Dimension

by Shay Zana

  The ground level streets are littered with wreckage, destroyed vehicles bleeding smoke in thick trails. Holographic guidance lanes mark the skies above, where the skystreets are located amongst the tallest buildings and suspended platforms that hover in linked unison. The ground level streets are typically darker than the sky streets due to the towers and platforms blocking out the majority of the starlight during evening hours when Rhadamanthus is lower, falling toward the horizon.

  The Paragon glides his eyes over the cityscape beyond, pinpointing his destination through a few klicks of interweaving buildings and thick battlefields. Through the haze of the warzone, the Paragon’s eyes sharpen with his optic irises. He scopes in through the structures to get a clear view of the statuesque temple, his datakey automatically calculating it to have over 200 floors at the height of over 1000 metres.

  The building is designed like a modern-day temple, with curving angles that encircle the width and jutting spines that tower skyward up its length. A central staircase is the obvious focal point, leading from the ground up to a grand balcony that wraps around the fifth floor, highlighting the first lobby entrance. Bordering the splendid staircase are small and tidy shrubs, ornaments, and earthy coloured pebbles or stones of various sizes. Tranquil gardens surround the temple’s many balconies, and a lulling waterfall pours its way serenely down the centre of the building, beginning at the apex and falling into a mist. Deo guesses that this is some type of shrine of divinity, where Spiritual Natives may come to pray, meditate, and worship the Zodiacs. The other buildings in the immediate area seem to have been constructed around this temple, promoting its symbolic importance.

  Despite its grand manner, the top floors are aflame, shattered windows travel down its length, and large chunks of debris teeter off the balconies. Deo can see bodies strewn from windows, dismembered limbs hanging by stringy sinews, blood speckling walls in gruesome generosity, and lashings of gunfire erupting from skirmishes inside. This building should no longer be considered a temple.

  “Paragon!”

  The thick call of a woman echoes loudly down the streets behind him, soon followed by the low thrum of an approaching vessel. A Dagger.

  Swivelling around, Deo readies his rifle, automatically dissolving the magnification ability of his optics. Through the amber murk of fiery smoke, a single Dagger emerges at full speed toward him, its engines brimming with heat as the vapour sizzles off the titanium armour plating.

  But the Dagger is not the hostility that hungers for his blood. Parallel with the incoming Dagger is a Silverback tank, rolling in with relentless speed and eyeing him up with dual barrels. Immediately, Deo lunges to the side and catches himself in a roll, evading the tank’s strike.

  The Dagger swerves on its flank, barging into the tank to disrupt its following round. Shields spark in the collision but neither falter, allowing Deo to rush for better cover. He watches as the Dagger backs off and opens fire with its chain guns, pelting the Silverback’s shields as it struggles to line its barrels up. He has to duck as the tank fires off-mark and ravages the building above him, debris clattering down.

  Tired of playing cat and mouse, the Silverback’s design ruptures to life, morphing its compartments at an erratic speed that catches the Dagger pilot off guard. The gunship is victim to a lashing of separating nikita, smashing into the shields and spiralling it beyond the pilot’s ability to control. An armoured figure leaps from the gunship’s cockpit right before it makes impact with an adjacent building, intact but severely damaged. The figure lands in a skilled crouch, opening fire on the morphed warmachine as its four legs support its weight. They are now dealing with a walking tank.

  Deo leaps over his cover to aid the ejected pilot, tossing his last grenade for its cockpit visor to cover his advance. “Get out of here! Go!” he roars to the pilot, but instead of seeing the figure flee, it stands its ground and produces a burning spasm of entity, shielding itself from an elemental blast from the Silverback.

  This is no marine.

  “Like hell!” the Paragon roars back, her voice rich with strain. “Take the shields!”

  Deo watches as she dives from the radius of another blast and sprints from yet another, keeping the warmachine distracted. He unloads his lightning shard into its shields, knowing his effort is in vain against the density. He notices that the woman has disappeared from sight, and continues to fire into the tank’s shields as it alters its focus on him, stomping its limps heavily to rotate itself around. He revolves around it, staying clear of its firing line and rendering the machine helpless in its lumbering way. But he cannot keep this up forever. His shards will deplete, and he will be just as stuck as the tank.

  A holocaust of heat pounds the machine’s flank, flames engulfing its shields. Once the fire clears, Deo arrows his sights in on the dormant Dagger lying crippled across the street, occupied and its cannons fuming. He sees the Paragon’s visor flare up as her adrenaline pumps, readying to fire again. The Silverback diverts its attention back onto her, its cannons also readying.

  Deo lays more fire on the tank, sensing its shields are on the verge of failing. His shotgun vents heat with each pump, each impact causing his grimace of temper to sharpen.

  The Silverback finally aligns its twin barrels with the Dagger, crumbs of flickering shard energy seeping from its core.

  “Get clear!” Deo hears from the woman.

  The Dagger gets in first, exuding its pent up energy in a plume of power. Light eviscerates all, sound is muted, sweat suddenly becomes noticeable, until slowly it all fades to reveal an invisible orb containing the fury of a fusion element.

  Deo hauls himself up from his sudden leap for cover and watches the undulation within the containment field. She had fired a heavy nuclear shard, a one-shot shard that emits its own radiation shield to prevent catastrophic fallout. Fusion shards should never be used lightly, but he is glad she pulled it off without killing the both of them. Inside that field, the Silverback and its pilots will be nothing.

  Deo flexes his shoulders and trudges around the field, finding the other Paragon climbing out of the Dagger, dust puffing from her armour as she jumps down and lands heavily. Her armour is cracked on various plates, and a tear in her vitasuit is patched over with elixir, but she appears fit.

  “You must be Deo,” she exclaims. “Ranity pointed me in your direction. Think she has a crush.” She is a muscular woman, like any Paragon, though she is not as large as him. Her helmet design sports a narrow strip as her visor, with a red wolf painted on the crown of the helmet, fangs drenched in blood. She removes her helmet and sighs in the fresh breeze, blood-red hair flaying to her shoulders. Her features are strong, but not unattractive. What catches Deo’s eye the most is a small tattoo of a howling wolf above the high arch of her black brow.

  “Rahna. I spoke with your squad leader aboard the station,” she reminds him hopefully.

  Deo recalls this Rahna and gives her a tight nod of acknowledgement, hefting his assault rifle against his shoulder comfortably. “You ask permission to fly that thing?” He gestures to her obviously commandeered Dagger as it rumbles lowly behind her.

  Rahna gives a slight chuckle. “Thought I’d take her for a spin. Handles good for a UEU rust bucket.”

  Deo grunts at that, looking past her at the gunship.

  Rahna gauges him, noting that he has not removed his helmet, and also that he seems far more interested in the Dagger than in her. “Where’s your crew?”

  His gaze shifts back to her. “Sleeping on the job.”

  Another laugh trickles from her. “Well, you look like you can handle yourself.”

  An awkward silence follows as he notices her line of sight wandering his form, lingering a little longer on the lower regions. Feeling uncomfortable under her gaze, he shifts his weight. “Will she fly?”

  Rahna lifts her unsubtle gaze and peers back over her shoulder at the smoking Dagger. “She’s a bit beaten but she’ll still fly.”

  Deo moves past
her to examine the Dagger, gliding his hand along its crumpled hull. Its visor is cracked, its port thruster is shot, and its shields will need time to regenerate, but for the most part, it is still intact. “Never managed to get my hands on one of these,” he explains.

  Rahna cracks a delightful grin and slaps him on the shoulder. “Come on, then.” She climbs back aboard and takes possession of the co-pilot station. “I’ll forgive you for taking a pot-shot at me earlier.”

  That must have been Rahna in the Dagger that had passed over him when he entered through the waterfall. Grinning beneath his visor, Deo climbs aboard and takes his place in the pilot’s chair. He has always wanted to take a Dagger for a spin.

  “How’s the station?” Deo asks as he watches her activate the control panel for the secondary defences. Small machine gun turrets on the stern of the Dagger protrude in readiness.

  “The whole damn station went to hell when that ship smashed right through the hull of D. Other sectors couldn’t handle the pressure. Began to vent atmosphere. A lot of civilians are still being evacuated as we speak, but I thought I could be of more use down here.”

  With precise movements of his fingers over the control panel, Deo thrusts the Dagger skyward, worming his way through the many platforms to merge with the now empty skystreets above, ignoring the holographic guidance lanes.

  “How the hell did you guys survive that, anyway?” she queries.

  “Got lucky.”

  “Obviously,” Rahna agrees, an impressed snort following. “I take it you’re headed to the temple everyone keeps talking about,” she now guesses, her tone slightly mingled with distraction as she focuses on the instruments before her.

  “Seems like the place to be,” Deo replies.

  “If you dig airstrikes every five minutes. The temple is swarming with UEU. I made contact with Charlie right before they were hit by an orbital strike, and according to their major, Anzac is somewhere on the top floors. Looks to me like he got himself boxed in tight.”

  “You got any ideas?”

  “I got a few presents for the UEU, but ideas? No, no ideas.”

  Following Rahna’s shrug, Deo turns his attention back out the cockpit view, studying the burning temple as they approach. The sinking of a dome shaped building reveals the area to be littered with battling foot soldiers, warmachines, vehicles, and to top all of that off, persistent airstrikes wreak havoc.

  “Most of Charlie was taken out, and Delta is retreating,” Rahna continues. “So that doesn’t leave much left to defend the King.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already dead,” Deo responds nonchalantly, still gazing at the building ahead. He does not much care for the King himself, just what he represents, and that is the continuation of the mission. Negotiating to have the entire galaxy evacuated is no small matter, but if they want to save as many people as possible, then the King of Scattered Planet must survive to negotiate this efficiently and without delay. Then, finally, they can continue with their mission without the extra stress of casualties.

  Rahna hums. "Optimist, I see."

  Deo just gives an unamused grunt, leaning forward slightly in his seat and activating his magnification optics again to get a closer inspection of the temple. Heavy fighting is obvious nearer the top floors, but any higher than that and anyone up there would be burnt to a crisp. Entering from the roof will be hazardous.

  As he begins to circle around the spire of the temple, contemplating about the best course of action, the temple becomes a victim to another airstrike from a gang of passing Gladiators, pounding the structure of the building, shattering glass, blasting out wads of carved stone and shearing off large strips of aesthetic nikita designs that curve around the outside of the walls. Plasma, fire, and acidic shard elements eat through the outer walls, leaving a gaping hole in the temple that spews out black smoke and begins to smother the skies above.

  Suddenly, Deo has an idea. “Take the reins,” he commands, and Rahna complies willingly, squeezing herself past him as they swap positions. He settles himself on the turret controls absently as he leans over to scope out the height between them and the temple.

  "Shit!" Rahna curses as she swerves the Dagger suddenly, pulling hard to port. Deo is forced to grip the gunship's dashboard to keep from lurching sideways. Rahna pounces her hands onto the control panel and yanks the Dagger into a sheer dive.

  “What the hell, woman!?” Deo demands as he is sent forward, compressing into the dashboard this time.

  Once Rahna pulls the Dagger back upward, narrowly skimming along the grounds and bolting just in front of a charging Silverback tank, she heaves the vessel around the side of the temple’s entrance and rides back up into the sky. Flaming missiles impact the area just where they had been moments before, debris crumbling off the temple in the aftermath.

  “We got company. You have the guns, use them!”

  Deo engages the rear turret controls, sighting two Daggers shadowing them closely with shards igniting through the air. “Two Daggers,” he reports, voice suddenly turning hard. “Hot on our arse! Evade!”

  At his iron hard command, Rahna evades in a jarring turn, tilting the aft-heavy gunship on an almost vertical right turn, another cluster of flaming missiles clinking the shields. Deo opens fire with the aft turrets, distributing a constant stream of nikita rounds at the nearest Dagger, impacting against its kinetic shields.

  “Bank left!”

  And again, by Deo’s instructions, Rahna heaves the Dagger into a sharp left turn, evading yet another round of fire missiles.

  As if this was not enough, the deep rumbling of a charging orbital strike booms down from above like the thunder announcing the doom of the planet. The red light of Rhadamanthus is overcast by the almost neon brightness of the incoming orbital strike, striking the nebulous gas embracing the skies with a bold hue of burning gold. As the three Daggers soar across the Babylon skies, threading and looping around structures, a ruthless beam of energy engulfs the sky in a tight concentration, lashing at the temple with savage arcs and causing it to tumble on one side, its foundations visibly quivering under the pressure. If it takes anymore direct hits like that, it will cease to exist, and Anzac will be lost in a mountainous pile of rubble.

  Deo grinds his teeth at the sight behind them. “We don’t have time for this! Take me over the temple!”

  “To do what!?” Rahna replies in kind, her voice just as rough as his.

  “Aerial insertion.”

  “You’re fucking crazy, Paragon, you know that right?”

  Deo gives her a glare from beneath his visor plate. “Just do it.”

  WHISPERS IN THE STARS

  The gathering darkness of space above is wreathed with picturesque auroras, dynamically flowing in high speeds, alien compared with earth. Kitera guesses that the artificial atmosphere that this sphere is creating must be colliding with the solar particles of the seven stars, the bands of light somehow accelerating as they hit the magnetic field that hugs the sphere. Maybe this is how the entities deep within the sphere absorb the starlight. Maybe these spheres are used as conduits to feed entity particles. If so, then the entity within Altair, the entities within the Paragons, and within every other ikamanu and Paragon have originated from a parallel dimension.

  Kitera watches with growing fascination as the light of rushing entity dances deep within the biological city. Her mind becomes opaque to thought, only the sense of sight contains her from being a husk of glazed hypnotisation.

  The rippling movement of the alien structures ceases suddenly, and now, like water pulled down by gravity, the city falls, swallowed by the black liquid. The entity particles vanish from view, their luminosity gone, and in their place, the liquid nikita resumes its ashen obscurity in a milky amalgamation.

  The Cipher stands idly in the observatory for a moment, riveted to the spot and staring unbrokenly as the sphere slowly disappears in the inky distance. This dimension has life, yes, plenty of it, she decides, but does it
have sapience? Again, she lifts her palm to examine her datakey and the display of their current location within this galaxy. Still the galactic core, right where there should be a super massive black hole and a plethora of dying and exploding stars.

  She sees her own features crease in her reflection.

  Time wanes slowly as Altair wanders through the septuple star system, curving its way elegantly around nikita spheres, through dust hazes, trailing curiously behind giant asteroids, or just circling one of the seven stars within the system, gorging itself off its light like a grazing animal. Kitera is forced to exercise her patience with the creature and its almost aimless travelling, but even a Cipher has a certain limit to patience. This is one of the many times where she wishes that she can somehow communicate with the ikamanu.

  Patience soon escalates into impatience, and before long, Kitera is attempting to communicate with Altair, asking it questions she knows that it cannot understand or answer. She accesses the stargrid and tries to direct the vessel on a requested course back to Kronos, well, where it would be located were they in its dimension of existence. No matter how many times she tries to select a course, Altair does not respond the way she would like it to, instead just voicing a drawn out thundering whine in its usual way of expressing displeasure.

  Impatience now escalates to frustration, and Kitera finds herself back within the starboard observatory, searching desperately through the stellarium and venturing through the galaxy. The animated display ignites the entire room in highlighted sphericals of nature, a nature that is protected by extremist gods who would wipe out all intelligent lifeforms to keep them from harming it. If sapient life like humanity once existed in this dimension, they have surely been gone for many ages. Surely.

  Her frustration subtly ebbs away into fatigue, and the fleeting thought of curling up within the soft mounds of her bed is inviting. With a defeated sigh, Kitera gathers herself up from the floor and departs from the stellarium, the holograms of the galaxy dissipating at the loss of her presence.