by Shay Zana
“I just saved his arse so you can shut up.”
Ignoring him, Natheus continues to examine Boone. His veins have faded along his vitasuit, meaning his body is well enough to support itself, but Natheus is not convinced. “His own entity may have irradiated him. Need to test its output.” With this being said, he launches an entity shot to Boone’s chest in a vicious squelch, injecting the liquid right to his heart. Instantly, Boone gives a spasm and a ragged yelp, lurched back to consciousness cruelly.
As Boone opens his eyes, his awareness transpires back to his head all at once, flooding his eyes with gushing colours and stinging his nerves with rapid pins and needles. The entity shot acted as adrenaline, slapping his heartbeat in painful cramps. His limbs thrash, forcing Deo and Natheus to hold him down until his entity splits the air and sends the two flying.
With Boone left gasping for air on the cot, and the two flung Paragons groaning on the ground, Kitera and Mazayus recover from the gust. She moves in to Boone’s side, and he moves in to assist the two stunned soldiers.
“The shot was an overload to a healthy entity function. I’m satisfied there is no radiation poisoning,” Natheus dares to utter as Mazayus gives him a hand up, the following glare from Deo declaring his dissatisfaction.
“Hey, Nath,” Boone manages to rasp out as Kitera aids him in sitting up. With a shaking hand, he raises it slowly, concentration sweeping across his face as he commands his fingers to do as he bids them. One by one, his fingers curl into his palm, until the only one left standing is his middle finger, poised firmly in Natheus’ direction. Boone will be fine.
After making him comfortable, the others leave Boone to rest and retire from the infirmary. The change of plans to their mission has sent a rushed confusion over them all, joined with an array of emotions and thoughts. Kitera had brought Natheus up to speed on the situation, and the most prominent question plaguing all of them is who will give the Sacrifice?
“Boone’s in no shape to perform the Sacrifice,” Mazayus brings words to everyone’s thoughts as they come to a halt in the hall. As avoided as the topic wishes to be, it must be resolved.
No reply is spoken, only nods of agreement and repositioning of limbs.
“Natheus is with wife,” Mazayus mentions. “Enough is said, there.”
Natheus dips his head as if in apology, but makes no protest. As much as he would wish to take the place of one of his men, his wife needs him, now more than ever.
“That leaves just you or me,” Mazayus concludes as his eyes level out on Deo. The two share one of their moments of staring equilibrium, the silence carrying heavily down the hall.
DIMENSIONAL SHIFTING
As Altair exits the Zion Cluster, the crew assembles in navigation to discuss their next plan of action. Kitera has patiently explained everything to Boone, who is still dazed. After many questions and tedious repeats of the same questions, he seems to understand the new situation.
“So change of plans. How to join seven stars into one? Sounds fun...” Boone wonders aloud.
“Well we don’t have that kind of technology,” Mazayus adds on a serious note.
“Yet,” Boone slips in. “Anyway, how do we shift dimensions? Gotta get there first.” He leans forward on his seat with an eager shine to his green eyes.
“For now we must allow Altair to shift on its own,” Kitera supplies, transferring the focus of her gaze to him. “I believe an entity overload may have triggered the last shift, creating the unstable tear through the distortion. Which means their entities are connected with their ability to shift dimensions. We may be able to channel the ship’s entity field directly back to its core within a distortion to force it to shift again… but, that would be cruel.”
“We don’t have the luxury of animal-cruelty free,” Deo notes.
“You said the stargrid was obsolete in the Demon Dimension, but Altair’s stellarium was accurate,” Mazayus points out. “Perhaps we can load up the stellarium’s data banks and request a destination in that dimension.”
Deo rubs at his chin thoughtfully. “If their stellariums map out each dimension, then its probably reset back to our dimension’s co-ordinates.”
“Only one way to find out, brothers and sisters,” Boone chirps, standing and, after catching his stumbling balance, making his way down the hall to one of the observatories. The others all exchange glances curiously, on the fence until all of a sudden they stand in unison and follow in Boone’s footsteps with condensed haste.
“Requesting search history,” they hear him say leisurely as they enter the portside observatory. The air is shimmering with the stellarium’s menu and his enlarged datakey display, scrolling through piles of translucent data.
“What was the Earthen time at the moment of the shift?” he asks Kitera.
“Daytime,” she shrugs.
“That’s helpful,” Boone exercises his sarcasm, but a moment later, “oh, hello. Found a very suspicious looking galactic blueprint here.”
The others narrow their eyes on the holographic representation of Scattered Planet that suspends at Boone’s whim. That is definitely Scattered Planet, they can tell just by the size and familiar type-B spiral shape, but its integrity is unfamiliar. The nebulae are in the wrong areas, clusters and star masses missing and others where they once were not. Constellations are altered and rerouted, gravitational cycles reversed. This is a parallel Scattered Planet. Only the essence of the galaxy is exact.
“Here,” Kitera points a slender finger near the golden ring of the galactic core. “This is where the septuple star system exists. Its main stellar cycle is perfectly symmetrical with the galactic core, and will never gravitate any closer to the black hole at the centre. It is artificial.”
Boone shoots her with a surprised glance. “The entire system is artificial? I thought you just meant the spheres.”
“There is no other explanation to a system that orbits the galactic core on a perfect plane of alignment, never moving closer, resisting the gravity of the core and always remaining in the central molecular zone. This system was created to withstand the eventual consumption of the galaxy by the black hole at its heart.”
“But you said the Demons were obsessed with natural reality. That’s why they want us and any trace of us gone. Why would they allow an artificial star system to exist in their Dimension if they just destroy anything unnatural?”
“Their campaign is far from finished, and I have come to understand that they will go to any length to shatter all barriers between dimensions. What does it matter if their campaign is messy, their methods contradictory to their prime goal? Once the barriers between all dimensions are broken, they will recreate the code of nature and prevent advanced lifeforms from evolving. Life will essentially begin again, right at the origin of time. They do not care for their methods, only the end result. I understand their purpose, I just do not understand this system’s purpose to them. It is a stellar quantum entanglement device to disrupt the links, so why does it only exist in the Demon Dimension, where the very gods who wish to use these links rule?”
Natheus adds his voice. “I think it is safe to assume that the Demons control all nature within their dimension, and are able to manipulate reality on a level that the Zodiacs cannot. If they wished this system destroyed, it would be so. She is right, it does not make sense.”
“So why didn’t they kill her when they had the chance?” Deo queries darkly. Silence ensues for a moment.
“Well,” Boone starts. “The Demons are warring with the Zodiacs. Maybe they’re just as distracted and distant. Could explain why they missed Kiya’s presence, but still doesn’t explain why they left this system intact when it’s a huge liability to them.”
“It could be both a liability and an asset to them,” Mazayus counters, turning to Kitera. “Kitera, you believe those spheres were created by an alien species. Is it logical to presume that this system was therefore originally created to combat their extinction, but was somehow altered
and used against them?”
She nods. “It is logical.”
“Why would gods need a device created by organics to destroy their enemies?” Deo’s frown takes place.
Mazayus concentrates on Deo for a moment before answering. “Perhaps it was not the gods that wiped out this species. Perhaps they used tools to do this, through agents like the Ciphers.”
“Turn organics against themselves,” Deo answers for him.
“Exactly.”
“A cult,” Kitera whispers, pupils shrinking and irises shifting fluidly in riveted focus. “Use religion to enslave tools to combat organic intervention while they focus on their war with the gods of dimensions. Two wars in two planes of reality.”
“When we shift to their dimension and attempt to initiate this star, we may be starting an interdimensional war, in our reality,” Mazayus finishes.
Lights inside the ikamanu flare in charging energy and preparation, the air filling with the hot tongues of great cyan flames. Watery entity slants along the ceilings while mist gathers from the floors and static entity in the form of hissing lightning electrifies out from the fluorescent glyphs. They have set their destination in the septuple star system of the Demon Dimension, and Altair is preparing itself to shift.
“We may lose artificial gravity for a moment after the shift due to power fluctuations!” Mazayus has to shout to them over the roar of the vessel’s charging entity core. “I suggest strapping in!”
The crew goes about seating themselves in secured chairs in navigation, allowing the morphing holsters to clutch their bodies tightly in place while anti-grav fields suck them in.
A mild resonance in the deep quickly escalates to a ragged divide in the air, everything on the atomic level breaking down and jumbling into fragments of decoding motions. Contrasting distortions of matter grid in hard spasms, splicing together again rapidly, but not without pain. As they scream out their torment, light spears into their eyes in an unexpected flush, willing them all to retch dryly and grab at their skulls to steady the sickening thump of a headache. They have successfully shifted.
As Mazayus had warned, Altair’s interior loses artificial gravity while the vessel recharges its core and diverts energy back to life support systems. The crew feels as if they are floating in slow motion, their limbs lightweight, breathing shallow, motion set in place by the most miniscule of movements until it all returns to normality and weight is dropped on them.
“Fuck me sideways, upside down, in zero-grav, I don’t give a shit, just never do that to me again,” Boone stammers with a queasy desperation, unclipping himself too soon from his seat only to instantly fall on his face, disorientated. The others are also pale-faced and nauseated, though they do not make the same mistake.
Lights dance down the hallway, emanating from both observatories. Multihued lights. All colours that the human eye can translate. Kitera slowly emerges from her seat, sauntering down the hall as if hypnotized by the beams of colour. “Come,” she encourages them quietly.
They slowly venture after her, lost in the sheer grandeur before their eyes the moment they step into the path of the light spearing in from both directions. Each hue of star, seven in total, warring for dominance of the cradle they share. Not sure which way to observe from, the crew split and scatter into both observatories, their shadows sharp.
“Now what?” Boone spits onto the floor, resting his palms to his knees while he stands, trying to shred away his nausea.
“Do you see the specks in the distance?” Kitera indicates with her finger.
The Paragons nod, eyes squinting from the light tearing through their pupils to follow her gesture of direction.
“The spheres. We should make contact. Try to trigger an event.” Her shrug illustrates her naivety, but unseen by her Paragons, her eyes glint back at the visible stars in a harmonic bond.
MIND WARRIOR
Mazayus watches the radars narrowly, dark eyes scanning all blips and motion in the surrounding space. The others are all gathered somewhere behind him, discussing theories, sounding more like arguments. They are sitting pretty in orbit around one of the spheres, the blue supergiant blaring at them violently in the distance. They have tried sending down probes to the sphere, no reaction. They have tried landing Altair on its surface, still no reaction. Mazayus even opted to go outside and visually search for any sign of the city Kitera had witnessed beneath the liquid surface, but still, no reaction.
Boone had suggested their entities might awaken the city into emergence, curdling an orb of red light in his palm, but Mazayus did not want to commit to that risk just yet. If this sphere houses a city of entities, there is no telling what might happen if one was to link their entity.
And so, they had climbed back out of the artificial atmosphere and locked back into orbit, all hunkering down to think. Previously, Kitera had retreated to meditate on the matter, Deo had taken to the cybergrid, finding that physical exertion often set his head in a clear thinking space, Natheus had gone to the spare observatory to also meditate, and Boone had flopped on a sofa with a coffee in hand, playing mind games on his datakey. Mazayus and Deo have not come to a decision between them. Although the glory of the Sacrifice has been stencilled into their brains since training, this situation is no longer about glory, it is about the survival of humanity, and they all want to do their part in the future, when it all eventually escalates beyond this galaxy. Neither wishes the other to go.
Mazayus has not left navigation, eyes pinned to the screens, motionless until now. He catches movement. Far off. Very far off. Not a solid blip of matter, but a wave of radiation.
As the others continue to argue about their accumulated theories behind him, he gravitates closer to the display. “Shut up,” he growls to the others, and they all obey with sudden curiosity, moving to gather around his station. The wave of energy is growing, and moving faster, coming straight at them.
Boone edges in closer to the display screen, his face almost touching Mazayus’, green eyes confining in focus. “What the fu-“
“Brace for impact!” Mazayus shouts out, and the crew only has time to locate their chosen cover before Altair rocks in recoil, entity blazing. They all strap in to their seats before another impact ricochets their bones.
“Where did it come from?” Deo booms.
“It seems to be originating from the outermost spheres, some type of supernova simulator,” Mazayus answers. After a few more jarring impacts, he speaks again. “Who has the best theory?”
Nobody answers.
Mazayus raises his eyebrows as if surprised. “Looks like we’re winging it, then.” He instructs Altair to break orbit and head off from the sphere.
“Why do we never know what the fuck we’re doing on this mission?” Boone whines in the background.
“What will you do?” Kitera asks Mazayus desperately.
“That weapon will tear us apart within minutes. Altair’s entity shielding is weakening with every impact. We can’t fight it.”
“So we’re just going to run?” Deo shouts unbelievingly.
“We can’t outrun it, either, those particles are travelling across the system faster than light, the entire system will soon be saturated.”
Deo manages to clamber out of his seat and stagger over to another control console across from Mazayus. In a matter of moments, he nods in agreement.
“Well what the fuck can we do?” Boone demands after a moment.
Mazayus’ hand drifts upward to open his datakey display, the blue hologram creating a sharp glow. “We can hide,” he says quietly, more to himself. His fingers work the stargrid as it streams to him, and within moments, an enhancing burst of cyan entity announces their dimensional shift once more. Back to the Zodiac Dimension. After a moment of recovery, Mazayus sets yet another destination in the Demon Dimension, triggering another shift, this time reappearing out the other side of the septuple star system, forcing the nikita spheres to reorient their firing positions. They have a window
of time before they will come under fire again.
Boone vomits.
“Ok,” Deo begins wryly. “And now?”
But the man with all the answers just shrugs. “That’s all I’ve got.”
In response, Deo runs a hand through his hair in desperate thought, loose strands flopping messily.
“We can’t shift again, it’s drained too much of Altair’s entity reserves,” Mazayus announces with a punch of realism.
Instinctively, Deo redirects his distraught eyes to Kitera, and she perceives nervousness and regret in him, and a hint of sorrow, as if it is all over, as if he is apologizing to her.
No.
She unclips herself from her seat and hastens over to the stargrid, stepping right down into the dip in the floor and immersing herself in its glassy image. Relaying the parallel map from the stellarium, she is amongst the galaxy, its variations of effulgence weeping on her before she focuses in on the system.
Impacts crush Altair’s entity to breaking point, the Paragons yell and try to divert energy to the ikamanu’s core to shift again, the interior grinds and rips, the air chafes, death can be tasted, but Kitera has slumped her perception of it all. Her mind fractures as her vision drains. Her eyes roll to the back of her head.
I ascend with the memory of the war’s origin, glimpsing pain wrought with sacrifice and loss. I war with all elements of the mind warriors in my ascent, the whispers of their past bearing resemblance. The war violates my grip on life, but my soul endures.
I spear ahead through the landscape, armed only with my dagger, my hand bloody as it clutches the hilt of the blade. My bare feet ache as they tread over harsh jagged stones and slip through dried river beds, but my warpaint remains.
The stars are dying. I feel them in my mind, sense their withering, breathe their cooling fires with each sift through my lungs.
“Ziva!” I call for her, her wisdom always guidance, her strength always a shield. “Ziva!”
