by Shay Zana
“Do not be reckless,” Natheus says, a rare smirk on his features.
Deo wants to smile at them, but he cannot bring himself to do it. Instead, he releases his stiff salute and nods to them all a final time. Before turning for the airlock behind him, his eyes come to rest on Kitera for the final time.
She gathers her breath and sighs quietly, willing away the tears that constantly threaten to flood. His small frown is present, the one she has grown fond of as it creases in familiar lines. She will miss it. She manages a sad smile, suddenly realising why she loves this man. His boldness, courage, loyalty, selflessness. All the qualities of a Paragon are bestowed in him, overriding any flaws. She had once thought he had lost his way as a Paragon. Now, she realises that it is her that has lost her way as a Cipher, and he is giving her the chance to regain her roots, to be a true Nefnala and guide her people through the coming days. “Your father’s honour lives on in you, my brave Paragon,” she tells him proudly. She wants to say more, tell him what she feels for him, but she dare not. It is not meant to be. “Alira mokana.”
“Alira mokana,” he says in reply, his eyes thanking her.
They watch in sorrow as Deo steps inside the airlock and seals it shut behind him, the last glimpse of him forever burning an imprint in their minds. They stand motionless for a while, until Mazayus silently breaks away from the inner airlock doors and walks stiffly down the hall for navigation, ready to plot an interdimensional course. Boone places his hand on Kitera’s shoulder, but she remains staring blankly at the closed airlock doors, bottling up a river.
Altair’s current heading is set right in the centre of the stars, the vessel’s recharged entity flecking out in blossoming light to defend against the raging solarflares and radiation emitting from the stellar event. A wild discharge of entity particles fumes out from the surrounding spheres, capturing the star system’s radius in a shield to block out the eventual blast and prevent from ravaging the entire galaxy.
As Altair envelopes itself in a dense entity barrier, the interior of the vessel burns in a fury, elements lashing out. Boone guides Kitera away from the airlock and back into the safety of navigation, sealing the bulkhead in case of a radiation leak. They are flying into the centre of several stars, after all.
“Helmets up,” Mazayus commands.
In the sealed airlock, Deo morphs his armour and helmet on and produces his entity, coating his entire body in red flames that quickly escalate to a golden apocalypse, setting the entire confinement of the airlock on fire. He has to time this perfectly. As soon as the airlock opens, Altair’s entity will only protect him for mere seconds, and then as soon as he leaves the protective radius of the vessel and falls into the boiling star, his own entity will diminish within seconds. He will have to go supernova almost instantly before he can perish into nothingness. A Paragon’s final challenge, and many in history have failed.
“We’re in the centre,” he hears Mazayus over the link. “...Goodbye.” He instantly swallows the pang and smashes his fist against the manual outer airlock release... except nothing happens. He hits it again. The doors do not open.
In navigation, everything fills with smearing entity, tides like water smothering them.
The airlock doors open...
Warped reality...
Darkness...
THE STAR OF THE GODS
Kitera feels herself lying in soft, warm sand. Her eyes battle with focus until a vast blue ocean under a sinking star smiles at her. Waves caress the motion of the water, the sounds of its purity lulling her, until memory strikes back and a sickening feeling of loss and grief clutches her emotions. She sits up slowly, discovering soft reddish sand beneath her. For a while, she just stares out at the ocean, letting thoughts and memories of him tumble through her like the distant waves.
She feels a hand on her arm and almost sheds her skin.
“Hey, it’s alright,” she hears Boone’s voice. He is propped up beside her, looking decrepit and sallow, black bags under eyes. “You’re safe.”
“Where are we?”
“Neverwinter. One of the inner colonies...”
“How did we get here?”
Boone’s eyes linger over her status for a long while before he sighs and begins softly. “We’re still trying to piece together what happened, but we think it went like this.” He shuffles closer, hands prepped for animation, readying for a story. “We think Altair made the Sacrifice... It understood the concept, and we think the stellar device was designed for the Sacrifice of an ikamanu. It threw us back into our dimension before it initiated, and we were found drifting through the galactic core by a nearby patrol. They dropped us at the nearest colony, here. Good to know that star shift still works, too... but we did it, Kiya. Reports of unanimous flares, all harmless, from every star in the galaxy came pouring in on the media. The distortions stopped, and the event didn’t kill anything. It’s all over.”
Kitera strains with her thoughts, failing to comprehend, scenarios and questions somersaulting through her. “Altair is gone? But, where is Deo?”
Boone’s features drag down for a moment, looking deep into her eyes. “He’s gone, Kiya. There was no trace of him.”
Her stomach lurches and her heart skips a beat. She slicks her hair from her face and looks down at her pale hands, trembling. She cannot help but imagine him in his last moments of life, roaring in his entity, his thoughts she cannot even imagine. Was he thinking of death? Of his honour and glory? Or had his mind been so consumed with entity concentration that all cohesive thoughts were lost to him? Perhaps, she had been his last thought...
Boone see’s her teary features and trembling lip. “Come here,” he soothes, pulling her in to embrace her supportively, wishing his physical support will barrier her from her raw hurt. There was no easy way to break the news. Her and Deo seemed to have grown close during the mission, overcoming their shared animosity. It must be hard to have formed a bond so fast then lost it again just as fast.
“No,” she suddenly shakes her head and withdraws. “He is alive.”
“The Zodiacs?”
“No, but I know it without them.” Her eyes plead at his, willing him to believe her. “I know it, Boone. He is alive.”
But Boone drowns this with a look of pity. “Kiya... Altair would have saved him if it could. He probably went supernova.”
She echoes his words in her mind, but she does not acknowledge his reasoning, gliding her focus out across the ocean. The need to feel the water rinse away stress drags her to her feet, the feet that carry her through the sand and mush into the dampness of the nearing tide. Her vitasuit clings to her skin, forcing her to begin shredding it off, fingers tearing at the material until she is clad in nought but undergarments, dumping the suit carelessly. Now, she is free to let her feet taste the free water of Neverwinter, stepping in as shallow waves curl at her toes.
The water is cold as it murmurs over her bare feet, but she pays no heed. Her body wades in deeper until her toes lose surface, limbs swimming out, the wavering sea welcoming her. The sky beyond is glazed in a starry glory, the nearby nebula vivid in its proximity. As the isolation of the sea drifts her through a sense of a glittering haven, her reaches amplify.
She will never stop searching the stars.
Boone just sits on the shore, watching her swim, conscious of both Mazayus and Natheus as they approach from behind and watch her go.
The arrival back to the Milky Way sheds new light, new hopes, new dreams. The people are eager to learn of the unfolding of the mission, to honour the Sacrifice of Altair, and to mourn the loss of Paragon Deo and honour his sacrifice. The crew are named heroes, celebrated by the populations, but it is all hollow to them.
They cannot rest. Kitera will return to her people and guide them into the coming wars, preparing humanity. Mazayus and Boone will return to Earth, advising other Paragons, and Natheus remained in Scattered Planet, hunting for his wife in a galaxy wrought by chaos and lawlessness.
&nbs
p; Now, before returning to Utopia, the Cipher visits the newest discovery to humanity. The third rock from the Sun. Earth.
But not her Earth. A parallel Earth. The only parallel Earth found within other dimensions.
She stares unbrokenly out at the wonderful blue planet, pieces of green and gold lands scattered across the equator, and white lands coiling near the poles. Wisps of clouds encircle the world, and the atmosphere hugging the planet glows with a blue vibe. Beyond this beauty is the moon, Luna, and other non-natural satellites constantly join the moon in orbit, metal encasings reflecting the pale gold of the Sun in the far distance.
We call this the First Dimension, where a parallel humanity still remains on Earth, not yet advanced enough to wander the universe. It is harsh here, nature is unprotected, and the laws of physics are stricter. A young humanity searches for the ultimate peace yet they can never find it.
Here, there are no gods of the stars. There may be gods of another kind here, though not kin of the stars, not originating from the planet of the gods. Humanity lives by their own ways, without such gods to influence harmony with nature on a scale such as ours. Here, humanity may not be alone. Other species may roam in the vast distance of their universe, for the gods of all dimensions made a pact, long ago, before the war that divided them, to leave one dimension free from rule, to let advanced sapient species shape their own paths, to see if their miraculous intellect really does count for something. To see if one day, they will earn the right of godhood and guardianship of life.
Here is where life truly began, here is humanity’s origin and the origin of every other prime species that dwelled in their own dimensions before the Demons eradicated them during their ongoing campaign. Our dimensions were shaped from this, the first dimension, and here, life is free.
Time is aligned, but here, humanity remains on Earth, their planet dying by their own hands. Without Ciphers to guide them, their technological evolution is slow, their choices inevitably leading them to their own destruction.
But a chance remains that humanity will change, will stop killing their home, and find a way beyond before Earth’s resources are depleted and they become caged on a dying world. If this is their fate, then their existence will wither without a trace, and our origin will be forever lost.
The gods hope, and we hope. We cannot interfere, it is their task to learn respect, their destiny to save themselves, but we will protect their chance from such gods that would wish to crush them if they fail.
Humanity; we are alone in this dimension. Alone with sapience. Alone with imagination. Alone with evolution. Alone with technology. Alone with love. We are unique, there are no others in this dimension like us, our existence is a miracle or a flaw in nature. But we have found others like us, traces of sapience like us existing in parallel dimensions. We are not alone.
EPILOGUE
The Marauding Exile drifts through the Demon Dimension, trapped, roaming for a distortion. Its shard core is recharged via the generous amount of light pouring out from passing stars, and the bridge officers are still hard at work restoring all systems to full functionality.
Rockland sits at Chief Lander’s bedside in the infirmary, waiting for him to wake from his lazy slumber. Doctor Colton and her medical team had managed to heal his wound up pretty nicely, but Rockland had still been fretting for his friend’s life throughout the entire surgical procedure. Lander has been awake since, asking endless questions to which Rockland has answered to the best of his ability, even telling him about how they somehow ended up in another dimension and now cannot find their way back. They had created humour on that topic, despite the frustrating situation.
At last, Lander’s eyes squeeze open.
“Morning, Sunshine,” Rockland greets cheekily. “Feel like going EVA and seeing to that damaged comms array yet?”
Lander gives his commander a rude smile. “Give it another year, and I’ll be back on my feet in no time, sir.”
Rockland snickers and pats the recovering man on the shoulder before standing. “Just wanted to check in. Take it easy. We need you.”
Lander nods and smiles barely, and now seals his eyes to drift off back into sleep, his body needing to save all the energy it can to heal its wound.
On the way out of the infirmary, Rockland passes Aspen Colton and gives her a subtle nod, to which she returns and faces Nadine Rivera again to go over a medical matter.
Men and women salute the commander on his way bridge-side as if it is just duty as usual, but really, everyone is on downtime. He brushes past Jason Dimitri at navigations, giving him a firm boost on the shoulder for encouragement, and now approaches his XO, Ike Kann, who is standing directly behind Flight Lieutenant Dylan Zee at the helm.
“What’s the urgent matter, Kann?”
Ike silently signals to Zee, who brings up a visual transmitted from the fore sensors. A silhouette takes shape nearly 4.2 AU’s distance from the Marauding Exile’s system-wide pulsars.
“What is it?” he asks.
Ike faces him sternly. “We believe it’s a fleet, sir. A grouped mass of ships varying in size and shape. No matches identified. It’s not ours, and it’s not Serenity.”
Rockland looks back to the screen and tries to discern the image. Kann is right, it does appear to be a collection of vessels, and he does not recognize any of them.
“It’s not even human at all,” Zee says openly after a burst of energy ripples along his sensor feeds. Right before them, within telescoped distance, emerges an enormous fleet of alien ships. They amass into perfect formation from some form of shift and correct their heading, right for the Exile.
Everyone on the bridge suddenly stands from their seats and stares out nervously into space at the growing mass or to the screens at the zoomed view of the fleet. The alien fleet stretches across the distance between them, their hulls slithering with some type of dark fluid, and their lateral lines gleaming out in a vibrant blue of the highest frequency of star energy.
Instead of issuing orders to engage an evasive shift to SSV, Rockland stands, fixed to the screens, and all he can think is: Aliens.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
PROLOGUE
PART I: THE ARRIVAL
THE GODS OF THE STARS
THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
REIGNITE THE STARS
THE END OF THE PILGRIMAGE
RICOCHET
WE WALK THE SHADOWS
SURRENDER TO HOPE
OLYMPUS
INTO THE WILD
THE MARAUDING EXILE
OPERATION: GHOST TEMPEST
PREDATOR AND PREY
THE ANCIENT CIPHERSWh
FORERUNNER OF DISTORTION
GUARDIAN VIRUS
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
THE DIVIDE
MOBILIZE
FIREFIGHT
OLYMPUS BURNING
FALLING MOONS
THE FLYING EAGLE
AFTERMATH
ELIXIR
DISTURBIA
THE DEMONS
PART II: THE WAR
WE ARE STARDUST
THE GATHERING
ALLIANCE
THE BATTLE OF KRONOS
ZERO GRAVITY
DISTORTED COSMOLOGY
PARAGON PROJECTILE
VENTILATION
ENTITY SUPERNOVA
THE OCEANUS
COLLISION
DARK RIFT
ALIEN CITY
TO THE SEA
BABYLON SKYCITY
WHISPERS IN THE STARS
THIEVES OF THE SUN
EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT
RETURN
SPATIAL DISTORTION
THE TEMPLE OF ANZAC
SUPERSOLDIER
MIND OVER MATTER
THE FALL
ESCAPE
KING OF THE GALAXY
PART III: THE MISSION
REMINISCE
THE DARK BETWEEN STARS
STARS WITHIN
STARS
STRANDED
A DANCE OF MINDS
BRUTUS SUPERIOR
THE KEY
CHANGE OF PLANS
PARAGON DOWN
DIMENSIONAL SHIFTING
MIND WARRIOR
THE SPHERE CORE
THE SACRIFICE
THE STAR OF THE GODS
EPILOGUE
