by Dave Bara
“But not everyone agreed,” said Yan. Amanda shook her head.
“No. Some of the creators believed that strength was the only measure of a race’s success. They believed the parent race was dying because it was weak, compassionate, and unwilling to change. So they started a “dark school” and went their own direction. Of course this led to war, and eventually hastened the collapse,” Amanda said.
“And what is Zueros, then?” asked Yan.
“Zueros is a puppet,” said Amanda, with more than a bit of anger in her voice. “He was created for the sole purpose of spreading chaos throughout your Successor societies.”
“Created by survivors of this ‘dark school’?” asked Renwick. Amanda nodded once.
“That is our assumption. We do not know where they are, but we must assume they are close by,” she said.
“He’s already admitted they are closer to Soloth space,” said Yan.
“Most likely so,” agreed Amanda. “But that is another issue. Right now, we have a more immediate problem.”
“Keeping this station from overloading,” said Renwick. Amanda abruptly stopped her interaction with the console.
“Precisely,” she said. “I have activated the android crews on the two remaining void ships, and they are preparing to depart the station as we speak. I have also cut off the Kali from Mr. Zueros, so he will most likely attempt to find safety with the Soloth fleet, no doubt spreading more lies.”
“What can we do to stop the overload?” asked Renwick. Amanda shook her head.
“Nothing, Senator. But I can do something,” said Amanda.
“What?” he asked.
“The only way to stop the overload is with a massive EMP burst, large enough to knock out the whole station. Overload the overload,” she said.
“How do we do that?” Renwick asked. Amanda pointed to her belly.
“With a fusion reaction. Fortunately, Captain Yan and I each carry a reactor inside of us,” said Amanda without emotion. Renwick’s mouth hung open.
“You mean, you’re going to-“
“Generate a fusion reaction to create the pulse, yes. But it will take both of us if we are to have a chance.” Renwick looked to Yan.
“No,” he said.
“Yes,” she replied. “If it’s the only way.”
“I’ll lose you,” he said. She shook her head.
“No you won’t,” she replied. Her eyes fluttered for a few seconds, then she reached down and removed the finger drive again and handed it to him. “You’ll always have me,” she said. Renwick took the drive.
“Yan...” She came up and kissed him, then pulled away.
“You have to go now,” she said, touching her belly. “I can feel it starting already.” Renwick looked to Amanda.
“I’ve downloaded myself to the Kali as well. I’ve instructed Thorne to pick you up at the same location you entered the station in five minutes. He’ll wait for two more minutes after that, but if you don’t make it, he will leave you behind. You have to get clear of the station,” Amanda said.
“But won’t the explosion destroy the station?” said Renwick. “We need it operational to clear Void Space.”
“You’re mistaken,” said Amanda, shaking her head. “This dome will contain the damage from the explosion. But the core will be knocked offline. The three remaining void ships have the capacity to restart the core.”
“You’re forgetting the Soloth fleet, I think,” said Renwick.
“That will be your fight. Good luck to you, Senator. I hope you win, for what it’s worth,” said Amanda. She looked back and forth between he and Kish. “And now you have to go, or you will certainly die here.”
Without another word Renwick and Kish made for the airlock, donning their helmets as they went. They got to the aperture and Renwick looked back one last time. There was a blue-white glow coming from inside the control room.
“I sure as hell hope this works,” he said to Kish as the air lock doors slammed shut in front of them.
THE FREEFALL DOWN THE shaft was terrifying. Not because of the distance, but because of the speed. One wrong move by either of them and they could scrape against protruding metal, ripping their suits open. It was why this kind of dive, with full-on cone jet propulsion, was considered extremely dangerous. Then again, the people who made that determination weren’t trying to escape a fusion explosion.
“I can see the opening from here,” yelled Kish over the com. His voice was over-loud and agitated, and Renwick frankly didn’t blame him. He was sweating intensely himself as they fell towards the deck hatch, back the way they had come up, but at breakneck speed. Kish was the better diver of the two, so Renwick had let him lead. He was glad now that he had.
“Invert your cones, and fire a three-second burst,” said the engineer. Renwick did as instructed and their pace slowed measurably. “This is going to be tight. I’ll call off a three count, then you’ll have to empty the jets. Follow me close,” Kish said.
Renwick checked the tether between them. It was taught. Kish made his count.
Renwick fired his jets.
The first thirty meters or so they were all good, until Kish fired his jets to stop and change course, diving through the hatch and back into the corridor. Renwick tried to follow, but missed the opening and started free falling down the shaft.
“Invert your cone direction again!” yelled Kish. Renwick touched the control on his forearm and did just that, but it was too late. Kish wasn’t secured yet by his gravity boots and was pulled from the deck, both men now falling into oblivion. Coincidentally Renwick fired at the same time as Kish, which stopped their fall, and they both began to slowly ascend back towards the hatch opening. This time when Kish got to the threshold he anchored himself, then dragged Renwick in by the tether.
“How much fuel do you have left?” Kish asked as both men stood on the corridor deck. Renwick checked his indicators.
“About eight seconds,” he said between heavy breaths.
“Save it. We might need it for the crossing back to the Kali,” Kish said. Then they pushed on. Their watches indicated they had used three minutes making the dive. They had two minutes left before the Kali arrived, and four before it left without them. They started back down the corridor path they had come. After a few seconds Kish called in again.
“This is too slow, we’ll never make it. We’re gonna have to cut our grav boots and free dive,” he said.
“Got it,” said Renwick. He watched as Kish cut off his grav boots and then pushed off from the floor at an acute angle, making his way down the dark corridor, past the detritus of the destroyed battle androids. They moved this way at a breakneck pace, diving and dodging all manner of broken metal and debris from their first passage.
“Oh shit!” were the only words Renwick heard from Kish before he stopped abruptly in front of him. Renwick had to use his cone jets again to keep from hitting a wall of solid metal, a wall that hadn’t been there on the way in.
“Zueros,” spat Renwick. The ‘wall’ was in fact a pile of debris from the battle androids, stacked high to the ceiling and fused, undoubtedly with one of the advanced coil pistols Zueros had been carrying.
“We’re screwed,” said Kish again. “We’ve only got ninety seconds left.”
“Do you have one of the charges Amanda was using?” asked Renwick. Kish immediately brightened and started shuffling through his pack. He produced a single charge.
“One left,” Kish said. “I don’t know if it will be enough.”
Renwick took his rifle out and fired three bursts into the melted wall mass until the charge was spent. He had created a hole about a meter deep. “Stick it in there!” he said to Kish. The engineer complied, then pushed away from the hole as fast as he could go in his suit. Renwick was one step ahead of him.
The charge lit and ignited, the area around the two men lighting up and pushing them down with the blast. When the debris cleared there was hole just big enough for a man.
“We got it, let’s go!” said Kish as he dove forward, carefully navigating the broken material as he passed through the wall. Renwick checked his watch.
“Thirty seconds,” he said, then he dove through after Kish.
The rest of the corridor was clear and the travel was a blur of strange objects and outlines. If Zueros had set another trap for them, the two men were certainly doomed. Finally they emerged through the doorway into the original bay they had come aboard on. They rushed to the open gash, looking frantically for their ride.
The Kali was nowhere in sight.
“We missed it, “ said Kish, resigned, bending over and putting his hands on his thighs, breathing heavily. “We’re sunk.”
“Wait, there!” said Renwick, pointing. There was indeed a silvery metal object coming at them, and growing larger by the second. Kish looked and saw it too.
“Is it Thorne?” he asked. Renwick couldn’t help but smile inside his helmet.
“It is indeed,” he said.
The android swept in and picked them up with non-human like speed, dragging them both out into open space and then accelerating at a frightening pace. It took a few minutes but eventually he saw the ugly but familiar shape of the Kali as they approached. Within minutes Thorne had them inside a utility hatch and dropped them onto the deck as the hatch slammed shut behind them. Renwick looked up just in time to see a blinding blue-white flash out of the utility hatch window. Thorne spread his android arms wide and threw his body over both men as the shockwave hit. It felt like they were inside the explosion itself as only Thorne’s super-human strength allowed them to stay pinned to the floor. They were rocked for an interminable amount of time before the wave subsided.
Renwick flicked on his suit light. Thorne had frozen in place, his android weight dead on top of them. The two men struggled to get him off of them. When they had succeeded Renwick stood up. They were in a utility room, but around them, the Kali was completely dark and silent.
“My God,” said Renwick. “The Kali is dead.”
24.
The bridge of the Kali was dark and foreboding. Thorne had been down for almost five minutes before some unknown internal mechanism had reanimated him and he’d immediately begun the task of resuscitating the Kali. After following the android on his tasks for a few minutes Renwick and Kish had made their way through the vessel to the command bridge.
Deep blue emergency lights were the only illumination on the vast bridge of the Kali. Renwick had managed to stabilize the environmental systems while Kish was tending to Mischa and Reya in the safe room. He turned his attention now to the main view display, seeing if he could get a reading on the emitter station. The display crackled and then popped into focus, showing the station ominously still, dark and black, and dead as space itself. It was a sight that gave him some comfort, knowing that for now at least, the Void was no longer expanding for the first time in more than three centuries.
Kish came back on the bridge with Mischa in tow. “Reya is still in the auto-medic. I think she’s doing better, but it’s hard to tell,” Kish said.
“Thanks for the update,” said Renwick. He was concerned about his wife, but the comment was all he could manage under the circumstances. He nodded to Mischa as she came onto the bridge. “Nice to see you again Lieutenant Cain.”
“Nice to be out of there, sir,” she said.
“Please take the NAV station,” he replied.
“Will do,” she said, and took her seat.
Renwick turned to Kish. “I’ll need you on the weapons station,” he said. Kish pondered this a moment, arms crossed.
“I can probably pipe a sub-display for the engineering panels through to the weapons console,” he said.
“Do it. I doubt we have much time before that Soloth fleet gets here,” said Renwick. The lights on the bridge flickered for a moment at this, then came on full again.
“You have forty-seven minutes before the advanced elements of the invasion fleet arrive,” said a familiar voice, echoing through the bridge. Renwick looked around. There was no one there.
“Who-“ he started. The voice interrupted him again.
“There’s no time for niceties, Senator. Look to your main display,” said the voice. On the main display an image of Amanda was displayed in three dimensions. It spoke to him. “Thorne has reactivated me as a functional artificial intelligence for the Kali,” she said. “I wish I could be there with you in full form, but this will have to do for now.”
“We can use the help,” said Renwick. The image of Amanda nodded.
“I am currently re-firing all of the Kali’s main systems. You will have them operational in a short time. I am also making more systems available to you than before,” she said.
“Weapons, I hope?” Renwick said. The image actually smiled.
“Oh yes,” she said. “Torpedoes, multiple flak cannon batteries, a full compliment.”
“Holy Ghost!” said Kish. “Sir, she’s not kidding! We have forty flak batteries, and a hundred torpedoes!”
“Good,” said Renwick. He turned his attention back to Amanda.
“I have also recalled the other two Void Ships,” she said. “They will have the same compliment of weapons available as you do, and you will be able to use them in a full tactical formation. They’re automated, and I’ve tied them into your main console, where you can dictate their actions.” Renwick looked and saw a full display of military options for the two additional Void Ships come up on the main tactical board.
“But I’m not a military tactician!” he said to Amanda.
“Well, luckily, I am,” said a voice from behind him. Renwick whipped around and once again came face to face with the Kali’s former captain.
“Tanitha Yan at your service, Senator,” she said.
“What the hell?” he said. He looked slightly down on her, like she was smaller than before.
“I had the androids on one of the other ships modify a body, download her persona into it, and send her over,” said Amanda’s voice from behind him. “I thought you might need her.”
“That’s true enough,” said Renwick. Yan stepped up and surveyed the board. She touched the icons of the other two Void Ships and moved them to new locations.
“We’ll need to triangulate on the tunnel, concentrate our fire on the incoming Soloth ships,” she said. Renwick stepped up to the board.
“That’s what I figured,” he said, then drew new lines across the display with his index finger. “But with the scoop ships they’ll be able to make tunnel branches from the main line, split their forces and overwhelm us.”
“That would be my plan,” Yan said, then cleared Renwick’s lines from the display. “We’ll have to counter it. One of the Void Ships will have to be constantly re-filling the mainline with void material, to keep their larger ships like the cruisers out of the fray as long as possible. That will be this one here, the Devi,” she said, pointing to the one furthest from the station. “The Balrama will defend the station with us.”
“I think you have things well in hand,” said the Amanda AI. “If you’ll excuse me, there are other things I need to attend to.”
“Of course,” said Renwick. “Thank you Amanda.” With that the AI image disappeared. Renwick turned to Yan.
“I’m glad you’re back,” he said. He leaned in to kiss her but she pulled back.
“Not now, Senator,” she said, but then she smiled. “Besides, they haven’t have time to make all of my ‘equipment’ operational yet.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. Then they both turned back to the board.
“Forty-two minutes to contact,” came Amanda’s disembodied voice over the main com.
“Right now we have work to do,” Yan said, then started punching in commands to the console.
AT THE THIRTY MINUTE mark the Devi started filling the normal-space tunnel with void material. The Balrama and the Kali had all their weapons charged and ready to go. Kish reported th
at all the systems aboard the Kali had returned to full functionality. After the Devi completed its patching of Void space Yan ordered the two automated Void Ships into a defensive formation around the emitter station. Now all they had left to do was wait.
“If it looks like we’re going to fail then we have no choice, we can’t let the station fall into Soloth hands,” Yan said at the twenty minute mark.
“Agreed,” said Renwick. “We’ll have to hold back enough torpedoes to take out the station.”
Yan shook her head. “Torpedoes won’t do it, I’m afraid,” she said. “I’ve ordered the Balrama to self-destruct on my order. We’ll have about five minutes to clear the area. When she goes up it will clear an area half an AU across.”
Renwick nodded. “If that’s our only option,” he said.
“It is,” she replied, never taking her eyes from her board. She was fixated on the task at hand.
“I didn’t expect to see you again, so soon at least,” he said to her.
“Renwick-“ she started. He held up his hand to her.
“Hear me out,” he said, and held up the finger drive. “I have your stored persona, as up to date as it can be. Do you want it?”
“Yes,” she said, and held out her hand. He handed it to her and she put it in a pocket in her uniform. “When this is over I’ll look forward to the update. But right now I need to focus on the battle.”
Renwick sighed. “I have to warn you, you may not like everything on the drive,” he said. Now it was her turn to sigh.
“You found my body, didn’t you? On the station, I mean,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Did I die heroically?”
A grim look came across his face. “Yes,” he said.
“Then I’m satisfied,” she said. “Like it or not, Renwick, this is the only life I have left. I want to live it for as long as possible. And right now that depends on beating that Soloth fleet.” With that she walked off, ostensibly to check on Mischa Cain’s station, but Renwick knew better.
