Class I barrage,” the helmsman announced.
“May the stars be with us,” Colren murmured.
Twenty torpedoes launched from the bow of the Evangiel and streaked toward the anomaly. It still seemed too far away to fire on, but I had to remind myself that the physics of space battles are different than on a planet. In terms of this environment, we were practically breathing down the enemy’s neck.
Four excruciating seconds passed while we waited for impact. As the torpedoes neared their mark, the single alien craft that had fully emerged from the anomaly fired what looked like an inky cloud, visible only thanks to the visual overlays on the front viewport. The black cloud intercepted the torpedoes two kilometers short of the anomaly’s event horizon, and the twenty bombs vanished.
“Report!” Colren demanded.
“The torpedoes are gone, sir. No detonation,” the helmsman replied, a quaver in his voice.
Kaiden’s grip on my hand tightened. “They can command the Darkness,” he whispered.
“No. This can’t be happening!” My throat constricted as tears stung the corners of my eyes. We had been making progress, we had a plan. Now, all of those efforts seemed to be meaningless. How could we stop an enemy who makes weapons vanish?
Colren seemed equally at a loss.
“Sir?” the helmsman prompted when no further orders were given.
“Plasma cannons,” the commander instructed.
“That gets us too close,” Toran murmured.
“What do you mean?” Maris asked, drawing the four of us into a huddle.
“Plasma cannons are a short-range engagement weapon,” Toran clarified. “If we’re close enough to fire at the anomaly, we would be well within range of their Black Cloud of Death.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to go anywhere near a thing you’d give that nickname.” I glanced at Colren. “Should we say something?”
“He is no doubt aware of the risks already,” Toran said. “My guess is that this move is to determine which strategy will be best for the rest of the fleet to follow. Torpedoes appear ineffective, so we need an alternative means of attack.”
“Then saying something won’t help.” I sighed. “For being here on the bridge, we’re not doing much.”
“We’re civilians on a military vessel. It’s a wonder we’re here at all,” Kaiden replied.
With a sudden and horrific death now too near a reality for comfort, I was beginning to agree with Maris’ assessment that I should have never gotten out of bed that morning. Agreeing with Maris… the end really was nigh.
No, thinking like that wasn’t going to accomplish anything. “Come on,” I said, beckoning my friends toward the exit.
“Where are you going?” Toran asked.
“Back to that special room,” I said. “If that thing can pick up signals from the aliens, maybe we can learn something about them during the attack.”
“Wait, we’ll need a way to see what’s going on out here,” Kaiden countered. He jogged up to Commander Colren and whispered something to him, which I assumed was my plan.
The commander nodded. “I’ll give you access and patch through the feed.”
Kaiden bounded off the dais and headed for the door.
“It’s not as fun now that we have permission,” I jested, jogging up next to him.
He cracked a smile. “Only you would say something like that at a time like this, Elle.”
We dashe
d down the corridor to the secret entry.
Toran placed his palm on the hidden biometric scanner, and the door opened. “This is why we ask for permission.”
“Oh, right.” My cheeks flushed. “I wasn’t thinking about that part.”
Once inside, we sealed the door and then turned our attention to the various stations around the room. Toran began fiddling with one to get the live feed from the bridge’s viewport while Kaiden examined the sphere.
“I can’t believe Colren trusts us with this,” he said.
“In all fairness, we have more experience with this ancient tech than anyone, after we went through the artifact-gathering,” I pointed out.
“I guess there is that. We haven’t broken anything yet.”
I smiled. “That we know of, anyway.”
“The cute banter can wait. Figure out how this thing works!” Maris cut in.
“Sorry.” I inspected the device. There were no obvious controls. “Colren said the viewing was controlled by thought, didn’t he?”
“That’s right, he did.” Kaiden eyed the device. “Should I…?”
“Be my guest.” I held out my hand.
Kaiden placed his palms on either side of the sphere. The glow intensified for a moment before the blackness returned. However, one of the idle workstations along the wall sprang to life.
“I think we have a link!” I ran over to it. “Try to focus on the anomaly, Kaiden.”
“Great, that’s the last thing I want to think about.”
“Hey, you volunteered to do this part.” I checked the workstation’s monitor, which had code scrolling across it. “How are you doing getting the feed set up, Toran? I’ll need you over here.”
“Almost ready,” he replied.
I looked over my shoulder to see what he was working on just in time to see the video stream from the bridge appear on the monitor at his station. The Evangiel was rapidly approaching the alien ship and the anomaly. By my estimation, we had to be getting close to firing range for the plasma cannons. Any nearer and it would be a suicide run; maybe it already was.
“Come, on they’ll fire soon!” I urged.
Toran ran over to my position, immediately locking his eyes on the monitor. “Okay, good, this is steady and matches what I was observing earlier. If there’s any change when we strike, we’ll know why.”
“They’d better make a move soon.” I took an unsteady breath. I had no interest in finding out firsthand what it felt like to be disintegrated by that black cloud.
With Toran focusing on the code, I went back to the station with the feed from the bridge. Four additional alien ships were starting to appear in the anomaly, and two earlier ones were almost complete. The tapered noses of the vessels protruded from the bright glow like they were predators rising from a pond, elegant and sinister.
A new glow appeared on the screen, originating from the Evangiel. With a sudden flash, two blinding plasma beams crackled across the blackness toward the anomaly. The beams struck one of the half-formed ships, sending a ripple of lightning over its hull. At first, it appeared the energy blast was dissipating without causing any damage, but then the tendrils that comprised the hull slowly began to unfurl from their proper places. The black bands dropped and began to shrivel, eventually disintegrating. With gaps in the structure, the rest soon fell apart.
“Hey, it worked!” Maris cheered.
I kept my own glee at bay, knowing this was only the beginning of the engagement. We were still within range of the completed alien craft. “What does the readout say, Toran?”
“There was a marked spike at the time of impact,” he reported. “One of the waveforms dropped in amplitude.”
“Does that mean the more ships there are, the stronger it is?” I speculated.
“As good a guess as any at this stage.” Toran pressed behind his ear. “Commander, the signal changed when the ship was in distress. We’ll keep an eye on it.”
“That’s a relief to hear. We’ll take care of the rest of these in short order,” Colren replied. The comm link ended.
“How can we use this information to our advantage, though?” Kaiden chimed in. “It’s obvious the ship was hurt when it fell apart. Does this thing with the waves and signal actually help us?”
“What if the impact hadn’t been so obvious? The waves would have told us something,” Toran replied. “And now, even if a ship shows no exterior damage, we know we can assess the health of their fleet using this method.”
“Well, we better take out the rest of those ships before it becomes a proper fleet,” Kaiden said.
New ships popped onto the screen with a blue flash. Information tags popped up above each on the screen. “The Hegemony fleet is here!” This time, I did cheer.
Colren no doubt had relayed the information about the plasma cannons because the new Hegemony ships were accelerating toward the anomaly. I counted at least three dozen craft—a sizable fleet to take on the four remaining alien vessels and the anomaly itself.
When the Hegemony ships were close enough, plasma beams lanced out from the bows of the ships toward the targets. The beams rippled over the hulls like they had when the Evangiel fired, and the dark tendrils began to fall away from the ships’ forms. However, the attack had placed the Hegemony ships close to the completed alien vessel, which obviously wasn’t going down without a fight.
“It’s getting ready to fire!” My heart pounded in my ears. If its weapon could do to a ship what it had to the torpedoes, the Hegemony fleet could be leveled in a matter of minutes.
“Why aren’t they pulling away? Didn’t Colren warn them?” Kaiden’s voice was pitched with concern.
“They’re getting ready to fire again—waiting for the plasma cannon to recharge,” Toran replied. “I don’t know if they have enough time…”
Everything seemed to fall silent around me as the scene unfolded on the screen. The mouths of the cannon glowed in preparation to fire, but before they could, a black cloud engulfed the forward line of ships. I could barely make out the alien attack itself, only brief explosions as the destroyers lost integrity. Within seconds, there was no evidence the ships had ever been there.
The cloud of Darkness was all but invisible against the starscape, and it wasn’t until the next wave of Hegemony vessels began disintegrating before my eyes that I could make out its path of destruction.
“Stars! They have to get out of there,” I choked.
“They can’t outrun it,” Kaiden murmured.
Three of the Hegemony vessels that had been farthest from the alien ship attempted a hasty retreat, but before they’d gone four ship lengths, another cloud of the Darkness enveloped their hulls, each glowing for a moment before falling dark.
Tears glistened in Maris’ eyes. “The crews…”
I wanted to honor them for their sacrifice, but we had more pressing issues. New alien vessels were beginning to form within the anomaly, and the Evangiel was now the only ship standing in between the enemy front and the Hegemony worlds. There was no reason to believe our ship would fare better than the warships the Darkness had already dissolved as if the reinforced hulls were tissue paper in a sandstorm.
“There’s no way out of this,” I realized. The rest of fleet was annihilated and we were next. We were all going to die.
Kaiden swallowed. “At least we tried.”
I opened a comm channel with the bridge. “Commander—”
The view on the screen changed as the Evangiel rapidly pulled away from the anomaly.
“We have to retreat,” Colren confirmed over the comm. “Stars help us. Those ships were the most advanced in our fleet.”
My stomach turned over. We could run now, but to what end? Any future engagements couldn’t possibly have more promise with our lone ship against such a formidable enemy. The war was over before it had truly begun.
I slowly shook my head, not wanting to believe. “This can’t be it.”
“We’ll regroup with the reserve fleet at the Capital. We need to consolidate resources,” Colren stated. “Prepare to jump.”
Maris turned to leave the chamber to head toward our jump pods. “If only we could start over,” she murmured
Except, there was a way to start over…
“We can!” I exclaimed. “The shard.”
“Elle, we have no idea what that will do,” Toran cautioned.
“Can it be any worse than this? We’re dead, our worlds are lost. Us dying here would very likely doom the rest of our civilization, too. If we have any chance for a do-over, I think we need to take it.”
The commander didn’t say anything over the comm at first. “Yes, we do need to take that chance. Come to the bridge.”
Kaiden shook his head. “This is nuts.”
“It is, but it might be the best shot we have,” Toran replied.
“If we go back far enough, we can save our worlds,” Maris said while we jogged down the corridor to the bridge.
“We’ll find a way to do that no matter what,” I told her.
The bridge door was standing open in anticipation of our arrival, and Colren was in his customary position at the center of the domed command area. He bore a grim expression, but a sliver of hope shined in his eyes as he turned to face us.
“Our fate falls to you.” He pulled out a locket hanging from a black chain underneath his uniform jacket. The spherical locket reminded me of a multi-pointed star, crafted from an exotic blue-tinted metal. He pressed one of the spikes and the sphere split in two, revealing the crystal shard inside. He handed it to me. “If I don’t remember any of this, thank you in advance.”
“How do we use it?” I asked, taking the crystal from his outstretched hand.
“If the lore is correct, bring it to the viewing device and merge it with the crystal,” the commander said. “You hold our future in your hands.”
“We won’t let you down.”
I ran back to the viewing room with my team, not bothering to close the door since this physical reality was about to vanish. We huddled around the crystal orb.
