Vili took a deep breath; his next words rode on calmer waters. “Slower than you realize. I’ve watched it unfold for nearly one thousand years. For most of that time our people were demanding that Aesirian leadership regain our sovereignty, and we finally have a way to achieve independence.
“It involves using humans as allies though, which means we need to dislodge them from the Olympians’ grip, as well as impede any advantage the Olympian’s are gaining from their experiments. We don’t know exactly what the Olympian’s are researching on Earth, but it has to be something vital if they are risking the type of public backlash that comes from experimenting on sentient beings.”
Sigyn slowly shook her head, thinking of what the Olympians could be doing to the humans.
“War. Experiments on sentient life…that’s barbaric, but what can I do to help with any of it?”
“For starters, I’m aware that you’re a match to an augmentation that would give you the ability to track Olympians, or any other Primordial race. On top of that, we’d need a scientific mind, such as yours, that can help me build an army on Earth—including weapons and ships.”
Sigyn held her breath and physically recoiled into her seat as Vili spoke.
“I’m not asking you to fight—we need your intellect and abilities. I’m aware of your keen interest in all things theoretical. This mission will involve grappling with some of the most advanced technology of which we are aware.”
The weight in Sigyn’s stomach pinning her to the seat began to lighten. “Like what?”
“Well, the Olympians developed a sort of ‘failsafe’ for their experiment on Earth. They built a wormhole—a passageway that allows objects to move between two distant points in space instantaneously—” Vili paused. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, am I?”
Sigyn slid forward in her seat and smiled, mirroring her analytical mind which crept to the foreground, overtaking her innate distaste for physical conflict. “I’m aware of what wormholes are, sir, but they built one?”
Vili smiled back. “They not only built one, but they modified it. They accelerated one end to a much faster speed relative to the other and produced what they call a ‘Chronos Passage.’ The speed differential was held long enough for the wormhole’s ends to act as a sort of…time machine. Depending on the entry point, the Chronos Passage around Earth will send the user either approximately an entire orbit forward or backward in time.”
“Of course! They used the principal of time dilation to age the ends at different rates! How did they keep the worm—Chronos Passage—open? How did they create it in the first place? Has anyone traveled through it yet?” Sigyn breathlessly asked.
Vili put up both hands and let out a deep chuckle. “Slow down, Sigyn. Our reconnaissance missions have given us limited information and I don’t have all the details in front of me. What I can tell you is that we think their existence ensures a failsafe in case the experiments are contaminated or the public discovers what the Council is doing—either way, the researchers can go back in time and prevent any of it from happening.
“Additionally, we believe the entry point for backward travel is somewhere near the host star and the exit is somewhere in what the humans have dubbed the ‘Kuiper Belt.’ Are you familiar with Earth’s solar system?”
Sigyn waved her hands and ruminated on these new scientific revelations as she responded, “Yeah, the Kuiper Belt is an orbit extending outside the planets in that system and consists mainly of rock and ice…wait, do we plan on using the Chronos Passage?”
“Yes.”
Sigyn paused. While pondering theory was exhilarating, she was less excited about experiencing science firsthand. “How would we get through it? All of the wormhole theories I’m familiar with would suggest physically traveling through one would be suicide.”
“As far as I’m aware, the Olympians have developed only a single ship that can make the journey. It’s basically a giant sphere that’s covered in a wispy, rubbery, evaporating, opaque…” Vili’s head slowly started to shake, while his right hand made small circles in the air, as he clearly struggled to find the right word. “…liquid-like substance. My knowledge—and that of our scientists working to replicate one—is limited, but I’ve been told it’s another phase of space itself. Somehow it insulates the pilot and crew from the dangers of entering the Chronos Passage.”
Sigyn shot out of her chair and started pacing, her body struggling to consume the sudden, warm energy her mind released as a by-product of its internal fusion. “That’s brilliant! The publicly available research has spoken very little about the properties of different phases of space-time, but if they are using another phase of space there should be something equivalent to the principal of temperature equilibrium…” She stopped and looked at Vili. “Then the wispy appearance outside the Hades ship would make sense!”
Vili’s brow furrowed, prompting Sigyn to attempt an analogy.
“Think of this way, pretend our normal space is like water. Now, say you want to move something through the water—a specific bacterium, but the water is too hot for it. Maybe it needs freezing temperatures to thrive. You could encase the bacterium in ice and then that ice cube could move through the hot water. The ice would eventually melt and leave the bacterium exposed, but until then, the ice would insulate the creature against the water.
“From our point of view we would just see an ice cube slowly melting, but the bacterium would see a chaotic scene of individual molecules breaking away from the ice and joining the liquid water or gaseous vapor around the cube—similar to the wispy appearance you described.”
Vili nodded. “That…makes sense. So, in a very crude sense, they’re taking our natural ‘liquid’ space and ‘solidifying’ it, which insults the crew against whatever happens when traveling through the Chronos Passage…” Vili snapped back to formal posture and lowered his already deep voice. “Sigyn, we need you on this mission. Not just to help our scientists recreate and understand this technology, but to help me in the field.”
Sigyn slowly sat back down. Her excitement started to drain at the mention of being in the ‘field.’ “I…don’t know.”
Vili’s eyes hardened with a nearly imperceptible squint. He paused before responding. “Sigyn, if you come with me you’ll be under my protection. I can swear by that.”
Sigyn nodded silently. There weren’t many, if any, Aesir that could best him in a fight. But can he protect me against Olympians? “I need to think about this. Thank you for the offer.”
* * *
Sigyn continued to pace within the Hades vessel; she ignored Loki’s eyes on her and reminded herself she was sitting in the same vessel Vili described to her 75 years prior. She tried to focus on the beauty of the physical manifestation of theoretical technology.
Nothing can harm us while we are in this ship—the Hades space is too violent. Any projectile would be eviscerated before it reached the hull. Completely dismantled, down to the atomic level.
Confronted with questions of science, her mind naturally followed the path to the next unsolved problem.
Nothing can penetrate this ship, but nothing can escape either. We’re completely trapped. We can’t even communicate with the outside universe until the Hades space finishes evaporating…
She continued to pace. Even thinking through all of the challenges and remarkable revelations Hades space had to offer only guided her down a deeper, darker trail into her forest of anxiety. Something else…Vili’s new hammer? That’s not something the Olympians can contend with.
Sigyn looked up to glimpse at Vili’s newly minted weapon, and perhaps distract herself by attempting a visual analysis of it, but was met with Loki’s gaze. She braced herself for his derision. “I don’t know about you, Sigyn, but I’m guessing Vili’s first swing with his hammer will be a miss.”
The comment caught her off-guard and she chuckled. Vili followed with a strong, rough, and intimidating laugh—a voice that aligned with his ph
ysique. “I guarantee I’ll hit something on my first swing if you hold still.”
Loki smiled and moved behind Sigyn, his lanky body still very much visible from behind her. “I think I’d feel more comfortable here for the duration of the trip.”
Vili held his hammer out to mimic lining up his shot. “I still have a clean shot at your head—with a hefty margin for error.”
Sigyn chuckled again.
Act I, Chapter 2
Athena
Location: Antarctica
Athena entered Earth’s atmosphere in her cloaked, custom starship, the Aegis, and dove deep beneath the South Pacific waters off Antarctica to the underground base housing Atlas. The Aegis—shaped like an elongated, flattened diamond—was packed with the most advanced defense capabilities available to the Olympian military, at the expense of offensive weaponry. Although the Aegis had fire-power merely on par with a standard Olympian single-piloted Nemesis-class fighter, its maneuverability and defense allowed Athena to position herself against attackers in ways to deliver surgical strikes. With her in the cockpit the Aegis functioned as if it was deploying the deadliest weapons the Olympians could offer, despite its relatively mundane offensive armaments. In fact, in order for the Aegis to maintain its maximum defenses, outfitted weaponry had to be minimized: the less ports and moveable parts on the body of the ship meant fewer weaknesses in its unique armor.
The Aegis’ armor appeared as a sleek golden burnish when viewed from afar. Upon closer inspection, the surface of the vessel was densely packed with solid, erect tassels. The thick stem and thin cords were bundles of hydrogels, carbon, and glass fibers. When hit with projectiles the elastic fibers would bend—absorbing and dissipating the impact—fight to erect themselves, and naturally mend broken atomic bonds. They were difficult to completely snap. Under a barrage of projectiles her ship’s exterior appeared to roll like a sea of grass in the wind. The tassel’s crowded presence on Athena’s hull provided incremental protection tantamount to metallic armor on skin. She was content with trading intense fire power for a more structurally sound vessel.
Athena instinctively began to check for any communications before leaving the Aegis, but stopped when she remembered she was on Earth. Earth was surrounded by a Svalinn shield, one of the only pieces of Aesirian technology the Olympians had adopted. Svalinn shields essentially acted as one-way communication mirrors around a planet or area of space. They would distort or block any electromagnetic radiation that appeared to have intelligence-generated patterns, as well as specific preprogrammed objects. These filters only worked in one direction though, individuals on the other side of the shield saw clearly into the opposing environment. These shields ensured that humans wouldn’t know they were being observed. Right, no one can contact me…I should hurry. These dead zones are off-putting.
Athena landed the Aegis and disembarked, moving through the hanger and toward a stairway which lead to a small white hall. She absent-mindedly ran her fingers down the front of her garment, a tailor fitted, long sleeve top that had carbon fiber woven throughout it, making it more resistant to being punctured. It was also treated in a way to make it essentially nonflammable. Her pants were constructed from a similar material.
Her assignment required that she dress in a way to blend in on Earth, which irked her; she couldn’t conceive of a single logical reason as to why the Council was taking such precautions for what she thought was a straight-forward mission.
Athena hardly thought she was on a ‘mission’ at all. Being tasked with waking up a traitor, Atlas, and collecting results from an experiment hundreds of years in the making made her feel more like a messenger than a warrior. Still, she was not one to defy the Council’s or military’s orders, and she knew she was the most qualified for the mission. Not only was she one of the few Olympians that could subdue an enraged Atlas in combat—should it come to that— but her knowledge of Earth was unique.
She was well-versed in the major languages spoken on the planet and was more educated in Earth’s geography, politics, and cultures than most other Olympian researchers stationed in the system. Her life lacked the common distractions of most others: love, friends, family, travel, and non-beneficial entertainment were completely foreign to her. She spent the vast majority of her free time training and studying anything that could help her in the field. After dropping Atlas off on Earth nearly 1,000 years ago, she stayed updated on the major languages and cultures in case she ever had to return, which unfortunately turned out to be the case.
She reached a short hallway that held the passage to three rooms: command station, hibernation chamber, and kitchen. She only needed to be on Earth briefly to wake Atlas and then she would finish the rest of her duty. Hopefully he doesn’t survive the reanimation process.
The chamber containing Atlas held him vertically, but at a slight angle so that his back and legs were resting against the rear of the pod. It was a hexagon-shaped cylinder—much taller and wider than Atlas—with tinted glass enclosing most of the front. Atlas’ body appeared frozen, but in reality the chamber was suppressing his metabolic systems to near zero. If one looked long and carefully enough they’d see his body taking shallow breaths.
Athena stared at him. The snarl Atlas uniformly wore when awake was replaced by a placid countenance; making the combination of his bald head, thick beard, and giant frame more comical than frightening. He hasn’t aged a day. She fiddled with controls on the outside of the chamber and set it to wake him. Two hours? I’m not going to waste my time around here doing nothing. I’ll cloak my ship and get out of the reach of the Svalinn shield until Atlas is up.
She quickly returned to the Aegis and followed the hanger out under the South Pacific sea floor; her vessel exited the hanger and barely made a ripple as it crossed the ocean surface and swam up toward Earth’s inviting sky. Athena looked out at the endless mixture of whites, blues, browns, and greens blanketing the planet’s surface, enjoying the momentary experience of a world untouched by the Fracturing. The Fracturing sucked both life and beauty from the galaxy. And the most resplendent places left are under the purview of those barely conscious enough to appreciate them. A shame.
Athena continued onward, glancing back only one more time to see the gentle white puffs of smoke that floated across the northern hemisphere. Her attention broke as soon as she was out of reach of the shield; two distress calls came in from two of the three labs in the system. One was from the Chronos Passage exit point in the Kuiper Belt and the other from a lab that orbited a gas giant in the system. “Emergency: Chronos Passage collapse. Stay clear of Kuiper Belt. Survivors relocating to Chronos entry point.” “Warning: Chronos Passage exit collapse. Defense and research labs in that sector are destroyed. Non-essential personnel evacuate immediately. Beware: the entry point may be unstable.”
That’s suspicious. Chronos Passages don’t just collapse. And two messages? That certainly isn’t protocol. Athena decided to set course toward the Chronos Passage entry point near the sun. I’ll check in and see if they can give me more details.
Almost immediately, a third message came through. “Warning: Chronos Passage entry collapse. Defense and research labs in that section are destroyed. All personnel evacuate immediately.” Athena was stunned. Foul play is certain! She changed course to the lab orbiting the largest planet in the system, named ‘Jupiter’ by humans. Is my presence here known to the saboteurs or assailants? This is my first time back to Earth in hundreds of years…this seems too coincidental…
Athena realized whoever triggered the collapse would be able to reach the lab near Jupiter faster than her. She needed to send a message to scare everyone there into immediately vacating the station. Some of our researchers need to survive this! She pieced together a threatening warning and sent a close-range message. “Evacuate now! Enemy ships closing in on your location!” Athena felt a brief, rueful flash of hope that the research staff would be evacuated before she got there.
A scant 50 minutes later, Athe
na dropped the Aegis into a high-planet, cross-axis orbit around Jupiter, and immediately knew she had arrived too late. The two large ships in that sector, a military defense and transport ship—a Storskip—whose name she could not remember, and a small, mobile research facility called the Klio, were both in pieces. The engines were reduced to small floating debris. The vessels themselves were cleanly sliced into multiple pieces. What weapon could even do this? She saw a few Olympians floating through space with terror frozen onto their faces.
Were there consequences to killing life that was bonded to space itself…or were the consequences in allowing those species to live? Athena thought back to some of the political struggles the Council faced after it became clear the continued existence of Primordials was slowly depriving the universe of its expansion energy. Simultaneously, the deaths of Primordials appeared to halt expansion in its entirety in the narrow, immediate vicinity of the deceased. Continually feeding off the universe’s expansion energy, regardless how slowly, might eventually lead to a collapse of our space…but that still seems a bit far-fetched. And is that preferable to a universe scattered with tiny, space-time pockmarks?
No one knows the true impact those rigid areas have on the universe, but even if it was necessary to halt the growth of our species—eventually leading to our extinction—to preserve the universe, would it really be worth it. Is it better to kill off the most advanced life forms in order to save the most basic? If life is what gives meaning to the universe then maybe it should collapse if the alternative is removing its greatest creation. Athena shook her head and continued on; she had to dedicate her mind to more pressing matters.
Athena surveyed the wreckage in hope of identifying survivors or, even less likely, secured data files that could be recoverable. I hope the Council isn’t relying too heavily on these results versus what has already been reported. She brought up the Aegis’ biometric scanners, its electromagnetic fingertips groping the carnage for a glimpse of life. Nothing. She tossed a momentary glance at the orange and white planet that hung in the nothingness of space. It brooded over the lifeless research site, salivating at the opportunity to devour the broken facility that was now in an orbital decay. A world trapped under unyielding storms and still looking for a fight? That sounds more like the Fracturing.
The Gods Who Chose Us Page 2
