by A. K. DuBoff
“Let’s start with the information,” Kaiden said, bringing up a notetaking interface on the tabletop. “First, we need to know the process for determining the coordinates to the anomaly site.”
“Yes,” Toran concurred. “Really, just directing us to the surface of Crystallis with interface equipment will set me on the right path.”
“Let’s try for more—like the signal and planet pairings—but you’re right about simplifying it to the bare minimum,” I said. “We also need to convey that we have to beat the aliens to the anomaly site. No delays, no talking. If we end up resetting, that didn’t work.”
“Gather a fleet, get there as fast as possible,” Kaiden agreed.
Toran nodded. “Keep the anomaly from forming.”
“What else?” Maris asked. “There has to be more than that.”
“Is there?” I thought about what we’d encountered on the last go-around and what we had experienced so far this time, but most of it was incidental. All the important moments could be traced back to finding the signal and the initial moments of our encounter with the alien ship.
However, there was one other piece of information I wanted to bring forward: my new telekinetic abilities. That would be on me to remember.
“Yes, that’s what’s most critical,” Kaiden agreed with me. “Anything else is bonus, but that’s what we need.”
“Okay, so the touchpoint part,” I went on. “What places did we go after the reset that we could tie memories to?”
“It’s the pod room near Central Command for us,” Kaiden said.
“My memories triggered in my cabin when I lay down on my bed,” Toran said. “That’s the place I always think about my family before I go to sleep.”
“What about you, Maris?” I prompted.
She shook her head. “I didn’t remember much of anything until I heard that tone down on Crystallis. I’d just come out of the shuttle to talk to Toran when I heard it.”
“Won’t be able to recreate that. But maybe there’s another auditory trigger you could use.” I thought for a moment. “What about the lift’s chime?”
“Too common,” Kaiden said. “That’s a background sound at this point. It should be distinct.”
“What about the entry tone on the bridge?” Maris suggested. “We go to see Colren as soon as we get back from sealing the Archive.”
“Yes, good!” I took a deep breath. “We have a little over twenty minutes before we need to get ready for the jump. Go to your places. Think about the signal and the alien fleet as much as you can. Sound, touch, visuals—tie those memories, build the association.”
“See you for the jump,” Toran acknowledged.
Kaiden, Maris, and I ran back to the lift so we could return to the Central Command level. Upon reaching the deck, Maris continued to the bridge’s entrance while Kaiden and I entered the pod room along the corridor.
“Okay, that first kiss is what’s important, not so much this place itself,” I said.
Kaiden smiled at me. “So, you’re saying that kissing you will help save the universe?”
I rolled my eyes. “Get over here.”
I pulled him close to me and our lips met. I was tempted to revel in the moment, but I focused on the memories I would need after the reset. I hated building a connection between something so terrible with an act that would normally be happy, but it was the strongest feeling at my disposal. There’d be plenty of time once we got through this to overwrite the bad association.
Crystallis, the alien signal, coordinates, the anomaly, the alien ships—I tried to pair each memory with a specific touch. The images seared into my mind.
We spent fifteen minutes soaking in as many details as we could. At last, a ten-minute warning sounded for the impending jump, signaling that crew members would be flooding into the pod room at any moment.
“I’m sorry to ruin this for us,” I murmured as we pulled apart.
Kaiden gave me a final light kiss. “Nothing could. We’ll make new memories.”
With the alien threat at the forefront of my mind, we made our way to our own pod room. Toran and Maris were already stripping down to their shipsuits when we arrived.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
Toran shrugged. “I did what we discussed. Hopefully it will be enough.”
“I think I drove the comm techs crazy by opening and closing that bridge door dozens of times,” Maris said. “The sound is still reverberating in my ears.”
I wrinkled my nose. “That sounds awful, but in this case, I think that’s a good thing.”
Maris eyed me. “You two definitely had it best.”
I began taking off my outer clothes. “Not as good as you think.” I didn’t expect her to understand how much it tore me up to taint the memory of a significant, happy moment in my life. Even if she did understand, there wasn’t time to get into it. I trusted in the bond I was developing with Kaiden, and we’d free ourselves from the association eventually.
We climbed into our pods and strapped in.
“See you on the other side,” I wished my friends.
“Keep the memories fresh,” Kaiden advised. “Everything will happen quickly once we arrive.”
I did my best to hold thoughts of the aliens and the signal in my mind throughout the disorienting jump. As the synesthesia kicked in, I began feeling the visual elements of the memories, even hearing and tasting what had never been a part of my experience before. It made it all the more salient.
Finally, the pressure pinning me against my couch began to diminish. We had reached the jump coordinates.
I stretched my arms as the translucent pod cover slid down. “All right, time to see how terribly this ‘conversation’ with the aliens goes!”
“May as well go straight to the observation room to reset,” Kaiden replied, sitting upright.
“I choose to hope that there’s at least a chance this will—” Maris was cut off by a warning claxon.
“Enemy ships inbound. Battle stations,” Colren announced over the comm.
“Shit, what?” Kaiden hurdled out of his pod.
Toran squeezed out of his own pod. “How are they here already?”
I scrambled to my feet. “There’s not time to get dressed, come on!” I ran toward the door.
We dashed to the lift and piled inside.
“This can’t be happening,” I murmured under my breath.
Kaiden shook his head. “We should have had days.”
“But we didn’t do things the same,” Toran pointed out. “We went to Crystallis, not Windau.”
My head felt like it was about to explode. There were too many variables. It could have been any number of things that led to this different sequence of events.
The lift door opened on the Central Command level and we raced down the corridor to the bridge’s entrance. Maris winced as the door unlocked and slid open.
Inside, Colren leaned forward in his seat at the center of the bridge, his attention fixed on a fleet of two hundred alien ships arranged in a defensive spherical formation around the anomaly.
Hegemony ships dropped out of hyperspace around us. Any that were too close to one of the alien vessels were immediately enveloped in a black cloud that began disintegrating the target vessel within seconds.
“They knew we were coming,” I realized. “They were expecting us.”
Kaiden looked sick as he stepped through the open doorway. “What could have clued them in?”
Toran shook his head. “Maybe they could tell we were reading the signal on the crystalline network and they decided to accelerate their plans.”
Maris frowned. “That would imply that they knew how we would react.”
“They must remember what happened during the last timeline, too—maybe even better than us,” Kaiden said.
That was the last realization I wanted to have, but I couldn’t disagree with the conclusion. My heart dropped. “
If we reset again, they’ll also remember whatever we do here.”
We exchanged glances. Our plans hadn’t taken into account the possibility that the aliens would have any recall of events after we reset. No matter what we did now, they would still have the upper hand.
“Does that mean the reset plan is off?” Maris asked.
The Hegemony fleet was getting slaughtered outside the viewport. I couldn’t face that outcome. “No, we need to try again while we still can.”
“What will a reset change if the enemy remembers?” questioned Toran.
“We need to do something completely different and unexpected,” I said. Once again, it would come down to us. But, maybe we didn’t have to be alone. “Except, we need to hedge our bets.”
Without hesitation, I ran up to Colren. “Commander, we need to reset.”
Defeat was written on his face as he turned to face me. “Good, you’re here.” He pulled out the locket containing the crystal shard from under his uniform. “Go. The observation room is—”
“You have to come with us,” I stated.
He shook his head. “My place is here.”
“Us relaying information to you isn’t enough. You need to remember for yourself.”
“I haven’t prepared like you did before the jump. Watching Maris—”
“No, but you’ve seen this!” I made a sweeping gesture toward the space battle depicted on the screen. “I can’t think of a stronger reminder than sitting down in this chair with this view as your most recent memory.”
“My duty demands I don’t abandon this post,” he protested.
“You’re not. This will let you come back and prevent all of those people from dying!”
On screen, four of the alien ships disintegrated a defensive line of Hegemony destroyers standing between the enemy and us. We had maybe a minute to act.
I grabbed Colren’s arm. “Commander, we need to go now!”
He took one last look at the horror unfolding on screen and gave in. “Next time,” he whispered to the bridge crew as I urged him toward the exit. The officers gave resolute nods and salutes as he passed by.
He led the way out of Central Command and down the corridor toward what I presumed was the observation room he’d mentioned.
“They began attacking as soon as we arrived,” Colren said while we ran. “We were lucky to be far enough away from them.”
“They must remember,” I replied. “That’s why we need you. We’ll need a different approach.”
He nodded. “Stars be with us.”
At what appeared to be a dead-end to the corridor, Colren used a disguised control panel to open a hidden doorway. He held the crystal shard in his hand. “Do you remember what to do?”
I took the crystal fragment from him. “Enough. Think about where you were while we were down in the Master Archive.”
“When, exactly, was that?” Colren asked.
“No, that point won’t work with him,” Toran stated. “We need a time when all of us were together. Maybe the first meeting after we got back—when we gave him the shard?”
“That’s after Kaiden’s and my touchpoint,” I countered.
“No time to argue. It will be the easiest point for the five of us to picture,” Toran insisted.
“All right,” I yielded, pressing the crystal shard into my palm and holding it in place with my thumb. I extended my hand over the observation sphere. “Everyone ready?”
My friends put their hands in place, and Colren followed suit.
I started the count down. “One…. two… three!”
On my mark, we all placed our hands on the orb. As I released the crystal shard, I held the memory in my head of when Colren first took it from me during our debrief—the sense of hope that we had a tool to let us fight back. As the feeling flooded through me, the world dissolved to blackness.
22
Reality resolved around me.
Relief. Joy. Hope. I couldn’t put my happiness into words as I processed what Colren had just told me. We now held the key for a universal reset.
I looked over at the faces of my companions seated around the conference table adjacent to the bridge. They seemed as happy as I was feeling. Yet, something nagged at the back of my mind.
Across from us, Colren continued to admire the crystal shard. “You could use this to control a reset event from anywhere,” he said.
“But the Master Archive is sealed,” Kaiden said. “I thought it couldn’t be accessed for resets?”
“If the lore is correct, then a shard like this would be the only way to conduct a reset,” Colren replied. “Except, those are only legends. There are too many unknowns to be sure how a universal reset could play out.”
“A measure for desperate times,” Toran murmured.
Desperate times… Sudden tension gripped my chest. I should be happy; why did I feel stressed?
“Could there be side effects from a reset like that?” Kaiden asked.
Colren shrugged. “It would be impossible to predict. I can only imagine that with something that complex, there could be complications.” He smiled. “But no need to worry about that. Today was a victory.”
“Yeah, it was,” I agreed, my vanquishing of the black dragon still fresh in my mind.
“Take the rest of the day to celebrate,” the commander said. “You’ve earned it.” He rose from his seat.
We stood up.
“Thank you, Commander,” Kaiden said.
Colren headed out the door. He stopped a pace outside the conference room and turned back. “Have we…?” he faded out, then shook his head. “Never mind. Enjoy your celebrations.” He continued toward his command seat at the center of the bridge.
“All right! A party is in order,” Maris cheered.
“Not that we have a lot of exciting options,” I mumbled.
“Mess hall?” Kaiden proposed.
“That’s pretty much it,” Maris replied.
Toran nodded. “I’ll need to take some time to unwind before I’m up for any festivities.”
“That’ll give me time to find out if there’s anything worthwhile to drink on this ship,” Maris placed a hand on her hip. “The selection thus far has been sorely lacking.”
“It’s a military ship, not a pleasure yacht,” I said. The Darkness was still out there; it hardly seemed like a time for a party.
“People have to unwind all the same!” She waved her hand. “We’ll meet at… 17:00?”
“Sounds good. Maybe we’ll even be able to round up some people to join in the fun,” Kaiden said.
A big celebratory bash still felt like the wrong thing to do, but I wanted my friends to be happy—especially Kaiden. If a party was what they wanted, I’d suck it up.
We exited the conference room. As we walked through the bridge, crew members smiled and bowed their heads in acknowledgement for what we’d done. As invisible as our actions were to most, we’d given our civilization its best chance to rebuild once the threat had passed. Seeing their reactions and putting it in those terms, maybe a celebration was in order.
When we passed by Colren in his command seat, however, I was surprised to see a very different expression on his face. He seemed almost horrified.
I was about to ask him what was wrong, but Kaiden brushed my arm. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?” he whispered.
“Yeah, of course,” I replied, gesturing toward the Central Command exit. “Back in the pod room.”
Kaiden nodded.
The four of us continued through the bridge getting a proper hero’s treatment from the crew, receiving acknowledgements ranging from nods and smiles to salutes. At any other time, I would have felt the swell of pride from a job well done, but Colren’s expression had shaken me. Something had tainted this apparent victory.
When we reached the doorway leading to the outer corridor, the door automatically slid open with a hiss and soft chime.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“This…” She shook her head. “This isn’t right. We’ve been through this before.”
Kaiden’s brow knit. “What do you mean?”
She stared at the open door. “I know this sound.”
“We’ve been through here several times,” I replied. “It’s not—”
“No, not just a casual visit,” she insisted, her voice raising. “That chime is embedded in me.”
Colren looked around from his command seat. “Do you feel it, too?”
Maris’ gaze met his. “I don’t know what I’m feeling. It’s like I’m in a dream.”
“Elle.” Kaiden’s fingers brushed against my left hand. The feeling was so familiar—far more than I expected for someone with whom I’d only minutes before shared a first kiss. And there was something else in the touch I couldn’t explain that made me want to pull away, though not from him, exactly.
Our eyes met. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know, but we need to go—”
“—to the pod room,” I completed for him.
He looped his fingers through mine and led me down the corridor, leaving a confused Maris and Toran in Central Command with Colren.
The moment the pod doors opened, I sensed a shift within me. I knew this place—really knew it. A scuff on the side of one of the pods, a scratch in the white paneling next to the door, the placement of rivets along the baseboard. I couldn’t bring up the images in my mind on command, but there was the strangest sense of déjà vu as I looked around the space.
“Now I get what Maris was saying. Something weird is happening,” I said.
“I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to come back here with you,” Kaiden replied. “I don’t know why.”
I took his hands. “We’ll figure it out.”
His touch reassured me, drawing me close. I leaned in for a kiss, but as our faces neared, a deep-seated sense of discomfort washed over me. I pulled back, releasing his hands.
